The gun went off at 9 am. I am used to standing around waiting to start. But at 9:30 my wave was nowhere near ready to go.

I had a little conversation with myself:
Grouchy me: “Why are you standing here shivering?”

Runner me: “Because I like to run races.”

“But you can’t run. You’re injured,”

“I’m walk/running it. Taking it slow.”

“Christ it’s cold..why didn’t you wear something warmer? Why are you wearing a cotton t shirt? You NEVER wear cotton shirts when you run.”

“I thought it would be sunny & warm. I thought this would be fun. It will be, once I get going.”

“Your wave is nowhere near starting and 10k is a long way wearing cotton and going slow.”

“I know. Maybe I’ll run it for real. To keep warm. Get done faster.”

“Uh huh.”

“Yeah, my foot is feeling better lately.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’ve been laying off running. I’ve been stretching and massaging every day.”

“And how will running 10k today help you toward that goal?”

“Uh….”

At that point I got knocked around again, someone’s elbow jabbed into me. “Look, I think I see his hat over there!” said Elbows as all her jabbing victims around me gave her the stinkeye.

“Is that our wave starting yet?” someone said in my ear. He didn’t mean to say it in my ear, he was just helplessly standing that close. Good thing we all smelled clean. Except for that drunk guy in the hula skirt, but he had come and gone a few minutes ago.

Grumpy me piped up again, perilously close to my Outside Voice: “Why am I standing here again?”

Then it was Caballo Blanco’s voice (or what I imagine it to have been) inside my head:

“RUNNING SHOULD BE FREE, MAN!”

Elbows out, I lurched through the crowd, went to the Y and had a long, hot shower, daydreaming about muddy trails, steep climbs, picturesque meadows, majestic mountain vistas, and races of hundreds, maybe thousands, but not tens of thousands of fellow runners.

That’s right, I’m running slower, it’s hard work, and I’m doing it alone and I’m doing it so I can get faster.

Say what?

It’s all about heart rate zones, and lactate thresholds. I’m wearing a heart rate monitor and paying attention to my body – it’s the most personalized training I’ve ever had.

Also the first heart rate monitor chafing I’ve ever had, but I can deal.

Warning: I’m about to blind you with science.

A couple of Saturdays ago I gave myself a birthday present: a trip to the Peak Centre in Burnaby so they could put me on a treadmill and run me ragged while taking a drop or two of blood from my pricked finger every three minutes.

Yeah, I know, bling would have been nice, or a weekend getaway, but there was no one around to spoil me so I got myself something I could really use. Something that would give me back my running, get me back to training and return me to sanity.

Alex at Peak Centre explained that my heart rate is an indication of the lactate in my blood produced by exercise. The harder you work, the more lactate is produced. A lower intensity – about 70% of maximum heart rate, your body is able to get rid of all the lactate it’s producing. Go faster, and lactate builds up, it fills up like a sink and eventually overwhelms the body’s ability to deal with it, producing lactic acid and the attendant cramping, fatigue, and inability to continue running (or biking, or whatever).

The goal of training is to “widen the drain” at the bottom of the sink – to train the body to handle increasing amounts of lactate. Translation: if you’re training based on your lactate threshold profile, you don’t get tired as easily and can perform better.

It also has to do with fast twitch and slow twitch muscles. the faster you go, the more you’re using fast twitch. The slower you go, the more you’re using slow twitch.

My training heart rate is now determined by five zones the Peak Centre guys figured out for me using data from my lactate threshold test.

BUT here’s where my eyes opened wide: there are “intermediary” fast twitch muscles that can act as slow twitch, and handle all that lactate for longer periods. It’s really important for endurance athletes to “recruit” those intermediary fast twitch to act more like slow twitch. By continually pushing my “easy” pace into Zone 2 all those years, I was encouraging my intermediary fast-twitchers to stay fast twitch, I wasn’t increasing my aerobic treshhold or my lactate threshold and I was hitting a wall in terms of performance. I got frustrated and started to lack motivation.

(Those extra ten pounds I gained since the last fall haven’t helped either, but that’s another matter.)

As it turns out, my 6:30/km (or faster) pace - the pace at which I did all my long and “recovery” runs for the last three years, was probably in Zone 2, “junk mile” territory. Also, I’m not doing enough training in zone 3 – lactate threshold pace, and therefore not training my body enough to handle faster running.

(Yes, I missed nearly every Wednesday night track workout while I was training last summer and fall).

Alex explained that 10-15% of my training should be at lactate threshold, Zone 3, between 6:23 and 5:56 per kilometre; but the other 85-90% should be under aerobic threshold, Zone 1, under 150 bpm – or about 8 minutes per kilometre. When I first started doing it I had to stop and walk frequently to keep my heart rate down. It’s getting ever so slightly better, but I really need to concentrate on running at these paces.

