A Bike Ride with a View...Part Deux!

Joy here...After the failed long run of Saturday, I was up for a bike ride on Sunday.  As with the other times I've ridden the "loop" of the National Park near my home (once with my friend towing her daughter and once on my own), I felt a bit of trepidation with Sunday's approaching ride.  However, I had convinced another friend to come along, and even though I woke up wishing that I could just stay in bed, I knew that I couldn't leave her standing all alone by the side of the road with her bike, stood up by me.  She's actually a friend through The Man since she did her Master's degree in the same department as  he did his doctorate, and then she ended up moving to the same city we did, and so I've gotten to know her a bit over the past few years.  But this was going to be our first bike ride together, and she is intimidatingly in shape, so I didn't want to flub up by not even showing up!  So I pulled myself and my courage out from underneath the covers, put on my cycling kit, headed out the door, and pedalled my little heart out to get to the meeting spot.  She and I then separated from The Man and his cycling buddies so that they could ride in the park at their own pace (read:  so that they could race each other up the hills and be as competitive as possible, not caring if the others die along the way).  Our pace was more reasonable.  We were able to chat for the whole time, aside from the steepest climbs when there was no talking, only heavy breathing; I was able to keep pace with her (mostly), so that's quite a feat for me.  I feel that not only was I out in a beautiful park early on a Sunday morning enjoying nature, and not only was I out on my bike having a good workout that didn't over-tax my pained knees, but I was also spending 2 solid hours getting to know a friend a little bit better, and as those cheezy MasterCard commercials point out, something like that is PRICELESS.

And, heck, the view's not half bad either!!!

A Long Run. Well, Sort of.

Joy here...Today being Saturday was supposed to be our long run.  We were going to run for about 19 or 20 kms, with 70 minutes of that at "M pace" (i.e. marathon pace).  With sore knees, hot and humid weather, and two nights of drinking under my belt (both Thursday AND Friday) I was a little worried about today's long run.  My last long run was not last Saturday, but the Saturday before, when I had a mini-bonk.  So with my trepidation in hand, my fuel belt filled with water, and my chocolate flavoured GUs all ready to go, out the door we went.  It became fairly clear to me fairly quickly that I wouldn't be able to do today's run at the desired fast pace.  In fact, it became fairly clear to me that I would have to wave The Man onwards to run at his own speedy pace, while I just grappled to keep it all together.  So, as I say...I was going to run for 2 hours, with 70 minutes of that at "M pace," but what really happened is that I made the executive decision that today's run was going to just have to be another easy run.  No matter what I did, I just couldn't speed up.  To see the bright side of things, the day was beautiful, one of those clear sunny days when the sky is a vibrant blue and the merest wisps of white clouds dance overhead like fine, combed expensive alpaca wool.  On any other day, I would have revelled in how lovely it was.  Today, however, all I could think about was how the sun was burning my skin off my body and encouraging my sweat to pour down my face into my eyes.  I couldn't see that bright side of things, because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself, too busy thinking that I can't run, too busy thinking that I've bitten off more than I can chew, and too busy berating myself for my many running failures.  In the end, I pulled the plug on the run in less than an hour and forty minutes.  I mean, how's that for failure?  I was supposed to last two full hours and fell shy of that goal by twenty full minutes.  Ugh.

I just tell myself that tomorrow is the start of a new week, and I will just put this week (and last week, and the week before that...) out of my mind and just focus on moving forwards.

In the meantime, here are today's oh-so-weak run stats:
Ran for a total time of 1:37:56 for a distance of 17.32km at an average pace of 5:39min/km

Even if it kills me, I'm going to force myself to pull off a 20km run next week.  Seriously.  And until then, I'm going to do my best to enjoy my runs.  Even if it kills me.  (How's that for irony?)

Over and out,
Joy

Just running for fun...

