Okay. So I asked Julie-Ann for some feedback on this blog – you know, stuff like how’s the writing, is it interesting, is there anything you’d like to see? And during our conversation, I asked her about the voice in the writing: is it breezy enough? She laughed. She said it wasn’t breezy at all. I asked her is it at least conversational? No. Nobody talks like that, she said. It’s reflective, she said – introspective. She didn’t think this was a bad thing, but she thought that if I were trying to broaden my range, I should try different things. Apparently, the road from formal academic essay to reflective essay is not very long. Hey, I said – what about my little entry on the results of the National 10k road race? She read it. Sucks, she said. And worse, there was an embarrassing typo – and typos don’t count as broadening my range. Crap.
So she gave me an assignment. You want to write breezy, she said – then write breezy. Give me cotton candy, but don’t make me feel guilty like I might gain weight. What does that mean? I asked. Give me fluff – just fluff – without all of your self-conscious, broody stuff. Really? I asked. Really, she replied. She smiled slyly, clearly pleased with her idea: I think you’re going to have some trouble with this, she said. No kidding, I said. What qualifies as breezy and fluffy? Her grin broadened. You’re just going to have to figure that one out on your own. Great, I thought. Just great.
Hmm. Breezy. Here goes nothing…
Nipples. Man nipples. I never paid much attention to my own before I started running. They were there; they were unusual. When cold, they shrunk up and got hard. At one point, hair started growing around them. I wasn’t thrilled about that, but I didn’t really care. I mean, who cares about their nipples?
Runners do.
In fact, my nipples were the catalyst for my change from "runner who eschews running gear" to "runner who realizes the importance of good running gear" [Author’s query: can I say “catalyst” in a breezy article?]. Here’s how it happened.
When I started running, I wore cotton T-shirts, boxer-briefs, soccer shorts, and cheap cotton tube socks. Shoes were the only thing I didn’t skimp on. I figured shoes were important, but the rest of it? No way. Those “technical” shirts and skimpy shorts – designed for “real” runners – were purchased mostly by middle-class wannabes with too much disposable income. I figured, leave the pricey gear to those with talent and those who want to pose – I’m just trying lose some weight and complete a marathon.
And things went fine at first. I printed out my Hal Higdon training schedule. I started pushing my mileage. I felt smug and self-satisfied when I’d pass other runners whose gear was worth more than a month’s rent. I was cruising.
And then it happened. My nipples.
I remember the run vividly. It was a cold August morning: fall had slipped into town overnight, unseen. I went out for my run in shorts and a T-shirt (a white T-shirt, no less) expecting summery temperatures. I could feel the unexpected cold as soon as I opened the door to my apartment building. I could see my breath. Oh well, I thought. Nothing for it.
In the beginning, the run felt pretty much the same as every other run. In fact, after a kilometre or so, I was basking in the toasty warmth of a body hard at work. I passed some other runners wearing those really expensive Running Room jackets with the shiny silver strips and felt pretty smug. Actually, I felt tough in my shorts and T-shirt.
But after a few kilometres, I began to feel something. My nipples. They were getting a little uncomfortable. What was that? I kept running. The discomfort increased. I passed some other runners and they smiled at me. But it wasn’t a friendly smile – it was a smile I knew quite well: a smug smile. Did they somehow know I felt like my nipples were on fire? I had no idea what was going on.
By the time I got home, my nipples were screaming. I got up to my apartment and ripped my shirt off. As I was hanging it up to dry, something caught my eye. Holy moly – there were blood streaks all the way down the front of my shirt. I quickly checked out my nipples in the mirror. The tips were rubbed raw. I couldn’t believe it.
What I did next, though, was just crazy: I had a shower. Remember when you were a kid and you got a scrape during recess because you fell off the climber or you tripped and skinned your knee on gravel and the school nurse cleaned the wound with rubbing alcohol? Remember the sharp stinging sensation? Yup – that’s what a shower does to newly sandpapered nipples.
So I did a little research. Turns out that salt from sweat, plus erect nipples from cold, plus coarse cotton T-shirts, plus running equals pain. The cure: some Vaseline and some good gear. From that moment on, I’ve worn gear. Turns out that gear isn’t just for “real” runners – turns out that people don’t wear it just to be posers – turns out that it saves numerous body parts from all manner of friction-related ailments.
So that’s my breezy story about nipples and running gear.
The end.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Boredom and Ipods
There’s a question I get sometimes, even from other runners, that always surprises me, and I never know how to answer it properly. The question is this: don’t you get bored on long runs?
Bored? While running?
My answer is always short and unhelpful: no.
