Age Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number
Yes, I am allowed to wish myself a happy birthday… it’s my blog!
My birthday money is going towards a new pair of shoes. Not because I’m running obsessed, but because my current pair blew out last night on the downhill at the end of my run. I knew it was going to happen since I have 620km on them, but I could have done without the my-knee-and-hip-flexors-are-going-to-explode feeling.
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| So pretty Asics GT-2160. I’ll ignore the fact that I’m going up another 1/2 size. |
Monday Musings
Is it Monday already? What’s been happening here lately?
- My last run was hills on Wednesday. It was actually a really good run. Continual repeats (run 1 minute/walk 2 minutes) for 4km. The schedule called for 8 repeats, but with the intervals I did 12. Perfect night and I was appropriately dressed for once.
- Thursday: stomach flu hit at 2am and I was pretty much useless for the next few days. I don’t remember the last time I was this sick. The last time I spent 24 hours in bed was when I was in high school and came home from a week long missions trip to Mexico, but that was from jet lag.
- Lost somewhere between 5 and 8 lbs. I do not recommend this diet… way too gross! I did learn that all my “trouble spots” are just excess water though. I’m not naïve enough to think that I’ll keep it off. Don’t really want to either.
- I have the best husband EVER! Not only did he come home a little early on Thursday (or was it Friday?), but he brought me tulips too.
- Missed my 29km long run on Sunday. I probably could have made it out, but, with the time change, rain, and being partly dehydrated, I figured it would just be a soul-sucking run so I stayed in bed.
- Went out to buy groceries yesterday. Since I still haven’t completely gotten my appetite back I felt like fainting once we got to the end of the second store (the Costco samples weren’t enough). Nothing like salty potato chips and Arizona fruit punch for a little pick me up.
- I still have the best husband EVER! Once we got home I begged off and had a nap. I woke up 2 hours later to the smell of fresh-baked ginger molasses cookies and dinner was on the table.
Fortunate Friday
Yesterday I spent 98% of my day in bed with the 24 hour flu. I won the worst-mother award for having my 3 year old watch tv all day. Said 3 year old who seemed better after his flu on Tuesday threw up 3 times (seriously, if we say that milk makes you barf, please believe us!). And none of it matters.
I live in a place where, thankfully, that’s the worst that’s going on in my life. However, others aren’t so lucky. Obviously those most in need right now are in Japan after a devastating 8.9 earthquake.
Please donate if you can: https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/donate.aspx?EventID=66175&LangPref=en-CA&Referrer=http%3a%2f%2fwww.redcross.ca%2farticle.asp%3fid%3d38380%26tid%3d001 (Canada) or https://american.redcross.org/site/Donation2?idb=0&5052.donation=form1&df_id=5052 (United States).
If you can’t donate, please pray.
Head Meet Wall, Repeat.
I need to be more self-motivated. I am perfectly fine to get in runs when I am able to join friends or my running group. However, I am such a slacker when it comes to doing it on my own. I can pretty much come up with any lame excuse to not do what’s on my schedule. It sucks and is super frustrating. I was so convinced that I was going to put more effort into this training cycle. I have to a certain extent, but I know I’m dropping the ball on other things (hello, core). I have less than 2 months until race day.
Monday Musings
- Finally got to pick up a few things at the mailbox service in Blaine, WA. One package from BuildASign (still working out some stuff there) and one from Zensah. Reviews to follow soon.
- Colin decided Friday night that since we were already going to the states on Saturday that we might as well take Spud to the zoo. This was fine by me except that the zoo is in Seattle. We told Spud we had a surprise for him, but wouldn’t tell him until we got to the doughnut store (Krispy Kreme) in Burlington. While we were waiting at the border (a surprisingly efficient US side had us through in 25 minutes) we saw an Amtrak train waiting. Spud asked if that was his surprise which I thought was cute. Colin ended up telling him about the zoo in Blaine and he was pretty excited. The drive was fairly uneventful. After getting all hopped up on sprinkles Spud crashed for over an hour! When we got to the zoo he looked at us and said, “See? I told you it didn’t take long to get here.”
- Walking around a zoo for 4 hours (and carrying a toddler for parts of that) was probably not the best idea when there was a long run planned for the next day.
