Is this week over yet?

Distance: 6.05 km (not sure why the distance is so variable)

Time: 42:38

Had a slow run home this evening. I got out of work late, wasn’t really feeling it. I was actually on the verge of just catching the bus home instead, but I told myself to STFU, HTFU and got my ass out there. I wore some of my larger-sized running socks tonight, the good ones not just the cheapo ones from Target, and my toes don’t feel as bad as they did on Tuesday. So there is that, at least.

Note to self: Bring a jacket next time.

Distance: 6.12 km

Time: 41:02

Is it just me or are sports socks a complete pain in the ass? I have size 10 feet, so I usually buy the larger ladies size of sport socks (9-11) but usually find that the heel cap sits somewhere in the region of the back of my ankle for some reason. So then I buy some of the smaller ladies socks, and within a wash or two they don’t even come up to my ankle at all. I’m not sure what to do about it. I’m thinking maybe I should try wearing crew socks rather than the anklet style ones, because I’m prone to blisters and rubbing on the back of my ankle so I need to have some coverage there, but surely I’m not the only one having such issues with socks. I wore some of the smaller ones to work today (or maybe they’ve just shrunk) and my toes feel like I’ve been repeatedly and enthusiastically kicking a brick wall just for fun.

The run home from work was okay. I was a little tired, but I think I still made fairly good time. Was a little cold and windy, but it didn’t do me any harm. The running home seems to be helping with the work stress as well, although it’s not a cure. I tried to get back to my regular eating patterns today, and have been feeling absolutely starving as a result, but I’m sure I’ll find a balance soon.

Hooray for public holidays!

Distance: 3.80 km

Time: 22:37

I decided a quick jog this morning would be best, as I still plan to run home from work two days this week.

I’m trying to overcome my hill dread, a fear that usually comes upon me on a familiar path when I know a hill is about to come up. I’m more capable of dealing with these hills than I used to be when I started running, but something inside me still shudders at the memory of trudging along the hard parts, panting and sweating and hurting. Apart from somehow giving myself amnesia so I don’t remember the hills the way they used to be, I don’t know how else to deal with them apart from going up them again and again, and hoping the repetition will become positive reinforcement. I know I can make it up these hills. I just have to turn my music up and drown out the world and try not to focus on the hill. Head up, shoulders back, keeping my cadence up even if my stride length goes down.

Actually, what I’m really curious about at the moment is beep tests. When I was applying for the armed forces I couldn’t manage to meet the basic Navy requirement because I was so unfit. Now, I wonder what result I would be capable of achieving. Surely I’d do better now. Not just because I have distance work behind me, because that doesn’t really help. I wonder if there’s somewhere around town I could go and do a beep test. Just out of curiosity.

Bio-mechani-whatsits and why I suck at natural movement.

Joggin... Apparently, ur doin it rong.

I run wrong. I might even go so far as to say I run funny. My gait is odd, my foot strike is variable and never perfect. I get shin pain, knee pain, hip pain, ankle pain. It depends on the day, the distance, my speed. There’s no single thing I’m doing wrong, but I blame myself because I never consciously make an effort to run correctly. I just get out there and put one foot in front of the other. Or in front of, and slightly to the left or the right depending on the foot. I have already been told by medical professionals that I do a lot of stuff incorrectly, so I’m not really surprised that I run funny as well.

My physiotherapist says that I hold my shoulders wrong, and as such I slouch in a manner that I shouldn’t. I’m damaging my neck, my spine, and will end up with an impressive hunchback if I don’t make a conscious effort. Shoulders down and back, boobs out. That’s what she told me, and no matter how much I would like to say that I do the stretches religiously every day, I know I don’t.

My dentist tells me that I clench my teeth in a manner that will probably lead to cracked teeth and crowns in the future. I have to make a conscious effort not to clench my teeth, and if that doesn’t work I’ll need to get a splint to wear at night. I’d like to say that I haven’t clenched my teeth since, but I’m sure I have.

