Good Bye 2009 - Hello 2010!

A brief review of my year in running tells me that there's only one way to describe it: Up and Down...

Up: Ran four races, ranging in distance from 5k to 30k and achieved my goal of breaking 45 minutes in the 10k.

Down: Had to pull out of the planned Fall marathon due to injury.

For totals, I came up just shy of 1000km for mileage, achieving 975.5km with today's 9km run. A cursory look at my training log and I should be happy with this result, and I am.

As far as 2010 goals go I have just one major one: LISTEN TO MY BODY! If I can do this I shouldn't have to take any major time off at any point. All other goals are secondary, but a first marathon in the Fall is up high on my list.

So, here's hoping 2010 is the best running year ever for everyone, and most importantly that it brings health, prosperity, and happiness to you and yours.

See you on the flip side!!!

Happy Holidays!!!

May the Holidays bring everyone all that they desire, and most importantly health and happiness. And may 2010 be the best running year EVER!!!

All the best!

Vava

Back in the Valley

It's a hectic week leading up to the Christmas Holidays, as usual. I always mean to be prepared well in advance, but it simply never happens. With both kids in school and taking part in extra-curricular activities it seems that I have even less time these days than in years past.

Oh well. The stress of the Holiday Season is nothing new, but this is the first time that I am trying to keep up a running regimen on top of all the other responsibilities. Last year, although I'd been running for the entire year, December found me taking an extended leave due to one of my numerous injuries. This year my enforced time off happened earlier, and so I am trying to keep up with a consistent training schedule throughout the Holidays.

I ran a pretty uninteresting 4km on Friday, getting home after work and straight out the door to head towards Owen's school to pick him up. This time I didn't freeze on the way home because I took my jacket and fleece off inside the school and dried out a bit while collecting Owen. Much better than my Wednesday experience!

Saturday we were out shopping for Christmas and my right knee was feeling pretty tight so I didn't run. Therefore, I got up fairly early (for me, anyway) and went out for a decent run this morning.

I was hoping to run about 6km, but I decided to see how it played out with the knee and all. Feeling pretty good I decided to just keep running and headed down to Riverdale Park and onto the trails of the Don Valley. It was great to be running down there again! I managed a decent 7.5km and feel pretty good. We then took the boys out to a local restaurant for breakfast and I stuffed myself solid with their "big breakfast". No need for lunch given how big this thing was, and how late in the morning I ended up eating.

Day After Walking Experiment

Just a quick update to document how my body is dealing with the whole walking to work, then running home thing. In short: I'm a bit sore! Muscles that were clearly underused in running have been awakened as a result of my rather brisk 6km trek yesterday morning. Any motion involving pulling my foot up (I believe it's called dorsiflexion by smarter people than I) is where the pain is localized. As a result I truly believe that walking will help my running because it absolutely works out complimentary muscles. I plan on doing this again once next week, and slowly work my way up to two or three sessions per week in the New Year.

And now for something completely different...

No, I am not into my own take on Monty Python, and somehow relating it to how I am struggling with running these days, but I do secretly wish for such creativity. Instead I have decided to add something new to my "training"...

After reading "The Lore of Running", as mentioned here, I was intrigued by the training techniques of the best runners of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. If you haven't read Chapter 6 of this book I highly recommend it for entertainment alone! Specifically I was shocked by how fast some of the cotton-wearing masters of the Victorian and WWI era were able to run on the diets that they recommended to other athletes. Don't know about you, but I wouldn't get very far on stale bread, flat bear, and old mutton. Gross.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, how does this particular Chapter impact my so-called "training". Well, in a word: walking. It seems that the marathoners and ultramarathoners of a bygone era were big on walking, LOTS of walking. I am not planning on 30km every morning like some of these folks, but I figure a bit of walking can only help my running in two ways:

1. By adding extra mileage to my training without the destructive pounding of running.


2. By working out complimentary muscles which running ignores.

And so I decided to start by walking all the way to work so as to allow me to run home afterward. I was pleasantly surprised at the pace I was able to maintain, and thought I'd be hard pressed to stay around the 10:00/km mark. Instead I managed an 8:37/km pace for the entire 6.05km distance, with the whole trek taking just 52 minutes and change. Nice!

