Running through this:

Gambia has been on my mind this week. The Love4Gambia campaign released the official call for a 2016 runner to travel to The Gambia this summer and have the most amazing running adventure (maybe it will be you! get in touch with me!).  I  revisited one of my most favorite pieces that I wrote about my run there, titled “Together.”  It listed all of the things that my team ran through together on the 424km road across the country in 2011.

Running solo at the crack of dawn this morning, I was thinking about this compilation of Gambian running memories. Then I was thinking about this week’s workout session. Our coach was away and half of our group was missing.  The workout was big and challenging: x 20 short and fast intervals, totally 10+km.  The girls who I run these workouts with weren’t there so I was lonely x 20.

I feel like I experienced all of the emotions of a 10km race in this workout: I got this; I’m lonely: I’m bored; I’m giving up: I’m mad at myself for giving up; I’m un-giving up; and back to I got this.  That’s a lot of life in one workout. Then I starting thinking about this training cycle for Boston Marathon.  Two training months have slipped by and while not as mind blowing as the road to Banjul in The Gambia, I’ve run through a number of things on this road to Boston.

Here the things I’ve run through:

• Lots of camaraderie. There was this one lonely night with Halifast amid many workouts with many bodies working together. The work isn’t so hard when there’s company on the road and when it’s shared.  I hope this feeling carries through to Boston as many of us are running Boston Marathon. Though we will all be separate and running our own races, I will want to feel like we are all out there sharing the work in some way.
• Some magic workouts. I’ve definitely run through some kick-ass workouts in the last 2 months. The best was a workout with many (MANY) short intervals at 8km pace. Leah had her watch set to beep at us. I didn’t look at my watch once for this 9+km. Our bodies know how to dial in to pace. We just worked together, matched strides and ran hard. When I scrolled through my watch later, we had totally nailed it. That’s workout magic.
• Illness. I began to run through the illness of of both my children and then lost 3 of 5 days of a running week when they “germed” me too.
• Running humour. My sister (who I train with Halifast with) and I were out for a long run when she told me that she always has a bath after our Wednesday workout so that she doesn’t have to stand up anymore. I told her that if I wasn’t so oxygen depleted recovering from my illness, I would be laughing my head off. Then after my solo 10km suffer-fest workout this week, I also wanted to lie down in the bathtub and not stand up anymore (alas, the bathtub in my 84 year old home is cast iron and always too cold).
• Friendship love. I’ve shared many kilometers, hard and easy, with my 3 best girls Tonya, Sarah and Shauna. Always grateful that we have this in common so we can get face time with each other amidst busy parenting life (we 4 mamas have a combined total of 12 children).
• Some snowbanks. Possibly 23 snowbanks on one particular 23km run that Kristen and I did. But overall, we’ve run though pretty acceptable weather for 2 winter months. There have been some -8 with feels like temperature in the -teens. I’ve taken only workout inside at the Dartmouth Sportsplex. Though this is easy to write on a mild and rainy Friday when the sidewalks are perfectly runner-clear.

• Some useful snowbanks aka “Canadian ice baths.” When our Saturday workout volume (including warm up and cooldown) started to hit 17, 18 and 19km, I started to sit in the snow bank on my patio when I got home in hopes to prepare/recover for Sunday long run.
• Some winter hate. I know that there was at least one solo long run that I completed in full on winter-hate. Thank goodness for scheduling as it was a step-back week.  I was down at Marginal Road.  I had my phone with me as I was listening to a podcast and stopped to take this photo of the tunnel as it was the only nice looking I had seen in 10km. Photo snapped but it was so cold out that my phone promptly shut down after photo was snapped and the resulting solo silence increased my winter-hate.

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• Podcasts! I’ve run though five or six of favorite running podcasts: Runner Academy with Matt Johnson. You’re welcome.
• Many off-hours runs. I flipped through my log and counted 7 runs at 5am and 5 runs at 7pm over the last 2 months.
• Commons, Marginal Road, repeat. My log book also shows that of the 500+ km I’ve run in the last 2 months, 85km were at the Commons and 83km were at Marginal Road (Halifax Seaport). Familiarity = Comfort. And well-lit safe footing.
• The end of Nova Scotia. My most thrilling run was a run on our Cape Breton

  

  Christmas holiday. I set up in the afternoon while everyone was napping. I told husband I might be back in one hour or maybe two hours. I turned north to run north of the Cabot Trail: uncharted territory for me. It was such a beautiful mild sunny afternoon and my body felt so strong that I kept running until I reached the very end of the road 12km away.  This is where the road through Bay St. Lawrence turns into a wharf into the Atlantic Ocean. Amazing. Then I had to run back up a mountain to get home but whatevs.

• Season of work. The end of January brings the start of a new season at work- that of High School Semester Two. This is when we welcome back many students who didn’t make it through first semester for many reasons. I support many of these young people in my role and often they have stories of far from idyllic childhoods. Thinking about their early years often makes me miss my own children intensely and I have a strong want to be at home with them. I sometimes run with this wish to be home (hence my off-hour running).
• Valuing my team MVP. While my husband doesn’t run, he’s the most valuable person on my running team for the time he spends at home with our 1.5 and 3.5 year olds on Wednesday evenings and long Sunday morning.

That’s the end of my 2-month list. I’d love to hear what’s on yours.

Boston calling!