The past few months have passed quickly and slowly at the same time. Some days flew by without my remembering what exactly I did from dawn until dusk. Other days seemed to toil away from second to second, measured almost in breaths. I've been away from the blogging since Grandma passed away, but the running has been somewhat consistent. Here's what's been happening:
I took an 8-mile run with my Dad and Mom in February (an unprecedented and rare event), and while many of our past memories of "quality time" involved some sort of external event, this run was an internal event. It seemed particularly special because I could actually see and hear our relationships more intensely.
Running has a way of heightening the senses - moving the physical body repetitively for a prolonged amount of time will either dull the brain, or make you acutely aware of every little thing going on around and inside you. I became acutely aware of how determined my mom was to end the run as soon as possible, and how supportive my dad was in terms of coaching my run. I learned where I get my mental grit (Mom, insisting we press ahead quickly) and where I get my patience and endurance (Dad, pacing the strides and humming Michael Jackson's "Beat It" to get us through the last two miles).
Dad told me some great memories about his childhood as we ran through old Cincinnati. Secret to that golf swing? Holding his head still..compliments of my grandfather, who never ceased to harass Dad during a lesson by physically holding Dad's head between his hands while my father swung away. Apparently this drove him nuts, but it paid off in recent kudos from a pro.
During the 6th or 7th mile, my dad mentioned that there were two things to do when the miles seemed endless: think of a song, and/or pray. This tip came in handy this past weekend, when I finished the half-marathon in Queens.
Before I get to that though, a few highlights from the March sequence of weekend runs:
Running in three different states - New York, California, and Ohio. Outdoors. Despite the chill, this was preferable to a treadmill! There was never a dull weekend - I was somewhere new each time!
Traipsing through the hills of the Upper Rouge Valley trail at Rancho on a Monday afternoon, and having the whole area completely to myself (not a soul in sight!), save for two deers, rabbits, and a family of quails. For those of you familiar with the views at the top of those hills, you can imagine how wonderful it was to not even hear another human.
Tapering last weekend with a 5-mile run alongside the Hudson River, feeling proud that it seemed like such a manageable, short distance.
Then, this past weekend, the final arrival of the half marathon. I forgot how much mental work it takes to push the aching body to any speed faster than a jog at the end of the race, and was sorely reminded of the physical aftershocks while trying to descend stairs later that day. The event took place in Queens, a borough of New York City, in a place called Flushing - more precisely, the park where the World's Fair was held. You remember those two towers with the UFO-like cement rotundas perched atop, from the movie Men In Black? Yep, that's where we were - running laps around them, and the Queens Zoo.
I awoke in the morning, not very excited about this race. I just wanted it over and done with. Part of me felt burdened, but I couldn't place my finger on what was particularly bothersome. A long subway ride out to Queens, and then a search for the bag drop area and a bit of trekking around to find the start line left me feeling tired already. I was pretty resigned during the beginning, explaining to Shannon how the crowd would surge at the start, then thin out, how we had to keep our own pace...as it happened, the crowd pulsed and we upped our mile time to 10:00 for the first 3 miles. (Granted, we had been training at a 12:00 mile for three months). That's adrenaline for you.
I had reminded Shannon repeatedly that if we were to get separated, it would be for the best, as we had to run our own races: I was so proud when she took off after 4 miles and finished in under 2:30! I took my time, bonking out at mile 6 or 7, having to recharge with some GU, then employ that great trick, prayer. For two solid miles, I was the most grateful person on that track. I was surprised at how many things I could list, how richly my life was fulfilled. It became a mantra: "Thank you for..." Every breath became thanks, and I wasn't concentrating anymore on how tired my feet were, how sore my left hip was, or how icy the headwind was.
Then came the surge to the finish. I had asked myself throughout the race, "What do I have to prove anymore?" The truth was, I knew I could run this far. In fact, I knew I could run twice that far. But I had done this to prove that I could still do it. So at that last .1 of the race, I somehow sped up and passed two people on my way through the flags.
Shannon was there to see me and we burst into tears, disbelief and relief that it as finally over. I didn't really take stock of it until that moment: how long we had trained, how far we had gone, and how fast we ended up running on the day of the event. I had averaged a sub 12:00 mile, and still had life left in my body to hobble back onto the train to go home. We got limited swag: a green tee and a spinning medal. (We skipped the beer garden party since neither of us wanted to walk any further than the subway stop.) However, the long haul through the winter was the real prize - I am officially ready to conquer the Antarctic wilderness in my Mizunos.
