Bazan Bay 5km 2013 - Race Report

So, as planned, I ran the Bazan Bay 5k on Sunday.

Mentally I have a hard time with 5k races. I love them, because they are over quickly and a good measure of speed. I hate them, because they hurt like hell and I’m always afraid I’m going to be way slower than the last time I ran one.

So, naturally, as Shane and I warmed up and then stood at the start line, waiting for go-time, I was uber-nervous. Even though I had absolutely nothing to prove and no one was going to judge me for my time (I hope) my guts flipped and flopped and I internally fretted about the ‘pain’ that I was about to put myself through.

The "gun" went off…

22 minutes and 7 seconds later it was all over.

I had wanted to go under 22:00 (my current PB is 22:01), but it wasn’t meant to be on Sunday. Besides now it gives me motivation and something to work for on my next 5k race (whenever that may be).

So yeah, overall, the race felt pretty good. Quick and painful (which is exactly what a 5k should be I think) but fun.

My splits were freakin’ ugly - in that they were, oh you know, just a touch uneven (oops). [Approx. 4:10, 4:40, 4:31, 4:24, 4:22]. I'm not sure what I was doing during the 2nd km (spacing out apparently) but I’m not really tore up about it. If anything, I am happy that I was able to refocus and get back on track for the second half.

Anyway, it’s a 5k – how many details can I give. In the end, it was great fun, Shane kicked some serious butt, my nerves were (as always) totally unnecessary, and the post-race food was amazingly tasty.

Yippee to a great day at the races!

Ups & Downs

Two weeks ago every workout I did was a struggle.

I didn't necessarily realize it at the time though, as I only had one workout that really stood out to me as being a struggle. At the end of the week though, when I read back through my notes in my training calendar, I realized it was definitely one of those weeks where getting pumped up to get out the door was a struggle. Each and every comment in my training log showed a lack of enthusiasm and was overall kinda “blah”.

Thankfully, it was a bit like a switch flipped the next Monday, and the week following felt pretty great. My motivation was back and I felt like I was running strong.

This past Sunday I ran long with Kirsten, Shane and TRex at the Lakes.

My motivation was still high and I actually felt pretty good through the run (and despite my next sentence, I still think it was a good workout for the most part). Unfortunately around the 15k mark, my ankle/achilles area got quite tender and I felt like I was really heel striking (but couldn’t seem to stop myself). It’s not like I tripped or rolled my ankle or anything like that, and definitely wasn’t to the point of needing to stop, I just could feel the movement in my ankle lessening as the run progressed, and well, it was kind of painful.

Post-run Sunday, everything was pretty tender.

I iced it a little, put my feet up and didn’t really worry about it too much – or I guess, more accurately, I knew it was likely the same issue I dealt with for a bit last year.

As my RMT Lysanne said the other day, I have the strangest “injuries”.

In this instance, my talus bone kinda slips/rotates and lodges itself out of place. Usually when this happens, I can still run and it tends to loosen up a bit as I get warm, but I definitely can’t just leave it, and usually need to get into massage or physio to have it adjusted and put back into place.

The earliest appointment that fit my schedule was Tuesday after work, so I did my runs on Monday and Tuesday with my wonky foot (luckily they were both just base runs). Neither outing was terrible, but I did feel kind of awkward the whole time and never really felt as if I actually did warm up.

Thankfully, miracle worker Lysanne got my foot adjusted, did some major work on my crazy tight calves, flushed my legs and even taped me up to help take a bit of pressure off my ankle and tib post for a bit.

After the appointment, my ankle was pretty tender and a bit swollen (as it always is after an adjustment like that) so I opted not to get up and run on Wednesday morning like I usually do. I wanted to give everything happening in my lower legs a bit more time to chill out. However, that meant I would have to run after work, right before bike trainer class (not super ideal, but whatevs).

I’ll admit I was kinda scared to attempt my run workout on Wednesday night. My runs the previous two days had not felt great and my leg was still definitely a bit tender from the beating Lysanne gave it. I think I was worried about having a bad workout and taking a hit to the motivation.

Thankfully, and somewhat unexpectedly, it actually turned out to be a really great run!

I was pretty conservative at the start, as I could really feel the work that had been done on my calves the day before, but my ankle - while tender - actually felt the best it had all week and was definitely moving better. As I ramped up my pace for my planned efforts, my ankle just continued to feel looser and looser! It was awesome.

So that’s where I’m at right now. The rest of the week gears down a bit so that I can race Bazan Bay 5k on Sunday with somewhat fresh legs.

I had actually forgot that I told Adam I liked running this event, so was a bit surprised to see it on my calendar this week, but I think it will be fun to go out and, you know, just give’r*.