What’s the upshot of all this for me? By running slower according to my own body chemistry, I can train my body to run faster at the same heart rate.

So today my 70% HR is 8:00 per km, but in a few months it might be 7:00, and my race pace will be faster yet.

I won’t be hitting my goal of a 2-hour half marathon this May during the Vancouver Half Marathon. I’ll be lucky to break 2:17 – close to a personal worst. However, if I keep at it, consistently training in my correct zones, I can expect to push my Zone 1 to faster paces and set a personal record in the fall.

I keep reading about people’s running: someone’s training for Boston, or an ultra, or an Ironman, and I think “I want to do all those things, but here I am signed up for a puny little Half Marathon again this spring.”

I can’t get excited training for it. I haven’t been interested in training since my SI joint injury just after the marathon last May. It still doesn’t feel quite right, and I can’t even get excited about running most of the time. I haven’t adjusted to running life in Vancouver very well.

I miss running in Victoria. I miss having kilometres of beautiful coastline within minutes of my home.

I miss having trails an easy 20 minute drive (or less) away.

I miss having a challenging tree-lined hill workout in my own neighbourhood.

I miss having training buddies who run at my training pace.

I miss daylight. Maybe it will get better in spring. Maybe I should bring running gear to work and run the seawall at lunchtime.

I know I need to exercise every day, and I manage to get a few workouts in per week. Maybe that’s enough for now. After all, I just moved. Chris just moved in with me. I just want to sit in my cosy apartment with my fireplace going and have a glass of wine with my new neghbours and friends.

Maybe I should just give myself a break. Lean into it, and see what happens.

This too shall pass.

Photo by robswatski used under Creative Commons license

But then things just kind of went to hell.

I stopped doing my bootcamp class, I went on vacation for a month. I started to get weak. My injuries just don’t heal like they used to. In October, I put in my worst Half Marathon performance ever. Then I moved to Vancouver,

I’ve seen a PT here, but my last “treatment” consisted of showing me exercises that I won’t do every day like I’m supposed to. I can’t pay $70 per session for that.

I’m starting to wonder if my goal of putting in a sub 2-hour half marathon this year is doable. Getting faster means putting in some consistent fast mileage. Consistent fast mileage means injury. Injury means more time and money to PT and massage, neither of which I can afford right now.

So why can’t I be satisfied with a modest 25-30k of running per week at a moderate pace? Why do I have to set an ambitious goal? (Hey – I KNOW I’m slow. For me, 2 hours is an ambitious goal. I’m not you. Deal with it.) Why can’t I sign up for a race without a goal in mind? Why sign up for a race at all?

Well, because the best part about racing is the experience of the day itself: lining up with hundreds, if not thousands, of other runners excited about their performance. Race day is a victory lap, a reward for training, for putting in the miles no one sees. Half the fun is cheering for the other runners on the course, especially team mates you’ve been training with for months.

In racing, my time does not count. I’m just another mid-to-back-of-the-pack runner in a sea of spandex. I’m not even going to place in my age group. Ever.

It’s the journey, not the tape. Hell I won’t even see the tape.

Training hard also takes away from other things I want to do: writing, cooking spending time with my man (who just moved in), maybe even performing slam poetry again.

Someone with ultra-stamina could probably do all that and more. Not me, not any more. I know my energy levels and my priorities.

So, just as I’m reflecting on my priorities for 2012, I’m taking a good hard look at what I really want to accomplish this year, and I’m adjusting accordingly.

I remember a question from a participant at the start of training for my first marathon in 2009: “Will we still be running if the weather is cold, windy and rainy?” to which the run leader replied with a question of her own:

“Will they cancel the race because of rain or wind?”

“Uh – no.”

“Well then, we won’t be calling off any training runs either.”

There’s a sign outside the Mountain Equipment Co-op store in Vancouver that says something like “There’s no bad weather, only bad gear.”

So I’ll be packing dry socks and an extra sweater to change into after tonight’s run, expecting my windbreaker to be soaked through to my bones after tonight’s run. I’ll also be lit up like a Christmas tree with blinking lights front and back. Dark, cold and rainy indeed.

I don’t mind the wind and the rain once I drag my ass out there. If the rain pelts down and the wind tries to knock me over I persevere by envisioning the crossing the finish line with the clock well under my goal time.

I have also been known to laugh in the face of a storm in my own version of Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump, shouting: “Is that all you got? C’mon, gimme more!”

After all, I know a hot shower and a dry warm bed await me tonight. It’s all a matter of perspective, passion and perseverance.

BRING IT!!

I am just fine with that – it was my goal in fact, because I am feeling uninjured and wonderful and I have a medal to mark another accomplishment. I know I can go out there undertrained and in the midst of a major life change and finish a challenging distance race with a smile on my face.