Anyone training for a long-distance race should train in the warmer months. Only crazies freeze their butts off for three months in order to run the first race of the spring season.
All in all, I learned that I'm still capable of running far distances, and I've found that I can run both inside and outside for long periods of time (and under extreme weather conditions). But now that I've proved it to myself, I don't feel the need to prove it again for some time. Shannon is eager to do another race, so I've agreed to find a 5K, and this time we can concentrate on speed. Somehow, knowing the thing is going to be over in less than 30 minutes makes me feel a lot more optimistic about training.
Til next time, Marathon Fans!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
The Sickness
It strikes exactly when it's not convenient. I'm not sure where it came from or what caused it to magnify, but The Sickness hit me on Thursday night and has rendered me medicated and congested since then. The worst part of all is that I have been coddling myself and have missed three runs so far. Yes, the anxiety is killing me. Yes, the thought of "what if this screws up my whole training schedule?!" has been running through my brain nonstop. Yes, I have considered alternative forms of cardio - but my body has resisted wholeheartedly.
Consulting my Runner's World Women's Running Handbook, I am advised, under the chapter entitled "Overtraining" that I need rest. Plain and simple. The fatigue, low grade cold symptoms and lack of motivation are clearly present. The trouble sleeping and slowing times were two tricker aspects that sneaked under my radar. I assumed I just needed more sleep. But knowing how much training I did last week, it makes sense I might have overdone it.
The hardest part about getting rest is that it's not plain and simple. The constant nagging of "you should be running, you should be running" makes it difficult to get sleep. And the deeper-seated fear of "your training will be incomplete, you'll never finish your race" is, I'm sure, contributing more to elevated stress levels than anything.
I felt guilty this weekend about calling in sick, about allowing myself to get rest. It's not uncommon - the work mode around here is "go, go, go" so when I need to say "slow, slow, slow", it's easy to feel like someone is watching me and saying - "oh, taking the easy route are we?" Bigger problem is that it's myself saying it.
Hopefully this Sickness will let up this week, at least enough to get me back on a machine of some sort. The weather forecast predicts a warming up over the next few days, so I'm crossing my fingers that come Saturday I'll be running around outside in a short sleeves. That thought alone is enough to lift my immune-system spirits!
Consulting my Runner's World Women's Running Handbook, I am advised, under the chapter entitled "Overtraining" that I need rest. Plain and simple. The fatigue, low grade cold symptoms and lack of motivation are clearly present. The trouble sleeping and slowing times were two tricker aspects that sneaked under my radar. I assumed I just needed more sleep. But knowing how much training I did last week, it makes sense I might have overdone it.
The hardest part about getting rest is that it's not plain and simple. The constant nagging of "you should be running, you should be running" makes it difficult to get sleep. And the deeper-seated fear of "your training will be incomplete, you'll never finish your race" is, I'm sure, contributing more to elevated stress levels than anything.
I felt guilty this weekend about calling in sick, about allowing myself to get rest. It's not uncommon - the work mode around here is "go, go, go" so when I need to say "slow, slow, slow", it's easy to feel like someone is watching me and saying - "oh, taking the easy route are we?" Bigger problem is that it's myself saying it.
Hopefully this Sickness will let up this week, at least enough to get me back on a machine of some sort. The weather forecast predicts a warming up over the next few days, so I'm crossing my fingers that come Saturday I'll be running around outside in a short sleeves. That thought alone is enough to lift my immune-system spirits!
Friday, February 4, 2011
Salt and Bricks
This week was a tough training week. And I haven't even reached Saturday.
Following an outdoor trip last weekend that involved snow tubing off 4-ft high jumps, snowshoeing across frozen lakes, and shoveling snow out of a bonfire pit the size of a small New York apartment, I woke up Monday to a very sore body and an insane amount of fatigue. No matter we had fed like hippos for two days - tromping about outdoors in the middle of winter will tire. you. out.
Luckily, Monday was a rest day. Unluckily, the rest of the week were full-blown work/train/work days.
Tuesday saw the appearance of some nasty weather that made getting to and from school a marathon event all its own. Tuesday evening, while reaching for my socks before heading to the gym, I realized I had left my shoes downtown at Shannon's after our Friday run, and thus had no athletic footwear to last me for 2.5 miles on the treadmill. Substitute? Shakin' it to some pop hits on grooveshark.com for about 30 minutes in my bare feet. The sweat output was comparable, thanks to you, Bruno Mars.
