Race Recap: Seaton Trail Mud Puppies

Date: April 16, 2011
Location: Seaton Trail, Pickering, Ontario
Distance: 29K
Weather: Rain, 4C
Trail: Out-and-back, single-track, muddy and wet. Mostly flat, but quite a few huge hills, a crazy river crossing, and did I mention mud? Everywhere.
Time: 3:43
Place: 2nd F, not sure overall

Was totally excited to run this race, not nervous at all. Despite the cold rain and slick mud I had a complete blast. Great people, it was nice to see everyone. Legs felt great, I thanked my physio Stacee in my head about a hundred times. I also thanked my well-tractioned Crosslites too many times to count. I like this length of race, I didn't carry anything except a few gels stashed in my gloves, and wasn't in a state of desperation with hours yet to go. Weird. Nice.

The weather was nasty, but I kind of like that for running. I felt bad for runners in the the longer races and especially the volunteers and organizers though. (It was a dangerous day out there if things went wrong...kudos to John M for helping out a runner in serious trouble, and then helping the runner's family too.) I saw Derrick three times on the course, and due to the timing of our starts and his shorter second section out, we finished up nearly at the same time. We had thought about the possibility of that happening, but figured the odds were against it. It was great to be able to see him finish and win his first race after the year off. Loved the dog-shaped medal and paw-printed t-shirt.

Bottom line: This year we put the Mud in Mud Puppies. Feels great to be back!

Results and photos will be here.

Niggly vs Injury

Niggly

- A minor soreness
- Proceed with Caution
- Usually accompanies a training increase
- Gets better rapidly
- Ends up stronger than before
- Within a week it's over and never thought about again
- Feels good in a bad way

Injury
- Too painful to run without limping
- Stop
- Usually happens when you feel fit and invincible
- Can take fer-freaking-ever to heal
- Lost fitness, starting over
- Eventually you might see a good side to it all
- Feels bad in a bad way

Some weekly notes

- Sunday I wasn't going to run, feeling tired from an increase in training and thinking the rest would be better. For some reason though I felt very antsy late in the afternoon and I just had to get out for a bit. So I ran up a nearby road and enjoyed the late afternoon sun. In fact it was spectacular, with the entire sky all the way around turning pink. Turning around, I was facing into the sunset and it was stunning. I was coming down a long gradual hill when it was at its peak, with so many layers of deep red and orange. I'm glad that I didn't miss that sunset, it was probably the best I've ever seen.

- Bosu and treadmill are still good. For some reason my stride rate on the treadmill is about 10 higher than it typically is outside, which is helpful. I have three uphill workouts done, with three more to go before racing...

- Just signed up for the 29k at Seaton Trail on April 16. I've never run this race, but a few years ago when Derrick ran I did a training run on the trails and it looked fun. Can't wait.

- I've been getting a ton of hits on my blog for an old post that has a picture called "stars". Apparently people are landing there looking for movie star photos. If you want a lot of hits, you should name your photos accordingly, like celebrity gossip, Justin Bieber, etc.

- After a ton of rain on Saturday followed by cold temps, we have a gigantic skating pond. The dogs are finally playing hockey again.

Neeka returning the puck after a breakaway

Go Team!

Gym Rat

Since my first race back, I've been very inspired to ramp up my training. I got myself a gym membership again so I can use the treadmill (a) for uphill workouts, and (b) to warm up for (c) strength/plyo stuff mostly using the Bosu (which we don't have at home). I'm lukewarm at best about the treadmill, but it's been nice to add to the mix right now, and in general I love the gym, it is so much fun. The Bosu is the most fun, but I had a sobering moment when I rolled my ankle off of it, which kind of hurt but mostly scared the heck out of me. I'm doing this to get stronger, not to bust something.

So anyway, in this way I've kind of started sneaking in quite a few morning/lunch runs on top of hitting the trails at home after work. Not coincidentally I feel happier than in a long, long, long time. Though I like my job and am not complaining, it is a fact that what I do isn't work in the force X distance sense, except if you count a tiny bit from the wrist down (typing + mousing). Pretty much everyone who works here does something physical every day - walking, running or gym at lunch, etc. which is needed to balance out sitting so much I'm thinking.