Joy here...I'm still trying to stick to my "run for fun" strategy to surmount the wall I hit in training and the nagging pain in my knees.  So even though yesterday was a Thursday, and Thursdays are usually scheduled as "quality" workouts (i.e. tempo, or hills, or speed repeats), I vowed that this Thursday would just be a fun run.  And luckily it worked out that way!  I just set my Garmin for 80 minutes and ran out the door, promising myself that I wouldn't stop until that 80 minute beeping went off, but also promising myself that I wouldn't agonize over pace or distance or anything.  Even though the weather channel said that the weather was in the mid-20s C it felt warmer in the sun.  However, there was a cool breeze.  So the first 30 minutes of the run actually felt rather odd.  Since it's still humid summer, I was sweating a fair bit and feeling over-heated, but then when the breeze would hit my sweaty self, I would feel a bit cold.  All of that temperature shifting made me feel a bit queasy or woozy for the first part of the run.  It's not  that I was nauseous or sick or anything, but I just felt weird.  And then, of course, the thoughts in my head were running overboard:  "...just quit now..." "...you can walk from here..." "...this isn't FUN..." "...maybe you should eat..." "...maybe you should pee..." "...you'll never make 80 minutes..." "...you're probably busting your knees..." "...go home and go to bed..." etc. etc.  I swear those little running demons were going a bit overboard!  So I just mentally gritted my teeth, ignored those little demons, and kept on going.  And by about the 40 minute mark, I guess those little guys knew that they had been defeated, and they just shut up. Then we did 6 strides, and I tell you that with each stride, my knees felt better and better, and all around I was having more and more fun.  By the 70 minute mark I was thinking to myself:  "Darn, only 10 more minutes of running."  And when the Garmin started beeping its final announcement that the run was up, I felt that I had achieved my goal of running for fun.

So I went home and made myself a banana, nutella, vanilla smoothie.  I deserved it, right?

Here are the fun run stats:
Ran for a total of 1:20:00 to cover 14.2kms with an average pace of 5:38min/km.

Over and out,
Joy

Busted knees and blah days....part 2....

Joy here...Okay, I've borrowed today's title from an entry of Nomi's from July.  When I'm not training for a 1/2 marathon, I'm an English professor, so that dorky part of me likes the self-referentiality of the intertextual allusion to an earlier post; it's a kind of postmodern meta-entry that gets my geek juices flowing.  Thanks for indulging! ;)  Now even though I want to reconnect with my inner child on my runs and just run for fun, I've been having some trouble with my knees.  My left knee gets a little bit sore and is swollen with fluids by the end of a long run, and my right knee is only a little bit better.  I've started seeing a therapist to help out, and it turns out that some of my muscles are unbalanced, which is causing my patella to be pulled off line when I run.  So for Tuesday's run, I tried using the kenesio tape that the therapist provided, with both my knees taped up for stability.  The Man and I then went out for 45 minutes of easy running to warm up and so that I could see how my knees felt.  The easy pace was around 5:50min/km and it all felt fine.  Then we had 20 minutes of tempo pace scheduled.  Last time we did tempo, we did two blocks of 10 minutes, with a rest break in between, and this time it was to be 20 minutes of solid tempo.  The aim was to run at around 4:50min/km or thereabouts, but for our 20 minutes of tempo, we kept it steady at 5:15min/km.  About 5 minutes into the tempo, I had to stop and rip the tape off my knees.  It was hurting to have my knees taped up more than it hurt to run without.  And it just felt so, well, so strange!  At the end of the tempo set, though, we did 10 minutes of cool down running, and my knees were no so happy.  I could literally see the fluid in them.  But after icing them and putting anti-inflammatory gel on them, they seem to be okay.

But I think I'll go for a bike ride today and give my knees a rest!

Just Run for Fun!

