Author Archives: Tori

My dumbest running mistakes

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I realized a year ago when I started training for my third Half Marathon that I’m really no newbie when it comes to running. Despite my lack of prowess or natural talent, I’ve been doing it a long time.

I’ve learned a few things along the way. The hard way. In the spirit of “if you can’t be a role model, then serve as a warning” here are the less-than-stellar moments of my running career:

  • Starting out too fast. Everyone says they won’t start out too fast, everyone does it. Everyone. At least once. Possibly every race. I don’t – not anymore. I’m joyously starting at the back of the pack, running negative splits (first half slower than the last) and passing people eventually. I still have to resist the urge to surge at the start line though. Having a Garmin GPS-enabled sport watch to tell your pace helps stick with my race strategy, I’m so grateful I got one for Christmas last month!
  • Undertraining. You’ve found Hal Higdon’s Half Marathon training plan on the Runner’s World web site? Go for it. Do. Not. Miss. Workouts. Leading up to my first and second Halfs, I only “half”-assed followed the plan I was on. Speed workouts? “Meh, that’s hard, I’ll do it next week.” Mid-week tempo runs? “Oh too bad I didn’t get up early enough, I’ll just do a 40-minute run then get to work.” Come race day I felt it. During my first Half Marathon, my SI joint seized after the first 5K. When people asked me how the run felt, I laughed it off: “Only the last 10 miles were painful.” They needn’t have been.
  • Underfueling. During my second Half Marathon, I carried nothing with me. I took some water at the stations, that was it. No gatorade, no energy gels. The first 10-15 K were fine, but the last part of the race was pure hell: I had simply run out of gas. I watched my friends down gummy bears and gels, and refused their offers to share. Then I watched them pull away from me at the 15K mark while I struggled to keep the pace. You simply can’t run for more than 2 hours without refueling along the way.
  • Changing your diet the night before a race. The day before I ran a 15K – my first – I decided I needed more fibre in my diet and ate two or three kiwi fruit with rye crackers for a before-bed snack. This was in the days before race directors’ S.O.P. was to rent port-a-potties and place them along the route. The “runner’s trots” threatened that whole race, most of which was through parkways and along a highway (believe me if I’d run past a house I would have knocked on a door and asked to use the bathroom). I actually finished (dead last) – dogged stubborn determination not to be humiliated by a DNF (Did Not Finish) got me there. I must have looked hilarious: running while trying to hold in a bowel movement.
  • Wearing brand-new shoe inserts for a 2+ hour run. OK I didn’t do this; my friend did while we were training for the marathon last year. She was excited when she showed up for our Saturday morning run through Vic West, across the Esquimalt Lagoon, up to Royal Roads University, winding our way back again to Spinnakers on the waterfront. “Look at these new inserts, I think they’ll help with my hip pain,” she said. “Um – have you tried them out yet on a shorter run?” I asked. “No, not yet,” she said as she slipped them into her shoes straight out of the package. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? We’re running an awfully long way today if they don’t work out.” I said. “I’ll be fine,” she said: famous last words. I saw the blister afterward and I can’t believe she finished the run. Dogged stubborn determination, right?
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Running through time

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Last post I fibbed just a little – by omission. I neglected to state my goal for running this year:

In 2010 I will run a Half Marathon in 2 hours or less.

Gulp.

My PB for that race is 2:12:24.

In 2003 I did the Queen City Half Marathon in 2:20:21; and in 2005 in 2:16:16

Don says I can do it, and I don’t think he’s just saying that because it’s His Duty As A Good Boyfriend to say things like that. He says it based on my performance at the Run Through Time on New Year’s Eve – a 5 K “fun run” at UVic.
Race day at RVM 2009I ran it in 28:04, which I think was a PB for me but I can only find results online for one other 5K I’ve done – the rest I did before the days if the interwebs and timing chips.

Apparently I ran the 34th Annual YMCA Regina Buffalothon 5K in 2005 in 29:17. I don’t remember running it at all, probably because I was training for the Half Marathon that year, or perhaps because I was crazy in love: earlier that month I had visited Victoria and decided I wanted to move here.

