Raising the bat in an freakish ice storm

In 2 days it’s Christmas. In 4 days I’m flying out of Toronto and heading (eventually) back home to Sydney for at least a year. What does all this mean? Life is pretty sweet! But it also means that there’s been of errands and organising and tying of loose ends to be done. Moving out of our apartment, selling possessions online, getting as much study done as humanly possible, driving to Toronto (twice) to get Chinese VISAs, organising Christmas presents, etc etc. It’s been a busy time! I realise someone like me who is currently unemployed complaining about being too busy is kind of like listening to a supermodel complain that she’s a fatty, but whatever, it’s all relative. (That is probably the first and last time I will ever compare myself to a supermodel by the way).

In short, it’s made my training/exercise/gym/running activities go the way of the dinosaurs- big and scary non-existent. Up to last week I had a fairly regular routine of doing a weights/gym session on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and doing some form of cardio on Tuesdays, Thursdays and generally Saturdays. In the blink of an eye I missed one day with moving out, missed another having to drive 6 hours and run errands in Toronto (running errands doesn’t count as running), and missed countless runs due to weather (ok, and a couple of hangovers).

I then realised that I was stuck on 99 runs for the year, and had been for the past 11 days of this mini-slump. Like a batsmen stuck nervously at the crease, I couldn’t get to 100 and raise the bat as easily as it had been to get to 99. But luckily I’m more of a Matty Hayden than a choking Shane Watson-type, and finally Sunday morning came around with no plans until a family Christmas that afternoon-perfect time for a run! Only problem was, there had been freezing rain falling all throughout Saturday night, resulting in one of the worst ice storms in recent history, and EVERYTHING outside was covered in 1-2cms of hard ice.

I nearly reconsidered heading out, but with a power outage and everyone reminded me how much I’d been bitching to go ice-skating all month (for the record, I still haven’t been) they said if I went for a run in these conditions, it’d be basically like ice-skating anyway.

So out I went, with the temperature a surprisingly warm 1 degree. Every branch of every tree was covered in ice. The powerlines, the cars, everything. Snow covering everything in winter is perfectly normal, but ice covering everything is rare (although I’ve seen it twice this year-the other time back in April). I can’t explain the science behind it, but I can scientifically confirm that every Canadian freaks out about it. No one drives on the roads, everyone stocks up on food and water and any plans they had get cancelled, as they are scared of the ice boogey man, or something like that. I guess some of it is warranted-we are still without power and don’t expect it back for 3-4 days.

I started my jog down the dirt road, now a mix of dirt, gravel and slushy ice. With the temperature rising, the ice was slowly but surely melting, and therefore breaking off violently in golf-ball sized chunks from every large tree I passed under. The more trees I passed, I realised how much damage the storm had caused-branches up to 20 feet long snapped off, and some trees fallen entirely, due to the extra weight of the ice they were now bearing. Although no powerlines were downed like in the last storm, I could hear the hum of a tractor idling at each and every house I passed, as the tractor had been hooked up to their back up generator. I only passed 5 houses, but still, 5 for 5 is pretty good.

Turning onto a sealed road, the ice became less dangerous underfoot, but was still keeping my eyes peeled above me. Even in treeless stretches I heard the crashing of ice onto the snow beside me, and couldn’t quite work out the reason. I then noticed the powerlines running parallel to the road-they were covered in a layer of ice as well, and when the wind picked up it would send long barbs of ice down below, some up to 4 foot long. So my choice was to run on the left side of the road and avoid the golf ball sized chunks falling non-stop from the trees, or run down the right hand side and avoid the long spears falling less frequently from the powerlines. Who said running wasn’t a contact sport?

Well on this morning it wasn’t…I managed a 10km out-and-back run and somehow managed to avoid getting hit. Considering it was my first run in forever I wasn’t setting any goals, and with the conditions (and lack of fitness) I was slower than Oprah to a salad bar, but I considered it an achievement to amazingly not get hit by any ice.

It was one of the more surreal runs out of the 100 I’ve done this year, and getting out and admiring this strange winter wonderland was definitely the right choice rather than staying indoors.

Ice Ice baby

Behind that thick, manly beard you'll see a tree bending due to the weight of the ice

Trees ready to unleash ice on anyone who passes them

Frozen car (even the antenna)

Wind the window down, and you still have a window. Freaky

 

Awesome thing about running #74: Finding stuff

Whether it’s something big or something small, finding stuff is definitely one bonus about running. Sure, you can “find yourself” or “find inner happiness” or some hippy crap like that, but I’m talking about finding actual I-can-touch-you-and-use-you-in-real-life stuff! Whether it’s money (my record is nearly $9 in coins), sunglasses, or a perfectly good bike lock with key, I’ve found some sweet stuff while running, and yes, I have kept them. When 98% of your runs aren’t races, it’s kind of like getting a medal all on your own, even if you suck!

Joelo and I putting together our coins after a day's running during our Melbourne to Sydney run...that's enough for a steak dinner a free Maccas meal right there!

Indoor Sprint Triathlon Simulation

Before NASA sends their astronauts into space, they conduct extremely realistic simulations so the astronauts have some practice and experience, and know exactly what to do in any given situation that could potentially pop up. Yesterday I did something a little different upon my visit to the gym. No, unfortunately they don’t have an NASA rocket ship simulator otherwise I would still be there, 24 hours later. I didn’t go to space either, I just wanted to talk about astronauts, because whenever I excitedly bring up the topic at the dinner table it usually gets brushed away pretty quickly. And because astronauts are freaking cool. Anyway…

On the treadmill. I mean, cool picture, huh!

