THE PLAN IS...

I had my last workout and now all I can do is wait for Thursday's race time to arrive. I actually cutback today to an easy 30 minutes and skipped the 4 sets of 20 sec. strides. I(we) decided to cut the strides because mentally and physically I was just not up to it due to what was suppose to be a simple tune-up workout yesterday.

I started the first 90 sec. interval of the workout way too fast and as I began to feel the lactic acid build up in my calves and quads at 60 sec. all I could think of was crashing and burning in the middle of Thursday's MILE. Since then thoughts of impending doom have invaded my brain, "If you go out fast you are not going to be able to finish", "You are going to blow up halfway and BONK BIG TIME". I could see and feel it all happening almost as if it already had. Just imagine being in the best shape of your adult life and at the end of an amazing period of training and you find yourself moping around the house drowning in a sea of self pity. "What is wrong with me?", I asked myself.

I think what was wrong was that sometime during the last week of training I began thinking that things were beginning to get easy. Short fast intervals with double the recovery had me feeling stronger and faster then ever and I began to believe the mile wasn't going to be so hard after all. Every workout was better then the last and really I was feeling invincible. That's why yesterday's workout turned out to be a huge reality check. Longer intervals with equal recovery(as opposed to double) spelled out what the real deal was going to be come this Thursday. Racing a mile is not like training for a mile I came to realize. During training you cut down the race into short quick segments of running and recovery. In the race you don't get the recovery in the middle of the distance, you don't get to bring your heart rate back down or give your screaming quads a rest. You just have to keep running at that ridiculous speed(3:45+-per km) you never imagined running at but now you are going to be running that speed, the same speed you barely held just yesterday for 90 seconds and hold it for 6 +- minutes. So perhaps now you may be able to understand why at this high point in my life I found myself wallowing in that sea of self pity.

OK so then coach Derrick steps in and gives me some good advice about race strategy and taking it easy on myself and seeing the race as a learning experience and I begin to snap out of it a bit and begin looking around for some inspiration. So what do I do, I decide to google Roger Bannister. I watch his 4 min mile video(he makes it look so easy) and that helps for a moment but I need more. I then move on to the multitude of running videos set to music and I realize when watching them that I am just as moved by the images of the losers as I am by the winners. There is especially one girl in a montage video in the back of the pack who falls to her knees and crawls across the finish line. No one goes to help her because she is still moving forward. Her people wait for her on the other side of that magic line, waiting for her to cross and then they scoop her up and carry her away. "She is not going to be on top of the podium", I thought to myself, however if there was a podium for spirit, for shear effort then I think everyone that day including the winner would have given her the Gold. So there it was, the inspiration I was looking for, I now knew exactly how I wanted to run Thursdays race, I had my plan.

So THE PLAN IS that whatever happens I know for sure that I will never stop trying until I hit the finish line. If I burn out early I will keep running as hard as I can muster however slow that may be. If I take it too easy on the first loop then I will burn all my gas on the last loop and heaven forbid if my knees give out I will crawl on my hands and knees to the finish line. It may not be pretty but I have considered all the possibilities and none of them are as bad as I had worried myself into believing they could be.

Watching the running videos made me realize that in every race the "EFFORT" put forth by each competitor is the great equalizer. How do we determine who tried the hardest or pushed themselves the furthest beyond their limits? We can't. It can't be measured. It can only be felt in the heart of each individual runner. Winning is amazing, winning is great, I want to win but right now I am just as excited to join the ranks of those who try and never give up and who's effort is not heralded on a podium but in their heart when they know they gave it all they had and their prize is taking pride in that.

Wish me Luck,
Eliza

The Limestone Mile...of Pain!

I headed down to the Limestone Mile yesterday. I WILL be running this race in 2010 and as I may have mentioned before it will be the GRAND FINALE of my second year of training. As we arrived in the general vicinity of the race my daughter decided to plop herself down at a face painters booth, announced she was using her OWN money and ordered the Large Full Face Canada Flag(it was Canada Day after all). I believed the Women's race was to begin in 15 minutes so figured that was plenty of time to paint a child's face. Leaving my daughter for a moment with strict instructions not to leave the chair, I headed to the race area to check out the hoopla. I asked a girl giving out water how long it was until the women's race, "3 minutes" she replied. I looked around and there was no sign of women lining up for the race, my coach then spotted me in my state of confusion. We talked about his daughter's race then he casually pointed out that there go the women now. WHAT, I thought to myself, how could the women have started already? After all I was standing right there and I had not seen any athletes lined up in any formation resembling a START. As it turns out the women started just north of where I was standing on another street and I was at the FINISH LINE. They were now circling a block in the downtown area. I recognized a rival(Stacey) from my last race in a heated battle with a few other Masters runners. I left to check on my daughter and looked back just in time to see the women leaders racing towards the finish. I noted that my daughter was still alive and ran back in time to see Stacey being hotly pursued by this race's version of me all the way to the end. Stacey looked hot and exhausted, much hotter and much more exhausted then she appeared to be after the 5km we had ran 2 months earlier. At that point I think I had seen everything I really needed to see. This race is very different from any race I had ever run. Firstly it was run as two loops of a downtown block. Secondly it started on one street and ended on another. Thirdly if you blink(or take a moment to check on your children) you will miss it. Fourthly it is short and fast. Fifthly it appeared to hurt the participants a great deal. Mind you the pain is short lived compared to longer distance races however I deduced that the effort to maintain the speed over the shorter distance must increase the pain per second ratio(thoughts?)

I am glad I saw the race yesterday as I now have the tools I need for a great year of visualization exercises, and if my knee continues to co-operate then I can start getting back to some solid training based on my fitness level and not my pain level.

Monday June 22nd to Sunday June 28th

Well Blogger since we last spoke I was headed out for a 35 minute run on Sunday the 21st of June. That run went well and this Sunday I increased my long run up to 40 minutes without a word from my knee. I am still running every other day though due to a disastrous attempt on Monday the 22nd to run on consecutive days. I could not finish the scheduled 20 minutes and after a minute of trying to ignore the building pain finally had to stop 30 seconds short.

-Monday was a disaster stopping at 19:30 of a 20 minute run Plus weights and leg rehabs

-Tuesday was core/stretch and I also saw my Chiro. for some Active Release Therapy and discussed the Pros and Cons of running using The Pose Method.

-Wednesday had me running 25 min. with 3x2 min repeats and 2 min recoverys on the grassy edge of the track. The repeats felt so good that I declared "Life is Good...Again". Plus leg rehabs x3 and pull-ups

-Thursday was core/stretch

-Friday was 25 min. on grass Plus weights and leg rehabs x3

-Saturday was a total day off

-Sunday was the BIG 40 minutes with a bit of Fartleking thrown in to break up the speed. Plus leg rehabs x2 and forgot pull-ups

I am excited also that this Wednesday is the 2009 Limestone Mile Road Race. This race will be my focus over the next year as I plan on running it in 2010.