I really shouldn’t write stuff down when I’m feeling crappy and I am sorry for having a whinge the other day! I guess that’s the reality of undertaking a process like this. If everything goes to plan, physically and emotionally, all things fall into place. When things fall apart physically, it wears on you emotionally.
I joked with the physio, at one of my many appointments, that at least the knee problem was not the original calf problem. I still have a problem, but the fact that the original injury hasn’t returned means that I am doing well with it. Pushing through to the next level is always likely to create other issues when you are taxing your body. I’ve found the biggest problem with training like this is lack of time. The ideal preparation for something like this is more than running. Though mileage is important, what is optimal is a body that is conditioned in an overall manner, not just legs that can run for kms on end. Swimming, cycling and yoga would all be fantastic to work on all the muscle groups. They may not all be directly responsible for running, they help maintain a strong core…and everything works better when your core is strong.
Luckily my core isn’t too shabby, considering I really don’t have time to work on it specifically. In an ideal world I’d love to work about 20 hours a week for my wallet (and earn what I earn now) and have 20 hours a week to work on turning myself into a true ultra runner. I’m learning that realistically this process will take years, not months, and this time next year my body will be completely different to what it is now. It’s kind of exciting to track the changes…if I stick with ultra running that is, which I hope to do.
So, this week started off on a low and has been getting better as it went along. Monday I started with weights in the morning. I love having the gym at home, even though now it is dark at 5.30am and the dim carport light does little to “brighten” my gym area. I also am very conscious of not “clanging” the weights as I am worried about waking the neighbours. A positive thing seems to be that the little annoying dog over the back has disappeared…well, at least stopped barking. Either the family gave in to his barking and whining and he is now and inside dog, or they tired of it and he is now someone else’s dog. Either way, the peace is lovely. I turn the radio on, quietly, and smile at the fact that I can “go to the gym” in my pj bottoms and slippers while having a nice cup of coffee; which I need with these cold mornings.
After my dummy spit on Tuesday, I went home and used the cross trainer…I was sick of not being able to do anything to raise a sweat! I was going for 60mins and managed 30mins as I was feeling quite puffed and to be honest, it’s kind of boring and noisy! At least I sweated and felt better after my low mood of the day. Wednesday morning I was up and on the floor in front of the morning news doing my glute exercises and more for about an hour. Wednesday night it was “test run” time. MGal was going to come with me but she got held up at work. I’d taped my knees in the morning to save time at night, and chuckled as I rode the scooter to work that morning, realising how little the knee bends when taped, thinking I really should have taped my feet first!! By the evening though the knee tape had slackened off a little and I was able bend my legs enough to reach my feet. I am certainly keeping the tape manufacturers in business; I even have skin missing from my knees from wearing tape so much.
I headed out for the run not feeling too hopeful. To be honest even sitting at work with my legs bent is giving me stiffness in the knees when I stand up, so I was fully expecting the test run to be a failure. Boy was I wrong!! I have only just figured out where the light on my watch was, so when I lit up the face and it told me I was running at 5:10/km pace and I’d only just started. (Just in case you were wondering why I was surprised, that’s fastish for me!) I thought I’d back it off a little and take it easy on the knee, but then I reasoned the knee isn’t really going to care the speed at which I run, just how many times it has to hit the ground and bend, etc. So if I covered the same distance in a shorter time, surely that was better for my knee. I kept going, feeling awesome (aerobically) and tried to push for as long as I could. I wasn’t going to be doing a 5km time trial like this again anytime soon…I shouldn’t even be running 5kms at this point. I checked my watch periodically along the run, and was even more excited when it said 4:45km/pace to me. That is seriously quick, and I can’t recall if I even ran that quick when I used to do triathlons…maybe, it was a long time ago.
Pulling up at the driveway, the knee had never really played up. I did feel it, I could feel it isn’t 100%, but it didn’t get any worse, and it certainly wasn’t painful. I checked the time on my watch and couldn’t believe it…I’d done 5km in just over 24minutes, giving me an average pace of 4:49min/km. A new PB!! I was going to be happy if I managed an average of 5:15!! I was very happy. I guess rest isn’t always a bad thing; now only if the Death Race was 5kms…I’d be set! Having a week of obviously rested everything…I was feeling very happy. Now the next test would be to back that run up.
