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.

Fall Classic

The half-marathon went really, really well. I ended up beating my goal time of 2:15 (chip time: 2:10:34.3), which is significant because 2:15 was my "best case scenario" goal, with my main goal being just to finish.

I'm not sure I would have finished without S., a woman from my clinic. S. needs a bit of an aside here. She organized a pasta feed the other night entitled "The LBD Dinner," because "Little Black Dress" was her mantra for our long slow runs, since those keep us in the fat-burning zone and there was a LBD at the Gap she had her eye on. She's one of those force-of-nature types who just makes everything more fun.

She and I trained in the same pace group but we all decided not to make any commitments about running the race together so that no one would feel held back or pressured to keep up. But S. and I determined about 2K into the race that we were pretty much in sync, and when I accidentally reset my stopwatch around the 5K mark, I was glad to have her to keep me on schedule.

The course was a double loop and relatively flat, with one low-grade but deceptively difficult hill that I didn't realize was a hill until it was almost over and I couldn't figure out why I was breathing so hard. I commented to S. that I felt like I was moving backward. It was a really weird sensation; I felt like we had slowed down to the point where walking would have been faster. But we made it through the first 10K loop ahead of schedule and in relatively good spirits.

The second loop was a little demoralizing, having to bypass the same scenery and see many of the elite racers already headed back, but there was the advantage of knowing what to expect and how much farther it was going to feel. For the most part I felt strong, but there were a few times when I just really, really wanted to stop. I could imagine the instant relief I would feel and it was so tempting.

It was during these moments that I really had to reflect on why I was doing this in order to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I was glad to have S. with me, even though we were working to hard to say much. Every so often she would tell me to pass people and I did it without question, although I commented later on the likelihood of her having been a drill instructor in a past life.

I sprinted the last few hundred metres, spurred on by an African drumming performance. I crossed the finish line at quite a clip, which is unusual for me because I tend to just stop the second I hit the mat. I felt incredibly light-headed the second I stopped, unlike anything I'd ever experienced while running. S. crossed a few seconds later and we hugged. Someone put a finisher medal over my head. My clinic instructor finished a few minutes later and we set up to cheer the rest of the group in.

It was much more emotional for me to see all of them cross than it was for me to do it myself--that was one of the most surprising parts of the whole experience for me. I feel invested in their success and I know from talking to them what it means to them personally to have done this. There was one woman who had been struggling with serious injuries over the past few weeks and she had to stop halfway through the race today. She was there waiting for us at the finish line, but she was crying openly. It was really hard to see that. No one wanted her to be hard on herself, but you just can't convince someone of that, especially not a runner. I've been there.

I scheduled the day off of work tomorrow so I may go get a massage, get my hair cut, or just sit on my ass because I can't move. But I'm already thinking about when I can start running again and which race to train for next.

Brave new world

I signed up for my first half-marathon today. I wasn't sure about it for awhile, but then I learned that the Running Room a block away from my office is holding a half-marathon clinic that starts 20 minutes after I get off work and is designed specifically for this race. So I pretty much had to sign up for that, too.I was going to train alone, like I have in the past, but I'm sure I could use some pointers and the motivation. Plus, there are absolutely no hills where I live but a very steep one near work/the Running Room. I'm a little scared that I won't be able to keep up with even the slowest pace group and that I'll get discouraged by that but I think I can do it. I expect I will form some sort of bond with the other clinic members, considering the clinic runs from the beginning of August until the beginning of November (the race is on November 18 and it will be COLD and what am I thinking?).