citizen of the planet

A running friend of mine pointed this out, and I never really reflected on it until now.  She said that ever since I started coaching various running clinics, it’s as if I never really stopped.  See, whenever I’m out there running with people from RR, I’m still out there doling out advice and keeping an eye on the people around me.  It’s not uncommon for me to remind people to watch their breathing, or to slow down or speed up as necessary.  It seems like I’m not really able to turn that coaching switch off.  Really, I should.  This marathon clinic is the first time in a long time that I’m not coaching or group-leading.  I should be a little more selfish, right?  Well, I suppose besides my own success I can’t help but feel like I want to help other people achieve their own success as well.  Definitely not a bad thing.  I need to just be mindful though not to get too occupied with other people such that I lose sight of my own goals.  I have to do it right.

I guess it’s only natural that when I’m busy doing my coaching thing I go into something of an inspirational mode.  When the people in my group struggle, I’m there to ease them through and help them find the motivation to keep going.  I really do care about them, and I hope that they can see that. So, that’s the face that I show them.  It’s all well intentioned, right?  Thing is, I seem to have a bit of trouble applying the same principles on myself.  I mean, look at my latest race results for example.  My goal was to break a certain time barrier, and I did.  Despite that, I’ve been beating myself up for not surpassing that barrier by as much as I secretly intended to.  It was a hard race.  Perhaps under better conditions I would have churned out a better time, but that just sounds like an excuse.  Still, is cutting my personal best by five and a half minutes really so insufficient?

I’ve been struggling with trying to deal with this in a positive manner.  How messed up is that?  I’ve talked to a couple of people about it, and just about each one of them told me to basically get over myself.  I guess I have to agree that it’s pretty senseless trying to find the negative a positive result.  During the group dinner last night, one person in particular made it clear that I need to work on practising what I preach.  See, the person in question has been on the receiving end of a lot of my motivational pep talks.  She’s not particularly speedy, but she has definitely been improving, and has come a long way in the span of a year or two.  I was talking about my race experience and how I was mildly disappointed for not obliterating my old time.  She reminded me of something that I had once said to her: “it’s important to celebrate the small victories.”  When I heard that, I immediately realized what a dope I’ve been.  Every race cannot be one where I achieve huge gains.  I really should be more thankful that I achieved the time that I got.  I put in a lot of hard work for that result; it could have been a lot worse.  I need to work harder to recognize these small victories as I come across them; I damn well earn each and every one.

Going into today’s race, I honestly felt like I had something to prove.  I mean, not only was I the coach for the clinic, but it’s also the first race I’ve had to do since losing a large amount of weight.  Instead of the pressure really working to make me up my game positively, I think it really affected me in a less than positive way.  Instead of being relaxed, I was absolutely terrified of what I considered “failure.”  Of course, “failure” wouldn’t have been a true failure in the least, but in my mind I had one true goal: obliterate my old personal best.

The race report and a photo of the medal follow after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Interesting how I spoke about bad footing last night.  During this morning’s run the temperature was hovering at around freezing.  Due to the wavering temperatures there was an inordinate amount of ice and slush on the ground.  The route has this long downhill aspect to it.  I accompanied someone at the back of the group.  As we were going down the hill we were careful to avoid the pools of cold water that were collecting at street corners.  At one point, I ran around one of the puddles while the other person jumped it.  Due to the slippery conditions though she ended up jamming her right foot.  Brutal!

I immediately had flashbacks to last year when I slipped on an ice patch myself.  We stopped, then walked it out for a bit.  She tried to start going again, but the discomfort was just too much.  I tried to be positive about it: at least we have a week to go before race day.  She has an opportunity to ice things down and get her feet back into good condition.  So, all isn’t lost, right?  Still, I recognized the sudden sense of panic that came over her.  I did my best to get her to relax and refocus.  Yes, we walked back for the majority of the route, but I think I did a good job getting her to not feel sorry for herself.  Injuries are a fact of this sport, yes?  We can do all of the preventative things possible, but every now and then something will sneak in there and throw you off course.  All you can do is just deal with it as best you can, then move on.

We still have a week left.  I do not want to be injured.

I actually wanted to write about this yesterday, but I decided to hold off on it because I wanted to put some space between what happened and the act of putting words on the page.

So.

