Grace Period

 I wasn't really that beat up after the big, stupid thing I did a couple of weeks ago.

Well, compared to what I expected, anyway.

With some major work stress and long hours happening, though, I took a full week off running, and almost all training. 

Though I'm told my approach to elevating my legs is a bit non-traditional

I walked a fair bit, did a couple of gentle strength workouts, and even made some use of a rather dusty contraption I found in the back of my livingroom.

I had to get to the bank to do some work-related deposits anyway..

I had my first Pfizer vaccine on the Friday, and kind of braced myself for the side effects - having seen how Tank got knocked flat by the AstraZeneca shot, I was concerned what impact it might have on me with a rather suppressed immune system from all the running and sleep deprivation of the weekend prior. Things didn't look great on Friday evening, and I arrived home feeling exhausted and mildly buzzed - the reason why the post about the 4x4x48 idiocy didn't make its way onto the internet by the usual Friday deadline.

If you want to complain about it, feel free to go phlox yourself.

I worked through some fatigue and lethargy for most of the weekend, finally feeling back to (what we'll call) normal by Sunday afternoon...coincidentally when I finally managed to get that post published. With that out of the way, I was able to do the one thing I'd hoped to be up for:

And it actually went really well, on a truly beautiful afternoon!

By Monday I was itching to get back out for a run, so went for a short, easy trot 'round the neighbourhood once I finally finished up work. I ran Tuesday as well; a little longer than I'd meant to, but just for pure joy.

The trail was only a tiny portion of it - it's only ~1km - but it was delightful!

Wednesday I worked super late again, and wasn't going to run. I had decided to take another day off, especially as it was pissing rain out. Then, however, I popped into instagram for a minute just after 10pm and realized I had to go.

Two slow, soggy miles later.

I ran again yesterday, because why not? But let me tell you, either the post-idiocy fatigue or the post-vaccine effects have definitely got me feeling a little more sore and tired than I ordinarily would from the volume and intensity of running and strength work I've done this week.

I'm on the path to recovery, but I haven't arrived yet.

So I'm going to try to continue to offer myself some grace, because I've quite enjoyed being able to just do whatever feels good, and I know that the siren song of longer, harder training will call me back before long.

For now, I'm happy to just walk in sunshine and let my body heal. I ask a lot of it at times, so it's only fair I should give back here and there.

It might not be the one I'd choose, but it's what I've got and it does its best.

I hope you all remember to offer yourselves the opportunity to do what you want instead of simply what you feel you must this weekend - you're pretty awesome, and you should honour that awesomeness!

Don't wait up

 There are multiple schools of thought on when the best time is to run in a day.

Most of which are not based on when the sky looks the prettiest.

Sometimes it seems like the entire world runs first thing in the morning - the dawn patrol, as it were.

Or - in my case - more like the "tennish, after a cuppa" patrol

..you know, after the sun has had time to get up and stretch its legs a little.

Many of these folks cite the satisfaction of having their run out of the way before they start the rest of the day, so that nothing can get in the way of them getting it in. I grant that it can be nice to already have run, but since I generally don't let anything stop me from going for a run (except on Fridays), I usually just find that it ends up pushing other things I need to do (some of which I am less dedicated to than running) later in the day, or perhaps to that indeterminate "sometime, when I have time" that is a black hole for all the stuff like cleaning and yard work and generally being a responsible adult.

"Aww jeez - getting late, gonna have to postpone the weeding"

Some people also cite the fact that races are held first thing in the morning (sometimes literally), so training their body to run well early in the day is important. On the surface, the reasoning is sound, however since body temperature for most people drops overnight (with its lowest point around 5:30am) this can leave your muscles and connective tissues cold and more susceptible to injury. Furthermore, the overnight fast may leave you inadequately fueled for a morning run, and some runners have digestive issues if they try to eat before a morning run. Speaking of eating, I always find myself hungry for the rest of the day after any run of more than an hour or so, so that leaves more time for me to over-indulge (though I recognize that's not necessarily a widespread issue; I'm sure most people have better-regulated appetites than mine!). 

On the right: normal person's stomach after a run.
On the left: the nigh-bottomless chasm that resides south of my ribcage.

Time can also be an issue, too - if you're trying to make sure you're at your place of business by a certain time, need to care for other humans' needs in a timely manner, or have some other appointment, you may either end up being late or having to cut a run short if it's taking longer than you anticipated.

THEY SAID IT WAS RAIL TRAIL

If you have the opportunity, running in the afternoon can be a great compromise - I used to run around 3:30pm a few days a week on my lunch break at my old office, and tried to continue that when I changed jobs and began to work from home. It does make a nice break in the day, with fewer of the disadvantages of morning running: I'm better fueled, my body temperature is higher and tissues have had time to loosen up, and I'm generally wider awake.