Oh, if anyone has any links to good Bosu exercises, I'd love to collect some more ideas.

____________________________

Some interesting-to-me things:

Fascinating story by Brock Picken of FitForTwoTv on how he gained 40 pounds in 4 days to win a contest.

Raccoon Nation documentary on the The Nature of Things with David Suzuki. Fascinating. Cute.

Really great overview of snowshoe running and racing.

My dog can walk on water.

Less like a Math Test, More like a Painting

Derrick and I were snowshoe running on some new trails last night. There is something about how the pre-dusk February sun reflects on the pine trees and snow-covered land that gives it a magical quality. It is hard to describe, but the pale colours of the sky and snow meet the richness of the green in between and I am left in awe of the radiant beauty of nature around me. The base of snow is well over knee-deep now, but the trails are packed down by our snowshoes and I found myself feeling grateful for the ten-thousandth time for them allowing us access into the silent woods of winter.

Then, part way through the run my thoughts shifted to feeling the need to train more. I started to feel stress in my body, with the impulse to write up an ambitious plan and muster up the will to follow it as a top priority. To harness every one of my allotted type A brain cells because I'll need every one of them to keep me on track. In the past I have been able to motivate myself to train hard to try to meet particular goals, mostly out of insistence on following a plan like this. When I've succeeded it has been extremely satisfying and I've found out important things about myself in the process that will always be a part of me.

I call it the Math Test approach. It's a logical plan fueled in part by fear. I would be super motivated to work hard because I wanted to "pass", and was starting a long way from where I needed to be. Add to it a powerful underlying need to prove worthiness to myself and it's a recipe that has a serious punch of power if you buy into it. But now that I have learned from this approach (most importantly how untrue the worthiness thing is), I don't feel it is going to work again.

When I started feeling that stress yesterday I already knew that well was dry, so I shut it down right there. I reminded myself that for coming off of a long downtime I'm in a good place and there's nothing to stress about. (Really, why would I stress about my stress-reliever??) I re-focused on the beauty of the snowy woods around me, and felt the stress melt away. I definitely still have goals, but the process of reaching them needs to be a larger part of the enjoyment. Not just satisfying mentally, but day-in/day-out enjoyable physically, emotionally and spiritually.

The metaphor I'll use this time is that of a Painting - I have an idea of what I'm after, but I'm going to be open to letting the final picture evolve in a way that is a lot messier, organic, and fun. Like I did yesterday, I'm going to aim to stay in the moment and let it flow.

I would never say one approach is better or worse, it's just about finding what feels right and being able to adapt. When and if I try a 100 miler, it may very well feel like cramming for a math test again, or maybe I'll find some kind of good balance between the two approaches. There really is good in both of them, and it's not like I haven't enjoyed training before, that's obviously not true at all. It's just that I want a larger proportion of my runs to be from a place of truly loving being out there, not just being a slave to my training plan.

Becoming unstuck in the world

There was once a man who became unstuck in the world.

He took the wind for a map.

He took the sky for a clock and he set off with no destination.

He was never lost.

from Castles in the Sky, a movie not about snowshoe running

First Race Back

I am very happy to have been able to run the Frozen Ass Snowshoe Race yesterday. I was pretty nervous in the morning, not knowing how it was going to feel to try to run at a quicker-than-training pace when I've not done more than a couple of tempo runs. Turns out it was fine, I was able to run at what I felt was a good solid effort. A great way to start back. My left leg was a little stiff and sore right after, but it calmed down throughout the day and as of today feels really good. That's a really encouraging sign.

The course at Batawa was great. It went out for a couple of kilometres at a steady grade up, and the snow was very deep from the storm this week and getting more snow overnight. The new snow made the trees very pretty. We then climbed a huge hill, down the other side, and then turned around and went back the same way. So after that killer second climb (that just about did kill me), it was an easier return, especially with the trail being packed down more. That easier last section really helped me, I think I'd have been sunk otherwise.

It should be an interesting battle for the female series title, as Angela won the race yesterday after finishing third at Frontenac. As of now Angela has 1 and 3 pts, Shauna has 1 pt and Eliza has 2 pts. Lowest score of two best races wins. (Derrick, bring the abacus!)