A runner's age

Still running with a fury, though blogging with less intensity. 

Ran past and through some Toronto beach vapour this morning.

A Winter's Trail

Arctic running.

Secrets revealed.

It's the route, not the destination.

Celebrity Moves

Yesterday, I ran my umpteenth half marathon. I love stories about the rituals of running and thought I would share some of what I do in the days, hours preceding a race. Please know that despite admitting to being a slow runner, I am always slightly disappointed in my performance. I slowed down during the Toronto Women's Half Marathon to take this picture. I am not good with estimating distances (or height, weight, age etc), but at the 15k mark, my feet responded well to the advice:

 

A couple of weeks before a race:

1) I consider ramping up the training to include at least a few 12-15k longer runs.

2) I shop for a new pair of socks.

3) I find myself in weird conversations about the state of my feet.

4) I often think about my weight and wonder how it can be that after all of these years (and we're talking decades, folks), I can't drop 5 pounds to be lighter on my feet, and be so much faster.

5) I actually do hill training and my version of a fartlek or two. 

I've definitely acquired the vocabulary of running, if not the physique.

A couple of days:

1) I wonder where the time has gone.

2) I realize that I didn't do enough long runs.

3) I think about not doing the race at all.

4) I shop for new socks.

5) I screw up the taper.

The night before:

1) I end up staying up too late.

2) I remember sometimes not to cut my toe nails.

3) I make sure to have gum, GU, lip balm and bus fare (and i.d. & healthcard) ready to stow.

4) I lay out my gear: race belt, clothes, music, headphones, hat, and the socks that I have paid way too much for...

5) I consider not doing the race.

The day:

1) I get up one hour before I have to leave, which is often 4:00 a.m. 

2) I have a giant cup of super strong coffee and chase this with an advil or two.

3) I have one banana.

4) I plan to get to the site 30 minutes early to line up at the porto-potty, whether I have to go or not.

5) I consider not doing the race.

So far, I have always finished the races started, which I should probably celebrate a little more than I do, but perhaps the running takes on the qualities of the runner. Wouldn't running be boring if it didn't? 

Spring Forward

One way to avoid the reality of winter is to plan for spring.

Paul and I just registered for The Toronto Goodlife Half Marathon to be held May 5, 2013 in Toronto.

Lots of stuff between now and then, including races in Miami and Vancouver and a two-week, non running stint at an ashram in Trivandrum, India.

Happy Trails.

Grief and Twine

Joy and woe are woven fine        
A clothing for the soul divine        
Under every grief and pine        
Runs a joy with silken twine.

Do you think William Blake is onto something about running?

At this time of year, many teachers I know claim to die a slow and mainly meaningless death by paper. Paper cutting, editing, grading, revising and shuffling. I don't mind so much because I can't imagine doing anything else, or rather I can't imagine procrastinating the doing of anything else. In fact, I'm not much good at anything else, except for this reading and writing business...and even then. I've got the twine, for sure, and some of the joy and woe. I say now and forever, long live William Blake's "mind-forg'd manacles", but here's to getting out of that rut.

...and "through the world we safely go", with our bus pass, house keys and whatever gets us from point A to B.

Happy running or whatever it is you do when you're not thinking about it.

Around the corner...

Change, temptation, hope: find them in the ordinary and the extraordinary taste of salt enhanced 70% bitter chocolate.

The training continues, though the reality of potentially drowning in open water surfaces and resurfaces. I don't like my local pool and have been travelling across town to another site that shall remain nameless so as to prevent traffic jams of folks heading out there to swim in near perfect indoor conditions: competition size, practically private lane swimming. Haven't I become the swimming diva...an irony of olympic proportions given my utter lack of skill and endurance. Still, though, how is it that the newbie is the only one observing proper pool etiquette?