The sunshine is quite nice, too.

Afternoon runs, though, still have their disadvantages: if I'm not done work yet, I'm still on a schedule to try to get back to my desk on time, and in summer this is frequently the hottest part of the day. It's lovely right now, as the warmth has time to build from a chilly morning - there are loads of days in shoulder season that on my weekly Saturday morning run I am freezing in tights and long sleeves to start but ready to overheat with everything zipped down by the end - but when the temperatures soar in June through August (and sometimes outside those months), running at 3pm can feel like a penance for your sins. 

Lately, though, that hasn't been the case - more longsleeves than tank tops this week!

I've honestly been having a lot more trouble tearing myself away from my desk recently, too, until my workday is done. I'm not sure if it's a result of working from home, or it being very busy at my company the past couple of months, or simply not having my daily appointment to have coffee with Tanker and run back to my office that I had for years.

Though I've been finding some interesting new places to run around my neighborhood

In any case, I've come back around to running in the evening. It may just be an effect of the sun staying in the sky later, so it's not miserably cold and dark yet when I get out at 5 or 6 or even 7pm.

Ok, it was almost 8pm last night, but who's counting?

I know many people don't enjoy evening runs - I have heard that it makes it difficult to get to sleep afterward for some, and for others they find their motivation wanes once they've already put in a long day at work or doing other things. For whatever reason, neither of those is a factor for me: I actually like knowing that I already have everything else done, and all I have left to do is run, eat, and sleep.

There are some rather scenic perks as well, sometimes.

Of course, I know I'm blessed with a wonderfully accommodating husband (who doesn't mind having dinner later than most people go to bed, or waiting at a dark trailhead for my idiot arse to emerge) and very little in the way of time-sensitive responsibilities. I also know that running in the evening can pose additional challenges, like knowing when you'll need to bring a headlamp along.

I've not always judged that 100% correctly

There's also the fact that I'm running at almost the polar opposite time of day to the start of a race, but perhaps even that in and of itself has value for ultrarunning: if you're still able to go have a pleasant romp after every other tiring, frustrating, energy-demanding thing you've done that day, aren't you slightly better trained to keep pushing yourself in a race that has stretched on longer than the daylight?

Learning to disobey your circadian rhythm can be a powerful thing.

So I ask you - what's your favourite time of day to run, and why? Now that I've spent years running at all different times of day, I know I prefer to do so later - once I've shaken off the morning stiffness and sipped something caffeinated - but I'd love to hear others' experiences and preferences.

Going beyond

 So last week I went off about how awesome timed races are, despite a few disadvantages.

One of which I'm going to explore a little more deeply.

A friend recently posed the question to me: if you have a certain goal you'd like to reach in a timed race, and you achieve that goal with time to spare, is it considered quitting if you don't keep going?

If you feel like I'm gonna go off into the weeds here, you may very well be right.

Obviously we all have our own ideas about what constitutes an "acceptable" outcome for a race, so what follows are just my own opinions. There's no use in getting bent out of shape about what some idiot on the internet thinks, and I guarantee I will be just as friendly and goofy toward you as I've always been even if you vehemently disagree with me. 

That said, I think there are only three situations in which it's acceptable to stop while there's still time on the clock:

Let's pick our way through them, shall we?

1. You are gravely injured or it is otherwise medically inadvisable to continue.

This one really ought to go without saying, but I am exactly the kind of knob who will just carry on regardless. See: multiple Horror Hill 6-hours, and definitely the inaugural Tally in the Valley 12-hour night race. I definitely don't advocate for people to continue running when they could do long-term damage - I'm just too dumb to stop. Follow the example of other people who are way brighter (and more talented) than I will ever be, and shut'er down if things go fruit-shaped. No shade here.

Darkness here, but no shade.

2. It's not possible to complete another reasonable unit of distance before time elapses.

This only really applies in the last hour or so of a long race. If partial laps don't count and you don't figure you'll be able to complete another full one, I'm not going to fault you for deciding against a fool's errand. Same goes if you don't think you can make it to the next checkpoint on a course; I've come through the start/finish with ~20mins to make 2km, and known there was no way I'd actually get it done in time for it to count. Even if partial laps count and you might have time to make the next checkpoint, if it'll put you far from the finish area I am 100% fine with saying "screw it" and stopping somewhere convenient; I'm sure I could have make another kilometer (which would have counted) at Sunburn Solstice last year, but then I'd just have had to limp my worn-out, possibly-broken-foot'ed way that whole kilometer back again, and after 15hrs of pretty much constant forward motion that was a hearty nope.

