week 4- Em

hey everyone!
Well i'm sure all of you can relate to me when I say, running makes you think.  Whether it is what your going to make for dinner or personal thoughts and feelings., either way I find I get my clearest thoughts while running.
During last nights run ( 26km ish starting at the store and ending in deep cove) Noel and I  began talking about running and this question came up.
What has running become for me??
This was a hard question to answer. Running has changed so much for me in the last couple years, starting with running to stay in shape for wrestling to now running to train for some insane races. Does that mean I am running for leisure??  Sometimes it feels so part of my daily and weekly routine that it, along with school and triathlon, seem  like a full time job. 

I was going through some old school papers and I came across this poem I use to have on my wall above my bed. I thought id share it because it is linked with running.

The Race

by D. H. Groberg

Whenever I start to hang my head in front of failure's face, my downward fall is broken by the memory of a race. A children's race, young boys, young men; how I remember well, excitement sure, but also fear, it wasn't hard to tell. They all lined up so full of hope, each thought to win that race or tie for first, or if not that, at least take second place. Their parents watched from off the side, each cheering for their son, and each boy hoped to show his folks that he would be the one. The whistle blew and off they flew, like chariots of fire, to win, to be the hero there, was each young boy's desire. One boy in particular, whose dad was in the crowd, was running in the lead and thought "My dad will be so proud." But as he speeded down the field and crossed a shallow dip, the little boy who thought he'd win, lost his step and slipped. Trying hard to catch himself, his arms flew everyplace, and midst the laughter of the crowd he fell flat on his face. As he fell, his hope fell too; he couldn't win it now. Humiliated, he just wished to disappear somehow. But as he fell his dad stood up and showed his anxious face, which to the boy so clearly said, "Get up and win that race!" He quickly rose, no damage done, behind a bit that's all, and ran with all his mind and might to make up for his fall. So anxious to restore himself, to catch up and to win, his mind went faster than his legs. He slipped and fell again. He wished that he had quit before with only one disgrace. "I'm hopeless as a runner now, I shouldn't try to race." But through the laughing crowd he searched and found his father's face with a steady look that said again, "Get up and win that race!" So he jumped up to try again, ten yards behind the last. "If I'm to gain those yards," he thought, "I've got to run real fast!" Exceeding everything he had, he regained eight, then ten... but trying hard to catch the lead, he slipped and fell again. Defeat! He lay there silently. A tear dropped from his eye. "There's no sense running anymore! Three strikes I'm out! Why try? I've lost, so what's the use?" he thought. "I'll live with my disgrace." But then he thought about his dad, who soon he'd have to face. "Get up," an echo sounded low, "you haven't lost at all, for all you have to do to win is rise each time you fall. Get up!" the echo urged him on, "Get up and take your place! You were not meant for failure here! Get up and win that race!" So, up he rose to run once more, refusing to forfeit, and he resolved that win or lose, at least he wouldn't quit. So far behind the others now, the most he'd ever been, still he gave it all he had and ran like he could win. Three times he'd fallen stumbling, three times he rose again. Too far behind to hope to win, he still ran to the end. They cheered another boy who crossed the line and won first place, head high and proud and happy -- no falling, no disgrace. But, when the fallen youngster crossed the line, in last place, the crowd gave him a greater cheer for finishing the race. And even though he came in last with head bowed low, unproud, you would have thought he'd won the race, to listen to the crowd. And to his dad he sadly said, "I didn't do so well." "To me, you won," his father said. "You rose each time you fell." And now when things seem dark and bleak and difficult to face, the memory of that little boy helps me in my own race. For all of life is like that race, with ups and downs and all. And all you have to do to win is rise each time you fall. And when depression and despair shout loudly in my face, another voice within me says, "Get up and win that race!"

sleep status-- 6/10 blisters--way more then expected stress level-- 4/10 countdown-- ( sub5 months) ahhhh!  Emily

Over the 2nd Week Hump-Run Weekend #3! (Noel)

Aslan?!?!?! Is that you?!?!

...and you brought Mr.Tumnus! What a pleasant surprise!


...


...i should probably explain.


The past week went really well - we ended up taking the Saturday off, as Emily was not feeling well.  that and it was her birthday, so a very happy 20th to Emily- even if it was spent monitoring health.

