Turning Forty

I turned forty on the first of September, and was happy to do so.

The celebrations ended up being spread over some days; it was a veritable birthday festival! On the day, I enjoyed a special "high tea" with one of my sisters and my newest niece, and a lovely night out with my husband. We had lunch with my stepsons two days later, and I'd already caught up with my parents when they'd visited some weeks earlier. Oh - and I ran my first half marathon.

"Hold on a minute," regular readers may wonder, "weren't you training for the Melbourne half marathon event on the ninth of October?" Yes, I was; but when I went to register, two days before my birthday, it was completely booked out. So I decided to do the run on my birthday. After all, it's a much better story! "I ran my first half marathon on my fortieth birthday ..."

You can't Google the event, and it didn't appear in any newspapers; it was my own personal half marathon, run in two loops - north and south - with a hydration pit stop at home halfway through. I had such fun doing that run! The day itself hadn't been ideal preparation: a high-calorie, luxury morning tea with my sister, and the obligatory few hours spent in Melbourne traffic. But I was well-rested, well-trained, and despite experiencing the expected challenges of running a half ("I am in so much pain!" "I want to throw up!" "I want to GIVE UP!") I ran with a huge grin on my face. I entered serious "running zen state" during the seventeenth kilometre: I heard my GPS announce I'd completed the sixteenth, started playing Vivaldi in my head, and before I knew it I'd reached the seventeen kilometre mark. It was all pretty easy from there, except for a brief panicked moment when I was about to turn into my street, looked at my GPS and thought I had to find an extra kilometre to run. I was wrong; in my fatigue, I'd mis-read the numbers.

Everyone wants to know how I feel about turning forty. I feel great about it! There's a real sense of my life opening up; I'm fitter than I've ever been, stronger, and more resilient. My professional life is opening up, likewise my academic presence (I'm presenting my first conference paper next weekend). I believe that the next ten years are going to be among the best, most productive and happiest of my life - so far!

... and she's back!

Finally! Back to feeling something like normal after almost a fortnight of being laid low by a pesky virus. About time!

So, now that I've re-entered life happily virus-free, what's been happening?

Naturally, the first consideration was getting back into running. Yesterday I managed a 20 minute jog (just). To put this in context, this is the workout I do the day after a long run, to warm up my muscles before a really good stretch - certainly not anything taxing! And nothing like the long run I generally do on a Sunday. But my legs felt like jelly and my heart rate was high ... nothing dangerous, though. I hadn't rushed back too early, which was good. Today I managed a 25 minute run at faster pace; tonight I have tired muscles, but again, all manageable.

Going on the old "3 time rule", seeing as I missed 12 days of training, it may take about a month to return to previous form. Ah well: that's what a bad virus will do to you.

It feels good to be planning my days around running again! Said it once, will say it again: about time.

Haven't blogged for a while, so have some catching up to do.

Here's a pic taken while stopped at traffic lights recently:

If it's necessary to label your indicators, you've got too much text on your truck!

And another, taken today:



Hyacinths and daffodils seen in Kew - beautiful!

I've finally achieved the post-viral burst of energy I've been hanging out for. Plans for the next few days include sewing, writing, catching up with friends near and far - and catching up with reading, which I was unable to concentrate on lately.

Yippee!

Half Marathon Training: Seven Weeks Down

Seriously, is it really seven weeks since I started to train for this event? Phew! That's almost two months. It's hard to believe it's been that long!

I think I'll put off a major retrospective of stats etc until the two month mark, but it certainly has been gratifying to see an improvement in performance this week, compared to last week. Since last week was something of a recovery period, this is hardly surprising, but pleasing nonetheless.

Highlights of the week: an easy 13km run last Sunday - it was just such a fun run, hills and all, and so wonderful to feel a return to full form after last week's recovery.

Lowlights: um ... definitely yesterday's Fartlek interval training. Ugh. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times (usually when my body starts screaming "WHY? WHY?" as my phone is ordering me in an infuriatingly calm voice to "Increase pace to Yellow Zone for One Minute"): I'm not built for speed. Still, I bow to those who have more knowledge and experience than I do, and submit to this discipline in faith that the pain will provide some gain ... somehow.

Today is the first day in a long time that I've actually felt really happy not to have a run scheduled. Is this a bad sign? I'm not sure. Perhaps it's still a reaction to the trauma of those Fartlek intervals yesterday! But, never fear: I'll be back in those runners and pounding the pavement tomorrow morning. I'm going to do some steep hill climbs, I've decided.

