A year in review

Its been almost a year since I managed to complete my firs 21k run. For the first 6 sundays in 2010 I ran 21k training runs, and it was a truely inspiring time in my life. 

It was all in preperation for the Noosa 1/2 marathon which was to be my first official race of this distance.

As a runner this year has been massive for me, life altering and perspective changing.


I started the year with lots of training runs and came to the realization that running alone without music or other stimuli is a great way to find peace and calm within your thoughts. I started to value the calm that I found when I focused on my breathing and my feet hitting the ground.


I discovered what it truly meant to be high on life, the endorphin high after my training runs was one of the most incredible legal experiences I have had. There is nothing quite like walking around like a stoned teenager all because of running.


I found that the motivation to be active is always there, constantly doing battle with the motivation (or lack-there of) to sit on my ass and do nothing, to fall back into the lazy sedentary life style that I had before.


I discovered that in 13 months it is possible to complete your first 5k, and your first 42.2k marathon.


We as a family discovered that planning holidays around running interstate events is a really good way for the family to travel, and that the support of family is an always present warm feeling that keeps me running. 

Knowing that Ben and Grace look at their daddy and see a runner, a man who is fit and active, and who chooses to be self disciplined in the pursuit of his goals makes me smile every time I think about it. What will my kids remember of their dad when they grow to be my age. I would like to think it would be along the lines of. "remember when dad ran that race at ......." or "remember the look on his face when he crossed the finish line of the marathon" or even "remember the first time we ran that 5k run together as a family"


This is what I hope for. That one day my kids will remember happy family times because we were active as a family, we worked towards goals as a family, and we ran as a family....one day :)


But the year has not been all good unfortunately, I rolled my ankle in June and lost a month of training towards the marathon in October. It was odd when it happened I cried a lot, I just couldn't help myself, but it was not the pain which made me cry. It was the mourning for my training, my stress relieving runs, I felt instantly that every run I had completed had been taken away from me, and that I would never get back to the point that I was when it happened.


After a month of physio and the fact that she recognized I would have a break down if I didn't start running again, I got back into it. It was scary running on it again as I didn't trust my ankle anymore.  I was able however to get to a point where I completed the Melbourne Marathon in October. 


The rolled ankle marked my first and only visit to the emergency department.


1 week after Melbourne I ran a 10k. I had underestimated the impact that running a marathon had on my body. I had felt ready to run again about 3 days after the marathon but waited on the advice of fellow runners. 

The 10k felt great, it loosened my stiff muscles, got the blood pumping and was all good. Until about 2 hours afterwards when I got a sore throat, this turned into a killer headache and eventuated into 3 days in bed resting. Its amazing how psychologically I needed to run but physically my body just was not ready.


3 weeks later I ran the Marysville 1/2 marathon which was one of the hardest runs I have done due to hills and I still managed a time I was very pleased with.


All in all its been a great year for me. I am calmer, more patient, fitter and have more energy. As a result of making better lunch decisions (Home made salads instead of bought lunch) I have now managed to achieve a weight which I have not been down to since I was about 18 years old.


To put things in perspective I have gained the motivation, drive and passion it takes to be a runner, and really all I have lost is 20 off Kilos.




 

Betrayal of my inner runner

I was always under the impression that to get any benefit from bike riding you would need to spend hours on end riding through some god forsaken back roads or going around in circles.

However since getting my road bike it seems I need to rethink my strategy. Anybody who is serious about biking seems to cover mega distance, and I'm yet to decide if this is an addiction or if its just because most of them have nothing better to do.

Anyway that aside I feel like I am betraying my running brethren but getting on my bike, but its amazing the difference riding a road bike after having ridden mountain bikes for about 20 years.

The first thing you notice is that its a pain in the ass to get get your feet in the pedals (I have the strap style pedals not clip ones....yet!). 

Next it becomes very evident you are relying on a lot less mass to keep you from falling in a heap. The riding position means your field of vision covers the front wheel and some of the handle bars but that's about it. Before I had bars, frame, big tires and felt that I had a substantial amount of stuff protecting me from the road. But with the road bike it feels like I am balancing on a razors edge and will end up crashing at any second.

One of the other differences is the amount of effort required to ride up hills is a lot less, its much easier to keep things moving when there is bugger all in contact with the road causing friction, and again after 20 years this is a real novelty.

Time is not something I have a lot of. Between Being a Daddy, Working, PS3, Running, Swimming and Bike riding, I just don't have hours to be out on my bike too often. So I decided I would try and sneak in some 5k rides of an evening using my 5k running route as good starting point to become more at peace with my new bike.

