Inspiration

I received an email from my old running group in Austin this morning with a link to this video called "My 120 pound journey". It was such a touching video. I emailed it to Jenni immediately.It was inspiring to me as a runner. Although I have never lost a pound from running, I still believe that running improves my life in so many ways. Now if only my damn knee didn't hurt, and I could go for a run.

AustinFit Red Group

I've run with Austin Fit before. I did it in preparation for the 2008 San Antonio half marathon. LDH and I did it together in preparation for the 2009 San Antonio half marathon. I was meaning to join this summer, but with LDH gone...let's just say I couldn't do it without her. And then I realized I was going to be out of town for the San Antonio half. So, no group for me. Combine that with this crazy heat, and here we have a poor showing for my summer, running-wise.

This morning, I dragged myself out of bed at 6:20. I wasn't totally excited, but I wasn't dreading it either. I pulled on my pink shorts and I thought, "hi shorts, haven't seen you in a while". I headed down to TxDOT to meet the group. It's not for the San Antonio race, but for the Austin race (Nanio, it's the 20th anniversary on February 20th, which seems like the perfect time for a trip to Austin to run!) I decided to join the Red running group, instead of the Orange, and run with the 10:30 pace group. I'm not quite at 10:30, but it's where I'd like to be. So I'm hoping if I start with them it will push me there.

Man, oh man, the head coach Janice - she's intense. Go ahead, please, click that link. Check out her bio. How can she not be exactly the running coach I need. It says she ran her first marathon in 2004 in just shy of 6 hours, and now she's completed half and full ironmans and is basically like the terminator.

We started today and she said, "We're going to forget the pace today" and I thought, sweet! What she really meant was, I'm going to run you up and down hills and we're still going to finish in a pretty decent time, but I want you to not think about it. She stopped the whole group (the 10:00, 10:15, 10:30 and 10:45 pace groups) at the parking lot of Joe's Crab Shack, before heading up a slight hill to Travis Heights to go over proper up-hill form. She said, LDH listen up, to look at the top of the hill and don't look down at the ground. You see, we always look down. It helps to trick us in to not being TERRIFIED of the hills. Well, Ironman Janice says that looking down keeps you all hunched over and you are inefficient and you expend more energy. It was like she was speaking straight to my scientist heart. Inefficient, expend energy - I don't want to do that. So, looking up I will do. She also says you need to shorten your stride. She had spoken a bit about running on flat ground, and how your stride should be long and you should see your feet if you look down. LDH, girls like you and I probably should only be seeing our toes, but you should see them. However, on the uphill, when you look down you shouldn't see your feet at all. Your stride should be short, your body should be straight, your eyes up at the top of the hill, and your arms pumping lightly. With this lesson, we were off.

Up Travis Heights. It was about this time that I realized there was something weird going on. We weren't stopping. There was no walking. We were just, running. I thought to myself, I'm totally screwed. I can not do this. I'm asking too much - faster pace, longer distance (oh, I haven't spilled that one yet), AND no walk breaks. But, Ironman Janice to the rescue. She then spoke about active recovery. She said to use the top of the hill and the downhills to control your heart rate. She said to take a few deeps breaths, hold them in, and slow your breathing. Holy cow, it was like resting without the walking. Don't get me wrong, the walking - way easier!

Once we reached the top of Travis Heights, she stopped us again to discuss downhill form. She spoke about keeping things controlled. She said you still want to keep short strides, but you can increase your cadence so that you are still using the gravity of the downhill to get you down faster, but that your perceived output is not greater. She even mentioned the "inverse relationship" between stride length and cadence in a downhill - Ironman Janice, you are killing me with the technical terms. Where have you been all my life. So off we went down Travis Heights. and back to TxDOT.

Now, I won't lie. I stopped to walk a few times. But only for brief spurts. And while I finished just about last in the 10:30 group, I was still ahead of the 10:45. I'll take it. in total I think we did 3 miles. But, we weren't done yet. Ironman Janice had DRILLS for us. While all the other groups were sitting around on the parking lot drinking their water and chatting the red group was off to the side. We did 4 or 5 small running drills - side shuffles, high knees, butt kicks, side lunges. But, this was not enough for Ironman Janice. We then moved to the other side of the parking lot and did 50 step ups, followed by 20 push-ups and then 20 tricep dips. (During the push-ups I was on the wall next to the leaders of my group, the 10:30 pace, and she said to me during my second set of 10 push-ups "Good for you, those look perfect, I'm about spent and couldn't get good form if I tried." I smiled inside and thanked boot camp and Jillian Michaels.)

