New Trail

   In preparation for the Uxbridge 5K trail run coming up in the spring, I have managed to find a hillier course in my neighbourhood. As hilly as it may be, though, it still follows sidewalks and roadways. It has occurred to me that trying to find an actual trail run might be to my advantage.

The beginning of the trail

   A few days ago I went on gmap-pedometer.com and managed to find a 5K route which contained 2K worth of trails through Warbler Woods here in London. Today was my first opportunity to investigate it.
   The actual trail part of the run begins near the crest of the hill on Byron Baseline leading out of Byron toward Westdel Bourne. The trail occurs about 1K into the run and, by the time I had climbed to the crest of the hill just to get  to the trail, I was already exhausted.
   It was kind of nice to get away from the road and head into the woods and this was the first time since I began the running adventure that I'd been able to do this.

The hill I'd just climbed...

   The running in Warbler Woods was difficult. There had been a fresh three centimeter snowfall and the footing was treacherous. It was treacherous mainly because of the terrain--hills that went straight up and then straight back down, tree roots, piles of leaves and fallen logs. It was very slippery.
   It was so slippery that you really needed to get a good run at a hill just to get up it and there were a few hills where you needed to hold onto a tree on the way down or you were going to be on your ass.

...and the one I was ABOUT to climb

   All the same, it was a beautiful run. I can hardly wait until spring and the forest returning to its greenest. Until the spring, though, I may not return--the prospect of spraining an ankle, breaking a leg or possibly even an arm was way too daunting. As a beautiful walk in the wintry woods, however, it would be hard to beat.
   On my way to the woods and then on my way back from the woods I ran across tracks in the reasonably fresh snow I had never seen before. If I had run into these tracks any winter other than this one, I'd have been at a loss as to what might have caused them. This winter, though, I knew exactly what they were--they were the marks left by a runner wearing YakTrax. YakTrax are a device that can be worn over running shoes in order to obtain greater traction. I talked about them in an earlier blog post called "Whether Weather". So far this winter, I really haven't needed them. While slipping and sliding in Warbler Woods, it occurred to me to wonder whether they might have been helpful under those circumstances. I thought not. What I remember thinking I really needed was football cleats...


YakTrax tracks

   It's been an interesting winter so far. Not a lot of snow but enough to have to deal with it. Not a lot of frigid weather but enough to have to deal with it. As the weeks have unfolded and I've had to deal with seemingly something different in each one of them it occurs to me that this particular winter is close to ending. Time flies when you're having fun? Maybe!
  
  

  
  

Holy Crap!

This would make a great tattoo

   I made the mistake last night, while rooting around the Running Room website, of checking out the results of last year's Uxbridge Half Marathon, 5K division. Doralyn and I are entered in this year's version and I thought it might be kind of cool to find out what reasonable finishing times might be.
   Well, I am now in shock. At the 5K pace I'm currently running, the race will have more or less ended six minutes before I finally struggle across the finish line. Last year, the last place runner came in with a time of 32:33. My current best time on the newer, hillier course I've mapped out is 38:42.
   So far in the infancy of my running career, I've entered two runs. In both of those I had only two goals--the first one was to simply finish the race and the second one was not to come in last. Right at the moment, I have no real fear of not being able to finish the Uxbridge run. Suddenly, though, I have a very real fear of coming in last!
   The only encouraging thing is that the race is still three months away. Before I switched to the hillier course, my times were very gradually lowering. When I switched, naturally, they shot up. Since the switch, though, they're going back down again. Whether or not they go far enough down to keep me out of last place remains to be seen.
   The decision I'm finding myself needing to make right now is whether or not to accelerate the training. My training (such as it is) involves getting out and running 5K every other day and watching what I eat. Now that the holiday and ball hockey seasons are over and done with I likely will be able to more religiously adhere to that regimen. But I wonder if I should be running more. Or doing other types of training, to complement the running.
   Our principal reason for entering the Uxbridge run (Doralyn and our sis-in-law, Sherri, are doing the 5K trail walk) was to have fun. I'm sure it will still be fun regardless of finishing times. Secondarily, though, I'm kind of using the run as a bit of motivation. And what better motivation, all of the sudden, than the fear of coming in last?!
   So I am open for suggestions for any runners out there who've experienced anything similar to this. My main question, I guess, is what is running too much and what is running too little?
   Feel free to sound in!

