I tried twice to get to a 10K less in than an hour.  My first attempt left me at 62.21 but it was after a difficult few days.  So I thought I would try again and went to the Chester Cut and Run 5k/10K thinking it was flatter than the Bluenose Course.  It  fact, it was not.  My results for this was not significantly better, and I finished in 61.43.  It’s a new personal best, but I still did not make my hour.

I am not exactly sure how to feel about all of this.  I won this make over contest a few days after my best friend died of breast cancer.  A week or so later Mum was diagnosed with cancer, and the make over ended with her death.  Working with the iRun team turned out to be a very positive thread through a fairly dark time.  It was hard for me to stay positive and engaged sometimes, as Mum’s health declined and I needed and wanted to be more attentive to her. During this same time I started a new job with a long commute, making it difficult to get my runs in. 

What I learned is that if you want to fit healthy activities in, you can.  I ran at 5.00 am before I started my commute because I could not  do runs in the evenings.  My mind relaxed into the runs helping me cope with whatever needed coping with.  I also learned that it is vital to take care of my health, because it can turn into bad health in a second.  This process is not about being fast, its about protecting the thing on which the rest life rests, health.  I believe our socieity does not value important things, and turns to foolishness to feel better about difficulties.  Canadians complains about our quality of life, when we have so much that most of the world does not.  When my friend was dying of cancer, leaving her two little boys (5 and 2) behind, she was so annoyed when she saw others not taking care of themselves and squandering the gifts of health.

So even though I failed to achieve my goal, I suceeded in increasing my fitness and confidence, in managing life’s obstacles with healthy, reasonable choices instead of hiding in ice cream or other glutunous behaviors ( and I love glutony).  An hour is doable for me with more training, which is something I would not have said 3 months ago.

When I was running today, one of motivating factors was thinking of my mum in her last days.  Dying is hard work, especially if you want to leave in a way which exemplifies the way you lived.  Both Mum and my friend went out not in a panic, or angry but leaving memories of hard work and perseverance, of achievement in the face of obstacles, of fighting a losing battle with grace,  and most importantly to me, with humour.  Life can be hard, running is often hard but sticking with it to the end, regardless if the end is a personal best or if you are the last person across the line takes real character. I will never run a 10K inf 45 minutes (probably) but does that mean I shouldn’t try.  My character was built a bit by this experience and that is in part why I run now.  That and the fact that I need to work off the rhubarb crisp that is for supper tonight.

 I have thanked iRun so many times, and Tania, Lauren and my other teammates, Brock and Aleks so much that it is now starting to sounds a bit over the top.  This blog has also been really helpful so I would also like to thank those of you who have read it, sent words of encouragement or said something nice to me over the last few months.  I believe in the power of community and there is a running community out there which I am just beginning to see.

Thanks everyone.

Chrystal

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be part of the Ottawa Race Weekend through my involvement with Team in Training. I was the on-course coach for the Prairie Region (Edmonton, Calgary and Saskatoon).

I love being on-course support. Not only do I get to meet a lot of wonderful runners, walkers and other TNT coaches and staff from around the country but I also get to help anyone on the race course who needs it. As an added bonus we coaches are given free access to the marathon course for the entirety of the race. This is akin to an “all-you-can-run buffet” for some of us.

I put on 50.15km during the race on Sunday at an average pace of 7:54/km. At the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco last year I put on 57km. That’s how it goes for some of us… but I digress.

I took advantage of my own presence in Ottawa for race weekend and cajoled Coach Tania into scrounging me a 10k race entry (forgoing a Team in Training event to run it… sorry ducklings). So, leaving immediately from the TNT Coach’s Meeting, I made my way down to the start line, downed a gel, limbered up (by jumping up and down trying to get Tania’s attention way up there in the elite corral) and be darned if I didn’t make another PB!

41:28 was my finishing time. That’s 93 seconds faster than my 10k in April (43:01) and over 4 minutes faster than the one I ran in March (45:19). Woo!

Truth be told, I was aiming for under 40 minutes and I was on track too… until about 6kms in. The humidity hanging in the hot/still air was just too much for this prairie boy. From 750 metres onward I was pretty much as sweaty and hot as I could possibly be and I paid the price in the last half of the race.

But, what the heck? Who cares? I was in Ottawa for another important reason and this race was just the “electrolytes in a very busy sports drink” so to speak. I had been up since 4am on a bus then a plane, I had walked around the race expo for 2 hours, ate pancakes and eggs with Tania for lunch and arrived at the start line directly from a meeting. What was I expecting? A world’s record? No. Just a PB – and I got one. Wait… let me rephrase that. I got ANOTHER one.

I haven’t really stopped thinking about those 12 minutes since Sunday afternoon. You know, the twelve minutes between my goal and my marathon time. The twelve minutes that made me cry Sunday afternoon. They’ve been rattling and rooting around in my head and I’ve been rehashing and rehashing the marathon over and over.

First of all, I knew that 4:15 was a really ambitious goal for me. My PB for a half was 2:05 (twice), so an extra ten minutes for an extra 21k is a stretch.

I’ve come to the conclusion that two things affected my race.

1) I didn’t speed train. Enough, or at all, really. I did for about a month in March, but not since. My knee started twinging at 25k and I haven’t had an IT band issue since the Hypothermic Half in February. Both incidents were out of the blue, and both were races. Meaning I was running faster than my body was used to. I think the two are connected. Knee pain cost me about five minutes I’d say.

2) I don’t think I respected the distance enough. I mean, I “remembered” that marathons were hard, but I’m such a different runner now than I was 20 months ago during my first marathon. I’m stronger, physically and mentally. I worked with a personal trainer all winter, I didn’t really have any overly difficult or painful training runs. I think I got a little smug. I thought it wouldn’t be as bad as last time/didn’t truly remember what last time felt like.

