All Downhill From Here

Alright, alright, the cold finally got me. I feel like someone put a hedgehog in my head at the back of my nose, where the passages to the mouth and ears meet. I’m all prickly and itchy and bitchy, and blowing my nose a lot. This morning I could barely swallow, and Dayquil hasn’t done a thing for my runny nose. I went back to bed this morning instead of blogging OR jogging.

I’m absolutely SURE it has nothing to do with my race last Sunday. Nothing. In fact, perhaps if I’d gone for my stupid recovery run the other day, my higher body temperature would have killed the nasty germs.

It will go away right away, though, because I’m hardy. And I have a XC race on Saturday! I might end up taking the 4k option instead of the 8. I might do it a lot slower than I normally would, depending on how I feel.

The exercise and soup afterwards will do me good. Right?

I missed my Tuesday group run last night to take Soccer Boy to his game and cheer him on to victory, 2 to 1. I probably shouldn’t have yelled so loudly, as my throat’s still a bit scratchy, but it was a hard-played game and they only won in the very last couple of minutes. We stopped at DQ on the way home to celebrate.

I’m avoiding my recovery run. I know I should have gotten out yesterday morning, or even Monday, to work out this stiffness in my calves, but I know it’s going to be uncomfortable and I’m still feeling a little “immunologically challenged” (translate – whiny). I’m not languishing in the depths of snotty-hacking-cold-hell, just have a little tiredness and a tickle in the ears-nose-throat like I had last week.

I’ll get out for a little 20-30 minutes some time today, though. I have a XC race this Saturday and I need to work the nasties out of my legs. Maybe I’ll even run a hill Thursday – just one – to remind myself of how much fun I’m going to have this weekend.

Yesterday I did the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis 10k here in Calgary. I gathered with some training buddies from Gord’s store and some Roadrunners and we enjoyed looking around at different costumes that showed up. There were lots of Santa hats and reindeer antlers. Some teams dressed up as Santa’s helpers, there were Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat in the Hat, a whole team of reindeer used a shiny garland as reins, and a team of frogs in Santa hats also showed up. The best costume was the girl dressed up as a Pointsetta.

It was about 5?C/41?F, with a very slight breeze. The road was dry and clear of ice and the course was fairly flat. Sounds like perfect conditions for a PR, right? If you’re not in the mood for a grumpy whine-fest, you might want to skip the rest.

I don’t want to run with a jingle bell again for a lo-o-ong time. The only good part about the jingling all around me was that it made it harder to hear my beeping watch, which kept beeping before I hit the km markers.

Before the race I set my watch to beep every 5 minutes and 54 seconds. If I could keep to this pace per km, I would be on pace for a 59 minute 10k.

I had a race strategy – I would run the first 3.5 km easy and feel good warming up. I would pick up the pace in the next 3.5 km and feel challenged, but amazingly strong and full of vigour. Then I would kick the last 3km like I was running to keep up with a bad bomb technician.

Right.

The first 2 km were a very gentle up slope. Not a hill, but my legs stiffened up and were NOT cooperating. In the first km several of us were pleasantly distracted by 3 deer (2 stags and a doe) nestled in a copse of trees near the University dorms. My watch at the 2k mark said 12:30 and I was less than thrilled. I kept telling myself I’d feel better in the second third of the race, and forced myself to get back on pace, even though the legs and lungs resisted.

By the 3rd and 4th km (ever-so-slightly downhill) I was passing the km markers when my watch beeped. Physically I was still not feeling any better, but was mentally comforted that I had indeed picked up the pace, even if I didn’t feel like I had. I barely made the 5k point by 30 minutes and gritted my teeth for a second loop.

You know that groove you get when you’re having an amazing run? Sometimes it’s only a few minutes, sometimes it’s the whole run, but that feeling like you could just do this forever? Didn’t happen this time. The whole darn hour was a struggle. Sometimes it happens, eh, and you always hope it doesn’t happen on a race day. Yesterday it did. I tried to talk myself out of it with proclamations of “I am STRONG!” and “I am AMAZING” but my body said “who are you kidding? and what are we doing out here? and what’s the rush, anyway?” If this had been a regular weekend long run I would have bagged it half way through and walked home.

