Flex time

I did a pretty good 24K run yesterday. It was better than last week; I didn't bonk, at least. My legs still get heavy after about 20K, but I think that's partly because I haven't been doing enough speed work or hills during the week. I also need to buy new shoes.I'm also thinking of doing a yoga class designed for runners. I am probably the least flexible person I know--I can barely touch my toes--but I have so little patience for the weight-lifting kind of strength training that I figure I should give it a try. I guess I'll drop in to the class this Thursday (but only because Lost isn't on right now) and see how it goes.

Bonkalicious

So this morning I had a run of about 27K planned. I did my usual Seawall route, but I think I need to find a less-populated place to run on Sunday mornings, because there are just way too many clinic groups running there now that spring is nigh. I know I was all YAY CLINIC when I was training for my last half-marathon, and I still maintain that it was a very positive experience for me and changed the way I think about running, but...clinic groups are annoying if you're not part of them. I encountered about 20 clinic groups this morning, each consisting of about 20 to 30 people. And a lot of them didn't make any real effort to keep to running two or three abreast, as is the general etiquette. No, instead they were walking in horizontal lines like the cast of Melrose Place.

Somehow I found myself in the middle of a clinic group. I really did not like that, because I hate the sound of someone running a few feet behind me. I feel claustrophobic and pressured to speed up. So I sprinted probably the fastest I have ever run in order to bypass the lot of them and get some distance between us. But most clinics use the 10s & 1s method on long runs (10 minutes running, 1 minute walking) and since I do this as well, they would catch up to me while I was on my walking break and then I'd pass them while they were on theirs, and I should have just paid the $69.95 to be part of the clinic. At least then I'd have a matching shirt.

Anyway, the groups sort of disappear by the time you get past the "nice" part of the Seawall that runs along English Bay and Second Beach. From there on, it's cold and windy and best of all, deserted. (Although, never far from my mind is the young Korean student who was jogging in Stanley Park and was nearly choked to death by a sick fuck who has now been released, while she has permanent brain damage and can't talk. God.)

I looped Lost Lagoon and headed back to Second Beach, where I literally ran into my half-marathon clinic leader and another woman from the clinic. So we ran together for a bit and talked about our training. It's kind of funny how often I see people from the clinic now that I'm not doing one, and not just out on the Seawall: I saw one woman at a pizza place yesterday and another at Starbucks a few times. So yes, clinics are not all evil, and it's sort of nice to feel as though I am well-known in the Vancouver running circuit (even if I am not really).

Then, at about 25K, I bonked, aka hit the wall, aka ran out of glycogen stores. This was particularly annoying because I was only a few blocks away from the end of my run and my apartment. There was also a steep hill to contend with. I began running up the hill, but I found myself feeling light-headed and extremely fatigued, like I could not even take one more step. I would have crawled if the ground had been a little drier. I was actually a little concerned I might pass out, so I sat on a bench outside a church for a few minutes, which did not really help. I actually contemplated going inside the church to partake in the free welcome luncheon for new members they were advertising, but decided it would be in poor taste, considering my running gear and agnosticism and all. I was a little perplexed by the bonking because I use sports gels on my long runs, but now that I think about it and look back at my nutrition notes from the clinic (OKAY DAMNIT ALL HAIL THE CLINIC), I probably need to have more of them.

I also watched this PBS documentary this weekend called NOVA's Marathon Challenge. (On another note, I also watched Helvetica, and yes, it's about the typeface, but also about graphic design, cultural hegemony, and the creative process and yes, I am a geek.) It's about a group of 12 sedentary people who train and complete the Boston Marathon. I was bawling. Some of the challenges these people were up against--there was this one woman who had gained 70 pounds after surgery and initially, it looked like she might be unable to participate at all because her fitness level was so poor. She went from the slowest to the fastest female runner on the team and from having a poor VO2 Max to a superior one. Then she ran the freaking Boston Marathon with a urinary tract infection and yeah, it took her six hours and some of her teammates were still running when they had reopened the route to traffic, but they all did it. Completely inspiring.

The loneliness of the mid-distance runner

I haven't really told anyone about this besides my sister, but I guess I can make my intentions known to people who don't see me on a daily basis. I'm going to do a full marathon this year, I've decided. This came about after last weekend, when I sort of accidentally ran the longest distance I'd ever run (24.5 km, exceeding my half-marathon distance). I was having a good time, so I thought I'd see how far I could go.

I did the same today to see if it was a one-off thing, but I got up to 26 km, including a momentary entry into the Harry's 8K Spring Run-Off for Prostate Cancer. I was happily going along at my leisurely Sunday running pace when a guy on a bike came up alongside me (which was odd in and of itself because there's a separate bike path in Stanley Park and the division is VERY STRICTLY adhered to).

"Hey Turkey Trotter," he called out (referring to the race shirt I was wearing), "the racers are coming."

So I kept to the right and then this pack of elite runners in tiny shorts came barreling past me. Then I came upon a group of spectators, who weren't quite sure whether they should be cheering for me because I was clearly not in the same league as the Kenyan runner in front of me. I thought I was doing a fairly good job of staying out of the way until suddenly the finish line was 100 metres ahead of me. I actually had to go out of my way to avoid crossing it--I thought it would be in poor taste to do so--and nearly took out some hapless spectators. According to the race clock, I had completed the 8K in 25 minutes. You know, if I had actually started with the rest of them. Awesome!

It's actually pretty common to inadvertently become a part of one race or another along the Seawall. It's happened to me before, but I've never literally had an entire race blow past me within a few minutes.

Anyway, I'm thinking of doing the Royal Victoria Marathon this October. There's also the Okanagan International Marathon that same weekend, and while it would be awesome to run through wine country, I was in Kelowna this summer and don't really want to be cramped in the car for several hours the day before a race, so capital-city Victoria it is.

I'm sort of trying not to make a big deal about the full marathon thing, though, in hopes of avoiding psyching myself out and remaining modest. I was at MEC yesterday buying some gels and the snowboarderish cashier was all, "So how long is a long run for you?" and when I replied, "Oh, about 25K," not thinking it would be particularly impressive to someone who works in a store full of extreme-sport enthusiasts, but he sort of just stared at me wide-eyed for a few seconds.

That is exactly the sort of reaction I want to avoid, and so I will probably not speak too much of it again to people until I've fully committed and it's difficult to hide that all I do in my free time is train. I'll probably do a clinic for the extra support. I passed two of my former clinic buddies on the Seawall today and it did make me miss the camaraderie a little, but I'm really rediscovering the joy of running alone right now.