All of these examples boil down to the same issue. I’m doing things wrong, not moving naturally, not behaving in the manner a human body should behave. Bad Frankie.

My question is - If the human body is supposed to move and respond in a certain way, why doesn’t it do so naturally, without a conscious effort? Could all these biomechanical issues be caused by external influences, such as bad shoes causing an incorrect gait, or heavy constricting brassieres causing rounded shoulders? Maybe. I think I’ve slouched for a lot longer than I’ve had boobs (even though they are quite heavy and I’m sure it’s a contributing factor. Despite my weight loss, the boobs have not shrunk), and how can external factors explain the teeth clenching? Unless you consider stress to be an external factor.

For the moment, I don’t know if I want to try running ‘correctly’, in the fear that I’ll mess things up even further because I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m just going to keep jogging along, and hopefully I won’t sustain any serious injury in the long run. If I can still keep going, I know I’m not doing myself too much damage. I’ll listen to my body, and it will tell me if something is really wrong.

When I’m in the shower after a long run, I listen to my body. All those little niggles I notice when I’m running, like the twinge in my left knee when the path is at an angle, or the slight ache in my ankle when I over extend, or the bruised feeling in my shins when I sprint, these things have already gone away. All I feel is the pleasant, far-away numb tingling in the balls of my feet as the hot water hits them. And I try really hard not to think that this is probably a circulation issue, also caused by my incorrect foot strike.

Oh well.

Image borrowed from Derp.com

I saw a galah nomming on clover. He was all like, What?

Distance: 14 km

Time: 1:37:29

I took it nice and slow this morning, bearing in mind that I’ve increased my mileage this week about 100%. I didn’t really pay much attention to the run. It was easy, thoughtless and over before I knew it. Podcasts are great for long runs because music always seems to grate on me after a while, or it makes me go too fast. My long slow run pace is at least a minute per km slower than my race pace, and I hit it squarely today. My average was 6:58 per km, and my heart rate hovered around 144 bpm.

I don’t know what else to say about today’s run. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it, but the distance capability is there even though I haven’t used it in a while. Next week I might try for 15 or 16, but I’ll see how I go.

Gonna sleep well tonight.

Distance: 5.91 km? (I assume. I left my garmin at home)

Time: Approx. 44 minutes.

I ran home again. It wasn’t quite as speedy a trip as it was on Monday, but I did stop to chat with Mum for about 30 seconds or so, stopped at a couple of lights for what seemed like forever, and when my audio book ran out I stopped to change my playlist. I almost beat the bus, and I’m sure I actually would have if it hadn’t been for the delays. What I’m really feeling right now is the fatigue. When I was only running once a week I didn’t really get fatigued, but I’ve been exhausted this week. I had Zumba last night and had enough difficulty dragging myself out of bed this morning that I anticipate some real issues tomorrow.

I’ve been trying to keep my food intake steady to test my theory regarding my weight equilibrium, but it’s been a tough and somewhat stressful week so far. I’ve developed a worrying addiction to McDonald’s soft serve cones with Flakes in them, and so far this week I’ve had three of those. Plus extra snacks. Plus beer. I’m not worried. I’ll watch my weight and if I see any sort of upward trend I’ll adjust. I think my body is trying to keep my energy up because of the extra exercise, and I think I’m on target to actually lose a couple of hundred grams this week.

I think my Saturday long run might be a little bit more difficult than it usually is if my muscles haven’t had time to recover. I’m intending to go for 14km, as it’s a nice easy brainless around-the-lake-and-back-again route.

Take that, bus fares!

Distance home: 5.91 km

Time to get home: 40:49

Hey! I ran home! Not really all that impressive, as I’ve done it before at least three times, but I ran the whole way, even with a heavy pack, and it didn’t seem anywhere near as gruelling as it used to be. I don’t have any heart rate data because I wasn’t able to wear my monitor, but it felt like I was working pretty hard even though I wasn’t going all that fast. I think the extra weight was making the difference. I’m wondering if I should do it again tomorrow, but I think I’ll stick to the plan and run it again on Thursday. Don’t want to blow my knees or damage my shins from upping the weekly mileage too quickly.