Finally, this is where I spent my lunchtime today, between clients:

This is in a part of Melbourne I've never been to before, and it was really beautiful - a truly refreshing break in the middle of a busy day. Sadly this is too far away to make running here a practical option, but I might treat myself one weekend! So now, lungs full of fresh air and head cleared of cobwebs (though thighs still a little sore), I'm off to work again.

Half Marathon Training: Six Weeks In

This week has been something of a 'rest and recover' week after doing the 10km event last Sunday; not that running 10km is, of itself, anything unusual - but running it that quickly is, at least for me!


Preventing injury has been a big focus this week. I was nursing a tender calf muscle after Sunday, which is why I've been swimming and doing classes at the gym (yoga, Body Balance) instead of running.

I've only done a few runs: a very slow half hour on Monday, which really only served as a warm-up to a much needed stretch session; an 'assessment workout' with miCoach on Wednesday; and an easy 50 minutes today. Well, it may have looked easy from the outside (if easy = slow) but it didn't feel easy! The first fifteen minutes, my body had that "I'm a clunky old car" feeling about it, and I don't think I did the Fartlek intervals justice - but the important thing is to have completed it, and returned home without injury.

Needless to say, my stats have been shot to pieces this week, with average pace times decreasing for the first time since I began this training six weeks ago and low km's run. A numbers girl, I don't like this. At least it'll make the next few weeks look good in comparison!

So the next two challenges, as I see them, will be: a) getting back into the rhythm of running training (it was surprisingly difficult to get motivated for the 50min run today!) and b) not psyching myself out of doing the half marathon in October. I felt pretty intimidated arriving at the starting line last Sunday, and 10km is a distance I run regularly! I think I'll need to be doing plenty of self-talk over the next few weeks to raise my confidence levels again. After all, I have no reason not to feel confident: I have set a realistic goal; I have a balanced, realistic training regime; and I have already completed a run amidst a large crowd of people.

And, the bottom line is what I know to be true: "my strength as a runner is that I just keep going." Hang onto that, Catie.

The story of my first public run

Yesterday was the day, my first "public" run since I was a kid! I entered in the 10k event of 'Run Melbourne' as part of my preparation for the half marathon in October.

I entered in the 61+ minute 'wave', along with literally thousands of others. My aim had been to finish in seventy minutes or less, but as we all headed out - packed flank to flank like cattle in a run - my heart sank, as I thought, "well, there goes my chance to achieve my time". Still, I did a bit of ducking and weaving to get nearer the front of the group.

I could tell from my heart rate monitor that I was running a bit harder than usual, but not drastically so, so I kept it up. About 2km in, I hit my sweet zone. Of course, the biggest hassle in an event like this is finding your way blocked by others - for a lone loper like myself, this is very frustrating! However, as you are constantly being overtaken by faster runners from behind, and constantly overtaking slower runners who started ahead of you, at least the kaleidoscope of backs you face constantly changes.

I must admit (and these are not honourable thoughts!) that I did particularly enjoy running past very athletic-looking people wearing Lycra who'd run out of puff!

My strength as a runner is my persistence; I knew I was going a little faster than usual, and began to feel it, especially around the 5-6-7km zone. But whenever I felt that way, I just looked at the road, and drew on what's true: "My strength is that I just keep going." I zoned out the people who were overtaking me, focussed on the people I passed (who usually returned the favour within a few minutes!) and concentrated on running my own race.

I was able to grab a mouthful of water, without breaking pace, at the halfway mark. I may not have desperately needed it, but since the opportunity arose to grab it without slowing down, it seemed silly not to take it. And I made sure my paper cup ended up in the bin, not on the road, you naughty runners! Speaking of etiquette: if you must stop suddenly, please try to do it on the side of the road; I nearly ran into a few people from behind like that. Also: flinging out your arm to show a friend something on the side of the road is a definite no-no - almost had my nose broken ... Finally, I observed a clever little trick: if you really want clear space on the road ahead of you, be a very obese person shuffling along in the middle of the pack. Everyone else parts around  you like a river around a boulder and you're left with empty asphalt ahead. Sweet.

Having run quite hard (for me), I was really glad to reach the 8km mark. 2km to go: that's the distance from the bus stop near the local Monash campus to my place. I began to visualise where I was in relation to home, and therefore how close I was to the finish line.

