Ah, Morning

It’s that time of year again.  The time of year when I think that I really should Become A Morning Runner! and Get Up Early! and Enjoy The Morning Quiet!

I know.

I do this every year, at least once.

So I ran early one time last week, and then promptly ignored my alarm every other morning after that.  Even though that one morning run was glorious.  I’m super awesome like that.

And every time I ignored my alarm, I had major regret once I was up and going.  I want to enjoy the morning, and I hated that I kept on wasting these great running opportunities on these perfectly beautiful mornings.

But this week is Birthday Week, and after failing once again to rise with my alarm on Monday morning, I decided to give myself the gift of no more regret.  I decided to get up and run all this week as a birthday gift to myself.

It was a very inspiring moment.  Probably because it happened in the middle of the day, when I was fully caffeinated.

So I went to bed last night and had the worst sleep ever.  Of course.

But I  still woke up before 6:00 this morning, only to find that my entire lower back was seized up – presumably from the gardening I was enjoying yesterday.  No matter, I figured that the run would help to loosen things up at bit.

Except that I couldn’t bend far enough forward to tie my shoes.  Even in a sitting position.  It was awkward.  And painful.  And ridiculous.  It seriously took me about 5minutes to tie my stupid shoes.

But I persisted, got them tied and decided to ignore the fact that one was slightly tighter than the other.  It just wasn’t worth the effort to try and retie them.

Then I got out to the road to find it had been freshly graded.  Yesterday, there had been nicely worn tracks in the road that were smooth and perfect for running.  Now, the road was covered in nice loose gravel.  Great for the cars, horrible for the runners.

In spite of all the odds stacked against me, the run itself was great – slow, but great.  The air was fresh, the sun was already warm but not too hot, and there was a light breeze on the way back.  Perfection.

I’m going to do it again tomorrow.

I Got Beat by a Joggler…

Yeah, sometimes race day doesn’t *quite* go the way that you were hoping.

First, I have a suggestion for the organizers of the Saskatchewan Marathon.  The race is in May, and this is Saskatchewan.  It’s not hot yet.  We can start the race later than 7am and still manage to avoid the “heat of the day”, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t even actually occur yet in May.  Just a thought.  Because when I’m standing there shivering at 6:45am, teeth chattering, I’m wondering why I got out of bed so early to suffer so much.  10am would be good for me, thanks in advance.

And now, the actual race.

I had several race strategies, the first and most important of which was Finish Under Two Hours.  Which meant that the clock could say 1:59:59 and I would be ecstatic.  So to accomplish this, I had printed off a pace band to help me stay on target, I had great tunes loaded on my iPod, and my Garmin was all charged up and ready to go.

I forgot my pace band and my iPod.

So, I changed my plan to Stick To The Two Hour Pace Bunny.  The race started and for the first 3km I had him well in my sights. 

And then I lost him.

So, I changed my plan to Keep Running Hard.  No problem.  Garmin had me clocking paces around 5:30/km, and with my walking through the water stations this kept my km splits right around the 5:40/km mark, which was exactly what I needed to hit 2hrs.  Then I passed the Gu station (they hand out these little “Gu” packets that you squirt into your mouth) and all they were handing out were Vanilla Gu’s.  I can’t eat Vanilla Gu.  It looks like mucus.  So I passed on the Gu which I was kind of counting on for a shot of extra energy, but I wasn’t worried, because I felt awesome.

Until km 12.

That was when my legs said “ok, we’re done now” and my pace ground to a near halt.  Or at least that’s what it felt like.  I walked a minute, fixed my shoe that was bugging me, and my race strategy became Walk Only Once Between Water Stations.

Incidentally, this is also where I got passed by the Joggler.  The guy who was juggling three balls while running.  While running faster than me.  I hate getting passed by people like that.  It’s like the time I got passed in a 10k by the guy wearing the full chicken suit.  That should just never happen.

So anyway, around km 15 there was a sweet little boy at the water station handing out Timbits.  I grabbed a sour cream glazed and his expression told me I had just made his day.  I ate it with some water and thought I might rally a bit.

I didn’t.

From there my strategy quickly began to downgrade to Just Enjoy The Run, then Run More Than Walk, then Run To That Sign, then Run To That Crack In The Road, to Finish The **** Race So That You Can Go Eat Breakfast.

I sincerely wished that I had my iPod with me to drown out the sound of my own suffering.

Nevertheless, I made it to the final hill, took a walk break just before it, and then charged up it.  Ok, it was more of a shuffle.  My friend Bree was there at the halfway point on the hill and I begged her to run it with me.  Ok fine, I was almost crying.  She made the ultimate sacrifice and ran the hill with me – even though she had already run it in her 10k race.  True friend.

With Bree shouting stuff at me like “You can do it!!!”  and “you look really hot!!!!”  and “hurry up so we can eat breakfast!!!”, I made it up the blasted hill and sprinted to the finish with a finish time of 2hrs 6min.  A personal best, but not my 2hr goal.

And then I went and ate breakfast.

The end.