Change of pace

Last week I talked about how pleasant it can be to explore beautiful trails with friends...then went out and basically did the exact opposite of that the following day.

Definitely not the Bruce Trail.

I decided to forgo my usual run down to the famers' market in favour of a race-specific training stimulus, and also a sort of test. You see, usually my runs are in a state of near-constant interruption: when I run on my lunch or after work there are stoplights that interfere with the flow, and when I run trails on weekends I'm usually hiking (ok, walking) up hills or stopping to take photos of all the pretty things around me. It's not really a bad thing: in most races I end up hiking the hills, carefully mincing my way through anything even the least bit technical so my clumsy arse doesn't fall and hurt myself, and at least stopping at aid stations to fill my hand bottle...if not actually stopping to take 600+ photos of the course itself.

Having done all this for years now, I had serious doubts about my ability to run for any sustained period of time. I wanted to know if I still had enough running endurance (rundurance?) to keep on truckin' for a couple of hours, particularly over fairly flat terrain. I'm doing something really stupid next weekend that makes this of rather pressing interest, and Saturday was about my last opportunity to give it a whack.

I needed a course that would have little elevation change and allow me to run without interruptions - minimal road intersections, and nothing really spectacular that would persuade me to abandon my primary mission in favour of exploration and photography. I had just the thing.

Look out - there might be a slight curve in a mile or so.

I got Tanker - who has always been such a good sport about such things - to drop me off at the Jean Rich Trailhead near km58 of the Cambridge to Paris Rail Trail so I could run back and meet him at our favourite café. A little shy of a 19km stretch of open trail with very little to distract me.

Almost flat, but with a slight net uphill.

Fortunately I had a mild tailwind to offset the gain.

Setting off at 4pm with the sun due to set at 4:50pm, I just tried to find a comfortable, sustainable pace, and made it about an hour and a half (and just shy of 15km) before needing to bust out my headlamp. I had brought a few gels with me, but I'd eaten a peameal bacon-and-duck-egg laden bagel for a late brunch a couple of hours before starting and was still getting some nasty burps as the sun went down. I took an electrolyte tab at 1h7m as dusk drew in as my vision was going a bit weird - I have a theory that sodium loss affects my sight because your eyeballs are basically just bags of saltwater - but other than that I just drank water.

And watched this on repeat for the best part of a couple of hours.

I had to pause ever so briefly at Footbridge Road (km72) for an oncoming car that waved me through, but as I ran through the darkness an idea occurred to me: since I'd got my Garmin watch in April of 2016 my only 21km-ish runs had been on trail, so Garmin Connect still showed that my half marathon PR was something like 2h48m - a far cry from my actual (very modest but still a bit quicker) road half marathon best time of 1h58m13s. It would be pretty easy to extend my route a little to see if I couldn't draw that down a bit closer to my real capabilities..

..so of course I did. An extra few blocks through Galt, where I did have to stop at a couple of stoplights, but I ended up with a final "chip" time of 2:12:49 with a total start-to-finish duration of 2:14:20. 

Not so bad for an ultra dork.

I will freely admit that the run beat me up a fair bit and wore me the heck out, which does not necessarily bode well for next weekend...but then again nothing about that race really seems like a good idea, so why moan about it? I managed another slow, easy 10k on some lovely trails the next day, stopping whenever I wished to take photos in brilliant sunshine.

Which was often, as the Royal Recreation Trail is a favourite.

I also got a little cross training in toward the end of the run.

Show me a climbing wall and I only know one way to behave.

Monday I was back to my usual lunch run shenanigans, but Tuesday I ended up working through my lunch break at a client's office, and then a fair bit of overtime as well. I managed to slip out of the office around 6:30pm for a quick run, but knowing I needed to do some more work after I got back meant I needed it to be as efficient a use of time as possible. So, I did another thing I never do: hill repeats.

My office is on a street with a decent size hill in the middle, and the only way I could run 5-ish kilometers without encountering an intersection - and particularly the 4-way stop that is a terrifying free-for-all just 200m from my office's driveway - was to run out-and-back over the sizeable hill 3 times, for a total of 6 uphills. 

I also learned it's a smidge bigger in one direction than the other.

I'd hoped that working until 8pm was the last of the arse kicking the universe had in store for me on Tuesday, but it was not to be - our water heater apparently breathed its last gasp sometime after we got home, with Tanker and I using the last of its labours before collapsing into bed. I called Wednesday morning to see when we could get it repaired, but the first appointment that wouldn't require one of us to take a day off work wouldn't be until Friday evening.