Wednesday was an early start, a trip to the local 50-metre indoor swimming facility a few blocks away. However, I had left my swim gear at home over the break, rendering me 0-2 in the workout gear preparedness test for this week. I dug out a fashionable brown tanning suit and a swim cap proclaiming "Tis the Season to Swim!" and borrowed some goggles from the lifeguard. Lucky I had a whole lane to myself and could dodge the inquisitive stares of neighboring swimmers; not only was I decked out-of-fashion for a fast-lane aficionado, I was the only gal there.
Later that night, having retrieved my shoes, I hopped on the treadmill for a quick 20 minute speed session. After maxing out at 17 minutes, I recovered my lungs and took a quick nap before starting my late-night pubtending shift.
5 hours later, Thursday morning arrived and I was reaching for my snooze button in vain. An afternoon hip-hop dance class toned up my hamstrings and a 3-mile run shortly afterwards forced me into an ice bath that evening. As I sat in the freezing cold water with my cup of cinnamon tea and woolly sweater, I calculated how much sodium I had ingested over the past 5 days, and briefly toyed with the idea of opting for a salt lick to hang by my sink. The event-heavy schedule of the week had rendered me powerless against smoked meats, cheeses, and the white shaker on the table. The cravings I'm sure were a result of being hit by a ton of bricks...and all the physical endurance I was burning thorough from dawn til midnight.
Thursday night was another pub shift, and while I had every intention of closing early, luckily a gaggle of Serbo-Croatians with a hankering for gin tonics and house techno music bombarded the joint until I had to politely urge them to put their shoes back on and exit the bar at 2am.
4 hours later, I groaned in my dream at the sound of an alarm and literally rolled off the bed in order to get dressed. I turned to coffee as a last resort to get me through the next 3 hours of physical and vocal work I had to accomplish at school.
I managed to take a nap on my coat on the floor of the hallway, and awoke sighing heavily at the prospect of what lay ahead this evening: a Chinese Cultural hour after-party that will inevitably last until 4am. Chopsticks and censorship and tequila shots...oh my! But, I'm sure I will want nothing more than to run 6 miles tomorrow morning in the icy weather.
I intend to load up on smoked salmon and Fritos to get me through the next 7 hours of work, and when I crawl (literally) into bed tomorrow morning, I will build myself a little brick canopy of darkness for sleeping and if you don't hear from me by next Wednesday, send some chocolate-covered pretzels.
Following an outdoor trip last weekend that involved snow tubing off 4-ft high jumps, snowshoeing across frozen lakes, and shoveling snow out of a bonfire pit the size of a small New York apartment, I woke up Monday to a very sore body and an insane amount of fatigue. No matter we had fed like hippos for two days - tromping about outdoors in the middle of winter will tire. you. out.
Luckily, Monday was a rest day. Unluckily, the rest of the week were full-blown work/train/work days.
Tuesday saw the appearance of some nasty weather that made getting to and from school a marathon event all its own. Tuesday evening, while reaching for my socks before heading to the gym, I realized I had left my shoes downtown at Shannon's after our Friday run, and thus had no athletic footwear to last me for 2.5 miles on the treadmill. Substitute? Shakin' it to some pop hits on grooveshark.com for about 30 minutes in my bare feet. The sweat output was comparable, thanks to you, Bruno Mars.
Wednesday was an early start, a trip to the local 50-metre indoor swimming facility a few blocks away. However, I had left my swim gear at home over the break, rendering me 0-2 in the workout gear preparedness test for this week. I dug out a fashionable brown tanning suit and a swim cap proclaiming "Tis the Season to Swim!" and borrowed some goggles from the lifeguard. Lucky I had a whole lane to myself and could dodge the inquisitive stares of neighboring swimmers; not only was I decked out-of-fashion for a fast-lane aficionado, I was the only gal there.
Later that night, having retrieved my shoes, I hopped on the treadmill for a quick 20 minute speed session. After maxing out at 17 minutes, I recovered my lungs and took a quick nap before starting my late-night pubtending shift.
5 hours later, Thursday morning arrived and I was reaching for my snooze button in vain. An afternoon hip-hop dance class toned up my hamstrings and a 3-mile run shortly afterwards forced me into an ice bath that evening. As I sat in the freezing cold water with my cup of cinnamon tea and woolly sweater, I calculated how much sodium I had ingested over the past 5 days, and briefly toyed with the idea of opting for a salt lick to hang by my sink. The event-heavy schedule of the week had rendered me powerless against smoked meats, cheeses, and the white shaker on the table. The cravings I'm sure were a result of being hit by a ton of bricks...and all the physical endurance I was burning thorough from dawn til midnight.