Anyway, this has been a pretty boring ramble (so thanks for hanging in there if you are still reading). I suppose I just like to document times like this for myself, as every year, I end up going through a period of ups and downs.

Like usual, I’d say there were probably more ups than downs, and one major bonus is that I am really finding myself looking forward to long hilly runs on trails – probably a good sign for the months to come.

*Give'r
Function: Verb
Etymology: Canadian, particular to rural areas, especially Lanark County Ontario and most of Alberta; An amalgam of the words give and her; made popular by movie "FUBAR"
Definition: Going all out and/or balls to the wall to take care of business as quickly and as awesomely as possible.


Also, just because…


RIP Stompin’ Tom

Fear and Anger

A female jogger was attacked in Victoria on Wednesday afternoon. Luckily, she got away from her attacker, but who knows what damage he did to her – if not physically, what about emotionally?
 
When I heard this story on the news last night, my first reaction was fear. My thoughts turned to the run I had to do this morning, which I knew would be done alone, in the dark. I’d be out pounding the pavement before most of the city fully wakes up.
 
My emotions then turned to anger.
 
I’m angry that I should ever have to be fearful when I go running alone.
 
I’m angry that sometimes I’m afraid to run in the dark.
 
I’m angry that I should ever have to look over my shoulder when I run past someone who makes me feel even just a little uneasy, to make sure they aren’t following me.

I’m angry that my gut reaction is to cross to the other side of the street when approaching someone in the dark if there is no one else around.

I’m angry I have to think about what route I’m going to run and if there will be enough traffic, or other people out walking, or houses nearby, should I get in trouble.
 
I’m angry that I sometimes avoid awesome trails because they are secluded and I don’t have anyone to run with that day.
 
I’m angry that I’m told it is safer for women to run in groups.
 
I’m angry that I’m afraid to run on one of the most accessible running routes from my house out of fear. Fear because of one time 4 or 5 years ago, when a guy in a truck kept driving back and forth past me, leering at me, and following me. Thank goodness I had Rusty and my phone. I remember calling Shane who was working not far away asking him to come get me as I sprinted toward the main road. I'm angry that the panic I felt in that moment is still there after all these year.
 
I’m angry that I have to even consider if Rusty would protect me if he ever had to. (I know the answer is yes, while it has thankfully never had to be tested, I know he would rip anyone apart who tried to harm me).
 
I’m angry that there have to be articles in Canadian Running Magazine directed at women, about how they can and should protect themselves when they go out running.
 
I’m angry that most men likely never have to think about these things.
 
But, unfortunately, these are all realities.
 
Running with my Dad last week, I think I mentioned that if I have to run in the dark, I prefer the dark of the morning to that of the evening, as I know the sun will be rising. "Morning dark" somehow feels safer than "night dark", with daylight feelings the safest... And yet, the girl who was attacked at UVic the other day was running in broad daylight.
 
I’m angry at the asshole who did that to her.
 
I’m angry, for myself, and for all the other women out there who maybe didn’t run quite as carefree as they would have liked this morning.
 
I’m angry that lowlifes like this guy even exist. He is nothing but a coward.

A Hump Day Trio

1) I had a pretty good run this morning. After a 20’ warm up, I was set to do 2x 20’ at marathon effort with 5’ easy in between. There was a note in my calendar that went something like this “be honest with your marathon pace-this is your goal race pace, no faster”.

I’ve been struggling a little with hitting my goal marathon pace lately, not because it is too hard, but more because I keep going out a little fast. It feels good in the moment, but when I look at my pace after, I think it is probably a little quicker than what I can realistically run a marathon at.

While it feels great for 20’, will it feel that great for 42.2km???

Anyway, the first 20’ block was pretty great and I think pretty realistic. My pace wasn’t much faster than what I am hopeful marathon pace will be. The second 20’ however, the pace got a little quicker. My only justification is that I felt really good ~ I actually felt like I was running right around the same pace. Ooops. Obviously, my perception of my pace is just a bit off these days.

Regardless, I suppose it is nice to be feeling good while running. I’d say that is a win no matter what the pace.

2) I have been really hungry lately!

I recently subscribed to this website called The Fresh 20. I’m not the most creative in the kitchen and am not very good at planning what to buy when I go to the grocery store (yadda, yadda, yadda), so I often end up buying my lunch while at work and then eating some thrown together meal for dinner when I get home because I’m starving.

Anyway, they (The Fresh 20) had a Groupon and so I decided to give it a try. It was $24 for a year’s worth of weekly dinner meal plans. While it takes a little more planning and prep than just throwing the same old crap together, so far I’ve been quite enjoying the meals I’ve made - and *bonus* often have enough left over for lunch the following day.