I did my usual post-work 8-ish kilometer run down toward my Mum's house for a visit on Wednesday, but then the weather snapped cold again on Thursday, when I don't really have a lunch break on which to run. I couldn't quite bring myself to venture out in the frosty night air once we got home from work, knowing that there'd only be cold water to wash up afterward. So, I actually took a day off running to do something else that has seldom happened this year.

*GASP*

Yep - I splashed my way through only my 5th swim of 2019, and my first since mid-June. I was annoyed to find they'd removed the pace clock in my absence - I can't seriously be the only one who uses it! - but it was gratifying to realise I could still make my way through the water half decently via all 4 major strokes (freestyle/front crawl, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly...though it was more like butterflop), if a bit slowly and with a lot of gasping. My reward afterward was a pleasant stretch session in the on-deck hot tub and a lovely, hot shower.

Happy dork!

So, it was definitely a change up for me in the past few days, and I'm probably better for it - doing the same thing all the time lets you stagnate, while new training stimuli drive adaptations that will keep you getting fitter. With the 100 runs in 100 days challenge about to start on Sunday, though, I don't expect it'll last. Let the absurdly contrived plodding begin!

Dimensionality

As the sun has now set on a rather spotty season of "racing", my mind turns to all the things that winter and the off season have to offer.

Well, I say off season - I did actually take a full week off running, but was back at it in the dark of our early night on Sunday evening.

Making friends along the way.

My ankles - which took a pounding over 43-odd kilometers at Horror Hill and then another 50 at The Beav in a 2 week period - are still calling the shots on when I run. I did manage to get 4 days in a row from Sunday to Wednesday, but took Thursday off running as the right one is still being a jerk.

The sun angle is so low on my lunch runs these days

That's also why I decided against getting my cross-country skis out when we got the big dump of snow last week: I didn't feel like my ankles were strong or rested enough to strap on the boards for the first time this year when conditions were decent, and despite the bitter cold we've had the ski-able snow didn't really last.

There will be time to ski later, and snowshoe as well. There had better be - I've actually signed up for a snowshoe race in early February, and figure I might as well try training for it a bit...especially since my snowshoes are not really designed with running in mind.

If I had this little monster's enormous back feet, I wouldn't need snowshoes at all!

I'm looking forward to taking some time to do the things that fell by the wayside as I pushed to train and race at the highest level of which my injured arse was capable. I've actually made it back to the pool for the first time since May the 8th (!), putting in 1,700y on Saturday and another 1,300y last night in lieu of a run.

I didn't even need the lifeguard to fish me out!

Just those couple of swims have shown me how much I've been missing by ditching my pool workouts. I've come to realise that some of the issues I've experienced this year are actually due to the lack of swim training in the past 6 months - there is just no replacement for the muscle engagement and movement patterns required to swim the four main strokes (front crawl, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly), and the delicious soreness that has come with the return to the water tells me that I may have made a grave mistake in foregoing the pool in order to try to get more sleep.

I do have a master of the snoozing arts to teach me, if she can find time between naps.

I haven't managed to get on my bike (or my motorcycle) due to the weather, but it's not all about training anyway - it's the damn off season! We're actually going tonight to pick up a pass for one of our favourite local climbing gyms this evening (because SALE PRICING people!), and I can't wait to actually get out and pull on some plastic again. I've kept up with doing some pull-ups on the rock rings in my livingroom weekly in an effort not to lose all of my climbing strength, but we haven't climbed at all (other than a bit of scrambling last month) since the via ferrata route at Parc de la Chute Montmorency back in mid-July.

Oddly enough, I'm also really excited that the local ski hills have started to blow snow in an effort to get their base layer built. I was really disappointed that they all closed for the season long before my ankle was ready to try snowboarding again, and I honestly can't wait until I can strap into my bindings and do some very careful shredding. It might seem strange that I'm amped to go do a thing that hurt me so badly 9 months ago - particularly since I'm still dealing with the effects of the injury - but I've been in love with snowboarding since I was 17 years old. I've broken bones while doing so, dislocated a shoulder (long story), and knocked myself silly trying stupid things in terrain parks years before helmets were mandated for such things. It may not be the safest thing for my clumsy arse, but it's also something in which I find a lot of joy, and I'm stoked to get back out there again even if it does cause me some pain.

Reminds me of some other activities I could name..