- We rushed to Costco on the way home (6pm closing = not helpful) for cheese and butter and then went to Target. It sucks to go into those places when the dollar is at par and not have enough to buy all the fun stuff. That said, we got what we came for. Cherry Coke for my sister-in-law (babysitting payment on Sunday) and Cherry Coke Zero for me. I would have gotten the regular stuff, but the store only had one box of each. Not sure how that happens in a store that big…
- If you haven’t had a Five Guys burger you should. Now, I don’t eat many burgers – it’s kind of a running joke with my family – but these were fabulous. Unfortunately I try to avoid beef before a long run so, when Colin came back with my cheeseburger, I opened the foil wrapper, realized what I’d asked for, and burst into tears. I hedged my bets and ate it anyways.
- Canada Border Services is so unhelpful. I get that it takes awhile to ask everyone the standard “where are you from, where did you go, how long were you gone, what’s the value of your purchases…” But it took us an hour to cross the border. The distance from where we started to the window was 1/2 mile. Yup, that’s a 74:32/km or 120:00/mile pace. Thankfully Spud was asleep.
- Long run! It was a beautiful day – sunny and cool. Since I’d picked up my Zensah calf sleeves on Saturday I wore them with shorts. I was surprisingly comfortable.
- Our schedule called for 29km/18mi. It was an out-and-back-ish route that was fairly familiar however, there was a little bit of trail at the turn around point that was rolly hills. Thank goodness for hill training!
- The two friends I was keeping pace with were great company and we definitely had to lean on each other for this run. Not only did we have to deal with hills, but none of us were totally loving the run. It was hard physically (hello HUGE hill at 22km/14mi) and mentally (it was just a long way to run). Upset stomachs (and other things) and one fall kind of rounded it out. We were slower than usual, but got it done.
- I still need to work on fueling. The gels were fine, but I was super hungry by the end. I’ve been using dates and my friend uses arrowroot cookies so I think I’ll stock up on those before next week.
- Running for 4 hours really takes a chunk out of your day. By the time we finished, went home and had showers and got back to Spud it was almost 2pm. Thank goodness that we were staying at Colin’s brother’s place for dinner. It was great to be able to just sit and visit.
- Call it superstitious, anal-retentive, OCD, crazy or just a weird quirk of runners, but I could not just leave my watch at the final distance. Since I hit 29km a couple blocks from the store I kept running. When I hit the last traffic light my watch said I was at 29-1/2ish km. Did I stop there? Of course not! I ran in circles like an idiot until my watch hit 30km. I didn’t need to go an extra kilometre. But I wanted my watch to hit that one last lap. I know I’m not the only one out there (Colin did it too…) – what would you call this behavior?
What To Do On A Boring Friday Night…
Colin’s out working for a friend (yay extra money!) and Spud’s in bed. TV has a craptastic selection and Netflix in Canada is great if you are a kid or you’re up for a slightly lame older movie. So what’s a girl to do when it’s far too early for bed?
Apparently explore this:
It’s amazing what random crap blogs come up! I get all sorts and I’m not sure how it’s decided by Blogger. It doesn’t distinguish between active blogs and ones that were abandoned over a year ago. I understand the ones that have some sort of fitness theme, be it running or multisport. However, I don’t get why it got stuck going between 3 woodworking blogs…
I can’t possibly be the only person who has been bored enough to click that link. So what weird blogs does yours connect to?
Three Things Thursday
1. I finally get to go down to the states on Saturday and pick up a few things that I won/got for review. I have to pay about $30 to ransom them from the mailbox service, but since I didn’t pay anything in the first place that’s okay. I’ll post next week about my loot! This will also serve as a cherry coke run. The powers-that-be in Canada didn’t think enough of us like it up here so I have to cross a border to get my fix. I may be convinced by Colin to buy the cherry coke zero, but I really seem to like my HFCS.
2. Darren, if you’re reading this please skip this point. I’m actually enjoying hill training. They suck and make me hurt (sore abs last night), but I feel so much better for doing them. Yesterday we did intervals rather than repeats and it was great to mix it up a little. The schedule said 7 x 600m repeats, but instead we ran 1min/walked 2 min for +/- 4km. I ended up doing about 10 repeats. It helped that I had my iPod with me and listened to My Chemical Romance the whole time. Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) is extremely catchy. Thankfully the weather was perfect. The downhill hurt the back of my leg/ankle a little, but I think it was from my shoe hitting it when I was trying to slow myself down.
3. I am so thankful for family and friends who are willing to support our running. I know that marathon training takes a lot personally, but when you have kids it’s just that little bit harder. Since Colin and I both train for the same events it’s necessary for us to farm Spud out every Sunday. We are extremely blessed to have people who will watch him for ridiculous amounts of time. You know who you are and you are greatly appreciated!
