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.