Let's just hope I don't do something completely foolish that leads to another year like this one.

Sacrifice or stupidity?

I haven't been in a great place lately, and I'm second guessing a lot of things.

Part of it has been brought on by a total inability to shed the pounds I put on after Pick Your Poison. In the spring I was actually making decent progress at shedding my winter insulation, with even April going well despite a week off and reduced training throughout the month due to injury. Since the end of April, though, I've gained about 4lbs that don't seem to want to budge.

Which makes #sportbrasquad running in the recent hot weather something no-one really wants to see.

While I know that some of it is due to a week of "eat whatever I damn well please" after Sulphur Springs - which was my main race for this season - I'm chubby enough right now that I'm putting myself at risk for injury as I'm ramping up mileage again. I have a certain weight that I know from experience is a break point: below it and I'm generally ok, but above it I'm more likely to get hurt from the extra strain on my bones and joints while banging out miles in training. I'm only a pound or so above that, but I'm also pushing to get some decent training in before Limberlost and ultimately for the Haliburton 50 miler in September, and one pound multiplied by 65+km per week can definitely equal injury.

I'm actually back on the Slowtwitch 7-day leaderboard as of last night's run.

Despite a couple of weeks of trying to make better decisions (no more ice cream, trying to reduce sugar intake and snacking in general), generally healthy food choices (I have a sweet potato with almond butter for breakfast during the week, a salad every day, and bring leftovers from the dinners I make from scratch as lunches), and increasing training volume the scale refuses to move the way I want it to. I'm actually a bit heavier than I was last week, which is bloody depressing. I'd love to believe it's muscle mass, but the way my clothes fit tells a different story. I'm theoretically doing the right things: I strength train four times per week, make vegetables the focus of my meals and try to only consume the few sweets I do eat (medjool dates, apples, bananas, Larabars or protein bars) immediately before or after workouts. It's just that nothing seems to work at the moment, despite success in the past. So, I plug on and hope..

Last night I went out for a run, and was lucky enough to have Tanker follow along on his mountain bike.

He's wonderfully accepting of my jiggling.

It was hot, VERY humid and rather unpleasant to run through, but would have been perfect conditions to just sit out on the driveway (we don't have a porch) and enjoy a summer evening. I told Tank as much, and he fully agreed.

Instead, I went to the pool and thrashed my way through 1,200m of what a friend of mine calls "drowning with direction". Honestly, I'll be lucky if the water doesn't sue me for sexual assault.

"Please just let me make it to the wall alive.."

Since I don't have any interest in triathlon anymore, the only reasons I still swim are for the recovery benefit, some full-body conditioning and to try to burn my chub off. I could probably have got almost as much recovery benefit (if not more) by sitting with Tanker with my feet up and watching the heat lightning roll in. I didn't want to go to the pool and didn't enjoy my fistfight with the water (though I do admit that stretching in the swirlpool afterward was fairly pleasant), plus it meant another night of getting to bed past midnight. Worse still, I woke up half a pound heavier today than I was on Thursday morning, so even the whole "at least I burnt some calories" argument falls rather flat.

I'm brought to a point where I can't really say whether I made a reasonable sacrifice for my sport or simply being stupid by missing out on a nice, relaxing evening in pursuit of foolish goals. Ultrarunning is not going to bring me fame or fortune, and my sweet husband luckily doesn't care if I have an extra inch or two 'round my middle. Much as I'm loath to miss a workout - I always feel like it'll set a precedent and lead to me skiving off more in the future - I can't help but think I could achieve some better balance. I waffle between just saying "screw it" and eating whatever I want since the fat isn't coming off anyway and hating being so pudgy.

Pretty sure the neighbours would rather I kept trying to lose the belly if I'm going to run around half naked.

It's also quite possible I'm just still feeling the effects of a lot of racing recently - between Pick Your Poison and Sulphur I ran 23.5hrs of hilly trails in a 4 week span (not including training), plus I've put in another 156km in the slightly-less-than 4 weeks since...including a full week off after the 100k. I may very well just be heading toward overtraining and need to eat some more starch. All I can say for sure is that I've been a bit miserable, and I really hope I can make some progress - both physically with fat loss and psychologically - soon.

On the bright side, it's my day off. No tough decisions about whether to train or just kick back today - this evening is just for Tanker and I. With a bit of luck, I'll get a second chance at sitting out on the driveway on a warm, summer evening and watching the clouds float by..