Bit Of A Minor Breakthrough

   Back when I first started running, I ran and I ran and I ran. I ran regardless of the weather and I ran if it was my day to run, even if I didn't feel quite like it. I was a newbie runner in my late fifties and eventually I found myself running 5K in the mid thirty minute range.
  Then a whole bunch of life happened.
   I came down with PF, cured that but then it was a whole string of medical issues and all manner of distractions and then, before you know it, it's a couple of years later and I'm running 5K in the low forties---my last timed race back in the summer had me clocked at 41:27.
   Back in August, though, things began to change.
   I decided to stop eating meat, for one thing. This was more a matter of conscience than anything and I'd been thinking about doing it for a long time. I also decided to re-dedicate myself to running consistently.
   When I combined these two things, two more things started to happen---I lost weight and I got faster! Who knew that eating healthier and getting regular exercise might lead to some kind of weight loss and increased performance? Weird, eh??
   I generally run the same 5K route in my neighbourhood and starting in late August the time it took me to do this started decreasing by 15 to 30 seconds a session. I basically had to work my ass off for those seemingly minimal gains and I always had the feeling that the next time out would be a disaster. Except for the occasional blip (getting attacked by a dog, stopping my Garmin at a stoplight and then forgetting to restart it), there were no disasters!

From this....

   The one run I did which resulted in the smallest improvement was, oddly, the one run where I didn't stop for a walk break. The walk breaks had been happening less and less and I decided that I would attempt a whole 5K running. I managed to do this and took a look down at the Garmin and discovered I'd only dropped five seconds by not walking. It then occurred to me that the occasional very short walk break then enabled me to run faster afterwards whereas, without one, I needed to slow down and pace myself. I vowed at that point to take a walk break whenever I absolutely needed to.

...to this!

   Yesterday was a bit of a breakthrough. I actually ran a full minute faster than the previous time and this brought me down to the mid-thirties again. Kinda back where I started! Not only that, there's been the odd time lately when, if I'd run early in the day, I actually felt like running again, later on. This was the clearest sign to me that I was back to where I really wanted to be.
   From here, it's kind of uncharted territory. My biggest goal for the longest time has been to break the 30 minute mark in a 5K. Though maybe not impossible, this has certainly seemed improbable. Until now, anyway...

  

Thanksgiving Weekend running recap

   This past Thanksgiving weekend was one of the best ones, weather-wise, these parts (SW Ontario) have seen in a long time---for the most part sunshine and temps in the twenties.
   I took this opportunity to get out a couple of times, once for a timed 5K run and the other for a little session of forest-y hill repeats.
   I have been working diligently at trying to lower my 5K times from somewhere in the low forties back to somewhere in the mid thirties. Lately, I've been having a fair amount of success, generally being able to carve off 20 to 30 seconds at a time.
   Lately my 5K runs have been marked by sections of slow running, tempo running and walking. I run the same route all the time and it is somewhat hilly so I find that these different running speeds all were occurring round about the same portions of the route. What I've been doing is trying to go just a little faster on those sections when I reached them and restrict the amount of walking time whenever I felt like I needed to walk.
   This seems to be working! The nice part is that it means I'm running with a little bit of a plan which has fairly realistic goals attached. Here's what my Garmin's been telling me:

Just getting under 40:00
was psychologically huge!

And a little lower...

Still a ways to go!

   I don't listen to music when I run so what eventually happens that I either have the same few lines from a popular song running through my mind or, more often than not, it's a line of gibberish which pops into my head after I've established some sort of regular run cadence. As I was running on Saturday, though, I found that I was at some point simply counting my steps. Every time my right foot hit the ground, I'd count it. I'd go all the way up to a hundred and then start all over again at "one". This helped immeasurably with cadence and, psychologically, just kept me going. It also occurred to me in a flash that this is what I used to do, way back near the beginning, when I was running in the mid-thirties. Thought this was very encouraging! Later on this morning I'm headed out again and so will give it a try.

Hard to make it look steep in the pic...