I can sort of see where these question askers are coming from. I mean, running is about as repetitive an activity as you can do, especially if the terrain is flat, uninteresting, and all too familiar. And running is often uncomfortable, even at comfortable paces, so I can see how someone could get tired of the mental strain that continuous pain can cause. But I never get bored on runs – even the solitary three hour ones.
Why is that?
I’ve been thinking about this question for awhile, and it was while I was thinking that a thought struck me (oy) – I spend almost all of my time every day alone with my thoughts. And I like it here in my head. I really do. But perhaps other people don’t like to be alone with their thoughts – and if you’re doing a solitary three-hour run, that’s a lot of time to think.
On the few occasions each week when I venture into the outside world (other than for a run), I often observe people going to extremes to avoid being left alone with their thoughts. For example, when I ride the bus, it’s inevitable that the majority of solitary riders are listening to ipods, reading, texting friends, talking on the phone, or even just taking their electronic devices out of their pockets, checking them, putting them back, taking them out again as if they’d forgotten something, putting them back, and on and on.
Is there something wrong with their thoughts? What’s so boring about just sitting and being?
I guess I’m the weird one: I seek out opportunities to just sit and abide and count my exhales. However, while this kind of behaviour – meditating and contemplating – may be weird, it sure is helpful when it comes to doing long runs.
In fact, to me, long runs are a veritable cornucopia of interesting internal and external stimuli. Each kilometre split brings dramatic tension. Every incline and decline forces me to change my stride. Monitoring my body and its changing conditions provides a never-ending flow of data to interpret. Smiling and waving to other runners evokes pleasant emotions. Dodging loose dogs evokes negative ones. And then there are the thoughts – ah, the thoughts – that rise and fall like a symphony.
Where is there an opportunity to get bored?
Other runners I’ve talked to have various coping strategies. The simplest is to run with a group or a running partner. It’s not a failsafe method, though – people can be just as boring as being alone, sometimes more so. But if there is no company to keep, many runners turn to technology, especially ipods.
Now, the use of ipods in running is a bit of a touchy subject, and there are zealots for and against, but I’m a moderate: I don’t train with music; however, I don’t think it’s somehow “impure” to do so. Whatever gets runners out the door each day is fine by me – whatever motivates them over the long haul is good in my books. Sure, there are safety concerns, but I think they are pretty minor all things considered. And the use of ipods has spawned an entire art: designing playlists strategically to meet the needs of a particular run. If you need the theme from Chariots of Fire to keep your legs moving through the final mile of a 20 miler – have at. Combining the emotion of music with the exertion of running can be a potent high. The more endorphins you can inspire, the better.
My own experience of running with music has been quite limited – and, to be honest, it hasn’t been particularly positive. The only time in the last 5 years that I’ve been driven to use music while running was last winter when I was stuck doing all my runs on a treadmill after breaking some ribs (I slipped and fell on ice while running). Doing 2+ hour runs on a treadmill is murder after weeks and weeks on the infernal machine. The only thing worse is pool running.
Now, I don’t own an ipod – actually, I’ve never downloaded a single song – so the best I could do was to bring a CD player into the workout room of my condo building and listen to full CDs. I admit that this is certainly not a good test of the effect of music on running, but I did learn a couple of things from the experience.
For one, running is all about rhythm – finding the right rhythm for a particular workout given the particular condition of your body in the moment. I hadn’t realized it before, but finding and maintaining and tweaking this rhythm requires constant monitoring, constant awareness of your body, your breathing, and your surroundings. Even on a treadmill, I’m always adjusting my running rhythms. As it turns out, music has its own rhythm, and it messes with and sometimes even dictates the rhythm of your legs. Before I figured this out, the clash of rhythms made running with music quite frustrating at times.
I also found that I redirected my normally internally based motivation outwards and started relying on the music to push me through the difficult parts of runs, whether it was the final kilometre of a hard tempo run or the last few seconds of an incline interval or the final minutes of a long run. And if the music wasn’t suitably inspiring, I found that I didn’t have nearly the same motivational strength to push me through the tough stuff. For me, running was much more difficult with music than without.
In the end, I found it much more agreeable to run two hours on a treadmill with no music and no tv. But that’s just me. Go figure.
In my opinion, the more agitated external stimuli we consume, the more intense and frequent our experience of boredom becomes. Running for three hours doesn't have to be boring at all -- it just requires a reassesment of how dramatic a stimulus needs to be to grab our attention. As corny as it sounds, sometimes the sound of shoes crunching on gravel can be music enough. In fact, sometimes it's the silence that's most interesting of all.
Bored? While running?