Then, after a day of desk sitting, I ran home. My right leg was a bit stiff from the walk (remember those complimentary muscles getting worked out?), but this didn't seem to affect my running. I ran slow and steady all the way until I was pretty close to Owen's school, stopping at 7.3km. I easily could have gone the extra half kilometre to the school's front door, but given that the longest run I've been on since starting up again was 6km I figured I'd pushed it far enough.

The only thing I did wrong was neglecting to put on the extra fleece vest that I had in the backpack and, therefore, nearly froze on the walk home. Live and learn...

Reading and (hopefully) Learning

As I try and get "back" to the type of running that I was doing in the summer I find the process tedious and frustrating. I am not running nearly as much as I thought I would be more than a month into my return to running. My right knee continues to bother me a bit, though nothing like what I was feeling at the end of August when I was sidelined with this ailment as well as calf strains galore.

Anyway, I am really really trying to be more conservative and have set no goals for the year other than wanting to run a marathon next Fall. Even this goal is not set in stone, and I am not registered for any races whatsoever. In between the little bit of running that I have been able to accomplish I have been reading books on running like never before. The two most useful ones I've found are Hal Higdon's "Marathon: the Ultimate Training Guide" and Timothy Noakes' "The Lore of Running".

I am not, at this point, interested in any training plan per se, but I am very much in need of reinforcement of the concepts of not over training, listening to your body, setting realistic goals, etc. Both of these books do a great job of describing the common mistakes that rookies make, which ultimately lead to burnout or injury, and I have found more than a few that either I've already experienced or can relate to. As such, I am continuing to stay positive no matter how often, or how far, I am running on a weekly or monthly basis.

Case in point: Last week I ran 4km on Monday, then took the rest of the week off because I was fighting off some sort of throat ailment. On Saturday I went out for what turned out to be an awesome feeling 6km. It was easy, and I had a great time.

Sunday morning I was hoping to run again, but decided that my right calf was still feeling a bit too sore after Saturday's run and stayed home. Instead, I rode the stationary bike for 30 minutes and did some stretching.

I've also started doing a few new exercises that I found in the Noakes book, especially ones with stretch cords that work the hip flexors in a variety of ways. A particular one that I've never done before works out the front of the hip, where you have to lift your leg up until the thigh is parallel with the floor while having a stretch cord attached to the ankle. It's amazing how weak those muscles are and I immediately feel the difference in my knees after only a few days of this activity.

Anyway, I would love to be out there running 20+ kilometres every Sunday, but it is simply not possible at this time. Instead, I have to think super long term and get back to that sort of mileage when my body allows. I just hope that all of this new found wisdom doesn't leave me as the Spring racing season approaches and I am tempted, perhaps against my better judgement, to enter a race or two. I hope that I can race a few, but will not bank on it just yet.

I have also signed up at a gym around the corner as part of a reduced monthly rate plan through my work. The membership doesn't start until the middle of January, but I am doing this to have access to treadmills again, and to specifically work out my core and legs in order to get rid of these "swimmers legs" once and for all. Must strengthen to absorb shock better!

One of those weeks...

Man, it's been "one of those weeks" for me. After the weekend I went out for a nice run on Monday evening and had a decent time of it, completing a relatively uneventful 4km with a short walk break at the halfway point.

Then on Tuesday evening, when I was not planning on running, my throat started hurting. I shrugged it off and figured it wouldn't lead to anything since over the past month I've had the same feeling creep up one evening only for it to go away by the following morning. This time I wasn't as lucky and by Wednesday morning it was super painful to swallow. Although I didn't go to the doctor (I know, I know) my self diagnosis is that I had a touch of tonsillitis given that I didn't have the usual strep throat symptoms.

Anyway, needless to say, I did not run that evening and have pretty much been more than a little worn down the entire week. Today things are feeling a bit better, though my throat still continues to give me trouble and I am very lethargic.

The one nice thing about being a bit out of it is that I've been reading a lot recently. I won't bother listing the training manual type books that I've perused since they are in the "usual suspects" category and I'm sure anyone who is into running would have checked them out already. However, if you haven't checked out these two books you definitely should:

Duel in the Sun by John Brant was an awesome read. I couldn't put it down and finished it in one sitting! What a story, and not just of the race between Salazar and Beardsley, but mainly their lives before and after that pivotal race.