Today however, I decided to buy my lunch (out of sheer laziness) and scarfed down a huge Burrito Clasico from Hernandez (fricken delicious as always) and a gigantic chocolate chip cookie from Pig (who knew a BBQ joint could make such delicious cookies!). It was a huge calorie bomb, but holy eff was it good!

And yet, I’m still hungry.

3) I finally spent my Lululemon gift cards yesterday that I got for Christmas and it felt oh-so-food (haha, typo, but I’m keeping it. Should say ‘good’ ~ told you I was hungry!).

I’ve had $190 burning a hole in my pocket since Christmas, but haven’t wanted to buy something just for the sake of buying something.

So, I went into the store yesterday at lunch just to look around and ended up walking out with a new set of run tights, a new long sleeved running top, and a new short sleeved Swiftly in an awesome green colour... and $15 left on my gift cards to boot.

Yay for sales and ‘R&D’ discounts!!

First Half ½ Marathon - Race Report

As mentioned in my previous post, I spent the past weekend [and a long weekend at that ~ yay for BC’s new Family Day] in Vancouver hanging out and catching up with friends, and watching many hours of ‘The Walking Dead’. Oh, and of course, I also ran the First Half Half Marathon on Sunday morning.

Let’s recap that, shall we?

The weather was absolutely perfect and it was a stunningly beautiful course. I’m not sure you could ask for a better day.

Anyway, as I said before, I didn’t really plan on going out and ‘racing’ this so much as I planned to work on pacing and hitting a nice even split. While it may not be quite as satisfying as smashing a PB, I did managed to achieve my pacing goals for this race, and you know, there is a nice little sense of accomplishment in that too.

I’m pretty sure I said I didn’t care what the pace was, but in the back of my mind, I wanted to be somewhere around 5:20/km. I knew 5:20/km could feel either challenging or super comfortable for me, just depending on the day. On top of that, this pace is right around the goal pace I’m looking at for the marathon in May, so I sort of figured if I could get through 21k feeling good at this pace then that would be a good sign. (Judge my naïve thoughts if you will, but remember, I’ve never really raced a marathon before).

The first 2k was definitely a bit fast. I’m going to blame this mostly on Kirsten, although in reality, she isn’t the only one who got a bit caught up in the excitement of the race start. She does tend to go by the ol’ “fade from the front” philosophy, but on Sunday, she was a good sport and settled into a pretty consistent and steady pace with me not long after that 2k mark.

Anyway, I don’t have a tonne of thoughts on the day. Sometimes I felt like I was running at my pace, and sometimes I felt like I was running at Kirsten’s pace (although, I’m sure she’ll deny that)… but for most of the time, I just felt good.

All the way up and through about 14/15km I felt like I could have been running a bit faster, but admittedly, I was a bit worried about fading toward the end, so I definitely played it a bit safe (especially since my longest run in months has been just shy of 16k).

About the 15km/16km I was pretty aware that I was starting to have to work harder to maintain the same pace (and mentally, about this time, I hit the point where I was just ready to be finished), but I still didn’t feel like I was necessarily slowing or falling off the pace too much.

Unfortunately the only real issue was about the 18k mark when “nature called” and well, my guts just got very unhappy, very suddenly.

Kirsten urged me to pick up the pace and my grumbling response was “if I pick up the pace, I’m going to crap my pants!” I may have said this a little louder than I intended, so apologies to anyone who was running around me at that point, haha.

(Side note: because I didn’t actually end up messing myself, I obviously find this moment in the race to be quite hilarious, but have found my non-runner friends really don’t enjoy a good poo story as much as I do - what up with that?).

Anyway, needless to say, the “poo butt clench” that was happening made those final few km a little uncomfortable and a bit of a slog (and may have even made my form a little awkward). I know in a longer race that a quick pit stop would hopefully make things better, but obviously at that moment on Sunday, there was no point in stopping.

So yeah, overall the pace/km may have jumped around a little, but not too wildly – and the first half of the race was almost identical to the second half for overall time, so I can’t complain about that.

Of course, I still do truly believe I can run a faster half, because really, other than the upset guts, I did feel pretty great when this was all over. My body and legs were obviously tired after, but I feel like I bounced back (or am bouncing back) pretty well.

All that said, I do feel like I need to stop saying “I think I can run a faster half” and actually go out and prove it at some point in the near future. Stay tuned for that.

Info for the stat junkies…
Gun Time = 1:51:23
Chip Time = 1:51:01
Average pace/km = 5:16 (or 5:14 according to Garmin, as I apparently ran 21.21km)  

Steady As She Goes

So, I’m racing – no wait, scratch that – running a half marathon on Sunday.

