Injuries from over-training, I’ve had a few – strained hamstrings, wonky IT bands, stress fractures. But this is the first time I’ve had a goal race jeopardized by injuries sustained due to lack of sleep.

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon last week, so my husband and I decided to take our baby girl for a walk along the canal. We were all feeling a little peaked, as Alex’s recent growth spurt meant we were up every two hours every night the week before – sometimes every hour, in fact. But the sunshine (and the big, ol’ coffees we obtained at Starbucks prior) promised to cure all that ailed us. It was a little warm, so I started to slide my hoodie down my shoulders to take it off and put it around my waist. And just like that -bam- I’d rolled my ankle in about the only pothole in the history of Ottawa’s obsessively-maintained canal path, failed to steady myself with my hoodie-occupied arms, and landed shoulder-first on the ground. Well, technically, both my knees and right hand took a lot of the impact, but my shoulder was the real clutch player, saving me from smashing my face right into the asphalt. (Although, of all the people ideally suited to have a concussion, the new mom waking up every two hours with a hungry baby is right up there!) Apparently, as I lay, bruised and bleeding on the ground, I managed to holler “don’t let the stroller roll into traffic!” at my startled husband…good to know I can still bark orders from the prone position!

I assessed the damage as I limped back home: Two skinned knees and the beginnings of a nasty bruise on the right knee; road rash on my hand and shoulder, and pride that might never heal if I missed race day because of a pratfall. I skipped my run that day for obvious reasons, but the next day managed to hobble my way through what should have been a 10k tempo run. (I managed 10k, but the “tempo” best resembled that of an elephant marching band.)  Thankfully, the sore spot giving me the most trouble – a tweaked right knee – was sufficiently mended by my Sunday long run that I managed to pull off  my longest training run yet – 21.1k (precisely), proof positive that I can go the distance on race day, even under less-than-ideal conditions.  And I’m now quite certain that, if I ever manage to string together more than four consecutive hours of sleep sometime before my daughter heads off to university, qualifying for Boston will be a breeze.

Ahhh Spring!

It is such an amazing time to be a runner when it’s spring (unless you have allergies).  It’s like all the trials and denials of winter running just wash away with a little spring rain.  I don’t know about the rest of you but it takes me a while to figure out what to wear so as not to be too cold or to overheat.

I’ve started working out with a group on Tuesdays in the Arboretum/Experimental farm, great to be in a big group of runners again, such social creatures we are!

Last week we were out (in the rain) and here is the workout:

-18min warm-up to the arb

-another 15min warm-up with the group

-4 strides

-4x ~2km with a 3min jogging rest

-(@ 6:22, 6:19, 6:26 and 6:09)

-20min cool down

So it was a rainy night and I of course over dressed by 3 layers.  Anyway great running with people again I always forget all the little things about group running: someone is breathing heavy, some one has a click in there ankle and of course the never ending array of bottley functions.

It certainly is nice to run in peace and quiet, I’ll be the first one to admit that, but every now and then I encourage you to find a group to run with especially if your doing speed and take note of all the noises that you encounter around you I bet you’ll have a little chuckle.

More to come on the speedwork I will be hitting a few hard sessions over the next few weeks to prepare for the Race Weekend 10k!

Tampa-based Kenyan Thomas Omwenga ran away and hid on the field at Sunday’s BMO Vancouver Marathon, winning by just under 9 minutes (2:16:55) over BC’s own Jason Loutitt. This is Omwenga’s third win, adding to his ’07 and ’08 titles. He has enjoyed a fair bit of success on the Canadian circuit over the years, having also won the Around The Bay 30K last year and the Niagara Falls Marathon in 2007.

The women’s marathon was won by Emmah Muthoni Kiruki (2:37:16) over BC’s Sharleen Jackson (2:50:12) and Suzanne Evans (2:52:58).

Each champion took home $2000. This year saw over 3400+ marathon finishers.

The half marathon’s 6500+ runners were led by Lethbridge’s Kip Kangogo (Kan He Ever!) in 1:06:33. Kangogo is a former NCAA All American who once trained under legendary Ed Eyestone at Brigham Young University, before transferring to Texas Christian in 2004. Kip’s younger brother Ed posted a 9th place finish (1:13:29).

On the women’s side, Ontario’s Krista Duchene (1:16:40) won easily. Duchene was third at this spring’s Around The Bay 30K and won both the Hamilton and Mississauga Marathons in ’09. Lisa Harvey edged Heather Gallagher for second place and the extra $250 in prize money ($750 vs $500). The two finished with identical 1:19:15 chip times, but Harvey started 2 seconds ahead of Gallagher so she also finished 2 seconds ahead. (In major road races, awards go by gun time, not chip time.)

Congratulations to all who braved the elements for yesterday’s races!

When I posted my ‘New Mom Training Plan’ a couple of weeks ago, featuring a few of the tricks and tips I’d learned re. how to fit training in with a new babe at home, I realized that compared to many accomplished mommy (and daddy) runners out there, I’m a relative noob when it comes to the various tricks of the running and parenting trade. So step away from that slick-double jogging stroller for just a moment and share  YOUR training tips for new moms and dads – they could be featured in the next issue of iRun, which will have an article on this very subject!