That’s huge.

I know my limits and my abilities and I’m so damn thankful that I have my health. Any day above ground is a supreme gift.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

My app’t to sign, seal & deliver on my condo isn’t for another 2 hours, but I’m ready. This is what happens when I can’t go out for a run.

Running is my stress reliever, my outlet. Many of my most stressful (good or bad) life moments have been alleviated with a memorable run:

• The morning I got married
• The day I found out a boyfriend was leaving town (and that was a treadmill run!)
• The day I came home from lunch to find my lover packing to move out (surprise!)
• The sunny afternoon run along Dallas Road while on vacation when the overwhelming conviction hit me: “I belong here. I have to move here.”
• After work the day I got the job offer to move out to the west coast
• After my daughter died, and I couldn’t run because I was recovering from childbirth, I dreamed of running, and my daughter appeared as a 17-year old running beside me.

So the fact that I can’t run these days* is intensifying the stress of moving. I could have gone to the gym this morning I suppose, but somehow the logistics involved in picking out clothes, packing a bag, walking 15 minutes to the gym on a sore foot, and coming back home to get in my car for the appointment proved too much.

Dammit, I’ve got enough to think about: I’m purging my possessions by about a third, taking care of details like hiring movers, scheduling the move, preparing to paint my new place, changing utilities and informing everyone who counts about my address change, making sure my daughter has her stuff ready for the move to her new life mere days after her 18th birthday….

Don’t ask me to do anything other than to put on my shoes and go out for a goddamn run!

This is way more frustrating than not being able to show up to the two half marathons I signed up for this fall.

*Plantar fasciitis and sacroiliac (SI) joint pain.

It sneaks up on you literally at night. You wake up in the morning with a twinge of heel pain. It goes away after you walk around a bit and you think “Huh. That was nothing.”

Send help immediately.

But then it happens a couple of days later. And another after that. Soon it’s every morning when you get up.

But it feels better when you go for a run, so you don’t think much about it. Except, slowly, it gets worse. Soon, your foot starts hurting after you’ve been sitting at your desk for a couple of hours.

Then, if you still do nothing about it, you’ll end up having foot pain while out for a run. When you get up from bed or from sitting more than an hour you are hobbled. Then you’re in real trouble. Don’t believe me? Read this.

I know all this because I’ve been there, several years ago. It took six months or so to heal completely and get back running: physiotherapy, massage, ice baths for my feet, no-impact cardio (I couldn’t even push off the wall when swimming laps, or do hills during spin class). For a time, my only real workout was daily stretching. It was demoralizing. It sucked.

So, this morning when I got out of bed for the third morning and the niggling little twinge in my left foot was worse, I knew I couldn’t ignore it. Different foot this time, I caught it earlier, and I know what to do. Here’s hoping I won’t have to be off for long. I’m signed up for two half marathons in the next six weeks and I’m determined to finish both of them.

My first massage appointment is tomorrow. Wish me luck…

Photo: Aches and pains by quinn.anya used under Creative Commons license.

Thanks to @FootSourceMD for the link to information about plantar fasciitis.

Accordingly, I vowed to get out to North Vancouver and do the Grouse Grind this summer. I ran Mount Doug and Mount Finlayson. I hiked Gros Morne mountain in Newfoundland. I did not shy away from The Hill (yes there is one) when I was in Regina.

When I put out the call for fellow Grinders on Twitter and Facebook, my friend David (a runner from Central Saanich who runs with the Frontrunners gang) and Eric (from Vancouver) responded. We were on. August 21 was Grind Day.

David on Grouse Mountain

6:25 am: I pull up near David’s place and he’s waiting outside, mostly because I’m five minutes late. It’s already warm, heading towards one of the hottest days of the year on the west coast.

6:40 am: We’ve decided to go public transit, so we leave my car at the ferry terminal and walk on. Despite my lack of sleep, we talk – really talk – the entire trip. No, not just the ferry crossing, I mean the ENTIRE trip which involves bus, sky train, sea bus and another bus before we get to Grouse Mountain.

7:30 am: I’m not hungry, but David convinces me I need to eat breakfast. I will thank him for this later.

10:30 am: after the epic public transit adventure (see above) we arrive at Grouse Mountain guest services to check our bags. “You should know the trail is very strenuous. You can’t climb down after you start up, you have to take the tram…” begins the spiel. “We know. We’re marathon runners, we’ll be fine,” we say.

10:45 am: We meet up with Eric at the trailhead and start off. Thinking Grouse is much like Mount Finlayson, which starts out relatively flat and then climbs, with the occasional flattish spot to pick up the pace, I want to run as much of it as I can. So we start out running.