Towards the end, everyone sped up, of course; but there were some people who turned on a terrific turn of speed over the last km, including some whom I'd seen walking earlier. I couldn't understand why, if they were capable of that, they were part of our wave: why not run earlier? Or why not put in a more consistent effort? Each to their own.

The last 300m I ran with a huge grin on my face. At this stage I still thought I had probably run slower than my hoped-for time, but I was just so happy and proud to have done it! As I crossed the line, I stopped my monitor and running program, and that was when I saw it said 1:05. Very happy. As it  turns out, my official time was 1:04:20, a PB over this distance. My previous PB over 10k was 1:06, I think, and that was part of a longer run.

So ... half marathon in October? Yes, I still think so. On the plus side, there's still lots of time to continue to prepare. On the minus side, I nearly psyched myself out of running today - but did it anyway ... we'll see.

Well, that's the story of my run! Thanks for sharing the joy.

Half Marathon Training: Five Weeks In

This week, I've felt as though I have not been running as well as the last few weeks, however this may be a subjective thing - I have had some slow runs, and some 'hard' runs, but overall my average times are down (slightly) on previous weeks. Not that I aim to run fast! I'm just such a numbers girl that I can't help making the comparisons; if the numbers are there, I'll look at them: not always a good thing, methinks.

Anyway, these feelings have brought nutrition back to the forefront of my mind - a good thing: being vegetarian, I have to keep that protein intake before and after runs up.

I've also started experimenting with breathing during running. If I'm having a 'hard' run, it's because my muscles are groaning, not because I run out of puff. I did an 11km run yesterday and, just for fun, did something different with my breathing during the ninth kilometre. I breathe in time with my feet (musician - can't help it) and generally by that stage of a run am breathing "two in, two out". After changing to "four in, four out" I noticed my muscles relaxing and stride length increasing. We're not talking heroic improvements here, but anything which helps, right?

Am taking part in a 10km race tomorrow. Well, for me it won't be a "race": speed's not the name of the game; I'm doing it because I haven't taken part in anything like this since I was a kid, and I don't want my first run with a bunch of other people to be my first half marathon in October!

I'm curious to see how running as part of a crowd affects me, as I'm usually a lone loper ... it'll be interesting.

Half Marathon Training: Four Weeks In

Well, lack of motivation hasn't become an issue - which is fantastic, because as everyone in south eastern Australia knows, the weather has been inclement. (I had been concerned that having started this 'project' with zeal, my motivation might fade a few weeks in.) I'm finding that I continue to genuinely love running, despite the massive increase in training compared to my former routines; the thought of the endorphin rush is enough to get me out the door, sleet and gale force winds notwithstanding. Also, I can be a determined person - OK, "stubborn little bugger" in the vernacular - and once I start a run, I am going to finish it: no matter what!

Took a brief break from training on Sunday/Monday due to some twinges down right leg - clocked up some k's in the local pool instead of risking an injury, and really enjoyed Tuesday's run, even though it incorporated the dreaded sprint intervals *ugh*.

Think my body's completed its major muscle growth period, and it's craving less protein now. Am keeping up protein-rich pre- and post-run snacks, but am not always constantly hungry, a pleasant change from the last few weeks.

Not much other news, except to say that I haven't had any more near misses with cars this week - something I'm very happy about!

Half Marathon Training: Three Weeks In

Three weeks into the training programme for my first half marathon, and the biggest news this week is that I seem to have a better grip on the nutrition side of things. I must admit a couple of times during my first week of training I'd become a little light-headed, or head out with a leaden stomach, but now I've become much better at the timing and composition of meals to meet my body's needs.

I've become used to pace-based training with miCoach: this is fantastic news, because it makes achieving running-Zen-state possible, despite the instructions issuing from "the little black box that tells me what to do"! Having the confidence to tell it to get stuffed helps; I'm no longer phased if I'm running up a hill and it tells me to speed up, or if after 14km it suggests I go a little faster. I know I can go the distance, and that's what counts.

A highlight of this week was completing some quite long runs, and - today - seeing a dramatic improvement in my pace. I'm not particularly interested in speed, but it's nice to see those numbers coming down.

A lowlight has been the arrogance of two motorists who narrowly avoided hitting me on zebra crossings in broad daylight. "Might I suggest you review your road rules, my dear?" was what I calmly and politely mouthed to each of those charming individuals. (Of course that was what happened. No revisionist editing here!)

