Fail Better

Dear Mr. Ms. Mme.  I-think-we'll- pass-on-your-poem-this-time-around:

I'll go running anyway.

I will write anyway.

Anyway. Right. Where was I?

Oh yes. I was sitting on the bus across from a nun with a deep cut on her index finger, wondering why on earth I rushed to get to somewhere I didn't have to be.

And, planning my next long run at the same time.

Defiantly indefatigable might be another way of spelling s-t-u-p-i-d.

Pronoun diminished.

Staying Motivated

Training in Montreal between November and March is a less than comfortable enterprise, and I am a pretty good example of this, although I'm not exactly a fairweather runner anymore. I may be slow, and I may not have the so called natural runner physique, but I am determined and persistent. I do admit that I'm kind of getting tired of being at the receiving end of the predictable "at-least-you're-here" mantra shield of disappointment. That said, I don't have any real magic potion to stay motivated. In fact, as I write this, I am avoiding my treadmill training for the day.

E-V-E-N-T-U-A-L-L-Y doesn't have to be never.

Is just getting off of one's butt and out the door really enough? After years of running official races, I am trying to actually speed up. Actual. Speed. This is really hard to do without supervision as I'm discovering. And so I have been training on a track at McGill University here in Montreal with about 20 Elite Athletes. Seriously elite. And, serious. And elite. They are very sweet, and awesome in their physicality and commitment. In fact, my worst fear is that I'm just in their way, but they very generously high five me after a session. In French, we exchange a few "bravo" and "bon travail" comments. For a nano-second, I almost feel like I'm one of them. It's a weirdly good feeling, this almost being part of them feeling, that I wish could last longer. In my most paranoid moments, I think these runners must sense that I'm on fragile ground. Or that I'm oblivious.


All of that whining aside, I've just signed up for The Pacific Road Runners First Half in Vancouver to be held February 10, 2013. I am taking a sabbatical from my college for next term and by the time the race is run, I will have spent several weeks on a solidarity project in Nicaragua, and New Years in Belize. I will have also, hopefully without too much pain, run my actual first half marathon of 2013 in Miami. I am trying to take ten minutes off of my time in each of those races. It may seem self-evident that to run faster, one simply needs to (ahem) run faster. Wish it were that simple.Same goes for staying motivated, I guess.

Until then, I pray to the running mojo deities that I remain injury free.  Happy running...and all saints day too.

Falling Up

Mountain colours and speed work.

I make it look as hard as it is.



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The End

This is me this morning at the 8:30 start of the Montreal RocknRoll Marathon. I ran the half.


With about 26,999 other runners, I relaxed a little about being so slow. The anonymity really helps.



Ironically, of course, your name is on display for all to see, alongside the corral. Mine was 12 because I lied about my estimated finish time of 2:15 when I registered. Let me put this way:  I dream of a 2:15 finish, if only for my feet. My poor, bloodied toe feet. I did see some barefooters out there. I don't know how they handle it.



Still. Quite a view. My normally severe vertigo was redirected somehow.

Better than horizontal.

-Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone.

Location:Montreal

Back to the Future

When last I wrote, I was in the midst of over-compensation. You know: life's knotted up, gnarly bits doing their thing. Making sideways adventures of straight forward plans. This, I've found is usually my undoing as far as training is concerned.




As it turns out, it is my general state of being. There is such a thing as trying too hard.

...Still beats horizontal, though.

For now.




Cheers from the mountain!

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Back to Basics

Hill work.

View.

Intervals.

You know. The four letter part of running.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone.

Location:Montreal

Running for Life

I haven't NOT posted in this long  since I started blogging several years ago. And yes. That was a double negative. And no. I won't apologize. For better or worse.

I haven't posted mainly because Paul, my husband, life partner, best friend, soul mate, whatever you want to call him, had a heart attack at age 47. Two weeks later, he had triple bypass surgery. One week after this, he's at home, recovering like the maniacal runner he is. Running is saving and has saved his life. We're convinced.
 
Let's put it to you this way.

If you're reading this, you might know that I have a kind of love hate relationship with training. I started this particular blog because I wanted to focus the writing and training on a triathlon I'd signed up for last January. Well, it turned out that the race itself (last June) was a bit of a bust: the bike rental got screwed up and I couldn't do the bike part. I was devastated in the moment, but got over it pretty quickly. I was on holidays. I was in Bali and I was with Paul. Not all bad, of course.

Ten days after I returned from this vacation, Paul wasn't feeling well. In fact, he was feeling so poorly, we cancelled doing the 20k Jazz Tune Up race here in Toronto. This is bad news as we've both run races in less than winning conditions, finishing last in at least one of the races we did together. BUT, being the unqualified nonphysicians we are, we figured that he had some sort of infection, maybe even pleurisy, but only in a worst case scenario. Walking pneumonia...something like that...whatever that is.  A few days later, Paul went to the doctor, who prescribed him some antacids and offhandedly gave him a proper referral to another doctor, saying "You might want to get a stress test or something."

Paul acted on the referral. Jesus.

Turns out that he'd had a heart attack within the previous 7-10 days and didn't know it. He was sent straight from that appointment late one Friday afternoon to the Emergency Room at Toronto Eastern Hospital. He was then moved to St. Michael's Hospital. Within two weeks,  he would have the  bypass procedure, not totally uncommon for someone his age, but pretty surprising to everyone we encountered. First question to him: Do you smoke cigarettes. We saw all kinds of people in the ER and later in the ward and post op who struggle with this addiction. As a former smoker, I understand their predicament. Thankfully, Paul has never smoked. He inherited his heart disease. For the record, the care was excellent and had we been in the U.S. we figure we'd owe about $200,000 for the hospitalization, emergency care, incidentals and oh yeah, the surgery itself. We'd probably have to declare bankruptcy because we don't actually own anything worth even a fraction of this that we could sell to pay a medical bill like that.

Anyway. This is a person who ran his first full marathon on a stress fracture and collapsed about 50 feet from the finish line. Didn't know the pain in his leg was being caused by this. Didn't know that what he thought was sweat was actually the marrow seeping out of his bone subcutaneously. I've heard the story a thousand times, and mercifully, fortunately and miraculously I will get to hear it a thousand more times, mixed in with the "I had a heart attack and didn't know it" story too.