You’re such a good listener (not)

The nice thing about running is the more you run the better you get. The caveat is the more you run the more likely you are to get injured. Finding the right balance seems to be a juggling act. You could also say the more you practise anything the better you get, it’s just that in running your improvement is so easily noticeable and likewise measurable (for example, being able to run longer, faster). The same cannot be said about soccer (aka football). During my soccer playing days I very seldom thought of training as something that would make me better. Instead it was the necessary evil which allowed me to be in the starting eleven the next game. (This is not completely true as once in Sweden I missed a full week of practise only to be thrown into a new starting role and because we won the game I pretty much kept my spot until the end of the season). I think the one time I really thought I learned something from practising soccer was when I was playing for Nanaimo United in the top division of the Vancouver island league. The coach was great, but he was of the old British school and made us do all these intricate long ball exercises. I never knew there were so many ways of practising the long ball tactic and it was a lot of fun! Take that, Spain! I’m sad to say, however, that there were many times during my soccer-playing days that I almost wished I’d pick up a slight injury so I could skip the next practise. Now, during my fledgling running days I would hate to have to miss training due to injury. Quite frankly I would try to run through an injury.  

According to Swedish marathon champion and favourite blogger Fredrik Uhrbom, runners are always hurt one way or another, sometimes you have to tough it out and get it done and eventually the pain will disappear. I remember being hurt last year, developing what I think were shin splints. A painful ball developed on my lower leg, I tried to ran through it but when it became so bad I had to stop during a run I took a couple of weeks "off" when I only ran sporadically. When I picked up training again, the ball was smaller but still there and although it didn’t hurt while running, I would feel pain afterwards. I kept running and soon enough the swelling had subsided and there was no pain. Perhaps the injury had healed sufficiently during the light weeks of running, but it’s hard to argue with Uhrbom when something like this occurs and I've heard a lot of people with very similar experiences... but really, listen to your body; by running regularly you’ll know what is serious and what is simply a blemish or muscle soreness. The problem is of course to differentiate between the two. That’s why I say, forget about the intervals, the long runs and all the other types of training we do to improve our running, the most important aspect is to learn to listen to our bodies. 

The Xerox 10k through this park is coming up next week..hopefully I can participate uninjured. Photo: Government of Canada, used with permission.

My shin splints occurred in August last year so I’ve been fearing what August had in store for me this time around.. that popping sound when bending my knee surely must develop into runners’ knee soon, I thought.  Instead, the more I’ve been running lately, the less I’ve noticed it. Then came the ankle sprain scare….Tried running on it, and it worked! Because I’ve really been enjoying my running lately I thought I’d keep on running while carefully monitoring how I felt physically every day, and now 13 days later, I’ve run 13 days in a row since!  I’ve been going by the 20-minute rule: even if you don’t feel completely up for a run, start one and see how you feel after 20 minutes, then make a decision to go home or keep running, and I’ve felt great after 20 minutes every time. Not that I’ve had a problem with not feeling like running, training has been going so well I’ve been raring to head out the door each day. I’ve been feeling fresher than ever after a hard workout, which I speculate may have something to do with me getting used to running every day and therefore requiring less time to recover between workouts. I feel like I know when I’m beat and need a break from running and I haven’t felt like that. 

Recently, focus has been on speed, including fast hill-repeats of 300m, the Fartlek I’ve mentioned before (now extended to five cycles of 4:30 min on and off and faster pace ~ 5:40 pace) and 8 x 800m at 5k pace, 1:30 rest. During the latter I managed to hold 5:30 pace but was that ever tough. I thought about calling it quits after 6 repeats citing excuses such as it is hot out, six is enough, but I kept telling myself when it got tough that "this is the last one" and it worked! I think the same attitude could be applied to long runs if the running gets tough in the final miles. Luckily, I haven’t really had to do that during long runs, but I think I could benefit from running further more often. Therefore I ran 14 miles the other day and I felt great as I handily found a pace just below 7:00 towards the end. I just didn’t want to stop, not even to take a break for water. During that run when passing a couple of friends on bikes one of them said “Wow…You’re being over-taken by a jogger, I’m going to post this on your Facebook”.  I told him “I haven’t passed her yet” as the friend decided to play along and sped up to race me but then slowed down allowing me to pass.   