The river might keep flowin', but I wasn't goin'

3. You're using it as a training run and continuing might jeopardize your goal race.

This one might sort of seem like it overlaps with having a goal distance and stopping once you've achieved it, but the mentality is different: if you go into (let's say) a 12-hour race thinking you hope you can run 50mi before the time elapses, that - to me, anyway - is distinct from going into a 12-hour race with the idea that you'll run for 8 hours or 40mi and then call it a day because you have a 100km race in 6 weeks and this is your long training run. I have seen friends do almost exactly that: run precisely 4 hours out of a 6-hour because that's what their training plan calls for, or stop after a prescribed number of laps. I partly include this as a legitimate reason because I don't think I'd ever personally have the discipline to stop myself if there was still time left on the clock.

I'm really just a bit of a puppy dog at heart, and will run as long as I'm able.

The whole concept of setting a goal for a non-distance-specific race can be dicey: once you have made it to your goal, the motivation to continue (particularly if you've pushed hard, or for many hours, or both) can be tough to maintain. It's something that has been highlighted recently with the explosion in popularity of backyard-style ultras: 2018 winner of Big's Backyard Ultra (the grandaddy of them all) Guillame Calmettes is reported as saying "You should never set a goal for yourself at this race. Because if you do, when you hit that goal, you feel successful and stop." That's obviously a problem in a last-man-standing event, but also applies to timed racing. 

My take on the whole thing is that achieving your goal is awesome, but if there's still time remaining on the clock and you're reasonably able to continue, why wouldn't you go for it to see how much you're really capable of accomplishing? You registered for an event that takes place over a set number of hours, so why not take advantage of the time you've been given, even if you just end up walking it in? 

You might get to appreciate the scenery a little more, as well as giving your body a welcome cool-down.

Perhaps that's just my own version of self-flagellation: I don't permit myself to end my day until I've done the thing I set out to do. Or perhaps it's something to do with the practice of setting A, B, and C goals for races that started back in my triathlon years; the C goal might be just "finish upright without hurting myself", the B goal might be "finish faster than last year", and the A goal might be "finish under 2 hours if all goes right"...but there's always the possibility that I surprise myself, and if I'm 2mins away from running through the finish and it's only been 1h50m, I'm definitely not going to drop to a walk and try to run the clock out to 1h59m before crossing the line! So the A+ goal is always out there, and since most of my endurance sport career has been an attempt to find out what I'm capable of, I will never shy away from the opportunity to surpass my own expectations and aspirations. Goals should be set to help you push yourself along; they shouldn't hold you back from discovering your true limits.

But then again, what do I know?

I'm just some idiot on the internet.
(With amazing taste in coffee, as evidenced by my snazzy new hat. 
Go try some of Monigram's magic for yourself!
They don't sponsor me or anything - they're just awesome!)

Really, though, just get out there and have fun - as long as you're not hurting anyone else, I'll cheer you on just the same for setting a goal and going for it!

What matters

I've continued to struggle with running..

Though not with finding beautiful places to do so.

While I'm getting my consistency back, I can't honestly remember the last time I had a run where I felt decently strong.

I'm sure it has a lot to do with all those pink (non-running) days.

I can barely string together more than a kilometer of steady running before I need to walk a bit, or stop altogether to catch my breath. It's frustrating and disheartening - I feel so very far away from the person who ran 100km just over a year ago. 

It feels like I'm in a very dark place right now.

I can't shake the feeling there may be something wrong, more than just lost fitness. Yes, the weather has been hot - we had heat warnings for a good chunk of this week - but I've run in high heat before. Yes, I'm on the sleep deprived side, but that's nothing new. I've always been able to push through in the past, but right now it just feels hopeless.

Stopping to admire the view has its benefits, but I'd rather have a choice in the matter.

I'm desperately hoping it's just some lingering fatigue from the Tail Chaser, or from upping my mileage and frequency a fair bit in the last couple of weeks. When combined with the heat, carrying a few extra pounds, and some hormonal stuff (I tend to get super exhausted every 4 weeks - give or take - right before my cycle arrives), it might just explain why it feels like I've had a cinderblock tied to my more-ample-than-usual butt.

Which hasn't stopped me from getting out to enjoy the trails - I just do so a lot more slowly.

But none of that really matters. I'm only able to concern myself with it all because of my position of privilege.

Things that are far more important:

Black lives

Missing and murdered indigenous women

Love is love

The gender identity that you feel fits you best is valid

If you have a problem with any of that, please feel free to get lost.

While I try to be an ally as best I can, I know that my privilege as a white, heterosexual, cis-gendered woman and the society in which I live have insulated me from racial prejudice and its effects on black, indigenous, and other people of colour. I know that people are still persecuted for whom they love, and for how they identify their true selves. 

That's a tougher fight than just some lost run mojo, and it's heartbreaking that we're still so far from a resolution that will allow everyone to live their lives in peace.