February By The Sub-Par Numbers
I blame it on the short month.* I finally took a good look at my printed schedule and was kind of shocked to see all the red x’s marking the work-outs that I didn’t do. I’ve had bad weeks before during training, but I think this is the first time I’ve had a bad month. I will be very happy when Daylight Savings Time starts so that there’s more light!
Total Kilometres/Miles: 144.96/90.07
Here’s why March is going to be so much better:
- I finally figured out how to get to group run on Wednesday nights which means that I’ll be getting all of my hill training and speed work in this time around.
- I need to get back up to 4 days/week so that I’ll have a remote chance at making my mileage goal for the year.
- My birthday is on St. Patrick’s Day! And I get to celebrate it with a 10km run since it’s clinic night. ☺
- I don’t want to have a post like this at the end of next month… 60 days until marathon #2 so I’d better get my butt in gear.
*I know full well that I had an off month. Probably best to admit that it was laziness brought on by a lack of desire to go out in the rain, dark, or with Spud. Apparently I can talk myself out of ANYTHING!
ABCs Of Me
What Makes You Run Late: Genetics and Spud.Haven’t Posted In A While
Good things have happened, but it’s the bad things that make them seem inconsequential. There was a horrific hit-and-run by my house on Friday night and all I knew about it was that it rerouted traffic while I was trying to get to work on Saturday morning. I watched the news Saturday night and found out two women were killed when they were side-swiped by an intoxicated driver (one was trying to assist the passenger in the car). On Sunday I found out that the Good Samaritan was an acquaintance of mine. She taught my boot camp class last spring and I was facebook friends with her. We were not at all close, but it really made the accident more real to me. She was my age (30), had a husband and 4 kids, and was just a beautiful person. I’ve been questioning a lot of things right now and posting just hasn’t been at the top of my list.
Book Review – Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
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| Source |
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand is a biography of Louis Silvie Zamperini. Although it was featured in the January 2011 issue of Runner’s World it is not a book about running. It is, however, a book about a phenomenal runner. Unless you are an avid reader of running history it’s likely you’ve never even heard of him.
Louis Zamperini was born in 1917. Hillenbrand’s book starts with his childhood move to Torrence, California and his struggles to fit in. It wasn’t until he was almost held back in school that he discovered track and field. He was able to turn his life around and became a star athlete in the 1930s. Zamperini held the NCAA Mile record for 15 years. He ran a mile in 4:08.3 (no runner had yet broken a 4-minute mile) and that was despite being spiked in the shins. Zamperini also competed for the United States in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.
At this point in the book most of the talk about running stops. Mainly because Zamperini signed up to fight in World War II. For much of the remainder of her book Hillenbrand delves into Zamperini’s wartime life. After signing up to fight Zamperini was trained as a bombardier in a B-24 Liberator. He was stationed in Hawaii and flew missions over Nauru and Wake Atoll in the Pacific during the Allied conflict with Japan.
In 1943 the plane Zamperini was flying in crashed into the Pacific Ocean during a search and rescue mission for another downed plane. The only survivors were Zamperini, pilot Russell Alan “Phil” Phillips, and tail gunner Francis “Mac” McNamara. They spent 47 days at sea although Mac died before they reached land. Despite surviving shark attacks, rough seas, dehydration, and starvation they did not find themselves in the best of circumstances. They were apprehended by the Japanese. The men were treated well for a few days, but then sent on to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands which had been nicknamed Execution Island by the US Forces. Zamperini found himself a prisoner of war (POW) although he was never identified as such by the Japanese.
After Kwajalein he was moved to Ofuna, a secret interrogation centre, where he was physically and emotionally abused and starvation was commonplace. Between 1943 and 1945 Zamperini was also located at Omori and Naoetsu POW camps. At these last two camps he was tormented by an officer he called The Bird (Mutsuhiro Watanabe). It’s hard to describe here what Zamperini went through. Hillenbrand goes into fairly particular detail of the torture he experienced. If you haven’t read a lot of historical non-fiction it can be a hard part to get through.
In 1945 Zamperini was liberated at war’s end. However, coming back to the United States was not an easy transition. He turned to alcohol to numb his pain and suffered flashbacks and nightmares in which The Bird haunted him. Zamperini’s life was changed when his wife took him to see Christian evangelist Billy Graham. He remembered that when he was lost at sea that he had made promises that if he was spared he would devote his life to God. Zamperini became a Christian speaker. Post-conversion he worked with what would now be termed “at-risk” youth. He still received accolades for his survival and ran the Olympic torch both in Los Angeles in 1984 and Nagano, Japan in 1998. There he ran past the site of his last POW camp. Although Zamperini was able to meet and forgive his ex-captors he was never able to do the same with The Bird. There had been the possibility of contact, but they would not meet before Watanabe’s death. Zamperini is now 94 years old.
