Climbing Mt. Fuji

I tanked my track workout last night. Blew it. Didn’t even finish what I was supposed to. And I can hardly believe how crappy I feel about it.

The conditions were perfect. The temperature was an unbelievable 12 degrees, and there was Scotch mist gently blowing under the stadium floodlights. It was a magical night to be at the track. But it just wasn’t there for me.

My warm-up was fine. My legs were feeling a little sluggish, a little full of lead, but that’s not unusual. Normally that feeling goes away after a couple of repeats. Then Cliff laid out the workout: 2 sets of 8x400m @ 77s with 30s rests. Yikes. That’s a big load for me – and it’s fast for me too. But it should have been there.

I ran the first set with Alexander, and we were all over the map with our pace. At first, we were running in lane 1, but we were running way far out from the inside because there was a lot of standing water in the lane. I think that made us push the pace a little too much – and 77 is right on the VO2 max line for me. Anything faster than that starts to wear me down, especially with only 30s rests. After the first three intervals (78, 76, 76), we switched to lane 2 and started from the 400m stagger. That was better – but we discovered that our pace was way too rich: 74. No wonder I was struggling!

From there, we tried to bring it under control, but I found myself struggling by the end: 77, 74, 78, 79. I was having to work very hard to keep the pace, but the thing that bothered me most was that I was being beaten mentally by the workout. I found starting after only 30s rests really tough… but I was getting through it.

After a 5:00 rest between sets, we started the next round with Nick. (Interesting sidebar: Nick McBride grew up in Kingston and went to the same highschool as I did: Frontenac – oh, F-A-L… C-O-N-S – and ran with Mr. Grant – I still call teachers Mr.!! – but he was there well after I was – he’s just a young pup, only a couple of years out of Dal – his older sister was in grade 9 when I was in OAC, but the divide between 9 and OAC is continental, so I didn’t know her. We just happened to stumble on our similar backgrounds during a session once – I forgave him for going to Sinclair – it wasn’t his fault). The set started way too fast – 73, and I was already heaving for air after the first interval. The second was better, 76, and the third was going well, but along the backstretch, my calves started to bunch up like fists. We finished with an even 76, but that was it for me. I was finally starting to feel the rhythm, finally starting to get my mentals together, and my calves gave up. Kaput.

I wanted to get back into the set with the boys after a stretch, but every time I put weight into a stride, my calf muscles would cramp up. Like a bird careening at an invisible window, I hit my limit. It sucked.

Cliff mused that the issue concerned my changing mechanics. We’ve been working on my stride mechanics, pushing my weight forward towards the balls of my feet, which might be putting new strains on my calves – but why now, all of a sudden? It may have been that my calves got cold: I was running in shorts and the temperature was dropping in the darkness. Or it may have been that I’ve been training above my capacity and the cracks are starting to appear. This is the interpretation that is really bumming me out. It could be that I would have been fine if I’d been able to run the workout at the proper pace, but it’s hard to tell.

The thing is that because all my speed work with Cliff had been going so well, I was beginning to feel like the sky was the limit with my running. I mean, here I was, joe recreational runner training with national-level guys, and I was hanging in there – the feeling of possibility was really exciting. But there are limits.

Cliff told me repeatedly not to worry about it, that I’ve got time and not to rush things. After all, it was only one workout. But I have this nagging suspicion that I’m not quite as fast as Cliff thinks I am or should be. That’s disappointing too.

So now I’m trying to reassess what to do with last night’s tankage. The feeling of possibility and potential is hard to let go, but I’ve simply got to shake off the workout and get back to business. Improvement doesn’t come all at once – and now that the honeymoon is over, I need to learn patience. I’ll get faster from here, but slowly. Actually, this all puts me in mind of a haiku by the great haiku master Issa:

Snail,
Climb Mt. Fuji –
But slowly, slowly

Part of this whole running thing is discovering my limits, accepting them, and pushing at them slowly. It’s okay that I couldn’t keep up with those boys – they started further up the mountain anyway. This running, this training is my own – one slimy footstep after another. But I’ll get to the top... eventually.