In any event, I decided on Dec 31 not to treat the race as a “fun run” but as a test/training run. I wanted to see how well I would do giving it some effort. Don did run it just for fun, having done his real workout earlier that day, so he stayed behind in he pack to run it with me.

I did better than I thought. I went out with my Garmin at the ready, but after a couple of kilometres I stopped looking at it and asked Don to keep us at a 5:45 per kilometre pace. I started out back of the pack and slow – about a 6:15 pace to start. I like to pass people at the beginning and I like to do negative splits (first half slower than the second, finishing strong).

The race is two laps around a circular drive at the University of Victoria. At the second lap I started to pick up speed and there it was again: the focus, the tunnel vision I get when I’m working hard and I’ve got the finish line in sight. I passed a whole lotta people. That’s when I asked Don to keep us on my goal pace.

About 1 K before the finish I made the mistake of asking him what pace we were on. I was working hard.

“I shouldn’t tell you,” he said.

“Tell me!” I gasped.

“4:31.” he said.

“Holy crap!” I said, still gasping.

“It’s OK – you’re doing fine. Breathe deeply. Don’t slow down your breathing, just fill up your lungs, use your diaphragm.”

I did back off that pace for the last couple of hundred metres. Don explained that I was probably running at my lactate threshold pace – a pace close to which most serious runners run every race.

“Even marathons?” I said.

“Yes, I’m running that way every marathon,” (he’s done 18 of them). “That’s why you do speed work, to get yourself used to going the distance at pace. You could have run the entire 5K at about a 5-minute pace, you just didn’t know it.”

Later we went out to celebrate New Year’s Eve, but I was so tired I had trouble staying up to ring in 2010. That’s life as a runner!

Last night we played around with paces and race distances on a handy calculator on the Prairie Inn Harriers web site. To run a 2-hour Half Marathon means holding a pace of 5:41 per kilometre for 21.1 kilometres.

Gulp.

I can do it.

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Bear Mountain

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Up up up. More up. And up again on wobbly month-out-from-the-marathon legs.

The downhills are almost as hard–too steep for joyful abandon.

Rain mists down in a constant frazzle, but after a while the moist layer is almost comforting.

It’s tougher than the marathon, some say. I say that’s stretching it.

But it is tough.

When can I sign up for next year?

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Moon Roof

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Don’t worry over what has gone on before love. My world starts with you.

Whatever mistakes we had to make, hearts we had to break, regrets we had to reconcile have already been folded into this abundant gorgeous life we have before us.

Our past is a seasoning; a series of delicious learnings. Some were bitter pills that have mellowed with the years and have contributed a rich texture of wisdom. Some are a pleasant taste flavouring today’s sweet moments.

So let us bundle up warm on a clear winter night, drive away from the city lights in your blue car, open the moon roof and let the universe unfold.

Stephans Quintet

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Indelicacies

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I don’t abandon runs that often. When I do it’s for one of two reasons: illness or injury. After this morning I’m adding #3 to my list — plumbing problems. (Content warning: ladies’ bits discussed further …)

out outhouse by Rusty Boxcar

Out Outhouse by Rusty Boxcar

Especially if she has given birth to four babies (as have I), there comes a time in every woman runner’s life when either her period starts/gets unexpectedly heavy or she really has to go pee while running. At that point she has a choice to make:

