Nationals: Running with the Animals

The morning was sunny and cool. The trees lining the Rouge Valley had felt the frost; the green was drained from their leaves. The colours revealed reflected bright against the new sky. The mood in the van was quiet – only short bursts of conversation. The thing about a big race – a season ender – is that you know you’re going to hurt. You know that when the pain creeps in around the 7k mark, you’re going to say yes to it – takes some focus to prepare for that, though.

Warm up. Loud music. Festive atmosphere. Stay focused. Run through the routine: team jog, bathroom, drills, bathroom, strides – at the last possible moment, strip down to shorts and singlet, find warmth in the starting pack, say your good lucks and then dive deep inside. We’re in the elite starting corral – front of the line – the start will be quick – don’t get caught up in it – stay inside and feel for the pace. Gun goes and all the engines start. You can blow the race in the first 500m if you flood your system with lactic acid. Stay relaxed. Easy. Don’t let your breath speed up. Monitor your body. All those who shot by too quickly will come back sooner or later – they always come back.

Nick and I stuck together, played it smart. We established a good pace as we left the Zoo parking lot and went onto the roads. Despite a 180 turn within the first k, it was nice to be on straight roads to find the rhythm. Things were great for the first 3.5k or so. On pace. Then the course re-enters the Zoo and it starts to twist and turn and rise and fall. Running through the Zoo was beautiful, but for a rhythm runner like me – a guy who finds the pace, locks it in, and hangs on – this course was murder. Each sharp turn ate not only time but also pace and pace awareness. Even so, Nick and I stuck together and worked together. We drafted off of some folks for the first few ks, and then when we passed them, we took turns with the lead. At 7.5k, though, Nick found a little gas when he saw a group of runners ahead. I tried to match it, but slowly, slowly, he pulled away. I watched him pass a couple of guys in between 8 and 9. By 9, I’d caught them too. I didn’t give in – I was still pushing hard – I thought I had a great run on the go.

The finish line is tucked away after a turn – you can’t see it from more than 50m away. When I turned that last corner and saw the clock, I was disappointed. I was sure the pace was good, but the time was not what I’d hoped for. I crossed in 35:30 – that’s a PB, which is great, but it’s only 12 seconds faster than the PB I’d set way back in May. That’s over 4 months of hard training for 12 seconds. But here’s the thing about road racing – no two courses are really comparable, so having a PB is only a rough kind of thing. In the end, I was actually really happy with my run. My real goal was not to surrender to the pain – and I didn’t. I accepted the pain and carried it with me for the last 2k. And I was still reeling people in at the end, which means I ran a smart race. So I’m proud of making the team, proud of running hard, and proud to represent Nova Scotia road racing with a PB on a difficult and technical course. Not a bad way to end the season.

And the Toronto trip was great – good people and fun things to do. I got to do a cool down run through the Zoo and see lots of amazing animals – I’d never been to a real Zoo before! I was like a little kid at Christmas: holy cow! a giraffe! oh my god! look, it’s a lion, it’s a zebra, it’s a polar bear! Awesome. We spent lots of time in the hotel hot tub and shooting down the hotel water slide. We drank some beers had some good food, went downtown for the night, and I even had a chance to see the Terra Cotta Warrior exhibit at the ROM! That was spectacular – I mean, the whole thing is madness, but spectacular to see actual artefacts from the find.

So, well, in the end, Nick took the final T-shirt race, but he deserved it – he ran really well. It’s funny, though – he added up all our times from our Timex duels, and it turns out that only 2 seconds separated us in total over the entire season. 2 seconds! That’s crazy. Two Kingston boys from the same high school (8 years apart, though) training in Halifax and running for Nova Scotia separated by 2 seconds for the season – weird.

The season is finished – but I’m already thinking about what to do next year. My early thought: focus on running a fast half marathon. We’ll see. The nice thing is this season has left me energized, not drained. I’ve been loving just running relaxed and easy through the fall. This running stuff is such a joy for me. I’m going to enjoy it for as long as I possibly can.

A Week to Go

My Timex race training climaxed on Wed. All us Antiques who are running nationals gathered at the SMU track and laid down a big effort: 20x400m with 30s rests. It was awesome. We all took our time dicking around before the workout – one more drill, one more strider, one more useless stretch – in an effort to delay the pain. But once we crossed the start line for the first time, it was all about the mission. I was running with three other dudes, and we switched the lead each time and worked as a unit, encouraging each other and getting through it as a team. We hit all 20 reps between 78s-81s and then finished fast – 73s for me. After the workout, I was glowing. It restored a bit of self-confidence that had drained away after a disappointing performance in the Rum Runners Relay. Now all the hard stuff is in the bank – all I have to do is run easy for a week and then collect the dividends on race day.

So Sexy Hot Swiss Miss (your girl’s a doctor now!!!!), where indeed has my ambivalence led me? Well, I didn’t get off the pot. My mileage over the past four weeks has been pretty good: 80k, 96k, 82k, 62k (step-back week), and this week will be over 80k. That’s far from superhero mileage, but it’s okay for a 10k. My workouts have been going well for the most part, although I’m worried by the fact that I haven’t done well at my longer threshold runs – I hope it’s just tired legs. I’ve also dropped a few pounds to get down to a better racing weight. So I’d say that I’ve committed to running a PB at the Zoo. I’m not fit enough for a sub-34, but the sub-35 is a real possibility. I still haven’t totally conquered my ambivalence, but I’ve made some peace with it – and I’m already looking forward to a great season next year.