Thursday night was another pub shift, and while I had every intention of closing early, luckily a gaggle of Serbo-Croatians with a hankering for gin tonics and house techno music bombarded the joint until I had to politely urge them to put their shoes back on and exit the bar at 2am.
4 hours later, I groaned in my dream at the sound of an alarm and literally rolled off the bed in order to get dressed. I turned to coffee as a last resort to get me through the next 3 hours of physical and vocal work I had to accomplish at school.
I managed to take a nap on my coat on the floor of the hallway, and awoke sighing heavily at the prospect of what lay ahead this evening: a Chinese Cultural hour after-party that will inevitably last until 4am. Chopsticks and censorship and tequila shots...oh my! But, I'm sure I will want nothing more than to run 6 miles tomorrow morning in the icy weather.
I intend to load up on smoked salmon and Fritos to get me through the next 7 hours of work, and when I crawl (literally) into bed tomorrow morning, I will build myself a little brick canopy of darkness for sleeping and if you don't hear from me by next Wednesday, send some chocolate-covered pretzels.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The First 5
Friday was an outdoor run by the Hudson River - a five-miler, the first real long run outside and a chance to test the treadmill's accuracy. Result? Treadmills lie to you every step of the way.
(I believe that it has something to do with the innate mechanisms governing the machine itself, but that's another blog post.)
Friday turned out to be a great running day - weather-wise, we had just survived a large snowfall and the streets had enough time to become salted and cleared (thank you Bloomberg) - but only just enough. The streetlight intersections had three-foot tall piles of grey-spotted snow piled up between the crosswalk joints, so that you had to either leap over the curb to cross the street, or carefully tip-toe your way through some seriously icy sludge and over to the other side before a little orange hand signaled the return of raging traffic (traffic which presented another adventure called "Drive-By Snow Splattering").
Shannon and I started out running from the lower West Side with the turn-around point destination being 46th Street, where the Intrepid resides. Though it was cold, we warmed up pretty quickly and managed to chat the whole way. This supposed "easy" run day felt comfortable - I felt like we were running perhaps a 16:00-min mile pace, considering how it felt to be on the treadmill the past two weeks at a 12:00-min mile pace. The scenery was interesting - winter running definitely provides some experiences one cannot imagine encountering in any other climate. The sight of the frozen river was one pleasant surprise; the sight of a half-naked fellow runner was another shocking surprise. Let it be said: distance runners who train in the winter are either crazy, bad-ass, or have a serious addiction.
While the outdoor run was refreshing, it did compare to the treadmill on one particular point - the mental grit moments. Reaching the halfway mark, I was glad to have Shannon with me as we traded stories about what to do when you hit a block of mental sludge on the automatic indoor road. We experimented with a few techniques right then and there, like acuity skills (high knees, grapevines, running backwards), re-focusing form (propelling from the arms or from specific leg parts), and motivational visualization (crackheads are chasing you, or perhaps there's an eligible-looking bachelor ahead of you). Before we knew it, we had arrived back at our starting point, and in a mere hour and 3 minutes.
Now, you can imagine our surprise when we sat down to log the results and discovered that we had been averaging a 12:45-min mile. The surprise came not only from the fact the run had literally felt slow, but the realization that the treadmill had been training us at a deceiving pace, albeit effective.
Earlier, Shannon had asked me what the value of doing an outside run was, and while I couldn't clearly articulate why we should be braving the weather, I didn't need to explain it by the time we finished.
It was clear to both of us that we have to keep an eye out for lying machines from here on out.
(I believe that it has something to do with the innate mechanisms governing the machine itself, but that's another blog post.)
Friday turned out to be a great running day - weather-wise, we had just survived a large snowfall and the streets had enough time to become salted and cleared (thank you Bloomberg) - but only just enough. The streetlight intersections had three-foot tall piles of grey-spotted snow piled up between the crosswalk joints, so that you had to either leap over the curb to cross the street, or carefully tip-toe your way through some seriously icy sludge and over to the other side before a little orange hand signaled the return of raging traffic (traffic which presented another adventure called "Drive-By Snow Splattering").