It was at this point that Ironman Janice was satisfied, and lead us through some stretches. I think she skimped on the quad stretches though, mine are still ON FIRE! She says that we are going to do these drills every saturday for the next 6 or so weeks, and we will be working on form and building a good base. She says the miles will come easier if we've got this down. And hell, I'm not going to argue with that woman. This morning was tough - but it felt good. It felt useful, it felt like I was going to get better. And as I have joined the Austin FULL Marathon training group, I think I'm going to be needing all the help, advice, and occasional yelling, to get myself across that finish line.

The goal: February 20th, 2010 - 26.2 miles. Rumor has it LDH is going to come to Austin and run the half. I encourage anyone and everyone to come cheer us on, or run with us. And in the case of my first attempt at a marathon, bring a chair...you'll be waiting at the finish line for a long, long, long time. But, Ironman Janice assures me I'll make it.

eight miles?

LDH has been trying to following the training plan of our old running group, I...have not. I just got an email from our old half marathon training coach that tomorrow's run is an 8 mile run. Wow, am I far behind. I'm not sure I could do 8 if I tried. I'm going to set my goal for a 6 mile run this weekend.

LDH, remember when we used to be good at this?!

Oh, excuses, silly little things

I would like to say that I am getting better with the excuses. And I think I can say that. I am still making them, but they are less frequent and less convincing. On Monday I did not go to the beach as planned. It was raining, and I would have had to stand in the rain post-run to wait for D to get out of a meeting and then drive home all wet for 40 minutes. This sounded like a bad idea. So I didn't run on Monday. On Tuesday, I felt the whole, "I don't have time to run because I need to go to work" feeling, so I compromised. Instead of doing my 6 miles, I just did 3 and decided to postpone my long run until the weekend. So now I am a week behind. Hopefully being behind on my training plan will light a fire under my ass and keep me more motivated.

I was talking to a friend last night who is an avid runner, and we were discussing his fairly severe addiction to running. The thought of potentially not being able to run for a few weeks because of an injury made him rather distressed. I was almost jealous. I mean, I call myself a runaholic (at least on this blog), but I don't feel his intense desire to run. I feel like that makes my runaholism even more hardcore though. I mean, I am not that good at it, half the time I don't even like doing it or don't want to do it, but yet I keep doing it. (Maybe that should be our new tag line. "Running: We aren't good at it, we don't really like it, but we keep doing it.") That sounds like an addiction to me. That being said, I do long for running. I crave it when I am not doing it regularly. So why, then, do I make so many damn excuses not to do it. Hmmm, maybe I should become a psychologist so I can study this sort of ridiculous human behavior.

Back to my run on Tuesday, though. It was actually really good. I ran at the Waterfowl Park and although it was humid as hell, I still felt good while running. No wanting to die at all! I finally saw some fowl at the Waterfowl Park, but it was more scary than enjoyable. I was running along the trail when I came across a gaggle of about 12 Canadian geese that were blocking the path. As I approached them, I made lots of noise, clapping, yelling, and stomping my feet, but they just stared at me. When I got within about 10 feet of them, I realized that they weren't going anywhere, and I certainly was not going to run through the middle of a gaggle of geese. I have heard that Canadian geese can be vicious (or is that swans?) So, I just turned around and started running the other way. When I circled back around to that part of the trail about 30 minutes later, they were still there! In the exact same formation! Fortunately there is a bridge that crosses over through the middle of the park, so I was able to avoid them without having to run all the way back the way I came. Although if I had run back the way I came, I probably would have ended up running that 6 miles I was supposed to run. I guess the geese were trying to tell me something. Oh well.

Distance: 3.5 miles - mostly trails
Lessons learned: I really need a GPS watch to accurately track my run distances
Song that rocked my run: Rag and Bone by The White Stripes

Another promise :)

I have been the queen of coming up with reasons why I just cannot run these days. Either it's too hot, or too cold, or my allergies are too bad, or I drank too much beer last night, and the list goes on.