I slogged through the rest of the race, just barely squeezing in the km markers on pace. At 8 km I was 32 seconds late and gave myself a 20 second walk break and pep talk. I WAS going to do this. I could rest LATER. Get the butt in GEAR.

By 9 km I was wheezing like a squeaky toy and barely able to control my breathing. When the watch beeped for the last time I saw the finish was still just way to far away to make it in 1 minute, but I sprinted as hard as I could anyway.

No official results are being published for this event, but I happen to be friends with the timing crew and the “real” time agrees with my watch – 1:00:46. Sigh.

I am a bit comforted with the fact that both the winner of the race and a couple of other reliable sources suspect that the course was a tad long (up to 500 meters!), due to a detour around some construction.

I’ve been fighting a cold, too. Had sniffles and itchy ear-nose-throat stuff the last couple of days. Hubby has a full-blown cold, too. (yeah yeah, whine whine whine…) I’m looking forward to lots of nice, hot drinks in the next couple of days.

I am also comforted by the perception that I did indeed race harder and more consistently in this race than I have ever raced before. And that is why I race, isn’t it? To push myself to/through limits not tried before? I made myself work even when I didn’t feel like it, because I challenged myself.

I’ll log this as another learning experience. I have a planned scale-back of my running plan for December, and am looking forward to taking it easy over the Christmas season. I have two more XC races before the end of the year, and then in January I’ll start ramping up the mileage and speedwork again.

No sense trying for more 10k prs until the weather warms up again in the spring, and I’ve got a few other running distractions to keep me busy until then. 🙂

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” – Stephen Covey

What’s my main running thing again? Run forever, so I can win age group medals in the 90+ age group category. Motivate myself to do the above by having fun while challenging myself to run faster* and farther** while I am still young.

* Sub-60 10k.
Because I know I am capable of it, and it is an absolute, non-negotiable, personal pre-requisite to training for a

**Marathon (did I say that out loud?) M*
before I turn 40.

My main thing this Sunday is to run a sub-60 minute 10k. No jingle bell hats. No chatting with other runners. No walking through water stops.

Breathe. Run. Shatter the PR!

What a great word to describe our weather this week: Finter! No leaves on the trees and all my runs are in the dark, yet I’m not freezing, crunching over unshovelled walks or skipping over ice puddles.

Last night the gang at Gord’s was an energetic bunch and we trotted along at a happy, fast (for us) clip on a flat route out to Tom Campbell’s hill and back. I’d forgotten my mitts in the van, but Yo-go and I shared her mitts back and forth until we were both warmed up. The Pink Lady’s speed training seems to be taking effect and she’s keeping up with us more of the time, as well. There were a couple of new Calgarians checking the group out and we welcomed them heartily.

Last night my stride seemed very relaxed and fluid. This is good, because the previous 3 runs I did last week were more of a plodding kind of effort. I’m feeling much more positive now about racing the Jingle Bell 10k on Sunday. Can I do just one more 10k PR this year? Nothing to do but give it my best.

A few years ago I moved to a new neighborhood, but today I went for a jog in my original running neighborhood, where I lived when I began my “adult-onset athlete” lifestyle. The old loop is a boulevard is 6 km around, and I remember the first day I ran aaaalllll the way around it. The loop contains a long gradual hill one way, and a steeper version of it on the other side. When I first began doing the loop I was thrilled to be able to do it just once in 45 minutes. Today I did it TWICE in 39 minutes per loop. I think the hill got a little smaller today. Yay me!

I had dropped off the Little Mermaid for a play date at our friends’ house before my run, and when I finished my run I washed up and changed for a snack and a nice visit. What a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

This month’s Penguin challenge is to dedicate a run to someone important in my life, past or present. I will probably end up dedicating more than one run this month, but today’s run will be dedicated to the Remembrance of my country’s soldiers who sacrificed themselves to make my world a better place.