Inexplicable

   The hills have been beating me up this week!
   Since I changed my 5K route in order to perhaps better prepare for a trail run I've signed up for at the end of April I've found that running the entire way without stopping had become impossible. Initially, on the first run, this didn't bother me as it was a new experience and I was getting used to an unfamiliar route. Subsequent runs, however, ended up becoming increasingly more difficult, rather than easier. I found I was needing to stop and walk anywhere from five to eight times in the course of a relatively short run.
   To say the least, it was a little disheartening.
   Yesterday, I set out to give the route another try. I basically told myself I was simply going to run more slowly and pace myself a little better. It worked like a charm! I used shorter strides and made self-corrections  whenever I found I was reverting to the longer strides and quicker pace I'd accustomed myself to while running the flatter course in my neighbourhood. The end result was that I was able to complete the new course without walking. I found this difficult to believe and totally inexplicable at the same time, given the difficulties I'd been having.
   One of the biggest differences I found was that yesterday I was running on dry pavement. Here in London, we have had a dramatic January thaw which has greatly cleaned up the streets and sidewalks. Last week, I was running through slush and snow and was trying to do this at the old pace. I also believe I may have made a mental error or two around ensuring I'd consumed enough to eat prior to runs. Out of all of the things I've learned since I started this running adventure, pre-run nutrition is the area in which I likely need to pay the most attention. The fact that less than forty-eight hours before my last disastrous run I had made a blood donation may also have had something to do with the lack of energy.
    The inexplicable can sometimes be accounted for if you are able to do a little bit of detective work on your own body. Back in the summer, I was downtown with my Learn to Run group and we were out running the streets after our learning session. We had gone less than a block and all of the sudden I felt like I would be unable to continue. My breathing was laboured, I had no energy and I felt like I was at the end of a run, instead of the beginning. I basically had to slow things down to almost a walk.
   I had no idea why this was happening. I began going through all the likely reasons for my inability to keep pace with the others. I had had enough sleep, I had had a decent breakfast, I hadn't played any sports in the past couple of days, and I wasn't ill or injured. Then it occurred to me. On a daily basis, I take a low dose diuretic for blood pressure purposes. My prescription had run out and I had gone for four or five days without it. Essentially, I believed, my body now had a fluid buildup that was compromising its ability to let me breathe enough to run. In the spring, I had experienced what a fluid buildup due to congestive heart failure had done to my Dad and his ability to simply walk at the time. The idea that a similar situation might be making it difficult for me to run made total sense. Once I was back on the diuretic (that same day!) things got back to normal.
   So now I have an ever-burgeoning checklist for all my running ailments, aches and pains. I am sure that it is by no means complete yet but it at least gives me somewhere to start when I find myself needing to explain the inexplicable!
  
  

Where I'm Going From Here

   Last week, I completed my 5K training goal by doing the Brita Resolution Run here in London. Once again this left me with the desire to run but no real goal to train toward.
   Now, I'm not sure that I even really need a "goal" in order to run and enjoy it, but the fact of the matter is that having a goal provides me more motivation and possible new directions for my running efforts. When I was doing the Learn-to-Run clinic the goal was a 3K race. My goal after that was the 5K Resolution Run. These goals gave me reason to get out there every other day and run. So, once more, I needed a goal. Maybe.
   I hopped on the Running Room race page and began looking for races in our general area. At this point on my running life I am still quite interested in the shorter distances and was still keeping my eyes open for another 5K race somewhere.
   Suddenly I came across the Uxbridge Half Marathon Run for the Diamond near the end of April. Normally I would not be that interested in a race that was a three-hour drive (if you followed the speed limit...) away. The fact of the matter, though, was that Doralyn's brother, James, lives in Uxbridge and that would simply give us a reason to visit. Not only that, we were headed there the next day!
   To clarify, there are several different kinds of races being run in Uxbridge and I am running in the 5K version, not the half marathon. To make things even better, Doralyn has entered herself in the 5K walk.
   Also, what is different about this race, and why I found it so appealing, was that there is actually a cross-country element to it. It is run on Crooked Sticks Golf Course and there is quite a challenging elevation change, judging from the on-line testimonials. This is what I wanted, something slightly different.
   So now I am in training for a 5K race over hilly terrain. To date, I have been running on flat pavement and the odd little incline I've been running into hits pretty hard. I need to find a different route, obviously.
   Living in Byron, there are hills all around and I set out today to run some of them. I plotted a 5K run and headed out.
   In the course of the 5K, I stopped and walked five times. Normally, this would have pissed me off. Today's run was more a voyage of discovery than anything and the fact that I stopped and walked so often seemed to make little difference.
   The hills were hard. Running in the snow was hard. Not having run for five days made it hard and the few extra holiday pounds (I ate a lot in Uxbridge) made it hard. All that I really wanted to do, though, was familiarize myself with new streets. I wanted to be able to visualize them beforehand. Walking five times today has given me the goal of only walking four or maybe three the next time. My goal for today was therefore accomplished.
   I'm looking forward to the next run...
  

Resolution Ran

Before...

   Last night I ran in the Brita Resolution Run, 5K version. This is a race run annually and last night's instalment was its twenty-eighth.
   Leading up up to the race I had not, for a variety of reasons, been able to complete a 5K training run and I was very concerned that this same thing might happen again last night.
   Fortunately, though, I was able to complete the run quite easily. This likely may have had something to do with the pace--for the first two kilometers or so several hundred runners were trying trying to use the same narrow, snow-covered sidewalk and none of us were able to go much faster than a brisk walk. On top of this there were occasional stoplights to be dealt with, relegating us to running on the spot and getting a bit of a breather that way.
   Eventually, many of us abandoned the sidewalk and took to the bare streets. This made the run quite a bit more enjoyable.
   On top of everything else, the weather co-operated magnificently. There was no further snow, very little wind and the temp actually hovered at slightly above freezing. The weather had been my biggest fear and this turned out to be unfounded.

...and after!

   What made the whole event even more enjoyable was having my sweetie, Doralyn, there. She did a marvelous job of chauffeuring me there and back (enabling me to choke down an energy bar on the way) but, even more than that, she knew I had concerns about the run and went out of her way to re-assure me. And to her have her smiling, beautiful face there at the finish line simply topped off a great evening!