citizen of the planet

Today ended all of our training runs for this cycle.  It’s our taper week, which means that we’re all supposed to be taking it easy.  Our mileage should be cut back and we shouldn’t be doing anything to strain ourselves.  All this allows our legs to be fully rested.  Really, by the time race day comes around, we should be raring to go.  According to schedule though, we’re supposed to be doing our two weekday runs at race pace.  To me that just doesn’t make sense at all.  By going at race pace, aren’t you just thoroughly wearing your legs out right before the race?  I decided to turn that on its head for my group.  I encouraged everyone to do tonight and last night’s run at a really relaxed pace.  Frankly, even then I could feel that my legs were a little bit heavy.  At the very least, there are still a few days until the race.  I;m sure it’s enough time to allow my legs to recover.

Just a few days more.

I’m actually pretty nervous about this race.  It’s not really the act of racing itself that’s causing me stress, but more the set of expectations that I’m placing on myself.  Now that I’m lighter, and that I’ve successfully pushed myself harder, I just don’t want to come out of the race with a lack of improvement.  I realize it’s not good to put such pressure on myself like that, but I need to do this.  I’ve worked too hard and made too many sacrifices to just be complacent about it all.  Nope.  Complacency is just lame.

The weather outside is rather mild.  On my way to the subway station earlier today, as soon as i stepped out of my building I was greeted with a couple of drops of water on my head.  At first I assumed I was just getting hit by water dripping from the power lines up above, but I quickly realized that it was actually light rain; it was far too warm for the moisture to actually be snow.  The day before, the sidewalks were caked in snow.  Back then, as I walked my ankles were being bent this way and that.  It’s a wonder I didn’t break anything because the thick unshovelled snow was making my ankles bend in ways that they were not meant to bend.  Well, today, with the milder weather, the snow on the sidewalk turned into pools of cold slush and collected water.

My biggest problem with all of the weird weather at the moment is the general fear of stepping on something that will cause me to lose my footing.  How, or why is this even a fear?  Well, I’m getting really close now to the Chilly Half Marathon in Burlington, and after last year’s disappointment I really don’t want a repeat of what happened.  If you recall, after months of dedicated training, I had slipped on an ice patch just outside of a subway station.  I wasn’t even running at the time.  I was just walking along minding my own business, then *BAM*.  I thought I’d be able to continue but the act of limping to the hotel to pick up my race kit on the day before the race was enough to make me reconsider.  And so, that’s why I have this fear this year.

As a result of me teaching the clinic, I’ve really trained cleanly this during this cycle, making the majority of the required runs.  I’ve put much effort into getting things just right, and I’ve made so many improvements.  We’ve been so fortunate weather-wise this year.  Instead of getting beaned continuously by volley after volley of heavy snow like last year, or like the United States this year, we’ve gotten off fairly lightly.  That’s part of the reason why I’ve been able to train like I have.  And now it’s getting so close to the time where I have the ability to test out how well I’ve trained.  Perhaps I’m putting way too much pressure on myself.  Sure, it’s rather normal to want to do well, however, more than ever I just don’t want to fail due to something out of my control.  I don’t want to be disappointed again.  Yes, maybe I could just hide out at my place and not venture outside for the next week, but that would just be silly, would it not?  All I can do is trust that I’ll be able to make it to next Sunday without any issues.  No injuries, right?!

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.

This morning we had a 20K run scheduled.  Being close to the end of this current training cycle, our distances are pretty much close to the race distance.  I was aware that it would take a large amount of time to get through, but I didn’t mind; part of me treats these long runs as something of a badge of honour.  I’ve worked hard to get to this point, so I’m privileged to have the ability to run this distance, know what I mean?

Well, as we set out, I immediately knew that I was feeling a tiny bit off.  Perhaps I was a little bit uneasy at having to cover the distance.  It’s been months since I’ve had to do it.  The people that I’d normally run with pulled up a little bit ahead of me.  I was originally planning on pushing a little bit hard to keep up, but I changed my mind.  I fell back to the group behind me and declared that I planned on taking it easy.  And that’s how it went for the first few kilometres.

A bit past 8K, I started talking with one of the store’s running veterans.  Absent-mindedly, we started pulling ahead of the rest of the group.  Minutes later we were a good distance ahead.  I was assessing how I felt, and I actually felt somewhat comfortable.  Though, I knew that I was pushing myself just to keep up.  I figured I’d just keep it up for the next little while to see what I could do.  That continued on for another eight kilometres.  There were a couple of moments where we really were going absurdly fast for a training Sunday.  I keep on telling the people in my class that our Sunday runs should be at a relaxed pace.  This morning’s run had me ignoring my own advice.  I know, that’s really bad of me, isn’t it?

At around the 16K mark the person I was running with had to turn around and head back early.  So, I was left on my own to complete the distance.  Without her to keep me going, I actually decided to take the pressure off myself and slow down to a more manageable pace.  That’s how I completed my 20K.  Overall I felt great about the whole thing.  Having pushed myself a little harder than I normally would, I know that if there’s a need to burst forward for a little bit on race day, I can manage.

Yes, the race is still weeks away, but I am having a good feeling about it even now.  Ready to rock it.