Naturally, it would have been good to take a pre-emptive day off before fatigue set in, but when you’re feeling this good it’s hard to stop and as I entered my 13^th consecutive day running a break would probably have been wiser. Additionally, I broke the 20-minute rule; I wasn’t feeling good after 20 minutes but seeing it was the weekend and not running on a day off would seem like a waste I kept at it after all… Ironically, I had just been thinking about writing a post about the benefits of hill running over speed-work to avoid injuries. Here, I was blasting through a 12 x 400 m session at 5:00 pace feeling Bolt -fast when my hamstring tightened up. Now I’ve iced it and it feels pretty good the day after so we’ll see. Hopefully I’ll be OK to race the Xerox 10k among the trees of the Arboretum on Tuesday. Either way, I’ll come back smarter and stronger. If I can race, I just hope that all the hill training will have paid off, but that will have to be the subject of a different post.

99 km no problems

Dududu-didudu dududu-didu…. Ah, the Olympics, what a great motivation to run (that was the music from the Olympic medal ceremonies by the way). I've caught a fair bit of the action, even waking up at 7:30 to watch the women’s marathon yesterday. I've really enjoyed the action so far. If you missed the distance races, here is what an analyst had to say about the women’s marathon. Interesting I say, but it’s worth noting that the runner who didn’t wait for things to happen, Mary Keitany, finished outside of the medals in 4^th. I’m looking forward to the men’s marathon on Sunday. A Kenyan will win, but there’s a chance it could be too cold like the Stockholm marathon and then anything can happen...

Check out the ruffles... I accidentally grabbed Anais shorts in the morning and had to run with them for 16 miles... They are comfortable.

  After the 10-miler a couple of weeks ago I set myself the task of running faster. It appeared to me as of late I’ve been scared of breathing hard during my runs so I intended to change that. SO after a 5-mile run the day after the event, I should have been sore but wasn’t, I did an 8 mile progression going from 7:30 to 6 min mile pace over the course of the run. When I hit 6:30-15 pace it seemed like I couldn’t run any faster but then I pushed just a little harder and voila a managed around 6:00 pace for the last two fast miles. It was like I needed to break through a wall and once I did 6:00 pace was no harder than 6:15 pace. So don’t be scared to push the pace this summer for a few miles. The week of the race was a 40 mile week with 6 runs.

With the big race in September now in sight I decided to make myself a training schedule for the next few weeks. It was time to push the envelope just a bit and I made an attempt at running each day of the week, which I’ve never done. I did tempo intervals, sprints or strength routines after easy runs, hill-repeats, a long medium-fast run to build stamina, and a 16 mile run. I also set a goal for this training period to make sure I do the little things. By that I don’t mean drinking raw eggs and running slalom around street signs like the guy in Run fat boy run, but rather:



a) making sure I eat a fruit or something little within 15 min of my run
b) doing my stretches after each run
c) consistently doing strength work and
d) not skipping a run because “it’s only a short run and it doesn’t really matter if I go or not”.  With that in mind, I went for a short run the day following my 16-mile run and I’m glad I did. The long run was harder than I thought it would be but now all other runs seem so much easier. The week concluded with an 8 mile run with Anais and I had done it - ran every day of a week for a total of 99.8 km (or 62 miles) and without any pain or fatigue. I kept going into the next week before taking a break after 10 consecutive days of running.

One of my favourite runs was a fartlek run of four times alternating 0.8 miles at near 10k pace with 0.8 miles of slightly faster than average pace (for me 6:50 pace), which works “speed-endurance”, basically meaning how long you can run at a faster pace such as during a 5 or 10k race. The key is not to completely recover during the slower part of the workout. As always, I include about 15 minutes of warm-up before and cool-down of easy running at a very comfortable pace after the run. I’ve had a real pep in my step as of late resulting in a short, fast, relentless stride - it’s almost like speed-walking. Speaking of which, I noticed that the winner of the 20 km Olympic speed-walk event, well, “ran” just a tad slower than my pace during the May half-marathon..

So everything was working out quite nicely, back in shape and ready for weeks of preparation for the half, when on Saturday I went for a long run with Anais. Two miles into the run I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my lower leg and looked down and saw some large insect attached to it, possibly a hornet, which had stung me. During my runs I’ve been chased by dogs, attacked by birds but this was the first time I had suffered an injury...in the process I dropped our water bottle, stepped on it with my other foot and twisted my foot awkwardly. I was in some discomfort but toughed it out and completed the run. The insect sting was alright, but later that night I could hardly put weight on my other foot and was thinking the worst… Even though there was minimal swelling it felt like a sprain. I quickly looked for examples of similar injuries on-line and uncovered that ex-Toronto Raptor Vince Carter, famous for being out extended periods with ridiculous injuries, once had missed two weeks because of a foot sprain, which greatly instilled hope I wasn’t going to miss much more than maybe a week of running. I applied ice and elevated my foot to help with the healing. In the morning it wasn’t much better, I was limping, but as the day went on I felt stronger and the next day I could walk without any discomfort..what  a relief! Today I ran 5 miles no problem, strangely fast recovery.