Also, for the record, I'm paying an outrageous amount of $$ to rent a bicycle and helmet for the bike segment of the triathlon. No doubt, this is equivalent to a local Indonesian's monthly salary and I hate getting hosed like that. I'm happy to contribute to the local economy, but not in this particularly odious, foreign-run way. I'm sure the locals aren't seeing the $70 U.S. it has cost me to have a bicycle and helmet for two hours. Anyway. I continue to train past this and understand my absolute privilege in being able to participate in the first place.

In the meantime, thankfully I've remained injury-free. I've moved apartments, finished a second job and submitted the final grades for my day job...almost.

Departure for Indonesia: three weeks. Ready or not.

Cheers.

Soundtrack Pace

This was the last song of today's run, and perhaps I should show more restraint in sharing it.

My taste in running music usually runs a little less mainstream (arguably) and a little more house, i.e. faster, louder & less lyrical. What do you listen to?

The overall training continues, but I can't seem to do split shifts on this. By the end of the day, I'm too tired and unmotivated. I work at 8:00 most days and just can't get up at 4:30 to run before teaching. I make it out most days doing some combo of running, cycling and/or swimming, and this will have to do for now. And since I'm never in contention to win and/or become professional, it's all good. The miracle, thus far,  really comes down to how my body from the waist down really hasn't had to deal with any major injuries or strains recently, considering that I'm not endowed with what anyone would call a runner's physique. I wish.

A friend recently suggested that the internal script of not calling myself a runner might have to do with my consistent lacklustre results. Maybe I'll have to commit to something. She's a pretty smart person too.

This week, though, Paul and I had great fun registering for the ING Miami Half Marathon coming up in January 2013.

Lots to do between now and then.

Happy training.

New Perspectives

Chasing Rainbows...

There is nothing quite like a sports cliché.

*putting the miles in
*getting your face wet
*taking it to the limit
*hitting the wall

Whatever.

As in training, I seem to get all of these things mixed up. Last week, for instance, my husband and I travelled for a three day weekend to Los Angeles for the Hollywood Half Marathon. I trained religiously as I always do, or as I always think I do. Something happened there, though, that forced me to examine how I do what I do. This added self-consciousness is signature for me, and practically ruined grad school and most of whatever it is that I've attempted to write over the years.

However, training requires this, I'm learning. What you think you do, versus what you actually do  seems to create a mysterious gap that manifests itself in the middle of a competition. You hit the wall. You get injured. You experience pain in new places. You don't have a very nice time, in other words.

I trained and trained for that race. And basically died there. I'm not really a sports person, but it does also seem to me that there needs to be a post game/post competition analysis and so in (after)thought,  I had a kind of Joycean epiphany, hopeless as it is, that I'd never be able to improve. It wasn't so much a conscious aha moment, but rather an overwhelming sinking feeling: you are running up the wrong hill with this training regime. I called a professional. I mean I got in touch with an old highschool friend who is basically a world-class athlete. I don't give up that easily.

A Sign on the "Walk" during the "Run"

I haven't had such a brutal finish or recovery in years. My legs ached and ached, during the race itself. And, with a two-mile uphill finish up Cahuenga hill, you'll forgive me for saying that the darn thing turned into a walkathon and that I actually felt anger. As I flew down that same hill two hours earlier, I knew exactly what was coming. Yet in a classic Breaking Away "I-am-as-good-as-the-best-without-knowing-it-talent," I really wanted to be the one to charge up and over in a moment of absolutely stunning personal victory. This did not happen. There was nothing left in me and my shame grew as finisher after finisher approached from the other direction, casually running (still!) down this same hill with their star medal in full shining glory. I had (at least) another 30 excruciating, humiliating and painful (double blistered baby toe) minutes to go. I could barely walk. I had trained for months and months. I have a blog! What the hell?

Anyway. I am persistent, though that might be the wrong word. It occurs to me that I could have a contest for a better one word description of this type of behavior.  I will dig myself out of this apparent training and perceptual rut, starting today. No bricking for the moment and I will try to train twice a day for shorter duration. I have another half (the Scotiabank Montreal) in two weeks and I will report my progress. It might be that I'm training for two very different types of events (half and sprint tri), but I'm not sure. Muscle confusion or just straight up confusion.  Remember: I am not a runner. This is what I tell myself all of the time.