  1. Find a bathroom. Usually not a big deal in an urban setting. I have had no problems running sweaty into a coffee shop, hotel lobby, hospital, airport (in Regina SK), restaurant, church or – on one occasion – just went to a house and knocked on the door. The pit stop is also a good opportunity to refill water bottles on a long (2+ hour) run. It makes for good conversations: “How far you running?” “Oh – about 25 kilometres today,” “REALLY? That’s a long way…” (looks of incomprehension, respect, incredulity, etc.).
  2. Bushes. I am a veteran find-a-tree kinda gal from years of camping, mountain climbing, hiking and trail running. Not so easy in an urban setting. This morning, well before dawn, I set out to write for an hour or so before running around Beacon Hill Park, then up and down the hill a couple of times and back home before getting ready for work. Problem is, my shift to an earlier routine had me drinking a cup of strong coffee at my computer before my run. Bad idea. I don’t usually drink caffeine before I run, I eat it in the form of Carb Boom gels. If I have to run later in the day when I’m well-hydrated I make at least three trips to the biffy before starting out.
    So this morning, two blocks away from home, realizing I just had to go – again – I turned back to my place to take care of business.
    Crap no keys. I’d have to phone or knock and wake up my daughter to get back in. Cruel thing to do to a teenager at 6:15 am. So third option …
  3. Run anyway. This worked for me in the Vancouver Half Marathon this year, but I hadn’t had a cup, because my pre-race routine is sacrosanct and it does not include coffee. Years ago I ran a 10-mile race and came in last because of – er – “plumbing discomfort” – and afterwards one of the veteran runners said to me “Just let it go a little at a time during a race – no one really cares and all the best runners do it.”
    This morning I wasn’t racing, and pushing through didn’t work. I eyed the dark bushes around Beacon Hill Park and convinced myself I really did not want to disturb some homeless person sleeping, or have someone stumble upon me, squatting and vulnerable, in the deserted pre-dawn hours in a big nearly-empty park. So this morning I chose option 4:
  4. Walk home, wake up daughter to be let in and be crabby for about an hour until hitting the [Reset] button for the day.

Oh well. They can’t all be good runs, and I will live to run Beacon Hill another day, well-hydrated and well-plumbed.

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They can't all be good runs

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or .. I really regret not eating more than two cookies, a Bounty and some veggie soup yesterday

marathon runner

Marathon Runner Tori. Hard to believe this was only three weeks ago - RVM 2009

I bonked during my run this morning. Just as I finished my warm up.

I ran down Cook St to Dallas Rd, then headed over to Moss, intending to finish the w/u along the flat and straight, then go right into the hill workout when Moss starts to climb.

Instead, I walked home after about 20 minutes into my run, completely out of gas, cursing silently and outlining the reasons why: chief among them the fact that I ran my first marathon three weeks ago. Michael warned me something like this might happen — it takes 3-4 weeks to recover fully from a 42.2 km race.

But my atrocious nutrition the day before (see above) had a lot to do with it too.

Now I sit with my oatmeal in hand and my feet in ice water, vowing to grab a super-veggie burrito from Hernandez’ for lunch, enjoy a drink after work with a friend, and try for the hills on the weekend.

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Streaming consciousness

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When the rain moistens the streets and the leaves limp and slick underfoot threaten  banana-peel humility I slap on a headlamp and chase the drops falling in its beam of light.

Three workouts in 36 hours. Not enough to outrun the deafening silence of still unfulfilled dreams.

Slick with sweat last night, no window open wide enough. Perimenopausal? Flu? Nerves? Restlessness?

We all have our reasons for running. Mine are no different and no clearer and no more mundane or less important than anyone else’s.

The hills slay me. I choose them. They are my poison. Post-marathon, there’s no training group and I am finally alone. I forgot how much I love to go inside – deep inside – when there’s no chatter and laughter and distracting us from 3 hours of tightening hips and growing blisters, averting our gaze from the boredom and the pain and the effort.

I love the boredom and the pain and the effort. I love the wet soaking through my jacket, I love dancing around puddles and the thrilling little shock of cold wetness on the toes. A surprise – I find a fresh alley, a new tree, a shiny streetglow under a lamp that wasn’t on at this time 3 months ago. I find a new insight, a poem written and forgotten before I see warmth again, a story plotted with characters and lost to the search for a bagel back in the cozy smallness of the kitchen.

I am naked when I run alone.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ-5SYqp8kI&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&border=1]

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Marathoner's Torture Series: Race Day

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I finished the Royal Victoria Marathon yesterday with a chip time of 4:42:35.

It was unlike anything I’d ever done before. Uncharacteristically my legs stiffened up at the 25 k point, something they never did during long training runs. Until then I was on track for a 4:30 finish. After that, it was just pain.

And so it goes with racing. It wasn’t the worst I’ve felt during a race, but I certainly could have felt better. It was a humbling lesson in allowing myself to sink into the moment, as painful as it was. I was able to just let it be. The pain, the gorgeous day, my lovely daughter giving me fresh water bottles at 13 and 34 k. It was what is was, and it was good.