Joy here...So last week I hit a low point with my running and my motivation.  It felt like each run was a horrible slog, and nothing was fun.  My knees were starting to bother me, and I really felt like I was unable to progress.  In the midst of that I made the executive decision to take last week as an "easy" week, and try to rekindle some enjoyment of running.  You see Nomi and I started running and got along well as running partners because we shared the same notion:  let's just run for fun and see what happens!  But as I've started training for this 1/2 marathon, I lost that notion.  So after last Tuesday's meltdown where I felt like I would never make it to the 1/2 marathon and never be able to run another step again, I went for a bike ride on Wednesday, and did a whole lot of nothing on Thursday and Friday.  Then on Saturday I went for an easy 10 km run.  It was a coolish morning and the pace was around 5:40min/km and it felt just fine.  Then on Sunday I did a whole lot of nothing again, and went for another easy 10 km run on Monday.  It was a little hotter than Saturday's run, but the average pace was around 5:55min/km.  I admit that I was able to enjoy both runs.  I was able to let my mind wander; I was able to enjoy my surroundings; and I was able to run without discomfort.  In fact, during Monday's easy run, we did strides during the second half of the run, and for our last stride, I just picked up the pace.  I didn't do a full-out sprint, but I ran faster than my normal strides, and I was able to get that feeling I used to have as a kid when I would run.  As a kid running was purely for fun; I'd run in the school yard; I'd run playing tag; I'd run playing with my friends; heck, I'd just run to get from point A to point B.  That's what kids do.  Somewhere along the way, we lose that love of just running around, and running becomes a chore, or it becomes a necessary evil to stay in shape/lose weight/maintain weight/train etc.  But during those brief 100m when I upped my speed at the end of a nice and easy run, I felt like I was running on a cloud.  I felt my inner kid open up inside and yell "WHEEEEEE!" at the top of her lungs.  I think if I can keep that sense of fun foremost in my mind, I'll be able to get back on the training plan and survive through to this 1/2 marathon in October.  So adult Joy is going to take child Joy by the hand and the two of us together are going to make it!

I've hit the wall...and it hit back. Hard.

Joy here...I think I'm at the point where I'm admitting defeat.  My last few runs have been really HARD, and I feel like I've certainly plateaued, or reached a wall that I just can't climb in my running progress.  I can't seem to go fast enough, and I find it really hard to just keep the pace stable and/or comfortable.  For instance, after being shattered by my last run, I spent the day in bed.  Then on Monday I went for an easy 25 minutes just to move my legs, and even that felt hard.  Today (Tuesday) I went out for my planned "quality" workout, which was a tempo workout, and it felt hard.  Basically, it seems that every time I head out the door with my running shoes on, it feels hard.  I am very discouraged.  I fully admit it.

Today we warmed up for about 30 minutes of easy running, and then we were to run two 10 minute sets of tempo (4:40min/km) separated by a 1 minute recovery.  After that, we were to do another 30 minutes of easy running to cool down.  At least that was the plan.  Here's what really happened:
-30 minutes of easy running to warm up
-two 10 minute sets of tempo that didn't come near 4:40min/km (in fact, the first set averaged 4:57min/km and the second set averaged 5:03min/km)
-20 minutes of easy cool down (that didn't even include any strides, because I felt like I was dying

So I've deduced that I've officially hit a wall with my training.  During the run today, my knees hurt; my right collar bone hurt; my lungs hurt; my right shin hurt; I had a stitch; my breathing was laboured...the list could go on and on, but I'm depressing even myself as I recount all the things that just didn't seem to feel right.

Tomorrow I'm not going to go for a run.  I'm going to try a bike ride.  Maybe on Thursday I'll try running again and see if I can dismantle that wall.

But for now, I'll just accept the fact that the wall has scored a TKO and I'm down for the count.

PS - To make matters worse, my 1/2 marathon is in exactly two months to the day.  October 17.  Right now I don't think I'll make it.

**Note:  the graphic is from http://www.michellehenry.fr/brick.jpg

Long Run, Dehydration, Minor Bonk...