* Also, got a really nice running belt, which is awesome. No more safety pins. Definitely a new beginning there.

Bricked

This little story requires a bit of a soundtrack.

A funny thing happened on the way to the pool today, especially if by "on the way" I mean two months of worrying about swimwear and appearance and getting kicked in the head and drowning. None of this has happened, of course, except maybe the worrying. The open water start for the Bali Sprint Marathon is another thing, but that's at the end of June and I have lots of anxiety time between now and then.

I wore my new freaky past-the-knee swimskin thing to the pool today for the first time. But, before I did this, I tried it on for a friend over my clothes last night. Within two minutes of prancing around in this very tight suit over my jeans and dress (you had to be there), the door bell rang...as if on cue.  I wasn't exactly ready for my "close-up" so to speak.

The person at the door was very gracious.

Me, I peeled the suit off along with a little (just a tiny bit) of my dignity. I figured if I can live through this humiliation, why not wear the darn thing at the pool. So, I did. So there. I lived to tell the tale and no one even noticed.

So much for self-absorption.

Let the bricking continue: before the 20 minute swim today, I ran for 50 minutes. I wore the skin-tight-swimming-thing under my running stuff -- felt like a girdle, though not terrible. I can live with that.

And this sign would be a relief to anyone, don't you think?

Happy training or whatever.

Commitment

...a morning run full of surprises like this one:

Winter on Mount Royal: Montreal February 28, 2012

The Proof is in the Footing

...or footwear.

The truth is I haven’t been having the best time in the life outside of training for the Bali Sprint Triathlon or Hollywood Half or any other imminent race that I haven't signed up for yet. Then again, is there really life outside of these events? I’m not even sure what that means. What I do know is that I’ve never called myself a runner and I still don’t.  So,  I am in a perpetually ironic state, though this is nothing new. 

Robyn, thank you for getting me up and down some pretty treacherous times. And hills.

For now, I focus on the gear and the right gear will see me through. I’ve got my sights set on a race belt.  Also, I think I bricked. That’s the term, I’ve heard, for training two events back to back. I’m doing this in full force, though indoors in this chilly Celsius Canadian winter.  Cycling and treadmilling  one after the other at least four times a week. Swimming will start this week. I just can’t bear to be in the water in winter. It’s deeply psychological. Montreal: where folks really know how to form a queue for a bus.  Incredible.

And happy shroves, too.

Also, I joined a little Facebook running group called #IWouldRun500Miles -- I'm "Mary Shelley" and please don't ask. I don't care about identifying myself fully on this blog, but can't do this on Facebook for some reason. Anyway, the group is growing and is currently at 95 members.  I'm running the back of the pack there too. So what. Why don't you join us?

Running Stories

 It is easier to read about running than it is to actually run, isn't it? It is certainly much easier to run if you are avoiding swimming.

Getting to the point of any kind of committed training involves a series of decisions. Lately, I've been saying to Paul that his training mainly consists of the races themselves as there is not too much going on for him in the way of hitting the pavement in between these organized events.  And, of all people, he should know better as he BROKE HIS LEG and collapsed 50 feet from the finish line of his first marathon about ten years ago.

When Paul talks about running, I know what he's saying. It's symbolic and literal with all that subcutaneous liquid seeping into or out of the bone marrow just before he fell. Guts or ego (or something else) prevented him from pulling out of the race sooner.

When Haruki Murakami talks about running, he's articulating drive, force and commitment. The ebb and flow. Something of that is in Paul's continued running. After two operations and "the boot", cane and limp and full recovery (more or less), he runs with a massive hockey stick shaped scar that goes from his knee to his ankle and enough screws to set off a metal detector. Paul also told me that he was so close to the finish line when he did collapse that he heard the announcer over the loudspeaker state that "There appears to be a woman down on the course." The emergency workers placed Paul's chipped shoe on the finish line so that he could complete the race and get a time.