Last night, after seventeen long weeks we finally reached the final week of our half marathon clinic.  Sure, race day is actually two weeks away but for whatever reason the store’s home office decided to start this training cycle early.  I’ve adjusted the schedule so that we have extra runs and that we have the taper week timed properly with the race.  In terms of the clinic nights and the scheduled talks I kept those the same.  For this last week I decided to focus on the accomplishments of each group member.  I went to each one and I asked what sort of progress and improvements they felt they had made since the start of the training cycle in October.  As I listened to each story, I got the sense that each person was entirely proud of their personal journeys.  I was able to comment on each one and provided encouragement where it was appropriate.  All in all, for me it was a feel good session.

After the talk we went out for our run.  I scheduled this to be a six kilometre tempo run.  That meant that I wanted people to push harder than their average runs, but not quite as fast as race pace.  The route I chose is a gentle uphill climb for about two kilometres.  From there it’s mostly downhill.  For the first kilometre or so of the run, I was taking it a little bit easy because I didn’t want to burn out right in the first kilometre.  The front of the pack was already well ahead because they were able to evade the stop lights along the way.  After the first kilometre I started to pick up the pace a little bit.  One other runner that tends to run at my pace stayed with me as we pulled away from the rest of the others.  From there, I started pushing myself little by little.  I knew that once I reached the top I’d be able to let go and let gravity do a lot of the work.  As such, I wanted to put a good amount of effort to get to the top.  Soon I was running in the lower 6:00/km range.

As I went, I kept assessing myself.  Could I keep up the pace?  How was my breathing?  Can I work through the lactic acid in the legs?  Even though I was getting fatigued, I knew that I could push through for at least the next little while.  There were a few moments though where I just declared out loud that I had intentions of slowing down a little bit because the pace was just a bit too insane for me.  The person I was running with agreed.  Every time she started to slow down though I seemed to just push even harder.  Funny how that works.  We kind of laughed at it.  I mean, mentally I’m sure I wanted to take it down a notch.  After all, I didn’t want to risk injuring myself, but my body was telling me that I could keep it up, so I did.  As we ran down the hill, I was really getting some speed.  My stride was shortened and my turnover rate picked up.  I know that my Garmin was reading 5:45/km for some of it.  For someone like me, that’s just a bit crazy.  I didn’t want to burn out, so I kept pushing it.

One and a half kilometres later we were at the bottom of the hill and had to contend with a small incline before the stretch back to store.  At that point I was really really feeling muscle fatigue.  My breathing was also getting laboured.  Even through speed training, we have brief periods of recovery between our 1.6 km bursts.  Not this time though.  I really wanted to take it down, but I figured that I’d probably regret it, so I pushed through.  I knew that panic has a tendency to really sneak in when it’s unwanted, so as I pushed I made an effort to slow my breathing down and centre myself.  My running buddy was also pushing hard.  She exclaimed to me: “You can’t pin this one on me this time!”  She was right.  This one was my doing.  In an effort to get up that hill I was really pumping my arms to the point where is was almost becoming inefficient.  I felt like I needed the momentum just to drive me forward.

When we rounded the corner we just pushed hard for the last part back to the store.  I knew that there was no point in slowing down even if I knew it was the sensible thing.  I was afraid to look at my watches, for fear that it would encourage me to either speed up or slow down.  When I got back, I stopped my watches and saw that we had completed the run at an average of around 6:15/km.  We came in under 38 minutes.  Now, I’m sure that’s achievable for a lot of people, but for me that’s completely insane.  Never in a million years would I have imagined making a 6K run in under 40 minutes, let alone 38.

Even though it was only a training run, as we stretched at the side of the store I felt a flood of pride just wash over me.  It’s not like this was even a goal of mine, and yet, the fact that I’d achieved something like that made me so very proud.  As I stretched, close by was someone from the Learn to Run clinic that I had taught last year.  She’s been progressing slowly through the clinics and has done well in the 5K class.  I was keen to tell her that given a bit of time she can achieve some unbelievable goals.  I know she knew that, but I wanted to use the run that I had just finished as a perfect on-the-fly lesson.  I really do hope I was able to inspire her.  I mean, I’ve been there.  I know what it’s like to work my way up.  Speed never did come naturally for me.  I’ve tried my best to stay dedicated and consistent.  That combination’s paid off in so many ways in the past few years, but last night really struck me hard.  Amazing stuff.

Back when I was selecting the curriculum for this running clinic I decided to schedule the motivational talk at this point.  See, the clinic’s been going for weeks at this point and even though race day is near it kind of feels like this thing has been dragging on a long time.  So, I scheduled the talk now to prevent people from mentally checking out.  Makes sense, right?  So, I didn’t really book anyone to be a guest speaker for the talk.  Instead I opted to just give the talk myself.  It’s not the first time I gave this motivational talk.  Actually, my first time giving the talk was in September last year.  Of course, it’s been a while since then, so I’ve kind of forgotten a lot of what I said back then.  As such, all day I was sort of fretting over what I was planning to say.