That being said i was feeling pretty gross too, and it gave us both a little extra time to recover from injuries - Emily with her blisters, and my left knee was threatening to become a problem (it has in the past), so the time was well spent, and we began Friday mornings run fresh and ready!

The weather had other plans, of course.

Second Friday in a row where we woke up to some substantial rainfall.  Did that deter us? HA!
We set out at shortly after 7am and went up past Argyle, into Varley Park and to the Lynn Headwaters trails.  This past week we added wearing packs so that we can adjust to having those with us as we run, because we will need to be carrying a lot of things with us in July!  As we continued on in the trails, we could help but notice more and more leftover snow around us, and before we knew it, we were now doing a resistance/core-training run as our feet sank fully into the damp, heavy snow!!!  All this being said it was quite beautiful to run through, even as our feet became oversized popsicles.

This being the reason for the Narnia reference earlier - we couldn't help but think we ourselves had run through some giant wardrobe into a completely different land than when we began.  8:15 we turned around and went back to the roads, meeting some lovely energetic dogs along the way who wanted to train with us, and down Dempsey then back the way we cam for a grand total of roughly 24K or so, arriving at the store at 9:25am, to the encouraging greetings from Keith and Peter!

We both made sure to stretch well before heading out, and we prepped for another run this morning at a respectable 6am!!!

Personally I had a rather violent energy crash later in the day yesterday, accompanied by a hearty helping of nausea, which almost took me out of commission for today.  Toughed through it, realizing that most - if not all - of the reasoning behind the crash is likley due to the fact that i must change my old nutrition habits.  While i ate a fair bit by anyones standards, i must now eat more!  (What a shame!)

Forced myself out of bed this morning, and it didn't disappoint!
Emily and I met up on a thankfully dry and mild morning (hooray!) and headed out shortly after 6, this time going more based off of time than a goal distance, which is what we will be doing more of from now on!
We ended up taking a similar route to our very first run 2 weeks ago, and demolished our old distance, following the Seawall past Park Royal, Ambleside Park, and Dundarave, eventually turning around after reaching the road, and the West Vancouver Aquatic Centre!

Oveall a great run once we got going, the first few K were a bit tough as my body realized "okay, we're doing THIS again?!?!", but we hit our stride fairly quickly, and we got to watch the sunrise as we ran along.  a very calm, serene (and thankfully snowless) morning.

After all that we got back to the store after 2 hours and 15 minutes, and roughly 25K, which means that in 2 days we knocked out just about 50 Kilometers!  It's really cool to think of it that way - makes the prospect of Fat Dog feel more possible with each passing week as we add time and distance!

Made sure to east more, and more often today, and while i do feel understandably tired, it's great to feel miles better than i did yesterday, which makes me really happy.

Now we get to look forward to next week, and the plan now is to look into fun things like playlists for music during the race!

Now i must go and stretch....

Motivation Level: 9.5 out of 10
Animals sighted: dogs galore!

long run #3-- Em

hey everyone!!

Id like to first call this one a " resistance practice" by the end of the 23km..i swear i was lugging around 20lbs of wet clothes!!!
Todays run went well... i  had alot more energy then expected.  Im sure i wont say the same after tomorrows run ahah. Anyways, i know for a fact this was a big achievement for Noel and I because this was the farthest we have run before in a practice. ( I swept for a 42km trail race once).  Unfortunately my foot began to hurt about 16km in, but i trooped it up and finished the 23.
We finished at the store and Chatted with the NSA crew while we stretched.  It was a god morning :)

Body wise so far i feel pretty good, other then my foot. It will be fine for tomorrows run though i'm sure.

by the end of this weekend we will have run 48km and over the last 2 weekend 84km. ( not including tuesday and thursday runs)


Ill let you know how tomorrow goes!!

Dry layer of clothes--- 0
Blisters-- more every time I run
hot shower-- Best shower of my life!!!

motivation

8/10



Em

Tuesday Run #1/Weekend Follow-up (Noel)

IT's good to be back for Tuesday night clinics @ NSA!

Gross-but good nonetheless.

It isn't like i slacked during the break between clinics, but to do a tempo run and push myself harder again than my comfort zone was a nice shift.

For these clinics they end right before the Sun Run -which will be NOTHING compared to the distances i should be doing by then (with Chuckanut 50K on March 19th!) but i have never broken 40 mins (PB-41:17) - i want to break that milestone this year!