In our three event, Bermuda Triangle Challenge, Paul placed 264th and I 265th out of 331 participants. Our total time for the one mile, 10K and Half-Marathon was under 4 hours. Just. But still -- we were very happy with the results, and I will be donating $50 to a charity -- send in suggestions.

Stay tuned for a mini interview with one of the organizers of Bermuda Race Weekend. 

Some cross-training in the works and I still haven't gone swimming yet.

Out the Window

This is the view above the clouds and rain on our flight from Toronto to Bermuda.  Thirty minutes or so after this was taken, the plane went through a bit of turbulence and there was lightning, rain and stereotype. You know...something like that famous Twilight Zone episode and the Bermuda Triangle and all that. Really. Even our taxi driver mentioned it.  Plus, it was the eve of Friday the 13th.

 Louise Mallard in The Story of an Hour looked out her bedroom window and saw rich new possibilities. Me,  I want to throw it all out that window: all the negativity, worry and anxiety.  In yesterday's local paper, The Royal Gazette, there was a 12 page supplement on Bermuda Race Weekend and all of the participants were named.

Tonight, we will run a one mile invitational, tomorrow a 10k and then, if we are lucky, a half marathon on Sunday. I've tweeted it before, and I'll tweet it again: if I don't finish last, I will donate $50 to a charity; if I am last, I'll donate $100 (probably World Wildlife Foundation, though I will take suggestions).  No one loses.

Signs and Symbols

The bathing suit has arrived. It was left on the porch unceremoniously and was in a much smaller package than I imagined.

Its arrival reminded me of a worry I had many years ago when I was preparing to live in Japan as an English teacher. I had heard that it was a cash society and I knew that the first few days there would be busy with meeting colleagues and getting settled and all of those kinds of things, not to mention the jetlag and nervousness and all of that. So, I wanted to be sure that at least I had some of that cash on hand, especially if the society was based on it, as I had been told. I went to the bank a few days before departing Montreal and ordered something like 150,000 Yen which seemed like an enormous amount to me. I couldn't really imagine how much that money was worth, even though at the time I had paid about $1,000 Canadian for it. The bigger issue was how I was going to carry that around with me AND what kind of wallet I was going to use with such a huge wad of dough. As I recall, I was very preoccupied with the details surrounding the money: how much money,  researching the money, getting the money, carrying the money, the value of the money, what I could get with that money,  even just having the money period. I understand now that the money (even the word itself) and its being researched, coddled and carried were distractions from what was really going on. At this time, too, I was in the early stages of becoming a fairweather runner, but was not terribly concerned with gear and the like.

I was leaving Montreal and all of my friends whom I adore and I'd ended a four year long (very problematic) distance relationship, though remained deluded (for many months to come) that we'd get back together (somehow) in Japan. A lot of that relationship was bracketed, now that I think of it. I'd also spent a year or was it two (?) trying to write a thesis on a postcolonial autobiography by Sara Suleri called Meatless Days. I never completed the thesis, but did learn all about rice. This whole Japan thing was a both an adventure and failure. Anyway, I was a bit of a wreck and the Japanese cash and its carrying were welcome respite. I was very excited and even felt a little bit important when I was called at home by someone at the bank to tell me that I could pick up the cash. I nearly collapsed in embarrassment when the teller handed me the slimmest envelope of currency I'd ever seen. My paper phone bill used to be thicker. 

I will have to develop a little courage to wear this suit in the pool because the truth is I look like a bit of a circus clown in it. I'm not a tall person and so the bottom half goes past my knees. Also,  it's fortuitous that I am flexible because I had to do some pretty kooky moves to get my self into the thing. They don't call it a skin for nothing. I think I am beginning to understand what is behind the bathing suit anxiety and it's not just my large ass. Let the training begin. Finally. For Real. Yes.

Spin Cycle class today. Paul and I leave for Bermuda on Thursday and technically we are on our "taper" for the half marathon we are supposed to run on Sunday, preceded by a 10 K and a one mile invitational. I will let you know what happens.