This is a light-hearted and rather silly post that has come to life mostly because it was too long for an Instagram post!
Tonight was Halifax Road Hammer practice and the second workout in this injury recovery in which I wanted to run with my long-time training partner Damian. I was psyched to complete a workout with him on Saturday. Would I be able to do it again today? He’s on the upswing and all of his running paces recently got bumped up one degree faster.
The workout is 12 x 1 minutes with 30 seconds rest. Of all the workouts in the world, I dislike this one the second most. But we have to do things we dislike in order to grow. The group lines up and Damian asks what pace and I tentatively say that I will tuck in behind.
“Don’t kill me!” I say. But that’s not fair, if he’s fit, he should run fast. So I rephrase, “Go ahead and kill yourself, I just won’t come along.” Coach Lee isn’t messing around and starts the workout so there’s no more time to talk. I have to just dive in on faith in my running ability and go.
Here’s what the go was, broken down. The anatomy of the 1 minuter workout if you will.
Intervals 1, 2, 3: Tucked right behind Damian. He asks how’s the pace, the numbers say fast. I say I am judging pace by how scared I am of the number of intervals that remain. I’m a small degree of scared and I can stay with him. Paces 3:40/km, 3:45/km, 3:57/km
Intervals 4, 5, 6: Oh it’s amazing. I haven’t run faster than threshold pace since early October, before the Valley Harvest Half Marathon (blog about that here). What’s amazing is muscle memory because though I haven’t run fast in 3 months, I have many years of fast running behind me. My body remembers. It responds. The cues that I use to run fast are all there, like my familiar friends: “Push! Pop! Drive the ground away! Eyes Up! Shoulders Down! Use arms! Face Relaxed.” Paces 3:43, 3:50/km, 3:48/km
Intervals 7, 8, 9: Still tucked behind Damian. He is 2 steps ahead but I’m with him. Now I’m singing Katy Perry’s song “Roar” in my head as in my fitness and speed are here, hear me roar. Paces 3:45, 3:51, 3:48
Intervals 10, 11, 12: Damian, how many more!? Is this 10!! 10 is tricky for the hypoxic brain. There are not 2 left. There are 3. My roar is gone. Replaced by desire to stick close enough to Damian for him to feel like I am helping him and not leaving him alone. Roar is replaced by “suffer” as I grind it out, staring at the Noxgear light on his back, it’s blinking out the heartbeat of my suffer. I’m so happy to be suffering. It means I am healthy. I don’t ever look at my watch in 1 minuters, it’s my practice at pain-boxing it until the indeterminate beep announces the cessation of the suffer. 11 is hard. Damian says so too. 12 is a suffer-filled victory. Paces 3:48, 4:01, 3:42
Average interval pace = 3:47.5/km. I am claiming use of the decimal because I don’t want to round up!
Another workout in the bank for the New Jersey Half Marathon. Label me a happy and healthy runner!
This week, I read some lines from a blog post that I wrote in 2011:
Running in the winter lets me experience a small slice of childhood joy. Remember when you were in grade 2? You would run home, put on the your snowsuit and play with your favourite neighbourhood friends in the snowbanks? I rush home from work, put on my winter running gear and play intervals and V02 max with my favourite running friends, next to snowbanks. It’s kinda the same thing.
I really felt that tonight. I ran warm-up with Ian H and David. We had funny conversation and profound conversation, started by Dave, when he brought up Trump and the wall. It was play.
I ran cooldown with Damian, Kristen, Tonya, Tash and Doran. We’ve covered my longtime training pal Damian. Kristen, my sister, I love more than life. Tonya is one of my best girlfriends ever and we’ve journeyed through motherhood together. Tash is a long time teammate dating back to Cliff’s days, who I admire greatly. She has had my runner-girl side forever and it’s from her that I have learned to be so optimistic and hopeful through setbacks because as she’s taught me, it’s always the best option. Doran travelled to California with Damian and I and the crew is 2016. When he’s not running with me, he runs with my sister. I coach his high-school aged daughters and his daughters coach my children in swimming. He stayed out with me until I rounded out 15km because I wanted the mileage. We laughed and told stories and ran easy. We were the last ones running. He’s the man.
I love being a mother more than anything and I love my job and my husband is my best friend. But I need running so that I have that thing that I love that both makes me uniquely me and makes me the best me. That’s lots of joy.