Email your responses to editor@irun.ca, including your name, age and hometown…or post your comments below if you prefer! Just remember to include your details and contact info if you want your post to appear in the magazine.

“The best pace is a suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die.” 
Steve Prefontaine

GRANT:  Born to Run was a cool book. Now it’s time to decide what we will read next. I’m thinking we should pick a book that is the opposite end of the running spectrum. 

VICKY:  I like it. How about a book about Steve Prefontaine? You might not remember this but I had a Prefontaine phase last year where I rented all the DVDs about him. 

GRANT:  I’m sure you only watched those movies because you like Steve Prefontaine right? It wasn’t because Jared Leto and Billy Crudup were the leading men? 

VICKY:  Funny Grant but I must say Without Limits and Prefontaine were great movies. 

GRANT:  Who did you think did a better job portraying the running legend? 

VICKY:  To be honest with you, they were both great in different ways. The movies weren’t the same at all because they focused on different aspects of his life, which is why I really want to read this book so I can get the whole picture. The book I would like to suggest is called PRE:  The Story of America’s Greatest Running Legend by Tom Jordan. 

GRANT:  This could work because there are many interesting topics we’ll be able to discuss. For example, the making of a running shoe (ie. the Bill Bowerman and Nike story), coaching, speed work, track & field and the Olympics and more. 

VICKY:  Ok now I’m excited. So when do we start? 

GRANT:  Let’s start reading next Monday, May 3^rd, 2010. Check back in a few days for the Book Bio and in the meantime, let us know what you think of our next book selection!

“Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.”
Edwin Hubbel Chapin  

VICKY:  This morning, I read Dana’s blog  and I felt relieved that another woman runner had had a toenail injury such as mine. I felt like now, I could go public with my story.

GRANT:  Oh my gawd woman, you’re obsessed with this toenail injury.

VICKY:  Grant, this is serious. Our readers need to know that it can happen to them too. They need to know that simple little changes such as wearing the right sock, tying up your shoes a little tighter or buying shoes with more room for your toes can save their toenails.

GRANT:  Vicky, your nail is likely going to fall off. Accept it and move on.

VICKY:  It’s easy for men to say that because you don’t spend hundreds of dollars getting your feet pedicured so they look pretty throughout the year.  You don’t understand. Women love their toenails. I love my toenails and I want to keep them. I’m not hardcore like Marshall Ulrich.  

GRANT:  You’re right, I had forgotten that in Born to Run the author talks about how some people are such hardcore ultrarunners that they have their toenails surgically removed for good.

VICKY:  That is exactly what Marshall did. According to the author, Marshall is :  “an affable dog food tycoon who perked up his times by having his toenails surgically removed.” I also found this really interesting article from the NY Times about ultrarunners getting their toenails surgically removed and they talk about Marshall and Born to Run.  It’s actually quite interesting even though I would never do it.

GRANT:  By the way, holy six degrees of separation! Did you know Marshall Ulrich is currently running the Sahara desert with Ray Zahab and the i2P team in Tunisia?

VICKY:  Yes and he’s actually got a pretty cool blog set up to talk about the experience!

With race weekend just over a month away (gorp!) and my mileage starting to ramp up in earnest, I’ve been trying to squash the temptation to set a totally unrealistic time goal on what should just be a feel-good, half-marathon-distance romp – a celebration of the fact that I can cover 21.1k in running shoes less than 5 months after having a baby. (And let’s face it, since it’s a precious window of time where I won’t have to change a diaper, rock anyone to sleep, or – hopefully – get puked on, I should probably be aiming to drag it out as long as possible.) But sadly, that’s not the way I roll.

The question becomes, then, how to set a motivational-yet-realistic goal when I’m 1000% certain that I’m not going to be back in prime racing form by race day. “Prime racing form,” as defined by my pre-baby personal best, is a 1:42 half-marathon, though I considered anything in the 1:40’s to be a strong racing effort. These times were typically run during peak marathon training, though, when I was about ten pounds lighter and logging nearly double the mileage I am now – approx 70-80k a week, vs, the 35-40k of the present day. Oh, and those training miles were WAY faster.

To re-work my expectations in an appropriate way, I’m starting from the place of knowing that WHATEVER time I run on May 30th will be what my friend Tori terms a PPPB – a Post Partum Personal Best. I love the notion of the PPPB because it acknowledges how much our physical and emotional lives have been transformed by having a baby, and how any race effort thereafter is an unquestionable personal best. If I show up at the start line, I get a PB. And given how little sleep I’ve been getting lately, it will no doubt be one of the hardest fought PBs of my life.

That said, I always like to have some sort of number in mind. So, in order to make things interesting, I fed my 5k time from when I was 6 months pregnant (26:55) into the McMillan Calculator, and it’s given me a projected half-marathon time of 2:04:25. I figure as long as I can run faster than I did heading into my third trimester of preggo-ness, I’m doing alright. And if it takes me longer – well, you’ll know I decided to take the scenic route in order to dodge one more diaper change.