My baby daughter Sarah, the one who died in my arms, the one for whom I was running yesterday, was with me the last 2 or 3 k, pushing me along. I was quite emotional – grateful, sad, happy it was over, immensely proud of myself for coming such a long way. I found a kick I didn’t think was there in the last 800 metres. I can’t describe the feeling of seeing the finish line, it was just as I’d visualized. I was in tears.

The technical lesson learned was that I may have gone out too quickly. My team mates were doing 6:00/k at first, and my plan was to start out at 6:25/k. so I dropped back after 8 k. Too late maybe, perhaps contributing to the leg pain later.

My soul lesson was one I learned the evening before the race when I met Michael Lebowitz and we shared some of our writing with each other. I was privileged to read an as-yet-unpublished piece of his that really inspired me. Before I headed out the door I wrote a Twitter post paraphrasing part of it and scheduled it to go out as I was finishing the race:

“It’s not about the pain, or the training, or my pace. I’m letting it be. It’s about who I am in this moment.”

I dug deep into that wisdom when my legs were screaming at me.

I am very grateful for some other moments during the race:

  • A warm hug for a dear one, on Dallas Road at about the 10K mark. I felt those arms around me for miles and miles.
  • Bill Broughton, who was there every few kilometres taking pictures.
  • Suzy – running partner from the Vancouver Half Marathon this past May, urging me on just as I entered the Inner Harbour to the finish.
  • Tim, Cathy and my dear daughter Mary who were at the finish line cheering me on.
  • A secret swig from Tim’s flask to wash down my finish line bagel!
  • Superman. I beat Superman!
  • I also passed a clown and a guy in a lime green costume.
  • The excitement of the start line with my running group.
  • The exhilaration of seeing a sea of runners all around me filling up the downtown streets.
  • The gang from Frontrunners cheering everyone on.
  • The amazing volunteers without whom we could not race.
  • Martin from Los Angeles (who I ran with for about 1 k) who loves Victoria so much he wants to move here.

And of course, I am grateful to Caroline and Randy who fed us the most sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner later that day. I piled my plate high and ate the entire thing, then had two desserts. What a perfect way to celebrate 42.2!

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Race Plan – splits and cheering times

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I think I will be finishing in 4 hours, 30 mins, but I will be happy just to finish! Here’s a link to the course map.

Start gun is at 8:30 am. It will take me anywhere from 5-10 mins to make it to the starting line. (at Menzies and Kingston, Parliament Bldg). Then my chip will begin recording my time. SO my start time will probably be around 8:35 or 8:40 am. THIS IS ALL APPROXIMATE:

Mile             Split            Approx time            Approx location

1             00:10:18             8:50 AM Wharf at Bastion Sq

2             00:20:36             9:00

3             00:30:54             9:11 Cook & Park (toward Heywood, into Beacon Hill)

4             00:41:13            9:21

5             00:51:31             9:32

6             01:01:49             9:42 Dallas Rd at Ross Bay

7             01:12:08             9:52

8             01:22:26             10:03 Richardson at Cowichan (Mary!)

9             01:32:44             10:13 Oak Bay at Hampshire/Monterey

10             01:43:03             10:23 Oliver and Central (Monterey School – Rena!)

11             01:53:21             10:33Beach Dr. – Just passing Victoria Golf Club

12             02:03:39             10:44

13             02:13:58             10:54 Beach Drive at Bowker

14             02:24:16             11:04

15             02:34:34             11:15 Beach Drive at Lansdowne. Turnaround is on Exeter

16             02:44:53             11:25            Just past Cattle Point (on way back)

17             02:55:11             11:35 Passing Oak Bay Marina/Turkey Point

18            03:05:29             11:46

19             03:15:48             11:56 Beach Drive at Oliver (back past Rena again)

20             03:26:06             12:06 PM Mitchell at Oak Bay (please don’t say “Almost there!”)

21             03:36:24             12:17 Richardson at Lawndale – 34 K the farthest I’ve ever run

22             03:46:43             12:27

23             03:57:01             12:37 Dallas approaching Clover Pt just past Ross Bay cemetery

24             04:07:19             12:48

25             04:17:38             12:58             Dallas at Pilot. NOW you can say “Almost there.”

26             04:27:56             1:08               Erie and Dallas

FINISH 04:30:00 – 1:10 PM – in front of Parliament Building facing Inner Harbour

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