I really enjoyed this book – it’s so much more than my very brief review. I need to be upfront and say that I have a History degree so this is my kind of book. It’s a biography and historical non-fiction. In fact in the cataloging of the book “long-distance runners” is the last one listed. I found it pretty easy to read and, even though it has a lot of facts (I’m nerdy and read the acknowledgements and footnotes too), it isn’t boring. It’s a little hard to get through at points, but that is because it was. You can’t really, nor should you, sugar-coat war.
I guess my conclusions would be: read this book if you like history or biographies. Don’t read this book if you are expecting much about running. For that you can find the excerpt at Runner’s World.
CSN Stores Contest Winner
The magical and all-knowing wizard in the computer at random.org picked #22 – Danielle and Scott – as the winner of the $35 gift certificate to CSN Stores! Congratulations! Thanks to everyone who entered. ☺
Wordless Wednesday
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| Why my legs? Click here |
Monday Musings – Weekend Recap
- Volunteering is fun! I got to do bag check for a local half marathon. When I got there at 6:30am there were already a couple of bags. Apparently, one woman checked her bag and then asked where the start line was… the race started at 8:30. Not sure why she wanted to stand in the cold and dark for two hours. It was fairly steady from 7-7:30 and then all hell broke loose. Eventually we were all just standing in a huge pile of unsorted bags. It took us an hour to get them all placed in ordered rows.
- I got to see some friends before they ran their race. I didn’t get to talk for too long, but it was nice to be able to say good luck.
- The winner set a new course record of 1:04:39. FOR A HALF!!! They could have run the course twice and still come in faster than my PR.
- I got a few little things as a thank-you for my time: free burger and fries (at White Spot if you’re local), sample pack of coffee – that’ll go to Colin, and a scarf with the race logo/sponsor. At least they were small as I had to stuff them in my bag and run them home. The scarf wedged in with my water bladder actually made it sit perfectly on my back so there was no movement!
- My run was great! It turned out to be 24km instead of 23 (+1 since I didn’t want to walk the last km to my parents’ house). I was slightly intimidated by the uphill-the-whole-way aspect, but it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Thankfully I was really familiar with the route so I could just run on auto-pilot and not think about too much. I only had to be present enough to shoulder check at every street crossing. Amazingly I didn’t come across any idiot drivers.
- I love to listen to the radio when I run. The ads are a little annoying, but I don’t have to put any effort into selecting my music. Our local rock station, CFOX, has a 90s brunch on Sundays from 8am – 12pm so I was pretty much set. I’m a sucker for the music I listened to in high school…
- I completed my run in 2:52:33, which was an average of 7:11/km. That’s including a 1 minute walk break every 20 minutes as well as many waits at traffic lights.
- One GU (since I didn’t have time to buy more) plus dates is not enough for a 3 hour run. I knew this going out, but a second GU would have been super! On that note, Mandarin Orange is okay. Not great, in my opinion, but it got the job done. And it’s infinitely better than Jet Blackberry. I think I’ll stick with chocolate and coffee flavours.
- I got drenched about half way through my run. Typical Vancouver. The people with umbrellas or safe in their cars were looking at me like I was crazy.
- I will never skip out on a week of core/strength/stretch again. By 22km my hips were killing me (shades of the marathon). I was so lazy last week, but couldn’t bring myself to do my workouts. Obviously that was stupid. I will make a better effort from now on.
- I usually hate V8, but my mum had some in the fridge and I was dying at the end of my run so I had one. Tasted like cold tomato soup, but had something like almost 500mg of sodium and potassium so my body was happy after I drank it.
- Work sucked on Sunday after my run, but I figured on that before I even got there. I’m just happy that I wasn’t scheduled til 1am like everyone else.
Weekend Randoms
- I have convinced 100
suckerspeople to become followers! Love it! Thanks for thinking that I’m interesting… sometimes I’m not so sure. - Working Saturday. Not fun, but pays the bills and isn’t hard. Plus it keeps me in athletic goods since I work for a sporting goods store and get a fantastic employee discount.
- I’m volunteering at a half marathon this weekend. Should be fun. I’m on bag check so I might get to see some of my friends before they race. Unfortunately I have to be there for 6:30am and I live just over 1/2 hour away. Hello, early!