I don't know how to solve these problems, but I know I want to be a part of the solution. So, as a start, I'm gonna shout it a little louder here - just so noone can have the excuse they didn't hear me:

BLACK LIVES MATTER

THERE IS A PLAGUE OF MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN AND GIRLS

LOVE IS LOVE

GENDER IS NOT A BINARY OR BIOLOGICAL DETERMINATION

..and those are more important than any whining I have to offer about my little struggles with running.

So I'll shut the heck up and get on with it, while trying to educate myself about how to be part of the solution.

The Struggle

..is real.

I know I'm not the only one who is having a hard time keeping up training while being forced to adapt to an ever-changing, endlessly complicated world. The weather hasn't helped, either; this week's mix of powerful wind, persistent cold, chilly rain, and stupid snow - sometimes all at the same time - has definitely not helped. So, I don't know who all needs to hear this, but..

IF YOU RAN IN NASTY WEATHER TODAY - I'm proud of you for getting out there!

IF YOU DIDN'T RUN TODAY DUE TO NASTY WEATHER - I'm proud of you for letting discretion be the better part of valor!

We all bloom better with some sunshine and warmth.

IF YOU RAN IN LOVELY WEATHER TODAY - I'm still proud of you for getting out there!

IF YOU RAN INDOORS TODAY - I'm proud of you for getting it done!

We all have to follow our own path

IF YOU DIDN'T RUN TODAY DUE TO FATIGUE, ILLNESS OR INJURY - I'm proud of you for listening to your body's needs, and I hope you're feeling better soon!

IF YOU DIDN'T RUN TODAY JUST BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T FEEL LIKE IT - I'm proud of you for taking care of your mental health, and ask that you please don't beat yourself up about it.

A rolling stone gathers no moss, but mossy rocks are beautiful!

IF YOU DIDN'T GET OUT OF YOUR PAJAMAS TODAY - I'm proud of you for making it out of bed. Have a glass of water; hydration is important.

Also, have this photo of a sunset along a riverside trail.

IF YOU DIDN'T MAKE IT OUT OF BED TODAY - I'm proud of you for letting yourself get some rest. You can try again tomorrow, or not.

For now, just let your mind and body fill with peace.

No matter how much or how little you accomplished today, it is enough - YOU are enough. High fives to all those who are still crushing their goals; you're doing amazing! If you fell short of what you wanted to achieve, offer yourself grace; it doesn't make you less worthy, and you can try again another time.

I know you'll get it, because you're awesome!

Now, if I can just remember to apply all this to myself when the days get rough..

The shoe doesn't always fit the other foot so well.

 Stay strong out there - wishing you all good health and peace of mind.

Oh yeah, and don't forget I'M PROUD OF YOU!

Stewardship

There seem to be a lot more people out using the trails these days.

I'm sure that will only increase as the weather improves.

As I ran down a local and much-loved trail recently, it occurred to me that this could be a wonderful thing.

The beginning of something..

While I know there are many longtime trail users - hikers, runners, and cyclists - that are irritated by the sudden influx of people on their favourite routes, my optimistic side tells me this could end up benefiting us all.

If it unfolds as we might hope.

If these new trail users realise how precious our outdoor spaces really are, we may be creating a whole new crew of people who will advocate for their protection. Who may be motivated to help with trail work - even something as simple as picking up one piece of trash while out walking - and pressure governing bodies to maintain trails and natural areas for all to enjoy.

Because these spaces are delicate, and need to be kept safe.

I know there is a huge issue with all of this: I'm assuming that these folks will actually care. I know that some of them may be currently behaving in ways that jeopardize - rather than preserve - the natural beauty around them. I worry about the green shoots I see along a particular section of trail; will they be trampled before they bloom into a glorious carpet of trilliums? Will people know that these flowers are protected by law as our provincial flower?

Perhaps - as seasoned trail users - that is our new calling. To educate, and hope that we can turn what could potentially be the ruination of our beloved trails into a new generation of stewards.

So we can all enjoy the trails for years to come.

So, my challenge to you is this: the next time you see someone out in the woods who may not be displaying perfect trail etiquette or respect for their natural surroundings, try to view it as an occasion for education rather than an annoyance. Show them (from an appropriate distance, of course) what they may have missed - the delicate leaves of a wild plant or flower just emerging above the soil, the buds on the twigs slowly beginning to unfurl into a green canopy, or the turtle sunning itself on a rock in the trailside pond. There are no real races in the near future for which we need to train intensely, so why not pause for a moment while you're out and try to pass along some of your love for your favourite places to people who are just discovering them for the first time?

Teach them to listen to the endless chatter of a rocky stream.

If we treat these newcomers to our trails with contempt, we miss an opportunity to create a new ally in the never-ending fight against the destruction of our outdoor spaces...and the trails need all the friends they can make!