My plan when I first moved here was to follow the half marathon training program that I did last year, through Austin Fit, even though I didn't have a half marathon to run at the end of it. I was actually hoping to get down to San Antonio to run the Rock n Roll half marathon in November, but instead, my best friend in the whole wide world is coming to visit me in New Brunswick, which is WAY better. Also, Jenni will not be able to run it this year either. (That reminds me, Jenni, we should plan to meet somewhere else to do a R n R half marathon. Dallas? Nashville? Vegas? Or maybe I can just come to Austin for another half.) Anyway, my point is, that I was planning on following a training program, and I am not really doing that very well. I keep getting emails from the Austin Fit coordinator telling my what my long runs should be each week, and I consistently ignore them. Well, not anymore. I have made public my commitment to run the 13K Terry Fox Run in September by emailing all of my family members and posting it on Facebook. Now is the time to get back into training mode.

According to Austin Fit, this weekend was supposed to be 4 miles plus drills. I did not do that. In fact I did very little all weekend, except walk a lot. Today is a moderately cold, rainy day, and my best runs usually happen in these conditions. So, today, I shall do my 4 miles plus drills. As Jenni may remember, I hate drills with a passion, probably even more than she hates the treadmill, but dammit, I will do them! I have a long driveway that is perfect for hopping, skipping, and jumping all over. I am also putting the Austin Fit schedule into my google calendar so that it is there every day looking me in the face. I can't say that I will do everything on the schedule, but I will commit to doing the long runs every week, and most of the short runs.

Here goes nothing.....

I did it! (Sorta)

Well it appears this blogging thing is actually working for motivation and accountability. (At least for me.)

Today I set out on my planned 4 mile run. My stomach was KILLING me, but I decided that a run might help. Ha. After approximately 30 seconds of running, the pain felt as though my lower intestine had grown spikes and was stabbing my stomach and other intestines as I ran. Not fun! So I quit. But then I remembered that I had a blog to report to, and I didn't want to have to say that I failed again. So, I sucked it up and started running again. Today, I went to the Waterfowl Park for the first time. There are a few trails both around it and through it. I had planned a route that went from my house to the park, around the trails and back. Unfortunately, it looks a lot easier on the map that it did in the park. I got a bit confused and ended up exiting to early, so I think I only ran about 3.5 miles.

I did not see any waterfowl in Waterfowl Park, but I did see a lot of poop that appeared to have come from some sort of large birds. Parts of the park were pretty bushy, and I was a bit nervous about running by myself in the bush. Then I remembered that Sackville is such a safe place. It's not like I was in Surrey or something! My worries were alleviated for a brief moment until a heard a loud noise that sounded like a bear. On hindsight, it was probably a car since I was running near the road and was listening to my music quite loudly, but in the moment I went on high alert looking for anything that might come out to eat me. I need to do some googling to see what kinds of wildlife I need to be afraid of around here.

After the run, I thought my stomach felt a bit better, but that only lasted about 5 minutes until I drank some water and the pain came back with a vengance.

Distance: approx 3.5 miles on pavement, dirt trails and wooden bridges.
Lessons learned: Running alone in the bush is scary
Song that rocked my run: Seven Nation Army - White Stripes

Terry Fox Run

For me, a key component in my motivational strategy involves training for something. I have been looking for runs in and around the Sackville area, and there are quite a few. In fact I was having a hard time making a decision. That was until this morning when I saw the site for the Confederation Bridge Terry Fox Run. Terry Fox is a Canadian hero who attempted to run across Canada after losing a leg to cancer. He called his journey the Marathon of Hope. He also just happens to be from Vancouver and just happens to have attended my alma mater, Simon Fraser University.

Every year in mid-September, there are Terry Fox runs held all across Canada to raise money for cancer research. I spent my childhood participating in these runs at school, but have lapsed in participation since high school. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Terry Fox run, and I am going to renew my participation by running 12.9 km across the Confederation Bridge from New Brunswick to P.E.I. to raise money for cancer research. Both of my paternal grandparents were taken by cancer, so this is a cause that is near and dear to me.

You can sponsor me here http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=910099