So after the weekends 2 runs i felt really good-which i'm happy about, although liberal use of SportShield has been needed on my heels (which were raw) to avoid full-on blisters!  Last night we went to the Mahon track and did 4 X 800 meters, with 2 minutes active rest (plank, lunges, squats, etc) between each set.  Our group, by the way, was HUGE! easily the largest group tonight- although some of the groups will likely be larger next week - there were a lot of people nervous about potential snow.

we got back to the store (and the heavily salted sidewalk), and did cool down drills before heading our seperate ways, and now i'm looking into Saturday's route (23K!) -should be fun!

There is a run tomorrow night at the store, but i'll be watching over the store, so i'll likely do a workout in the morning before classes (love Thursdays-no class until 3-4!).

That's it for now, though Emily and i will likely be registering for Fat Dog officially within the next week or so!!!

Blisters: None (avoided!-but sore feet)
Animals: None
Ferocious Beasts: Just Keith...
Motivation scale: 8 out of 10

-NH

Run # 1-2 Emily

Hello one and all!!!

yesterday:
I never realized how quiet the streets are at 6am on a Saturday morning.   Where is everyone !??! sleeping or something??!
Anywho, keeping in mind it was -1, we started off on our 18km route to John Lawson Park in Dunderave. Not even 10 min in on Jones avenue we saw two coyotes!!! They are really creepy!!! So from that point on i was expecting another coyote or a huge ferocious animal to pop out of a bush and eat us all up, but i guess it was our lucky day because we saw no sign of life until the dog park in westvan.
The run when really smoothly, and for being on an injury break and not have an extremely long time back running it felt really great!! As i mentioned , i was on an Injury leave so it is only normal for my body to try an injury it's self again!!  Heres the thing, we were crossing the street at Capilano and Fullerton and we noticed that when you pushed the walk button, when it was time to walk it would talk. So as curious human beings, we tried to make it across the road quick enough to be able to hear what the pole was saying. Well as stated at the beginning it was early and icy and well i made one foot on the curb and BAM flew on to my knees ! Atleast i was numb? Not much damage so im not too worried!
We had and accident free route on the way home and had successful first day.\
body pain scale :   3 out of 10 :)


today, day #2:

Well the pain scale stayed at 3 before the run but slowly creeped up as the run progressed.  At this very moment i would have to rate it a solid 7.  Although was suppose to run 19km i unfortunatly had to stop and only got 15km in.
Todays run, on a personal level wasnt as successful as yesterday.  Feeling Quit sluggish for the most part. Im sure next week will be better :)




Overall, i believe it has been a very successful weekend

Animal count:  2 coyotes    Ferocious beasts: 0
Unfortunate injuries: 1, blisters: too many
would i do this again?: oh yeah!

til next time,

Emily

Run #1-Noel

Greetings to all!

So this morning at a respectable 6am, the training for Fat Dog 2011 began!
We started out @ North Shore Athletics on 12th and Lonsdale, and went out to Dundarave and back for an 18 Kilometer distance!

For my part-i felt it went really well!  the big part for me was the nerves the night beforehand with starting to realize that the training is actually kicking into gear, making sure i was up in time to make it to the meeting area at 6-all that fun stuff...

In any case, we took it at a nice easy pace-not too slow, but comfortable enough to keep a conversation going.  We made it back right at 8 (starting a few minutes after 6), and did our cool down stretches before heading our seperate ways!

Again-i feel like it went really well! Talk to me after we do 19 tomorrow and there's a chance it might be a different story, but for now it's all good!  A little case of sluggish legs right now, but making sure to stretch throughout the day so that tomorrow isn't too rough!

Temperature was great! Didn't overheat too much, and no frozen fingers either! Always a plus.  Ran into a few friends from the clinics @ NSA as we stretched after the run, which was cool.  'Twas a little slippery along the roads at some points, so we made sure to tread carefully, and there was only one brief slip-up (no serious injuries, so no worries).

It's going to be a lot easier on the nerves for the next little while i think, now that the first training run is out of the way-so i look forward to the future!

-Noel

The journey begins tomorrow morning at 6am!!!! AAHHHHHH I am getting very excited!!  FatDog 100 here we come!