I've signed up for a 10km run in a couple of weeks' time, just to see what it's like running with a whole heap of other people, which is something I haven't done before.

Now that the novelty's worn off, I'll be interested to see how my motivation holds up. I've begun this project with great zeal: will this persist? Perhaps this will become more of a challenge in the weeks ahead.

Half Marathon Training: Two Weeks In

At the end of my second week of training, I can feel my body's rapid changes to this new regime, and have learnt something new about myself.

My body's going through a rapid phase of muscle growth and is needing a lot of protein to fuel this. As a vegetarian, I need to plan my daily nutrition carefully around my run, ensuring I eat a protein-rich snack before and after each training session, especially the longer ones. I'm also craving carbs morning, noon and night: have to watch those late night cravings very carefully!

As to the training itself, I have just four new words to type: I hate sprint intervals. Thankfully, my training program doesn't require them of me often.

I've been feeling quite down in the dumps this week, but have managed to keep up my training regime. I'm quietly proud of this. I haven't missed a single run, though I did rearrange a couple of days to take into account varying energy levels.

Onwards and upwards!

Half Marathon Training: One Week Down

Phew: it's Friday, and the first 'rest day' in my training regime for the Melbourne half-marathon on 9th October - it's time to look back over the past seven days, and reflect on where this journey's taken me so far.

What a week it's been! My body's held up well; no lingering soreness, aching or tenderness, no blisters, and - most importantly - no injuries. In fact, my immune system seems to have received a boost: the jury's still out as to whether it was an allergy reaction or the shortest cold in history, but I went to bed feeling lousy on Tuesday evening, woke up at 3:22am with a streaming nose, and was completely recovered less than twelve hours later.

I've been able to stick with the miCoach training plan pretty well. Distance is never an issue, but speed is; I seem to be able to run for as long as I want, but there are definite limits on how fast I can push myself. Perhaps my body believes there's a Catie-centric universal invariant similar to c? No, that would be ridiculous ... though I'd like to hear Dr Sheldon Cooper's thoughts on the matter! Anyone who's met me won't be surprised by my lack of speed: I'm not a tall person, and my legs are short for even my height. I'm never going to be a sprinter, and that's fine by me.

Over the last two days it's sunk in that I'm attempting something new. Throughout my life I've chosen to take on various intellectual challenges, and my health has forced me to face significant emotional trials. Training for this half marathon will be the hardest physical test I've ever set myself.

One week down, sixteen to go, and a lot of ground to cover - physically and mentally - inbetween.

The Decision

Three days ago, I determined to attempt my first half-marathon in Melbourne on Sunday, 9th October.

I don't regret the decision at all, but it's already affecting my life, particularly the way I experience running.

Running has been a regular part of my life for a couple of years now, building in intensity over the last eleven months; I had been contemplating whether to take the next step and aim for something "big", something "public", for a while. The clincher came when I downloaded some free software which works with my phone's inbuild GPS as a coaching guide. I went out for an Assessment Workout and learnt I was far fitter and faster than I had thought. So I asked the computer to generate a training schedule for me, and ... well, now I run with a little black box in my hand which tells me what to do.

Have you heard the line about indigenous Australians laughing at white colonists who looked at the little thing (their watch) which tell them what to do? That's what my last two runs have been like.

It's all fine and dandy when the electronic voice wants me to take it easier than I usually would at the start of a workout: "Slow down to blue zone." "Slow down to blue zone." "Maintain blue zone." And it's even OK when it asks me to speed up to my usual pace after the first five or ten minutes: "Increase pace to green zone." "Maintain green zone." But I live in quite hilly terrain; what is quite irritating is when it calmly invites me to "Increase pace to green zone" as I'm struggling up a hill. Then, rejoicing in the freedom of easy running down the other side: "Decrease pace to green zone." No way! This is the best bit!

I notice that, despite two fairly long runs the last two days, I haven't once reached running-Zen-state - not even for a few minutes. I'm also coming back from runs much more weary then before I started listening to that electronic voice. I think both these phenomena can be attributed to the facts that it's pushing me to run faster than usual, and because my natural runnig rhythms are being disrupted.

However, I have faith in whatever supercomputer processed my personal data, my goal and spat out a series of dates, times and training regimes. Barring injury or illness, 9th October is shaping up to be a big day in my life.

OK; I'm off to do some extra stretching ...