Race Prep.

Saw this photo on another running blog – couldn’t resist. If you’re too fast for your dog’s tiny legs, you can still bring it along! This is why consumerism is so good – it leads to amazing innovations!

Anyway...

With the muffin run only a day away, I was thinking about race preparation today. Even though Lunenburg isn’t a goal race, I’m still going through the same rituals as for any other race, except that I didn’t do much of a taper. I still did a hard workout on Wednesday and a 14k+ run on Thursday and took my usual day off on Friday. Today, I’ll just do a warm-up run, some drills and strides, and a cool down run. Just easy-peasy to get the junk out of my legs and get things moving.

Where my plan has kind of broken down is with eating.... and drinking. J-A and I spent the day doing house projects, which made us tired – so to reward ourselves, we split a bottle of Shiraz – not standard race weekend practice, but life is short, no? Besides, I’ve run some of my best races with a little wine or beer still in the system. Is there a better way to get carbs?

Anyway...

One thing I learned years ago during my one year of running high school track was that the night to do your big carbo load is two nights before the race. Big races tend to offer pasta dinners the night before the race, but this is not a great time to eat a lot. It just ends up being extra weight in your belly, not energy in your legs. So the night before, I eat early and lightly – for every race from 5k to marathon – this way I won’t have stomach issues during the race. It works for me.

The Lunenburg Waterfront

I’m really looking forward to this race – it’s one of the best of the season. It’s always won or lost on the big hill that starts just after the one mile mark. Those who take it too timidly, rarely make up the difference – those who are too aggressive, fall apart on the second hill after the 3k mark. All the movement happens on the hill – I can’t wait to see what happens this year!

Back on Track

Just got back from a lovely 15k easy run through Shubie with Alex. I especially love Shubie this time of year – the forest is full and lush, the fern fronds are unrolling, and the early blossoms are perfuming the air. Apple, cherry, lilac, and wild rose are all in bloom right now – it’s a feast for the nose. And there are even some lady slipper flowers blooming on the forest floor (and they do, improbably, look like slippers or moccasins).

Alex and I run the same route at least once a week, and it never gets old. There’s always something new to see or smell when you run through the woods. Shubie is one of the great gems of Dartmouth.

As for yesterday evening’s track workout, everything went great. I got to see a lot of people I hadn’t seen in over a month, and I got to open up the pace a bit. As usual, Cliff changed the workout once we were there and warmed up. He’d initially told Ray that we’d be doing 400s, but he switched it to 6x800. Thankfully, he cut the pace back a bit to 82s/lap, which is 3:25/k pace, and allowed plenty of rest between intervals.

Man, it felt so good to get the legs moving a bit faster – and the pace came easily. I had no problems from start to finish. I even felt like I had another gear. I was able to simply go without pushing. Granted, the workout shouldn’t have been too tough for me, but after a month and a half without any V02 workouts, I was happy that my fitness hadn’t slipped too much. And I was overjoyed that my fatigue-y legs didn’t poop out on me. It may be that I’m mistaking tight facia (the bag-like, skin-like stuff that covers muscles) for tired muscles. Perhaps a massage is in order!

I’m also able to catch a lift to Lunenburg with Ray, so I’m going to run the 5k after all. I really don’t know how well I’m going to run, but I’m not overly concerned about it either – my initial plan is to go out at 5:30/mile pace for the first half and then see how I feel. I doubt I’m in shape to go under 17, but I should be able to get under 17:30. I guess we’ll see!

Intervals and Muffins

I’m going back to the track today for the first time in over a month. I’ve missed Cliff and all the folks I run with, so I’m pretty excited to get back there.

I’ve committed to running with Ray, who will be doing a bunch of 400m intervals at 80s (3:20/k pace). That should be an excellent workout to get me back into it – the interval distance and pace seem manageable to me. However, I’m a bit nervous about how my fatigue-y legs are going to do.

My easy runs as of late have been okay – I can get down under 4:10/k without straining the pace. What this means, I think, is that my aerobic capacity is good – I’m just not sure how things are going to go when I push the pace into the anaerobic areas. 80sec 400s will be a good test – if I strain, I’ll know that I’ve got some work to do to get my legs back into shape – but the workout shouldn’t be enough to cause concern about injury. We’ll see. It’s also very hot today (for Nova Scotia, that is: 22, but 26 with the humidex), so that will make the pace harder to hit.

I may be running the Lunenburg 5k this Sunday – not sure yet. A bunch of Cliff’s Antiques are going to run it, so if I can get a ride, I’ll probably run it. But I’ll run without any expectations in terms of time. I haven’t been training at 5k pace, so I’m likely pretty slow right now. No matter. It’ll be good to run one for fun.

The Lunenburg run is great – it’s known locally as the Muffin Run because the post-race food is all delicious homemade muffins. You run to eat in this one, for sure. Besides, the race is not on the Timex series this year, so many of the fast guys will probably pass on it. This means a good finishing position might be possible, even though my fitness is not great for a 5k right now.

Not that finishing position matters, of course! All that matters are the muffins and the post-race lunch with friends.

Mmmm. Food.

Healing

In a world that seems governed by entropy, by systems tending towards disorder and dissipation, the body’s ability to heal, to re-knit damaged systems, seems almost miraculous. The tragedy, of course, is that the body relentlessly trends towards dissipation; nevertheless, its ability to pull itself together time and time again is wondrous.

The whole process of training to get faster takes advantage of this pulling back from dissipation: we run hard and tear the muscles in tiny ways; then the body knits those in a way that makes us stronger, faster. Obviously, it’s much more complicated than this, but the general trend is to push the body further into disorder and then let it pull itself back into a stronger order.

This is what’s going on in my fatigued legs – my body is working its magic, reweaving muscle fibres and flushing out waste and detritus. And it’s still pretty good at it. Yesterday, my legs were feeling less stony, so I decided to do 8k at a comfortable threshold-y pace. My plan was to warm up for 2k, do 4 light strides, then do 8k along the hilly Waverly Road route at a comfortably quick pace (just going, not pushing), and finish with 4k easy. And that’s exactly what I did, averaging about 3:45/km for the faster stuff (about 6:00/mile). To me, this means that my fitness is still okay – and maybe by Wednesday, I’ll be back to the track to work on my top-end speed.

Maybe it’s crazy to put my body through all this planned damage, but why not let the body perform its miracles as much as possible? There will be plenty of time for dissolution later. For now, I want to feel myself pushing back against entropy, getting stronger and faster despite the world’s tendency to grind us down, to make us weaker and slower. Getting slower is just the way of things, and organized systems are temporary structures -- it’s just that I want to see what this one is capable of before it tumbles like a house of cards.