- Since I’m volunteering on Sunday and it’s also a long run day I’ve come up with a “could-be-the-stupidest-thing-I’ve-ever-done” plan: My long run is scheduled to be 23km. It’s just shy of 24km from downtown Vancouver to my parents house in the suburbs. Guess who’s decided that it’d be good to RUN THERE? Oh, and I’m doing it by myself (yay, iPod) and it’s almost entirely uphill. I may not be able to walk on Monday.
- After my lovely, wonderful, most-likely rainy long run I have to work again. It’s for inventory and I’ve been assigned something easy-peasy, but I have to work till 9:30pm. Must pack compression socks.
- I think I’m going to crash and burn once I get in the car Sunday night.
- Don’t forget I have a $35 CSN Stores gift certificate to give away. Enter here until 16 February.
Three Things Thursday
1. I have a cold and it sucks. Spud thoughtfully passed it along last week and now I’m stuffed up, but have a drippy nose at the same time (?). Hopefully getting out to run will get it out of my system.
2. I abhor am learning to love hill repeats again. Every training cycle I do them and then after every race I slack off. I completed week 1/7 yesterday with 4 repeats. I’m supposed to do 600m hills with a grade of 6-8%. I figure that my 410m hill with an average grade of 10% (12% for 200m, turn corner, 8% for 210m) is good enough. Thankfully my friend came by with her little girl and she was nice enough to watch the kids at a park while I ran. This meant that I didn’t have to push Spud up the hills with me. I know I won’t be this spoiled every week, but it made my run so much more enjoyable!
3. I’m off to bake. I don’t do it often – it’s more Colin’s thing, but I can make a couple of things pretty well. Today it’s Apple Crisp and Banana Bread. Good thing I run so often so I can eat what I make!
Finished product: Is it bad that I want this to be my dinner when I get back from clinic?
It’s Kite Flying Day! How About A Giveaway?
Yup, it’s that time again! CSN Stores has offered to host another giveaway and the winner will get a $35 gift certificate to spend on any item at any of their 200 stores!*
Now, they always give me the choice of doing a review or a giveaway and I always choose to help one of you out. That’s because they just have too much good stuff to buy and I’d go way over the value of the review product! I’m don’t think that they would be willing to send me über-expensive office furniture for free… but if they are reading this and change their minds here’s what I’d like:
| Only $3,799! |
To enter:
Mandatory:
- Tell me what you’d love to buy from CSN.
Bonus:
- Be or become a follower.
- Add me to your blogroll.
- Tell others about this contest.
- Tell me your favourite holiday. Mine is St. Patrick’s Day since it’s also my birthday!
The winner will be chosen using random.org on 17 February, which is fitting since it’s Random Acts of Kindness Day.
Hey, Look, It’s Me (Again…)!
In another edition of Alanna’s Shameless Self-Promotion I’m featured today on Long Legs on the Loose!
If you live under a rock haven’t been reading Katye’s blog it’s definitely one you should check out. She is an amazing runner who ran her first marathon last year. She travels to all sorts of awesome places to race which helps feed my armchair traveler tendencies. And she is a fundraising phenom! Katye has raised money and coached for Team In Training (Leukemia/Lymphoma). She is currently raising funds for her trip to BOSTON (!) where she will be running as a charity runner for both the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress and Back On My Feet. In the past year both Katye and her family raised $30,000 for charity! You can’t help but be inspired by that!
A Belated Thank-You!
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| Snickers Marathon Bar, Strawberry Clif Shot Bloks, Forze Energy Bar, Vanilla Bean GU, HS Extreme Energy Drink, Chamois Butt’r* |
* The Chamois Butt’r is NOT food! More like BodyGlide for your bum… I don’t ride a bike, but I’m sure it’ll work just as well for chafing from my socks…
January By The Numbers
This is actually the first time I’ve ever written out my monthly stats on my blog. It is more for me to see how I’m doing and where I can improve than it is for you to read about it. I figure it probably isn’t that interesting to read. Mind you, I’m always nosy and love reading other bloggers stats so maybe you’re the same?
Total Kilometres/Miles: 161.22/100.18
Long Runs: 5 (every Sunday; lengths ranging from 10km to 16km)
Runs Missed: 5 (3 of those I consider optional runs anyways)
Core/Strength/Stretch Planned/Completed: 18/14 (78% – not bad!)