I’m realizing more and more, though, that a big part of my running these days is about the people I’m running with and not just the pursuit of times. I’m astonished at how great a group of people I’ve found gathered around Cliff. After those gruelling 400s, we all went for burgers and beer, and it was such a joy just hanging out with these folks. Part of it was to celebrate a special accomplishment: one of the Antiques (and my closest running bud) not only published his first book of short stories in Sept but also got shortlisted for the Giller Prize. You can guess who it was – he’s the only guy of the five who has a story about running! But mainly we got together because we’re all bound by some inner harmonic that has led us to Cliff and each other. Maybe that’s overdramatizing it a bit, but it seems to me that there is a kind of life rhythm that we all share, and we’re driven to move in similar ways – around and around the track.

Anyway...

So in a week, I will fly to Toronto with the rest of Team Nova Scotia, propelled by all the dollar donations people made to the Timex Team through the Timex raffle and other fundraising efforts. I’m mindful of and grateful to all the volunteers who helped collect the cash, so I want to represent them well by running my best. I’ve put time and sweat and discomfort into this; I’m ready to roll – and chase a few gazelles while I’m at it. I’m also ready for the post-race festivities and to uphold Nova Scotia’s reputation as the best friggin party province in the country. I’ll drink not for myself, but for all bluenosers!

Running the Plateau

It’s happened again. I was sure it wasn’t going to happen this season. I mean, I’ve got a coach now – this shouldn’t happen when you have a coach. But it has.

I’ve plateaued.

The idea in a race season is that, as the season progresses, your race times get faster. That’s the way coach C has been training us, but that’s not the way it’s worked out for me. I look at my race paces for the season, and all I can see in every direction is flat ground – flat sandy ground and tumbleweeds, actually.

Here’s my 5k race pace “progression” – 3:26, 3:24, 3:24
Here are my 10k/6 miler paces; they’re even worse – 3:34, 3:35, 3:35

Now don’t get me wrong: I’ve had a great season so far. I set PBs at every distance I raced; I made the provincial Timex team; I even won a race and a pair of shoes. It’s been a good season. But like every other season, I didn’t get faster as the season went on.

It’s a little bit troubling. At the beginning of the season, coach C told me that if I focus on the short stuff, given what paces I was training comfortably at and based on his instinct after decades of training hundreds of runners, I should be capable of squeaking under 34 for 10k this season. But I haven’t even run under 35:30. I haven’t lived up to my potential.

I look at guys running 33min or below for 10k, and I ask myself why I’m not running as fast as they are. They don’t look a whole lot different. In track workouts, I seem to be making the same kind of effort as they are; it’s just that I’m going slower. Is it talent? Are they just born better? Maybe, but I think a 33min 10k doesn’t take all that rare a talent. So why am I not even close? What does it take to push a guy from a 35 to a 33?

Honestly, as far as I can see, there’s only one big difference between me and the faster guys, and it’s not talent. Those guys running 33 and below – well, they run a lot. They’re regularly putting in 100k+ weeks; I’m lucky to get 70 or 80k. On their own, all the Wed-Sat speed work sessions won’t make me a 33 runner. If I wanna run faster, then I haffta run more. Simple. Sure, there’s a point of diminishing returns with mileage, but it’s well beyond the 100k mark. I’m hitting a ceiling in my racing because I’m hitting a ceiling in my mileage.

But this raises what I think is the really vexed question for achievement-oriented recreational runners, or maybe it’s just a question that vexes me: how much time and energy can I invest in running before it’s just stupid?

I suppose if I had a good answer to that question, I wouldn’t bother raising it – it wouldn’t haunt me. But the mere fact that it does haunt me means that I haven’t committed to the 33, which is why the 33 is so far away. Those guys and gals I train with who keep improving never ask this question. The question they ask is how do I get faster? Whatever coach C says, they’ll do it without flinching. They don’t bellyache; they don’t reflect; they get their asses out the door and they run.

I tell myself that I don’t commit like this because my situation is different. These folks aren’t carrying the guilt of not making a living wage in pursuit of an artistic dream. They earn their living and then they run. But that assessment is a bit too simple. Take D, for example, one of my t-shirt nemeses. She’s a single mom of 3 – she sacrifices way more to log her miles. The result? She’s a world-class marathoner. But she didn’t start world class – and there was no way to predict that was where she’d end up. She just got her ass out the door and ran and ran. She made sacrifices, but never questioned the value of what she was doing – or not openly, at least, and not in a way that slowed her down.

But me? Well, I can’t even replace my shoes when I should because I can’t stand spending the money. There’s an ambivalence that I haven’t conquered – and that ambivalence is slowing me down. Part of me says, train like a champion and see what your real potential is because there’s more value in pursuing something you love fully than half-assed. The other part of me says, you’re a fool for spending so much time on running when you don’t have the talent to be any better than a middle-of-the-pack varsity runner – you’re wasting time and money and being incredibly selfish.

There’s no easy answer here, but one thing I know for sure is that ambivalence feels like crap. Piss or get off the pot, they say – don’t just sit there.

But still, I hem and haw as the National Timex Championships looms. I’ve got until October – plenty of time to break out of this 35-high rut – but it will take work, time, and commitment. If I stay ambivalent, then I’ll run a 35-low at best. If I commit, then I’ve got a shot at 34-low or better. Really, it’s up to me.