See, just like Amanda Marshall says: everybody’s got a story.  The story of my running experience is rife with various triumphs, failures, and lessons.  If you’ve been following all on this blog you’ll know how true that is. It’s amazing how I got to this very point of coaching a clinic myself from my early days running at the back of the pack.  All this time, despite any shortcomings I’ve just been plugging along, putting in the mileage because there’s nothing else I really can do, you know?  I realized early on that I wouldn’t improve by remaining still.  As such, I’ve tried to remain as consistent as possible, and it’s easy to see that that’s true.  I guess, my goal of the talk was to pass along some inspiration to ensure that everyone keeps going.  Even if there are troubles along the way, it’s important to know that none of the completed training goes to waste.  Every minute out there is valuable.

I think I did a great job passing that info along.  It’s not just in the stories, but also in the delivery. I did feel relieved once it was completed.  If even one of them takes home some extra drive to work harder, then it was all worth the stress.

Whenever I go out for a run with my group, I’m always reminded of just how tough and determined they are.  For this Sunday morning, based on the schedule we were scheduled to do 18 kilometres.  I was looking at the map trying to figure out where to take them to add another two kilometres to the 16K route that we’ve done in the past.  That route was already rather hilly.  Since everyone seemed to be feeling strong on that route I decided to keep all of the ups and downs.  For the extra two, I decided to take them through two roads that have reputations for both being hilly and seemingly endless.  Perhaps the decision to take these roads is part of a sadistic side that I normally keep tucked away.  Whatever the case, I wanted to see how everyone would fare both physically and mentally.

A lot of the route came from snippets that we’ve all seen before.  It was just a little different seeing it all tied together.  Early on I knew that the run would be challenging.  The winds were a little bit strong and seemed to pummel us at various parts of the route.  Like I mentioned, there were a good number of up and downhill parts.  It was definitely challenging.  I could tell that everyone was feeling it late into the route, but we just kept on going.  All I wanted was for everyone to do their best.  It’s all I could ask for, right?

When we got back to the store, I started polling my group for their opinions.  I told each one of them that it was tough, and that I was definitely feeling a bit rough.  Just about everyone told me that it was a tough route, though no one was really sure if it was because of the hilliness, or if it’s more due to the resistance created by the wind.  Still, everyone really seemed proud of the fact that they completed the route.  There wasn’t a person there that seemed resentful.  My big comment to them was that if they could do such a hilly route so strongly then our goal race, which is a very flat course, will be absolutely no problem, which is true!  I know that my group is going to rock that race in March.

Throughout this clinic that I’ve been coaching, I’ve been inviting guest speakers to come in to speak to the group on specific topics.  Yesterday, with the topic of speed training on the schedule I decided to perform the talk myself.  From my experience, a lot of people just simply go way too fast for their abilities.  As a result, people burn out too fast and get to the point of exhaustion far too soon.  Then, all that’s left is a horribly bad impression of speed training.  Back then I felt the exact same way.  Oh, if I only had a dollar for every time someone said “I hate speed training!”  Well, about a year ago I had my eureka moment with this type of training.  With a bit of technique, everything finally clicked.  All of a sudden, I actually grew to love speed training.  Crazy, that.  So, I knew that if I could explain the training properly to my group, I would be able to gain at least one convert among the group.

The talk itself went well.  I kind of think though that I was rambling. Either that or I was speaking at a little bit of a fast clip.  I had everyone’s attention though.  Frankly, I think that not everyone was used to the message that speed training isn’t about going all out until you feel like puking.  When we were out there I could tell that no one was going egregiously fast for their abilities.  I had stressed to them that they should be going a little bit faster than their anticipated race pace.  Everyone paid attention and went according to their abilities.  For myself, I was going at a good speed–faster than I’d gone last year at this time, for sure.  Yes, it was tough, but that’s expected for this type of workout.  By the end, I was just happy to have completed it all.  I waited around for the group to finish before we headed back to store.

Back at the store, we were all stretching out at the side.  I polled the people in my clinic to see how the felt about it.  Everyone told me that it wasn’t bad at all.  Upon hearing that I was pleased with myself.  I knew that I’d transformed people’s opinions.  What really blew me away was when a couple of them told me that they actually enjoyed that more than hill training.  That kind of thing doesn’t happen!  Except it did!  I rock!  For me, this was entirely an unexpected triumph.  It’s definitely something that I will hold with me from this coaching experience.