Strides: Running Through History with an Unlikely Athlete by Ben Cheever is also a fast read and very entertaining indeed. Lots of humour throughout, and many historical anecdotes makes this a lighthearted history of running book.

Hopefully I can get some running done this weekend. Have a good one everybody!

Another Busy Weekend

Man, it seems like the weekends are flying by and getting busier and busier! No rest until the New Year, I suspect, but at least I am still getting my runs in despite all the other stuff that needs to get done.

This weekend we celebrated my Dad's 65th Birthday and retirement, which meant a lot of cleaning of the house ahead of the Sunday evening dinner. We went a little overboard on some things (case in point, dismantling and cleaning the sliding patio doors), and didn't touch others, but all in all everything went well.

In amongst all that prep work I managed to run twice. On Saturday morning I encouraged Owen to come with me for a short run, and even got Malcolm in on the act. Owen and I ran 2km together, then picked up Malcolm for another kilometre for a total of 3km. It was chilly out, near freezing, but definitely fun. Then we had an energy audit conducted on our house, after which I took Owen to get measured for his jersey for baseball "spring training" - they start indoor workouts at the beginning of January and go every weekend right through until the end of April.

On Sunday Owen said his heel hurt a little bit (little guy needs new running shoes, me thinks) and so I went off on my own for another easy run. This time I ran 5km. It also marked the first time since last winter that I ran in below freezing temperatures as the thermometer read -0.5C when I left.

Running wise it was a good recovery week. My calf hurt a bit, but I think I've traced the issue to doing some extra calf raises that tired the muscle out a bit so I am not worried about it. It didn't bother me very much on the weekend, but clearly I need to strengthen my calves. My total for the week was a meagre 13km. This week I will try and run a bit more, though I must admit that this slow build up in mileage is getting on my nerves. I just wish my body would accept a more aggressive approach, but I'm afraid that is not to be. Just have to stay the course...

Strange...

Went out for a run after two full days off and happened upon something that always seems like it comes out of nowhere for me. After about 2km of easy running my left calf (i.e. non-wonky ankle side) started to feel a bit stiff, so I took a short walk break before starting to run again. I ran three more kilometres, taking brief walking breaks after each click, and tried to stretch the thing out, but to no avail. I had gotten home from work early enough to run over to the school to collect Owen, and was not particularly warmly dressed given that the weather was pretty mild. I wore shorts, and perhaps that was the source of the problem. After a total of 5km I finally got to the school.

On the walk home with Owen the calf really started to hurt. It didn't help that it started raining that cold, late autumn type of rain and I was definitely feeling chilled. Today it feels a bit better, but definitely no running for me this evening, as I had planned. Perhaps my calves are even weaker than I had suspected? I'd better start doing some strengthening in that area once this settles down.

Just hoping to run on the weekend...

November in brief

November has now come and gone. After 8 weeks of sedentary life, with a leg surgery that put me on my ass for a bit, the past month has seen me return to running, though in limited fashion I concede.

I have amassed a modest total of 50.3km of running for the month and have nearly reached 900km for the year, falling just 7km short of that mark. Though 1000km will not likely happen this year I am just happy to be running again and in the beginning stages of base building.

The other thing that all my time off has allowed me to do is to work on my leg strength. I continue to do lunges on a nightly basis and am slowly feeling the positive effects of this activity. On top of that, on days when I don't run, I spend at least a half-hour on a stationary bike. This has been good I'm sure, though my body weight has not budged, surprisingly. I find it hard to believe that the eight weeks of little activity (beyond biking to work and doing push ups and chin ups at home) has put an extra 15lbs onto my frame. I now hover just over 200lbs and that's the heaviest I've been in well over a year. I think that I am putting on muscle rather than fat, but it will be interesting to see what happens to my weight once my mileage gets higher in the coming months.

I look forward to a good December of running! This week I am taking it easy, trying to stick to my long term plan of giving my body a break every fourth week in an effort to stave off the multitude of nagging injuries that follow me around...