My answer is always short and unhelpful: no.
I can sort of see where these question askers are coming from. I mean, running is about as repetitive an activity as you can do, especially if the terrain is flat, uninteresting, and all too familiar. And running is often uncomfortable, even at comfortable paces, so I can see how someone could get tired of the mental strain that continuous pain can cause. But I never get bored on runs – even the solitary three hour ones.
Why is that?
I’ve been thinking about this question for awhile, and it was while I was thinking that a thought struck me (oy) – I spend almost all of my time every day alone with my thoughts. And I like it here in my head. I really do. But perhaps other people don’t like to be alone with their thoughts – and if you’re doing a solitary three-hour run, that’s a lot of time to think.
On the few occasions each week when I venture into the outside world (other than for a run), I often observe people going to extremes to avoid being left alone with their thoughts. For example, when I ride the bus, it’s inevitable that the majority of solitary riders are listening to ipods, reading, texting friends, talking on the phone, or even just taking their electronic devices out of their pockets, checking them, putting them back, taking them out again as if they’d forgotten something, putting them back, and on and on.
Is there something wrong with their thoughts? What’s so boring about just sitting and being?
I guess I’m the weird one: I seek out opportunities to just sit and abide and count my exhales. However, while this kind of behaviour – meditating and contemplating – may be weird, it sure is helpful when it comes to doing long runs.
In fact, to me, long runs are a veritable cornucopia of interesting internal and external stimuli. Each kilometre split brings dramatic tension. Every incline and decline forces me to change my stride. Monitoring my body and its changing conditions provides a never-ending flow of data to interpret. Smiling and waving to other runners evokes pleasant emotions. Dodging loose dogs evokes negative ones. And then there are the thoughts – ah, the thoughts – that rise and fall like a symphony.
Where is there an opportunity to get bored?
Other runners I’ve talked to have various coping strategies. The simplest is to run with a group or a running partner. It’s not a failsafe method, though – people can be just as boring as being alone, sometimes more so. But if there is no company to keep, many runners turn to technology, especially ipods.
Now, the use of ipods in running is a bit of a touchy subject, and there are zealots for and against, but I’m a moderate: I don’t train with music; however, I don’t think it’s somehow “impure” to do so. Whatever gets runners out the door each day is fine by me – whatever motivates them over the long haul is good in my books. Sure, there are safety concerns, but I think they are pretty minor all things considered. And the use of ipods has spawned an entire art: designing playlists strategically to meet the needs of a particular run. If you need the theme from Chariots of Fire to keep your legs moving through the final mile of a 20 miler – have at. Combining the emotion of music with the exertion of running can be a potent high. The more endorphins you can inspire, the better.
My own experience of running with music has been quite limited – and, to be honest, it hasn’t been particularly positive. The only time in the last 5 years that I’ve been driven to use music while running was last winter when I was stuck doing all my runs on a treadmill after breaking some ribs (I slipped and fell on ice while running). Doing 2+ hour runs on a treadmill is murder after weeks and weeks on the infernal machine. The only thing worse is pool running.
Now, I don’t own an ipod – actually, I’ve never downloaded a single song – so the best I could do was to bring a CD player into the workout room of my condo building and listen to full CDs. I admit that this is certainly not a good test of the effect of music on running, but I did learn a couple of things from the experience.
For one, running is all about rhythm – finding the right rhythm for a particular workout given the particular condition of your body in the moment. I hadn’t realized it before, but finding and maintaining and tweaking this rhythm requires constant monitoring, constant awareness of your body, your breathing, and your surroundings. Even on a treadmill, I’m always adjusting my running rhythms. As it turns out, music has its own rhythm, and it messes with and sometimes even dictates the rhythm of your legs. Before I figured this out, the clash of rhythms made running with music quite frustrating at times.
I also found that I redirected my normally internally based motivation outwards and started relying on the music to push me through the difficult parts of runs, whether it was the final kilometre of a hard tempo run or the last few seconds of an incline interval or the final minutes of a long run. And if the music wasn’t suitably inspiring, I found that I didn’t have nearly the same motivational strength to push me through the tough stuff. For me, running was much more difficult with music than without.
In the end, I found it much more agreeable to run two hours on a treadmill with no music and no tv. But that’s just me. Go figure.
In my opinion, the more agitated external stimuli we consume, the more intense and frequent our experience of boredom becomes. Running for three hours doesn't have to be boring at all -- it just requires a reassesment of how dramatic a stimulus needs to be to grab our attention. As corny as it sounds, sometimes the sound of shoes crunching on gravel can be music enough. In fact, sometimes it's the silence that's most interesting of all.
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