An Open Letter

Dear Cyclist (not any one cyclist, but an amalgam of almost every cyclist I encounter),

To begin with, I would like to compliment you on your outfit. Not many people have the courage to wear so many colours at once, let alone in such a tight-fitting, body-hugging manner.

But, I digress.

I’m not quite sure what it was you yelled at me as you passed me by on the bike path this morning. You’ll forgive me if I didn’t respond, but as you are probably aware, there were several factors that prevented me hearing what was no doubt an important communication. Firstly, you were cycling past me at speed. Secondly, I was running in the other direction, into the wind. Thirdly, and probably most shamefully, I was also wearing headphones.

Were you saying good morning? Were you telling me to watch the road? If I was going up a hill, chances are that I was looking down at the path rather than straight ahead. It’s a posture issue, and I’m working on it, but you know how it is when you’re in the zone. You may have been telling me to turn my music down, and that would probably have been a fair thing to say. I sometimes lose track of how loud my headphones are. As most of my morning run entertainment tends to consist of the Nerdist podcast (which can contain some coarse language amongst the good clean fun) and SModcast (which can sometimes contain some clean language amongst the profanity) I will admit that I probably shouldn’t be listening at such a volume in a public place. But seriously, I’m not listening to it at full volume on a ghetto blaster at your six-year-old daughter’s birthday party, I’m running around a lake, mostly completely alone apart from the birds and the occasional joker in a clown suit.

In case you weren’t aware, I’m talking about you here.

Let me just tell you one thing: I AM SELFISH. Yes, I have the audacity to wear headphones when I go on a three hour run. I have the attention span of a gnat, and god forbid I should be left alone in my own company for such a period of time without distractions. I’m too selfish to take my headphones off, however I’m not an idiot. If you ding your little bell, I will hear you, and I will shuffle even further over to the left on the path (although I always run as far over on the left as I can in any case, unless my legs have gone all weird or I’m sleep-running and don’t notice where my legs have gone) and then you can cycle past me. I won’t turn my head to see if there’s more than one of you, or to see if you’re pulling one of those ridiculously huge baby sidecar things behind your bike. If you don’t fit on one lane, you should consider whether you really should be on a public bike path to begin with. If you ding your bell at me more than once in the vain hope that I’ll run off the path onto the grass so you and your bff can cycle side by side on your stupid pink racing bikes, you’re going to be disappointed. Do you know why they call it a shared path?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

I am selfish when I run, because it’s my time. I shouldn’t be bothering you. I’m in my space, and you’re in your space. You may think I’m doing a terrible thing by wearing my headphones and blasting my reggaeton at top volume when I run, but if you’re so careful and safety-concerned and empathic toward all mankind, why do you feel the need to swear at me when you pass me by? Is that even necessary? We’re in close proximity for less than five seconds. Surely I can’t be causing you that much inconvenience if it’s such a short encounter.

I really don’t have any idea what it was you yelled at me, faceless cyclist. It could have been:

“Fuck you.”

“Looking good! Keep going!”

“Anika! Remember me?”

“Keep your eyes on the road.”

“Turn that music down.”

“Good morning.”

Or it could have been a million other things.

But, you know what? I don’t really care all that much what you think, cyclist. Because I ran 21 kilometres this morning. It may not be much, but it’s what I’ve got, and I’m going to be happy for myself, even if you aren’t.

Yours sincerely,

Frankenberger.

Holidays. Finally.

I had intended to write up something about my last big run (not this last Saturday but the Saturday before), but I’ve been feeling a bit brain-melty lately and never got my act together. So here it is now. I got up late again. It’s funny how I have started to consider a start later than 6am to be ‘late’, but in the summer heat, it is late. With a long run of three hours, it’s incredibly late by the time I get back. And hot. I decided to do three laps of Lake Ginninderra, and although I was hoping to make 24 km, I managed 25. So I’m a little behind on my marathon training, but not incredibly. The task is still achievable, I hope.

Last Friday I was in Sydney for my Zumba Basics 1 Instructor training with Tanya Beardsley (who is awesome, by the way), and the Zumbathon on Friday night. So all day, from 9am to... Not sure. 10:30? at night, I wasn’t exactly dancing non-stop, but it was a high-energy day. On Saturday morning, I went to a Zumba masterclass. Then I caught the bus home. Everything hurt. Every muscle. I’m feeling a bit better now but I still feel twinges from some of the lesser-used muscles. On the inside of my knees, in my triceps, my shoulders, there’s still tightness. There’s a warning soreness in my shins that tells me I’d better get some more supportive Zumba shoes or face the disappointment of shin splints again. Most of all, my obliques are sore. But I don’t mind about that. I don’t get much in the way of abdominal workouts these days.

I did go for a run this morning. Not a long one, just a slow 13 k. At about 8 or 9 kilometres I started to feel like the light was just a little too bright, and my vision got swimmy. By 10 kilometres, I felt like I was wearing blinkers. I knew I had a migraine coming on, but as I don’t tend to bring painkillers on a run with me, there was not a lot I could do about it. I don’t remember the last time I got a migraine during a run. It had to have been a long time ago.

At this point, I’m planning to do my long run on Wednesday. We’re heading to the Gold Coast on Saturday and we’re not coming back until the following Saturday, so I won’t have a chance to run for a while. This might cause some delays with my marathon training, but I’m not worried, yet.

Year? New. Happy?

Distance: About 17.5 km

Time: About 2 hours, 11 minutes.

I concocted a hare-brained scheme to run to my mum’s place in Wanniassa this morning. Alas, the universe was conspiring against me.

The intention was to wake up at 6am and get on the road by 6:30. As we only went to bed last night at 1am, being that it was New Year’s Eve and all, and I can’t hear alarms going off with my earplugs in, and Simon slept through the alarm, it was 7am before I got myself out the door. Within half an hour, I realised that I was fighting a losing battle. The temperature was soaring. My legs felt like lead, and my knees weren’t all that happy after I rode my ridiculous little foldable bike home from work yesterday. I decided to be cautious, so I took a gel along to keep me fuelled, and some water, and I took short (and by short, I mean about the length of time you’d take to walk through a drink station in a race) walking breaks every five kilometres.

I wasn’t too sure on the route, but it turned out to be very straightforward and involved hardly any running in the on-road cycle lane. I made it through about twelve or thirteen kilometres before I started getting an odd pain in my back, so I took more frequent breaks. Every kilometre or so, I had to stop and walk for a bit. My pace slackened. I called mum to tell her I would probably be later than expected. Then, at 17 and a half kilometres, I threw in the towel. I managed to run all the way to Woden, but it was 30 degrees out there, and I didn’t really want to damage myself just to say I did it. Mum gave me a lift back to her place, and some breakfast.

Am I disappointed? Maybe, but I know 17k isn’t exactly a short distance. My last long run was on Monday, so I had less than a week to recover. I’ve never been good at running in the heat. I should have started out earlier. Blah, blah, etc.

Now my primary concern is the Marathon in April. I have maybe twelve usable training weeks. Even if I manage somehow to increase my distance by 2k a week, starting with 24k next week, I don’t think I’ll have time. Chances are, I’ll stuff up at least a couple more runs along the way as well. I’ve done some reading on Coolrunning, and it seems you don’t necessarily need to get to 42k in training, but I’m sure I’d feel better if I managed it. Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to see what happens.