Shannon and I started out running from the lower West Side with the turn-around point destination being 46th Street, where the Intrepid resides. Though it was cold, we warmed up pretty quickly and managed to chat the whole way. This supposed "easy" run day felt comfortable - I felt like we were running perhaps a 16:00-min mile pace, considering how it felt to be on the treadmill the past two weeks at a 12:00-min mile pace. The scenery was interesting - winter running definitely provides some experiences one cannot imagine encountering in any other climate. The sight of the frozen river was one pleasant surprise; the sight of a half-naked fellow runner was another shocking surprise. Let it be said: distance runners who train in the winter are either crazy, bad-ass, or have a serious addiction.
While the outdoor run was refreshing, it did compare to the treadmill on one particular point - the mental grit moments. Reaching the halfway mark, I was glad to have Shannon with me as we traded stories about what to do when you hit a block of mental sludge on the automatic indoor road. We experimented with a few techniques right then and there, like acuity skills (high knees, grapevines, running backwards), re-focusing form (propelling from the arms or from specific leg parts), and motivational visualization (crackheads are chasing you, or perhaps there's an eligible-looking bachelor ahead of you). Before we knew it, we had arrived back at our starting point, and in a mere hour and 3 minutes.
Now, you can imagine our surprise when we sat down to log the results and discovered that we had been averaging a 12:45-min mile. The surprise came not only from the fact the run had literally felt slow, but the realization that the treadmill had been training us at a deceiving pace, albeit effective.
Earlier, Shannon had asked me what the value of doing an outside run was, and while I couldn't clearly articulate why we should be braving the weather, I didn't need to explain it by the time we finished.
It was clear to both of us that we have to keep an eye out for lying machines from here on out.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Treadmill Tolerance
First week down, ten to go. I neglected to mention the race I'll be running is in April, it's in New York (Flushing Queens to be exact), and it's simply named "13.1 New York".
This week marked my return to the Big Apple, a return to East Coast winter weather, and a return to the musings one is prone to on a run longer than 30 minutes. Leaving California also marked the imminent doom of being stuck to a treadmill for the next 10 weeks. I had been ruminating over how and when I'd be able to get out of the gym and onto the pavement, and while my heart was willing, the ungodly cold froze my intentions the instant I stepped off the plane at JFK. Hence, Thursday and Saturday were spent staring at a shaded window and a blank TV. (There will be no television available on race day, so why rob myself of the opportunity to develop mental stamina now?)
Now, 26 minutes is fairly easy to sustain in one place. But after 45 minutes on the treadmill on Saturday sans music or scenery, with one mile left to go, I strained to keep my mind off any and every little discomfort available to my consciousness. I scanned to my right and left, skimmed over the dark silent TV, the lowered blinds, and a poster of the human anatomy entitled "Machine and Muscle Guide". Muscle guide, yes. Machine? I pondered this for a moment, as the poster had no technical instructions involved, but did bring up an oft-overlooked idea - we are human machines. Everything working in conjunction with an adjacent item of musculature to propel and retract. I suddenly realized why treadmilling irked me so much. Here I was: a "machine", running on top of a running machine, while staring up at a blank machine and checking the time pass on yet another machine, surrounded by fifteen other machines, going nowhere. Talk about grounds for an existential crisis.
Running outside, or any where for that matter - where I can see the propulsion of my feet as the scenery passes me by, where I can feel the thudding of my heart and taste the exhalation of my breath in the chilly climate, this experience reminds me that I am more than a machine...I'm a human phenomenon. And a natural one at that - not a machine, not something manufactured to produce a routine event over and over again in the same movement ad infinitum, but a living, breathing, celebration of movement.
The main reason I love running, I discovered, was the celebration involved in the event. Celebration of capability and of capacity, celebration of a natural phenomenon.
Running in place like a cog on a wheel hardly classifies as a celebration. Yet, there I was, running parallel to the irony beneath my feet, and I had three-quarters of a mile to go.
So I decided to celebrate.
I started with my left leg. I concentrated on celebrating its very own capability to swing back and forth, and tread...and tread some more. I repeated the celebration with my right leg. Then with my arms, and finally with my heart. The breathing, the pulsing, the movement - all of it caught my attention for just long enough. The only thing that did not want to celebrate with me was my mind, which was still trying to bring my attention to the ache in my lungs and the fact that I was obviously going crazy.
And then the machine beneath me stopped.
And I clapped my hands and let out a small whoop of joy.