Catching my breath on the Grind

10:46:32 am: We (well – er – it was me actually) stop running and start hiking. I am sucking wind, heaving like a rusty bellows. The Grouse Grind is nearly three kilometres straight up on awkward, uneven shored up trail. You can’t take short steps because of it. Quite frankly – it’s – a grind.

I blame my poor performance on my prairie upbringing and lack of latent athletic ability. David assures me I’m doing just fine as he slows down with me. I tell him to go ahead if he wants. He’s a Boston Qualified marathoner after all. And I’m — not.

“Why would I do that?” he says. “We came all the way over here to do this together. It wouldn’t be any fun if I went ahead of you.”

10:59 am: It occurs to me, after I get my heart rate down, after all this slowing down and sucking wind, that David is a lot like my last climbing partner Pete. Easygoing, just wanting to share the love of the sport and have a great time. Not out to prove anything. It’s all about the camaraderie, the adventure together. The more the merrier.

11:00 am: I realize how much I’m going to miss my friends in Victoria when I move to Vancouver.

11:15 am: the mountain is packed with people. I can’t believe the number of young children on this trail. Did their parents not get the message? (This blog post warns against taking young children.) I didn’t see anyone carrying a child up, but I did pass a lot sitting by the side of the trail. Meh, who am I to judge? I also saw some very spry (yet slow) older people making their way up.

Me and Eric at the top of Grouse Grind

11:30 am: I wasn’t the only one sucking wind, that’s for sure. It was also a very hot day. Silly me, I had forgotten my running hat at home. I took off my shirt so I could wipe sweat from my eyes, baring my midriff in public for the first time in years. It’s a little more cushy than I remember it from years ago when I ran in the Saskatchewan heat wearing only shorts and jogbra. I feel a little exposed, but soon I don’t care. I’m just concentrating on climbing.

12:05 pm: Success! One minute I’m hauling my very tired legs up that damned hill. Next, I turn a corner and surprise! There is the chalet!

Our total climbing time was 80 minutes. Apparently the average is 90. That’s what our waiter told us when we sat down to order beer and burgers, and enjoy the view from up there.

Eric had to head off to UBC for a conference, but after we finished lunch David and I decided to head right to the summit, another 20 minutes, but much easier hike to the top of the ski area. We watched some hang gliders take off and took the ski lift back down to the chalet. There we picked up the bags we checked at the bottom and changed into clean, dry clothes. Even I was starting not to be able to stand my own stink.

The view from the chalet

The tram ride all the way down is one of the highlights of the trip, even though it was packed with people. I’m sure they all appreciated that we had changed clothes.

We caught the bus to Lonsdale Quay, where we detoured for gelato before getting back on the sea bus. What a gorgeous day!

We got to Tsawwassen in time to catch the 7 pm ferry, 12 hours from the time our adventure started. I catnapped for about 10 minutes, then David and I just kept talking (albeit at a slower pace than before).

Back on the island, I dropped David at his place, and by the time I got home at about 9:45 pm I was exhausted, but still stoked from such a perfect day.

Overall impression of the Grouse Grind? It is indeed a grind: but with Guest Services at the bottom, a beer and burger at the top, and a tram ride down, you can’t go wrong. I’ll be back to do it again soon.

Paragliders taking off from Grouse Mountain

I upgraded to Mac OS X Lion last week. All was well, until I took my Garmin Forerunner 405: a runner’s watch equipped with GPS and heart rate monitoring technology. After each run I upload the data to my computer, then upload it to my profile on DailyMile. It’s a great way of keeping track of my progress.

After the Lion installation, everything else worked like a charm. I like the updated OS, especially the new dashboard and 4-fingered swipe between full-screen apps.

However, when I got back from my first run and turned on my laptop, the ANT agent (software contained on a stick that detects my Forerunner wirelessly and uploads the data) could not activate.

So I searched the forums, found nothing, and finally send a note to Garmin support. This was the reply:

Dear Tori Klassen,

Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

I will be more than happy to assist you in this issue today.

Recent operating updates can affect programs; since Lion OS X is a new update, customers have been encountering some issues at this time with the Ant Agent software and we are sorry to hear that this is occurring.

Please note that our engineers are aware of this issue and are currently working on correcting the issue; we appreciate your patience during this time and understanding.

Have a great day and thank you for being a Garmin customer.

Tragedy! Now I have to manually enter my workout into Daily Mile, then delete the data manually from the Garmin so I can use it again for the next run. Gone (for now) are the lap-by-lap analysis, the mapping, the elevation gained and lost …

Wait, what was I using all that data for anyway? I can’t even run a Half Marathon in less than two hours.

Who exactly am I fooling that I really NEED all this data?

I think I can wait patiently for the software update from Garmin. No panic required.

(I do wish Garmin would update their support page though. It would save them some emails from frustrated customers.)