   On Sunday, I knew I wanted to run but didn't want to do the usual 5K route so I headed off to Warbler Woods to do hill repeats. I've picked this spot to do repeats as it's quite scenic and features a string of steep hills throughout. Each hill is different and this only helps with the enjoyment aspect of it.
   There's about a kilometer and half of residential area that I run through before I get to the woods and it in itself is fairly hilly so I run to where the hills start and then I run hard up them and walk down the other side. This is kind of my modus operandi once I get into the woods, as well. 
   We've had so much summery weather this fall that the leaves have only just started to change so here's a bit of a photo dump of the forest and then coming out of it on the other side.

Warbler is just in behind
these purple whatever-they-are's

An extremely popular place! So
lucky that I live as close as I do!

Through the woods...

...but not this part...

...over one of the boardwalks...

...and at the gates at the other end!

Climbing up out of the park.

London is known as the Forest City,
so fall is a pretty time of the year.

Awesome colours!

Ooops! I may have said "Forest City"
just a touch too soon!

    
   So there you have it, a little bit of what the running long weekend was like! I'm headed out shortly and am aiming at perhaps cutting another 20 or so seconds off my time. Wish me luck!

The Biggest "Thank You"!

   In my last post, I took the opportunity to thank a couple of people who had provided me (whether they knew it or not) with little bits of impetus toward me getting out of my most recent running funk.
   I quite happily finished that post and then put it out there for the world to read.
   Shortly afterwards, I realized that I really had not thanked the one person who made my whole running adventure happen in the first place---my wife, Doralyn!
   It was Doralyn who, as a birthday present, gave me a Running Room Learn-to-Run membership. It was also Doralyn who got a membership of her own at the same time so that it was something we could do together. This "doing it together" was pretty vital at the time because, as some of you may know, sometimes getting out there for a run has a lot to do with accountability. In the beginning, there were times when I simply would not have run at the appointed time if there had not been one other person with me who knew when that time was and had been counting on being there with me.
   In the years since, she has been nothing but supportive of me and my running, on an ongoing and daily basis. As much as anything, this means I'm gone for reasonably long periods at times when the two of us could have been doing something together. She also happily puts up with the aftermath---the not-so-pleasant smells, the dirty running stuff, and the occasionally muddy floors. So, along with all the other little thank-you's I owe people along the way, THANK YOU, SWEETHEART, AND I LOVE YOU!!

Some goodbyes, some veggies, some shoes, some dogs, and some thank-you's!

   It is with some shock, regret and horror that I notice I have not blogged on this page in over two months! And I call myself a runblogger?!
   I will attempt to recap the last couple of months.
   One of the principal reasons for runbloggers to cease runblogging is that they might also have ceased running. No running leads to no running to write about. For a large chunk of the past two months this has been my sad story. It's not that there was absolutely no running, but the running that actually did happen was so poorly thought out and sporadic that it didn't seem like it was even happening, really. Definitely a case of lost mojo!
  So why did this happen?
   For a variety of reasons, I seem to run less in the summer. This is partly due to the heat and humidity here in London but also as much to do with the fact there seems to be so much else to do. This particular summer, our property has been undergoing a major overhaul and sometimes at the end of a long day slogging away in the garden or building a walkway the running seems to take a back seat. All of this means less running and therefore less runblogging.
   When I say my mojo's gone, I mean it's almost as if it never existed. My last blog post was a recap of the Summer Night 5K race and what I didn't mention in that post was that when I checked the race results I almost came in last. When I crossed the finish line, my feeling at the time was there was a handful of people behind me but, in fact, I was only ahead of one person! Getting pumped for an upcoming race always helps with the mojo but when you're looking at the prospect of possibly being last in the field, it's a little more difficult to let the mojo do its thing.
   One of the surest signs you've lost your mojo happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was paid and registered to run the 5K in the Springbank Road Races here in London. I picked up my race packet the night before and set everything out before I went to bed. The alarm clock went off in the morning at the right time and I rolled over in bed and didn't bother to go to the race! I just didn't feel like it. I live, literally, five minutes away from the start line and I couldn't force myself to get up and go. And I didn't even feel really all that bad about it. Yes, the mojo was shot. Totally. Gone.
   One of the positive things which has happened in the last couple of months is that I've given up eating meat. I'd been thinking about seriously doing this for the last couple of years and it all seemed to fall into place about a month and a half ago. Essentially, it bothered me that an animal had to die in order to provide me with an unnecessary pleasurable eating experience. I've also been exposed to a whole series of pics of delicious-looking vegetarian meals and this has certainly been an eye-opener as well (thank you, Crystal!)
   This "vegetarian" thing, not surprisingly, has been a whole new learning experience! Mainly, it has introduced me to tofu and a bunch of products which are made from it. I'm pretty sure I've experienced tofu snuck into my Thai food occasionally but this has been my first experience with the original undisguised product. Some things are good and others have already been crossed off my list. One of the good things, though, is that the family has always had some kind of veggie with our meals so the only thing I need to do is complement whatever they're having with a bit of protein of my own. So far so good!