What I’m really hoping to do is try to keep my food intake the same despite the extra exercise. I feel the urge to eat a little more just to keep myself fuelled, but I’m curious to see what will happen if I don’t cave in to the temptation. We’ll see.

Is it still a recovery run if it's a whole week later?

Distance: 5.84 km

Time: 42:26

So yeah, I’ve probably been using an incorrect notation for time up until now. I’m fixing it now.

I wasn’t feeling 100% this morning so I didn’t run 10k as planned. Okay, that’s not entirely accurate. I didn’t run the full distance because I forgot to wear my gloves, and my hands were cold. It sounds really pathetic when I say it like that, but I’m going to dismiss it as a really slow recovery run and try to do 10k next week when I’m not feeling so blah. I’m hoping to run home at least two days next week, probably Monday and Thursday. I was talking to someone the other day who told me that running home from work might stop me being so stressed, because when I catch the bus I tend to hold on to the stress of the day. Then I can’t sleep, wake up cranky, build on more stress when I have to go back to work.

When I run, I forget about most things that bother me. I might get a little rage-y when I’m pumped (sometimes insanely so, but that’s a topic for another time), but that’s more likely to happen at Zumba then on a jog. I just can’t get in the zone as easily on a short run.

Edit:

I got my result back for the Canberra Times 10k. My official chip time was 56:01. Only three seconds off my Garmin time. Pretty good.

Eye of the Tiger, baby!

Canberra Times Family Fun Run & Walk 2010

Distance: 10 km

Time: 55’58” (according to my Garmin - Official Net Results still to be released)

Even though I was hoping to come in at under an hour on this race, I never really expected to come in at a time this good. For half the race I assumed that my Garmin was malfunctioning, actually. To take a full twelve and a half minutes off last year’s result is a dream come true for me, and it makes me even more eager to get into marathon training as soon as possible.

Because I like graphs and things, here’s this year’s run, kilometre by kilometre:



I’m super excited and really, really hungry. My heart rate stayed up at about 175 the entire time, so I’ve burned a lot more than I usually would in a 10km run.

Hope everyone else is having a super awesome Sunday morning!

Maybe I'll call it an experiment.

Distance: 4 km (approximate - My garmin needs recharging)

Time: 22’00”

So, today I had two bottles of beer at and around lunch, yelled for a little bit (mostly at myself) and then I went for a punishing 4km run, disregarding any common sense that warned me to keep some in reserve for the fun run tomorrow.

It was awesome in the sense that I managed a hilly 4k in 22 minutes flat, the same 4k I used to run in about 28 minutes. Not so awesome in the sense that I didn’t realise how dehydrated I was, and although I’m fine, I might not have been. My judgement may have been the teeniest bit impaired.

We’re going out tonight, after dinner. Although I know that running with a hangover is almost as idiotic as running drunk, it’s certainly not the first time I’ve run a race after a few drinks the night before. By the time I’m sober and awake, I might be halfway through the race already.

I think I should go hydrate some more.

I'm not lazy, I'm tapering.

Is it that time again?

Tomorrow morning I’ll be running the 10km event at the Canberra Times Family Fun Run & Walk, which is a really bulky title for a fun run, although not the worst I’ve ever heard. This is the third time I’ve run this race, and as far as races go it’s flat, fast and fun unless it’s rainy or windy. The first year I ran, it was both. I wore a big heavy jacket, which got even heavier when it was soaked. So I took it off, and froze half to death in the wind. My iPod decided it was on strike, making it the first run of any sort of distance that I had attempted without that particular distraction. My Nike+ Sportband was hideously inaccurate and as such not a lot of help in estimating my pace.