Push Ups: 172 on stability ball + 53 real = 225 (considering I hate them I’m quite impressed with myself!)
Time Spent Running: 19-1/2 hours.
Not much else to add. Marathon training is in fully swing so I’m really trying to get my runs/workouts in, but not worrying too much if I can’t/don’t want to complete them. I’m not killing myself trying to make up runs or anything like that. I know I probably need to make a little more effort getting in my 5th run of the week, but I’m okay as long as I don’t drop below 4. February should be fun!
One Thing Thursday
Nothing of much consequence has been going on here lately so today you only get one thing:
The Environment Canada weather person is a total liar! A couple of days ago we were supposed to have a lovely sunny Sunday for our long run, but as of today the next week looks like this:
Now I know that this is glorious weather compared to so many of you. And I am definitely thankful that we don’t have freezing temperatures or ice and snow. However, it is like this here ALL THE TIME! Would one measly nice day be too much to ask for?
Mind Games
How does one tell their brain to shut up? Do you know? Because I really need to start ignoring the garbage that mine comes up with. I have had two really good runs this week and they should be confidence boosting, but they just haven’t been. I don’t know if it’s because I still am identifying with the old slower me or if it’s fear. I haven’t been able to be proud of these runs. Actually, that’s not totally true. I was doing a happy dance around our kitchen on Sunday, but for some reason I’ve stopped.
On Sunday we dropped Spud with friends for an early morning playdate and then headed to the store for our group 16km run. I don’t run with Colin due to obvious speed discrepancy issues. I’ve tried to be pretty consistent and keep with the same long run group each week. I found early on that I can keep up with the 4 hour marathon group which runs a 6:22 – 7:11/km (10:15 – 11:33/mi). I always find that the first 5 kilometres or so are my worst so I wasn’t too worried that I was on the slow end of the pace. As the run went on I settled in nicely with a few other ladies. The route was a long rolling out and back up to the watershed (had to touch the fence!). I ran so I could talk and had a good run. The second half was great! I think we finished at about a 6:55/km pace (and that was with doing 20 + 1s).
I know my problem with this run. My brain. It keeps telling me that it was a fluke. That I didn’t really belong. That the people I ran with are SO MUCH faster than me. Intimidated, much? It’s like I have a sign on my forehead that says “Not Good Enough”, but only I can see it. I shouldn’t be competing against anyone but myself. And not even against myself on a long run.
And then there was today’s run. I went out with my friend Lindsay with whom I run once a week. Because she brought a friend along I ran an extra 2-1/2km each way to meet up in a convenient spot. It actually worked out well that I had a long run today (17km) since I wasn’t going to be able to do my 10km run tomorrow due to another running partner being out of town. So I rolled two tempo runs into a long steady run with Spud. I figure that the weight cancels out the speed of the others and I’ll come out even. Anyways, once we met up we ran out along a trail for 40 minutes, turned around, I ran a little extra so Spud could go over a bridge and back (never promise a 3 year old anything), and then I ran home. All told I was out for over 2 hours. I’m not fast when I have the stroller and I walked up all the hills that were even remotely steep. The weather was decent – a drizzle that was more like mist – and the company was good.
I know my problem with this run. My brain. It keeps telling me that I’m slow. HELLO?!? I was pushing 60+lbs of stroller and kid. Anybody would be slow. And really, an 8:11/km with walking up hills and stopping to attend to the whims of a toddler isn’t shabby.
So where do I go from here? I obviously know what my problem is. I just don’t quite know how to fix it. There’s no easy off switch for this. I can’t keep comparing myself to other runners. Especially ones that aren’t really faster than me. And I can’t keep telling myself that I’m slow. A middle-of-the-pack runner, yes. Slow, not so much anymore.
I think I’d really benefit from reading about positive self-talk. I read a book a while ago that touched on it, but I don’t remember too much (and it was relatively old). Do any of you have suggestions for hippy dippy mumbo jumbo running/sports psychology books?
CRAP!
And not as defined by the SUAR dictionary…
I just looked at the BMO Vancouver Marathon site and discovered that I have ONE HUNDRED days until my second marathon! My printed out 4 page calendar schedule made it seem so far away. Now I kind of want to bang my head on the desk and ask myself why I’m putting myself through this again. Oh yeah, because I actually do love running that far! Who woulda thought?
Wordy Wednesday – We May Have A Problem
Colin and I have an aspiring runner on our hands which, since Spud is 3-1/2, I think is awesome. Unfortunately I don’t think we can enter him in a race any time soon.
Love My Runners 