   I am also now a little more into the running on a regular basis. The combination of running and eating more veggies these days has led to about a 6 pound weight loss. All of this combined has me finally running a 5K in slightly less than 40 minutes.This, of course, is ridiculously slow but, at the same time, I haven't been able to run 5K in less than 40 minutes for the better part of a year now. Finally getting under that is huge, mojo-wise.

Inching my way down there.

   So I have been running three times a week regularly for the last three or four weeks. What I've been finding in my march toward getting under that magical forty minute mark is that I've been able to trim about twenty to thirty seconds off of each successive run. Basically, I've looked at the previous run and anywhere I walked in that run I've at least tried to run slowly in the next. Any time I ran slowly one day, I try to run a little faster for that same section the next time out. For sections where I was already running pretty free and easy, I tried to ramp things up a bit. So far, it's working!

Hooray!

   New kicks make this all the more fun! About three weeks ago I picked up a pair of Saucony Ride 8's. I managed to find an elusive Running Room gift certificate and this was all the encouragement I required to go pick up a new pair. They feel awesome---light and cushiony and pretty neutral so the running's good!

Damn!

   While I was at it, thought I'd go to the nearest Talize store (good quality second-hand) and pick up a few shirts. I picked up a red tech shirt specifically for running and particularly so that it would sort of "match" the new shoes. I went out for a run the next day and was feeling awesome in all my new stuff and was looking forward to cutting another thirty or so seconds off when the unexpected happened. As I was running past a young couple and their two dogs, suddenly their beagle leaped up at me and put a paw right through my "new" shirt! Big hole! Now, generally people move their dogs out of the way when they see me coming and I do my part by taking a wider route around than normal but this time we both got a little too close and I think I was a little off my guard due to the relatively small size of both dogs. But never again! The lady with the beagle was very apologetic and if it had been a brand new shirt instead of a previously worn one we may have carried the discussion a little further. To top it all off, this completely destroyed my rhythm and desire to finish the run that day and I basically walked the last kilometer. Bummer.
   Finally, part of what has prompted me to get back into running a little more regularly is that a couple of people I know have just run their very first 5K races and have been awesome at it. One of my co-workers, Tricia, ran her first race and did it in about 35 minutes and the other gentleman, Nacer, is the husband of a runblogger I follow down in Ohio and he ran his in about 28 minutes! Both are times I would die for. So thanks, Tricia and Nacer (and my sis-in-law, Sabrina, for a little bit of a campfire pep talk), for the extra smidgeon of inspiration and motivation! It helps!
   Okay, so for the most part, you are all caught up. I'm trying real hard to get out there at least three times a week. The mojo seems to be slowly seeping back in. Currently there are no races in the forecast. There was a Hallowe'en race scheduled but it now looks as though I will be out of town that weekend. This means the racing is likely done for the season and I will re-approach it in the spring. This is quite fine with me and will give me the winter to build up to a fully-replenished mojo level.
   In the meantime, safe and happy running to you all! And I promise to visit a little more often!