Joy here...my last entry was on Tuesday after the speedwork, and then I seem to have gotten busy and have fallen down a bit on keeping my entries up to date.  In summary, here's what I've been up to since Tuesday:
Wednesday - easy 5km run
Thursday - tempo run (30 minutes easy warm up, 10 minutes of tempo at 4:45ish min/km with one minute break and another 10 minutes of tempo at 4:45ish min/km, 30 minutes easy cool down)
Friday - rest day
Saturday - long run....and here's how it went:

Since our last "long run" was over 18kms and included "M pace" ("marathon pace"), this week's "long run" was scheduled as an easy one, with the aim being to run for 19kms.  I was actually pretty excited about this easy run coming up.  The last few workouts have started to feel really HARD, and so I was looking forward to just running and chatting and generally having a good time with running.  Since Nomi and I have been all about running for fun, I was looking forward to having that fun feeling on this run.  Ha!    No such luck!

Given all the speedwork (repeats and tempo) that we've been doing, we figured that our easy pace could be around 5:40min/km for 19kms.  That was the plan.

Part B of the plan was to ditch those gross tasting Powerbar Gels and use snickers bars as running fuel instead.

Part C of the plan was for me to use my more comfortable waist carrying water bottle, refilling it at the water fountains along the run.

Okay, so Plan A (pace at 5:40ish), Plan B (snickers), and Plan C (refilling water) all lined up in our heads, we braved the hot morning sunlight and humidity for two loops of our 9-ish km canal loop.

Plan A kicked my @$$.  Right from the start, I began to realize that there was nothing "easy" about keeping the pace in the 5:40min/km range.  I was breathing heavy basically from the first step out the front door.  Plan B worked out surprisingly well.  I had snickers bar #1 at the 40 minute mark and it tasted a whole heck of a lot better than any of the sport-specific fuels I've tried.  I had snickers bar #2 at the 80 minute mark, and it wasn't even melted by then.  The only downside with carrying these chocolate bars as fuel that I could tell is that they're hard to eat on the run.  It's tougher to chew and swallow while running versus just squirting some chocolate-flavoured GU in my mouth.  I had to swill a lot of water to make sure I could swallow all the sticky stuff.  Other than that, it was great!  There are about 271 calories per snickers bar, and on a 19km run, my Garmin tells me that I burned 1,200 calories. So even two snickers bars still keep me in a calorie deficit.  Plan C didn't work out so well.  It was REALLY HOT, and so I needed a lot of water, and part way through (after drinking one bottle and refilling once), I ended up with an empty bottle and had to run about 4kms dry before reaching the water fountain for a refuel.  During those 4 kms, the dehydration plus the not-so-easy easy pace, took their toll on me.  I experienced what other people have described as "the bonk."  Wikipedia (that oh-so-trustworthy e-bible of useless facts) tells me that "the bonk" can be defined as:
"hitting the wall or the bonk describes a condition caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself by precipitous fatigue and loss of energy. Milder instances can be remedied by brief rest and the ingestion of food or drinks containing carbohydrates. The condition can usually be avoided by ensuring that glycogen levels are high when the exercise begins, maintaining glycogen levels during exercise by eating or drinking carbohydrate-rich substances, or by reducing exercise intensity."
That pretty much describes how I felt.  I struggled just to make it home.  While one of my triumphs of the run was lasting the full 19kms - my longest run of my entire life to date - it felt to me that the larger triumph was just being able to last through it all.  I mean, I was huffing and puffing for a heck of a long time even after the run!

So here are my run stats:
Ran for a total of 1:48:42 at an average pace of 5:43min/km for 19km.

All in all, I came home from that run feeling utterly shattered, like a vase that someone had held over the railing of a second balcony and dropped to shatter into a gillion pieces on a cold, marble floor; I have started to pick up the little pieces of myself and begin to glue myself back together.  I think I'll take today off, and try to take an easy run tomorrow.  And when I say easy, I mean e-a-s-y!!!

Over and out,
Joy