Sometime back in October my friend Laura suggested we sign up for the First Half Half. She had just come off the high of completing the Victoria Half Marathon, and I was all stoked about heading to New Zealand, and at the time, it sounded like a super-great-wonderful idea. I was all in! (Oh, and we roped Kirsten in too).

I figured it would give me something to focus on post-NZ and would be a good little tune up into the 2013 season (2013, for me, is going to be “the year of the run” after all).

I also thought, given that it’d be early in the year, I would be fresh and could potentially go for a new PB.

One of the reasons I was even thinking about a PB was because Shane had told me after the 2012 Victoria Half (which he completed in 1:37:22) that he was retiring from the half marathon distance until I beat him. So, you know, that is just a little bit of an incentive to run hard, right?

Anyway, my current half PB is from a few years ago and is a bit outdated at 1:50:51. While I have yet to prove it, I know whole-heartedly that I can cover that distance faster (perhaps not 1:37 fast, but deffo into the 1:40s).

Of course, things don’t always go as planned and my grand plans for a new PB have been put aside (for this race at least).

I spent much of my time in November and December doing whatever the hell I felt like. I was exercising, but without any structure. I wasn’t really training. I definitely wasn’t prepping myself to run a ‘fast’ half marathon.

I got rolling again in January, perhaps a little later than I had originally expected, and have been enjoying the stability of an actual training routine, but I don’t feel ready to go out and race hard – and, you know, I don’t really want to.

Don’t get me wrong, I am actually looking forward to the race this weekend, just for different reasons than I originally thought I would be.

I’m excited for this race because it is an excuse to head to the big city and hang out with someone I don’t get to see nearly enough. I’m excited to run a race on unfamiliar roads. I’m excited to try out some pacing for the marathon and use this as a building block for the bigger things to come this year.

So, what is my goal for this race then?

To run strong, but also to run steady. To run an even pace for the whole 21.1k – be it 4:47/km or 5:47/km. Oh, and if the pace isn’t even, then it sure as hell better be a negative split.

One other fun goal for the day will be keeping Kirsten reigned in, haha. She has informed me that "my pace is her pace" for this outing. We need to start really learning to run as a team and I think one of the bigger contributions I can bring to our team for TRR is pacing, whereas her strength will be keeping me pushing when the pain sets in. So, perhaps I’ll keep us steady for 16k or then Kirsten can make me dig deep for those last 5k?

I like it. Negative split here we come!!!  

Marathon Training *gulp*

"The hill set is not an easy one to pace evenly at first, but you'll figure it out quickly. It goes a long way to helping you develop strength and good form, that will really help when you get into the meat and potatoes of the marathon training in 6 weeks or so."

When I read the above sentence in an email earlier this week, it took me back for a moment. Not the part about the hill workout , but more the part where it talks about getting into the “meat and potatoes of marathon training”. I think in the back of my mind, I keep forgetting that I am actually going to run a marathon in the foreseeable future.

It excites me, and it terrifies me.

I wonder how many other people are out there that have completed an Ironman, but find themselves more fearful of the marathon on its own – because, let me tell you, I sure as hell am.

Well, maybe fear is the wrong word, so let’s just say; I have a very healthy respect for the marathon.

I imagine being more ‘afraid’ of the marathon than Ironman actually might be more typical then you’d think. By the time you hit the marathon in Ironman, it is about survival (for me at least) and finishing – and while you want to get there as fast as you possibly can, there is so much more to the day.

I imagine, with a stand-alone marathon, the element of “racing” is much more present. I don’t want to run a marathon simply to finish it. Been there, done that, (at the end of a much longer adventure mind you) and I know I can cover the distance.

Of course, “racing” the marathon is relative. I definitely won’t be challenging anyone for the win or breaking any course records, but I do have a goal time in mind and it will be a challenge for me. I know I will have to really focus mentally and work hard to achieve what I want in this race and I definitely want to cross the finish line feeling like I gave it everything I could.

So, I am taking the steps to make that happen....
Right now, training is going well. I’m happily back into a solid routine. My new training plan is similar enough to what I’m used to, to keep me from feeling overwhelmed, but different enough to keep me on my toes and to keep things interesting and exciting.

I’ve had some really good runs lately – like really solid, confidence boosting runs – and have been in the pool and on my bike enough to keep me from feeling like I’m completely deserting my beloved triathlon.

Oh, and you know what else? I’m actually really starting to get excited about TransRockies. It is another one of those things that scares the crap out of me, but I’m feeling more and more ready to embrace the challenge and adventure that awaits me in the Colorado Rockies.


All rambling aside, anyone out there have some good tips for this marathon/TransRockies rookie??