Last year was a little better. I took almost eight minutes off my time from 2008. I knew my limitations a bit better. I didn’t stop to walk at all. I had my Garmin 405 to help me keep a good pace, even though I didn’t know how to use it yet. Better shoes. No rain.




Last year’s run, as mediocre as some of the splits were (I’m looking at you, 8th km).

I took this screenshot from Rubitrack, which is the software I use to gather my Garmin run data, and my Nike+ data as well, to keep it all in one place. I love this sort of technology, adore how flashy it is but I’m not sure if it’s actually all that useful. I guess I might be able to use it to gauge my progress when I compare it with this year’s run. Most of the time, I just use Rubitrack to tell me my calorie burn, because Garmin Connect either doesn’t use my HRM data or miscalculates shockingly.

Right now I’m wondering whether a short jog later today might be helpful or harmful to my race time tomorrow. I need to work out but I’m not in the mood to do Zumba or pull out the Jillian Michaels DVDs. I usually taper before a race, even though my concept of ‘tapering’ generally consists of just neglecting to exercise for the week or so before the big day. Oh well. I stick by my terminology.

Running in the Rain and the definition of 'Awesome'

It was 7:45 on Saturday morning, and as far as I was concerned, everything was awesome. It was pouring with rain but it wasn’t too cold or windy. My knees felt good, my feet felt better and I was about fifteen minutes in to what seemed like it was going to be a fantastic 10k training run. I’m not going to pretend that it was a uniformly wonderful run or that I loved every minute of it. However, in this moment, (before my shoes filled up with water and my jacket got so heavy with rain that I had to take it off and run in my tank top, soaked to the bone) I was perfectly happy with the world.

Back when I started running, I had to be deluding myself if I had claimed to be loving it. When I couldn’t run more than thirty seconds without my heart bursting through my chest or my vision swimming, I knew full well that I was putting myself through a sick and masochistic form of torture. I was running to a goal, not for fun but for a proposed future career in the armed forces. I hated running. I hated being fat and slow and uncoordinated. I hated every single step.

I progressed. I got better at running. Thirty seconds, one minutes, five minutes, then twenty. I pushed myself further so I could feel hardcore, like a real athlete. I was still slow, still fat, still uncoordinated. But I told myself I was having a great time, and most of the time I believed it, even when the blisters on the back of my feet burst or my shin splints had me prostrate in agony for hours at a time. I told myself ‘this is awesome’ when I felt a cross between boredom and extreme self-hatred. I played my music really loud to drown out the tedium. I told myself it would at some point get fun.

It did. I’m not sure when it did. I think I’m still slow, although not as slow as I was. I’m not still fat, though. I dropped out of the ‘overweight’ designation some six months ago, at least. As for uncoordinated, I took up dancing so I still have the opportunity to feel unco whenever I want to. I ran my second City 2 Surf last month. I ran my first Half Marathon in May. I’m running a 10k fun run on Sunday, with the hope of breaking 60 minutes for the first time.

I think I’m having fun. Maybe I’ve just gotten so good at deluding myself that I can’t tell the difference any more. I would like to put it to the test, and on the weekend I decided on the perfect way of testing whether I actually do love this running business.

Next year in May, if the race is held and everything goes according to plan, I intend to run my first full Marathon. 42.2km, double the length of my longest run to date. I’m giving myself plenty of time to achieve this, so maybe I’ll go so far to aim for a time of less than five hours as well. We’ll see. If I could run a Half with only one training run a week, I’m confident that I can run a sub five hour marathon with three or four training runs a week. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I could even come in at four and a half hours. It’s exciting, it’s daunting, and it is (at a risk of overusing my favourite word) the most awesome thing I could think of to do before I turn 30 and officially become an old person.

I intend to document my progress here. So if you want to know how I’m going, stick around. It’s going to be a fun eight months or so. Depending on your definition of ‘fun’, that is.