And today I went outside to run, regardless of the cold. Sure, it was -8 degrees F with the wind chill. Sure, I could barely feel my legs. But it was glorious, it was celebratory, and you can be sure I had a smile frozen on my face the whole time.
This week marked my return to the Big Apple, a return to East Coast winter weather, and a return to the musings one is prone to on a run longer than 30 minutes. Leaving California also marked the imminent doom of being stuck to a treadmill for the next 10 weeks. I had been ruminating over how and when I'd be able to get out of the gym and onto the pavement, and while my heart was willing, the ungodly cold froze my intentions the instant I stepped off the plane at JFK. Hence, Thursday and Saturday were spent staring at a shaded window and a blank TV. (There will be no television available on race day, so why rob myself of the opportunity to develop mental stamina now?)
Now, 26 minutes is fairly easy to sustain in one place. But after 45 minutes on the treadmill on Saturday sans music or scenery, with one mile left to go, I strained to keep my mind off any and every little discomfort available to my consciousness. I scanned to my right and left, skimmed over the dark silent TV, the lowered blinds, and a poster of the human anatomy entitled "Machine and Muscle Guide". Muscle guide, yes. Machine? I pondered this for a moment, as the poster had no technical instructions involved, but did bring up an oft-overlooked idea - we are human machines. Everything working in conjunction with an adjacent item of musculature to propel and retract. I suddenly realized why treadmilling irked me so much. Here I was: a "machine", running on top of a running machine, while staring up at a blank machine and checking the time pass on yet another machine, surrounded by fifteen other machines, going nowhere. Talk about grounds for an existential crisis.
Running outside, or any where for that matter - where I can see the propulsion of my feet as the scenery passes me by, where I can feel the thudding of my heart and taste the exhalation of my breath in the chilly climate, this experience reminds me that I am more than a machine...I'm a human phenomenon. And a natural one at that - not a machine, not something manufactured to produce a routine event over and over again in the same movement ad infinitum, but a living, breathing, celebration of movement.
The main reason I love running, I discovered, was the celebration involved in the event. Celebration of capability and of capacity, celebration of a natural phenomenon.
Running in place like a cog on a wheel hardly classifies as a celebration. Yet, there I was, running parallel to the irony beneath my feet, and I had three-quarters of a mile to go.
So I decided to celebrate.
I started with my left leg. I concentrated on celebrating its very own capability to swing back and forth, and tread...and tread some more. I repeated the celebration with my right leg. Then with my arms, and finally with my heart. The breathing, the pulsing, the movement - all of it caught my attention for just long enough. The only thing that did not want to celebrate with me was my mind, which was still trying to bring my attention to the ache in my lungs and the fact that I was obviously going crazy.
And then the machine beneath me stopped.
And I clapped my hands and let out a small whoop of joy.
And today I went outside to run, regardless of the cold. Sure, it was -8 degrees F with the wind chill. Sure, I could barely feel my legs. But it was glorious, it was celebratory, and you can be sure I had a smile frozen on my face the whole time.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
One...and a Half
Hello Marathon Fans!
It's that time again. My running clock has woken from hibernation and is ready to take on another epic race. Given the constraints of weather (New York winter) and timing (last semester of the MFA degree), I've opted for a 13.1 race. Just enough mileage to get that mild ego boost from begin able to say I've run one marathon...and a half. Yes, it's crossed my mind that I could continue training beyond the race day for a full, but time will tell what the fates have in store for my legs this season.
I've been excited to get back to training, reading up on the knowledge I used to have about running techniques, proper injury prevention, and even some nutritional tips. I've mapped out an 11-week schedule that should be pretty easy to maintain between and after classes, although I anticipate some long sessions on a treadmill here and there.
Today was the first training session, and as the fates would have it, the dog accompanied me for all of 2 miles. The dog (who has recently built up more mileage in one year than I have in the past three years) proved to be an effective pacer: since we ran in a new part of town, he led the way, in excitement over all the new smells and potential potty spots. While I was trying to maintain a 12-min mile, his nose was keeping a 10-min mile. I noticed the familiar ache in my lungs during the last .4 miles, which reminded me that the runs get longer, but never easier; the burn will be there if I'm consistently training hard. The flip side is the mental grit that comes from working through the mild discomfort...another benefit of training that comes with the mileage. I can't wait until I can once again run more than 2 miles without feeling like I've just been "hanging on for the ride."
And although the dog will not be accompanying me again on a run (at least not for some time), I will say that nothing inspires mental toughness like having to pick up dog poop mid-stride.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)