Rattle Me Bones

The result:

5K ran in 38:16 (not a PB, but a PB in chip-timed races!)

Lessons learned:

• Today, I understood what « Plan the race, race the plan » meant
• I left my ego at home and ran 3:1s, because I felt it was my best option, given the tightness of my legs. This paid off in a PB for this year!
• Worrying about the weather forecast does no good – we runners have good karma and we should believe in it more!

Inspiration:

• At one point, I started thinking about the banner Msdesigner1 made for NCM, and the one phrase I remembered from it was “Remember when you couldn’t?”. This brought tears to my eyes. It’s OK to cry during a race!
• When I was becoming a wimp and felt like I couldn’t go on, I wondered which Maniac would never give up and thought about Kiza for inspiration
• It was great to see Brian pacing Stephanie for her first race!
• In the song “Reason to Believe” by Dashboard Confessional, it says “I have reason to believe that i have victories to taste, I can feel them on my teeth, upon my lips and in my chest, I can roll them on my tongue, they are more subtle than defeat, I feel the tension in my lungs and every move is filled by my resolve to breathe” – sang that part out loud

Being thankful:

• Never underestimate the power of a positive attitude: thanking volunteers and people who cheered on me raised my spirits during my race
• I said a grateful prayer when all of a sudden, there was a ray of sun to heat my face and the wind was at my back to give me more power

Love and friendship:

• It’s great when your other half enjoys running as much as you do. It makes for lively conversations in the car on the way back home!
• Apparently, some people have sent me good vibes during my race. I felt it and they definitely made all the difference!
  
• For the first time, I felt like I really belonged to the running community, and to Running Mania. Thank you Maniacs for being my friends and supporting me in my endeavours!

Today wasn't supposed to be a great day, but I made it one and I'm very happy about it! :D

Self-doubts...

It had to happen: in the past week, I've been feeling pretty down about my training. In my swimming, I can't seem to be able to breathe on the side while swimming. I get dizzy because I do it too fast and I'm still not 100% comfortable in the water, so my neck and shoulders are stiff when I'm trying to coordinate everything. After my lesson this week, I've been beating myself up a lot, wondering why was I putting myself into another situation where I would fail. By talking to a few people on Running Mania, I realized that I wasn't the only one who had problems with side breathing and it made me feel just a little bit better. A friend has given me an exercise to try and I've watched the Total Immersion DVD and am gonna go to the pool tomorrow night and try these. I think the clever short-term goal is that I become more comfortable in the water. Period. Nothing else for now. And maybe work on that demanding character of mine! ;-)

On top of that, I got more foot/ankle/shin pain, which prevented me from running for a week. I've seen a new RMT about this and he helped me loosen up the shoulders, neck and legs. His techniques are weird, but they work! I also bought a Stick and i've been using it a lot in the past few days. This morning, I went for a 4K run, which ended up being a 5K run. I was very happy that the run was almost painless and although it was very tough on my respiratory system, it was a great run. At the end of my run, I put on "Amazing Grace" by Dropkick Murphys and sprinted for 2 minutes at 6:24/K!!! I couldn't stop smiling, it felt absolutely wonderful!!!

So, my days are filled with ups and downs, and a resolve to keep going that is unfortunately spoiled with self-doubt. I put all my objectives aside to focus on the moment and enjoy each and every bit of training happiness, like this morning.

Run for the Cure 2006: The Glory Outlasts the Rain!

Yesterday was my 2nd time running the Run for the Cure in Ottawa. I didn't sleep well for 3 nights in a row, my stomach was upset and I looked like that before we left for the run yesterday morning:



I ran RFTC with a friend of mine who just started running this Summer. It was her first race ever. She's doing the LTR program by herself and is up to 4&1s now. We did 5&1s during the first half of the race, which made us both very happy! It's been a long time since I did 3 5&1s in a row. For the most part of the race, it didn't rain. But closer to the finish, we got rained on...

I had mental issues during my run. I got cramps in my calves and hamstring and I was so afraid of getting injured that I couldn't suck it up and keep running. I took more frequent walk breaks during the second half of the run (we did 2:30 to 3:00&1s). I even had to walk for a few seconds about 100m to the finish line, just long enough to tell myself to suck it up and finish. :?

Ran into a puddle and crossed the finish line in 37:58.

Got home and took two "After" pictures:



455 huge THANK YOUs to my sponsors!