Thursday afternoon I quickly headed to the supermarket for our food shop, completely forgetting my chiropractor appointment. When I realised I had a trolley half full of food and couldn’t be bothered, so I called to apologise and I will have to reschedule. That’s the 2nd time I’ve forgotten that appointment in two weeks. I guess my bones are complaining too much then, which is a good thing. Arriving home and offloading the shopping, I was greeted by a very grumpy MGirl. She is very under the pump at uni at the moment, such a large and demanding workload. I guess architecture doesn’t involve a lot of exams, but everything they are doing is so time intensive, and she is getting exhausted. She’d wanted to come, but I wasn’t sure I wanted her company, she was cranky!! I tried to talk her out of it, but she wasn’t to be put off. (In the end it did her the world of good and she felt much better.) we headed out on another 5km run; and with my surprising result of last night, I wanted to try and push it again to see if it wasn’t just a miracle. MGirl is my pace bunny, she always makes me run faster. I quizzed her about our pace, asking if it was as fast as she would normally go; the reply was “yes”; an easy jog! I was running hard, but loving every stride; I was keen to see if I could better last night again.
I purposefully didn’t look at my watch, I just keep pace with MGirl knowing she runs faster than me and surely that would give me another PB?! We reached the driveway and I checked the watch…she’d slowed me down!! Only 5:00min/km pace tonight. That was odd as I had actually felt I’d run a sustained, consistent and faster pace; I guess having someone to talk to makes it seem harder, the breathlessness of chatter and I didn’t actually run faster! I was still very happy. It gives me hope of one day cracking a 4 hour marathon time, which has always been a goal in the back of my mind. If training continues on track, I will enter the Perth Marathon in later June to see if I can get a decent time. I certainly won’t push for sub 4hour as it will be a training run only and I have to keep my eyes on the end goal. It will be interesting though; I’m excited. We had our minus CBoy dinner after the run; fried rice. He doesn’t really like my fried rice, so we tend to eat it when he isn’t around, which he wasn’t.
This morning I was up at 5.30am; MGirl was up doing more homework. I got a lot done this morning before heading out to the physio for an 8am appointment. All my hard work on the roller, and my glute exercises this week, I feel have paid off. I definitely feel like my ITB areas are less tight and the muscle more fluid. The physio seemed to think so too; but still managed to find some knots to stick needles into!! I didn’t quite jump off the table today, but nearly. Her next appointment had rescheduled, so before we knew it she’d been poking and prodding me for 45 minutes…lucky me! She also decided I’d qualified for her “frequently broken” program and is now charging me a heavily discounted rate; what a gem. The cost really does build up over time, even with health cover for physio. Now I can afford to continue to look after my legs, especially as I can’t really afford to have massages; which is what I really, really need weekly. This will be better than nothing and I feel a little more hopeful than I did earlier in the week.
I’ve also been following some discussions on Facebook, with the death Racer’s group page, and it seems there are many ways to make it to the finish line. Some people clock up extraordinary kms, peaking at 150kms a week for more than a month before the race. Others state their longest run was no more than a marathon and that they only did about 60kms a week in training. Others have other strategies still. All of this has shown me, that even with this stalled moment to my training, all is not lost (as MGirl told me) and I just have to push on mentally to get where I want to be.
So the plan is this…I have a 15km run in the hills this weekend, with walking thrown in if needs be. My friend B is showing me a good circuit where I can just keep repeating for further distance, and she said it will be similar to what I will face in Canada (though just not as damn big!). Once I know this route, if I can’t run successfully on trail, or for distance, I will be up there every weekend with my hiking poles and power hiking it, up and down, up and down. I really need climbing training, and if I can’t run it I will still need to walk it. on the flat I will concentrate on lengthening my runs again with a “happy knee” and hopefully it won’t take too long to get back up to 15-20kms through the week, 2-3 times. This should still get me where I need to be, although it may not be the way I originally intended to get there.
I have a fundraising venture on this Saturday, at CBoy’s school fair. I have a table set up promoting the Lung Foundation and my Death Race, selling Lung Foundation items, chocolates and copies of a novel (donated by a friend). Hopefully it gets things going, as I need to come up with $1000 as a bond to be able to hold my quiz night in July!!!
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