Last night I had a revelation at the end of my 5k ride. Its possible that if you ride hard (which is quite natural on a road bike) and keep the pace up for the whole 5k you can in fact work up quite a sweat in a short time. It seems that my thoughts and explanations as to why I don't ride were a little off target.

Anyway all that aside I think it wont be long at all until this blog becomes reflections of a triathlete.

New Shoes

My new runners arrived via post yesterday and it reminded me of a quote from the "100 rules of running" book. Basically it says that all runner should smell their new shoes, its the smell of potential.

And they really do, unwrapping my new runners was a surreal experience, they are not stinky, they are not dusty, muddy or wet.....Yet.

They have the potential to run a marathon, run trails, run parts of triathlons, run with my kids trailing along laughing madly or even run up some bloody big hills.

They will get blood, sweat, rainwater, and muddy water on them. (and countless other fluids and compounds)


There really is a extra ordinate amount of potential in that small cardboard box.


I ran a 15k last weekend and made a route choice that had me hitting some BIG hills. I got thinking about how my body does automatic pace setting during my runs, and this was really evident last night when I ran the "Emma and Toms (fruit juice company) Annual Christmas Run"

If I set out on a long run my body makes me feel sluggish and almost lethargic, its hard to push my pace. However if I am embarking on a 5k then I don't get this feeling, I feel lighter and I feel like I can push forward and maintain a cracking pace. (Cracking for me not for a more naturally gifted runner with long legs and a lower body fat %)

Its a strange phenomenon that my mind is making my muscles reserve some energy so they can last what I have decided my distance is going to be, but its very real.

I can't however decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. This means that I will have to break down the mental barrier in order to go out hard in the first part of a race and cruise through the last part.

Anyway despite the heat and lack of shade I still managed to PB the 5k last night at 25:32 which I am really happy with. Average of 5:06m/k

Tired vs Tired

After a discussion with my darling wife the other night I started thinking.

The discussion was about me claiming to be tired after work, she suggested that maybe I am doing too much running and swimming, and that maybe I should back off a little bit.

What I realized during this conversation was that I was not physically tired at all, I was mentally exhausted. In fact after our conversation I proceeded to go out and mow the lawns.

Mowing the lawns is an oddity in my life now, back in the days of unfit me, I used to mow the lawn and at the completion of the activity proceed to have a sleep because I was so spent I couldn't possibly do anything else for the rest of the day.

Now days I will often mow the lawns of an evening. One of the many revelations I have had because of running is to discover what it truly means to be tired. My job is to think all day, and often after a hard day of thinking I feel like my head is full of cotton wool, I get sluggish in my responses and Its almost like I'm drunk.

But this is nothing next to true physical exhaustion. After running the marathon I felt that I had some energy left, I was able to walk about 1k back to our friends place from the station, and was willing (although darling wife wouldn't have a bar of it) to push the pusher with both kids in it. The thing is though I felt that I still had energy in reserve. I should have pushed harder during the marathon but because I really didn't know what I was in for, and I was only looking to complete the distance, there was no need to push harder (next time will be different).

I have no regrets about my first marathon, it was an amazing journey, taking 13 months from my first 5k run, to complete the 42.2ks. This in itself is an incredible achievement for someone that used to have his colleagues collect things from the printer because it was too far to go. 

A week after Melbourne I was ready to run again. In fact I was itching to run again, so I did. However I was not prepared for the aftermath of that run. It seems that Melbourne had taken a toll on me that would have been unseen should I have heeded everyone's advice and given myself another week before running. But anyway the net result was that my body had been fighting a cold and winning until I hit it with a 10k run, and the cold won. This was an incredible smack in the face for me but anyway I digress.

Feeling tired has become a very subjective thing for me, physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion and muscular exhaustion are different things. I don't have the energy to process what you are saying vs I don't have the energy to get out there and run vs my legs feel like lead because I have just run 42k on them, I really didn't have any comprehension of these things what I was sedentary me. One of my favorite states of mind is after a run when the endorphins are going nuts and I am calm. I feel like a wave that has broken on the beach and is all foamy and cruising up and down the beach.

I remember wandering around the supermarket on a Sunday afternoon like a stoned teenager because I had run that morning. This is easily one of the best things about running. A legal high that is actually healthy for you...no wonder they say that running is for people who cant handle drugs and alcohol.