Steve and I sat on our porch last night watching the trees blow in the wind talking about goals. He said that if you meet your goal the first time you try, it wasn’t ambitious enough. I’m not sure that I agree with that 100%, because it comes down to long-term and short-term goals.

I could never run another marathon and feel like I’ve earned a “good enough” time. Except that I didn’t. Because what I really wanted, I didn’t get.

It’s bittersweet, I guess, because the high of a great PB is dampened by those 12 minutes.

So, yes, there will be another one. I’ve been eyeballing a couple different races for a few months now. PEI. Tofino. I don’t know when, but I know that the siren call of the marathon, of those 12 minutes lost, will pull me in again.

It’s the first Wednesday in June and the internet is all abuzz because it is National Running Day in the U.S.  As polite Canadians often do, many are sending best wishes to their American friends.  Some are even announcing it to other Canadians on Facebook, Twitter and running forums, adding that, yes, they know it is an American day, but that they love running and wish to participate as well.

A bunch of us here at iRun were talking about it this morning, and the discussion went like this:  someone said, “Do we have National Running Day in Canada?” Then someone else said, “No. There’s an international version called World Run Day, but no National Running Day in Canada. Maybe we should start one….”

You can probably guess what happened then.

We’ve decided iRunNation deserves a uniquely Canadian National Running Day. Our question to you: When should we celebrate National Running Day?  Should it coincide with National Running Day in the U.S.A., or should it stand alone?  In what season should we have it, and on what day?

Where do I start ? What do I say about my first marathon?

What an emotional, exhilarating, terrifying, inspiring and fantastic experience!!!

This is how it happened from my standpoint:

I woke up at 5:00 AM after not having slept well at all – only dozing off and on… such nerves and tenseness! Wow! I have never been this nervous in my life before…. get dressed, stuff a sandwich down my throat, put my hat on and leave my sunglasses off as it’s cloudy and raining outside and head out to the start line.

I find the 4:00 hr pace bunny – who happened by wonderful coincidence – to be a Flight

Centre co-worker of mine who was one of many people to inspire me to start running in the first place. Dave – you are the energizer pace bunny machine! Exacting, constant and right on time.

Tania finds me at the start line and pumps me up with last minute strategies and positive reinforcement and then we are off.

I settle in at the 5:30 – 5:50 pace (adjusted for water/ Gatorade stations and the kilometres fly by …..7, 10, 15, 19, and suddenly, I am half way through – WOW – I’ve just run a half marathon and I feel great ! This used to be the end in three previous races that I’ve done! Ok…onward I go, keep going strong ….24, 27 and 30 Kilometres come and go and I realize that my legs are starting to feel a bit weak and that my pace is slowing.

I am still behind Dave the 4:00 HR pace bunny by about 2 or 3 minutes ….no sweat I tell myself that I can make that up…that is just a good surge on the last 3 kilometres.

Now I am rounding up on to 33 and 34 kilometres and I realize that this is going to be harder than I thought. Surprisingly, it’s not my lungs or my heart (I naively thought that this would be the problem) but I am shocked to realize that what hurts so much is my legs – all of my legs!! My calves, my hamstrings, my glutes, my ankles – everything! Wow! I realize that I this is not going to go away and that I have another 8 kilometres or so to go and that the pain is getting worse.

Running a marathon is truly a “mind over matter” challenge! All of those stories, all of the people that I had talked to, they talked about “hitting the wall”, running through the pain, putting the pain aside in another part of your brain and willing your body to keep moving but, honestly, I thought that some of those people might be exaggerating or complaining too much ! I had never experienced anything like that in two years of constant running and training so I didn’t believe it necessarily (a bit arrogant, aren’t I?). hahahhah

Well, a marathon will humble you and me and everybody else!

So, I realize that this is the way that it is: I won’t quit (God forbid even the thought!),

I could walk the rest of the way but walking hurts just as much as running, I could walk and run interspersed together ….what should I do?

I grit my teeth together and concentrate on the crowd and the beautiful scenery along the route and run. Just run …try as hard as you can…go as hard as you can.

Now it’s 39 Kilometres and the end is in sight, only 3 more to go…come on I know that I can do it….I pass 41 K and I can smell the finish line….I make a beeline for it and will my legs to move as fast as they can….I push harder and harder….I pass many people who were ahead of me for many kilometres and I smile in satisfaction – I have more fuel in the engine than they do and I can go hard at the end…I finish strong with my head up high.

I’ve done it.

Time – 4:13.

I am a marathoner.

I am a woman that worked hard to get to the finish line who sacrificed a lot of her private life and work life to run for the last 4 months and I am damn proud.

If I can do it, you can do it – anybody can do it.

Then, I started to cry; the tide of emotion overcame me – all of the discipline, the training runs, the pressure to excel, to execute one more run, to eat the right foods in the right portion at the right time, the stress from co-workers and loved ones having to pick up my slack,…it all came crashing down on me at that moment.

But I would not change a second of it because I am a marathoner.

I run.

In the video below, you can hear commentator and Speed River Track and Field Club coach Dave Scott-Thomas tell the crowd that Taylor Milne would have to pick up the pace to break the record, and Milne did not disappoint.

Exactly 2 seconds were knocked off of the previous 2,000 metre Canadian record at the Speed River Inferno on Saturday night.  Milne finished the race in 5:01.57, beating the record of 5:03.57 set by Steve Agar in 1997.

For a full recap of the meet, check out this article in the Guelph Mercury.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUgJyvN_VEw&feature=player_embedded