 

A few weeks back I mentioned I wanted to race in a triathlon in the near future, (hoping for one next year) so I thought I’d squeeze every dollar out of my two month gym membership and jump in the pool a little more (which was pretty easy since I have barely ever swum laps, and certainly not in the past two years).

A week or so ago, I came up with an idea that got me a little excited. Not so excited that a little bit of pee came out, (but even if it did, I was in the pool, so it wouldn’t have been so embarrassing), but excited nonetheless. I would do my own triathlon, right here in the gym! Just like an astronaut simulation! You beauty!

I knew the distances for a Sprint Triathlon were 750m swim, 20k ride and 5k run. So my immediate goal was to use the next week to be able to actually swim that distance in one go without floaties without taking a rest. I knew I could wing it on the bike, and wing it on the run, but the swim I couldn’t fake. I managed a 750m swim on the Monday, and in my next session that Friday, upped it to 1km. I was set!

The YMCA pool. Although very tempting, I haven't used the waterslide yet.

 

Now I know this “indoor simulation” is far from a realistic triathlon experience, but that’s not the point. The point was to get my confidence up and know how my body reacts after doing all three disciplines back to back (to back)…which I found out pretty quickly! I wasn’t going for broke or pushing my absolute limits-just by completing it I’d have a (training) PB. I was just looking forward to having a bit of fun with a different training method. If you were to ask any triathlete which has more favourable conditions, Indoor v Outdoor, I have no doubt they’d say indoor. But I thought about the advantages and disadvantages for my experience anyway:

Swim:
Advantages- Not open or rough water. It would be as calm as an Enya soundtrack on repeat, and I’d get to push off the wall every lap. No traffic-meaning I won’t get kicked in the face by a stray foot. And it’s consistently consistent-just follow that black line until 30 laps are done, straight as an arrow!

Transition 1:
Disadvantages- Countless, adding on wasteful minutes, as described below.

Bike:
Advantages- No hills, no traffic, no risk of a flat tyre, no risk of collision (I can even close my eyes or read a book if I wanted to).

Disadvantages- Not a tailored bike to suit me, and no gears (only effort level). I can’t use my Garmin watch to record data, and the TV screen does not show current pace, and shows distance in miles (that’s a mental kick in the nuts trying to do sums to work out how fast you are going).
And correct me if wrong but I don’t think you can “coast” on stationary bikes-meaning once you stop pedalling and the power meter reads “0”, your distance won’t increase-stationary bikes don’t “roll”.

Transition 2:Advantages and disadvantages fairly minimal

Run:
Advantages- Like the bike, no hills, no crowds, no suprises. A perfectly flat 5k.

Disadvantages-Treadmill running is different. The fact I have to manually enter what speed I want to go rather than naturally listen to how my body is behaving and react accordingly-this could leave me more fatigued if I accidentally have a speed set too high, or I could not push hard enough and get complacent. (Yes I can manually adjust speed during run but it’s not the same). However, this could be seen as an advantage, as even if I’m super tired, instead of the legs slowly down, they have no choice but to keep up otherwise I’ll get kicked off the back of the treadmill!
Like the bike, no Garmin for recording pace, and Treadmill monitor is also in miles.

In general:Advantages- Perfect weather, regulated temperature. It’s FREEEEEEEEE!!!! I will most definitely win.
Disadvantages- No medal for motivation, and no one to scream “hurry up you board short wearing bearded slacker!!” or similar which would be motivational (and depressing at the same time). I will most definitely come last.

Arriving at the gym on Tuesday I decided I’d give it a crack. I sure as hell didn’t look prepared, let alone like a triathlete. I was wearing my trusty Rip Curl boardies from Year 9, my mop hair flopping around without a swim cap on, with my fuzzy beard in the “Alan from the Hangover” stage and fast approaching the “Gimli from Lord of the Rings stage”. I was going to be about as streamline as an unshaved donkey in the pool.

Surprisingly, I somehow don't give off a "real swimmer vibe" in my Rip Curl boardies...but at least I have googles now! (Learnt that the hard way after two eyefuls of chlorine after my first attempt).

 

I hopped in the pool, dodging the lanes filled with seniors waiting for their aqua-aerobics class and checked the clock on the wall. 8.28am. Off I went. Considering I’d only swam this distance non-stop twice before, I didn’t start out extremely hard, for fear I’d end up on the bottom of the pool after two laps and have to be saved by the male lifeguard-who, judging from our lenghty conversations I can’t avoid each time, probably wouldn’t have enjoyed. I counted the laps in my head, while repeating my personal mantra I’d developed for my technique (please don’t drown, please don’t drown, please don’t drown), and before I knew it, 30 laps and 750 metres were behind me. I checked the clock. 8.45am. Swim done and dusted in a respectable (for me) 17 minutes.

Out I hopped and had to scurry past the lifeguard with only a quick wave rather than listening to a life story, and was onto the next discipline. But not so fast…

Instead of in triathlon conditions where I could jump straight from the water on to the bike in under 60 seconds, I’d have to go through the following painful process: Get out of pool, have a mandatory shower before entering locker room, it’s then mandatory to completely dry off before entering locker room, unlock locker, fumble around for clothes and swap into gym clothes, (optional: dry off boardies in the sweet drying machine in the hallway), lock locker, walk down the hallway and up the stairs to the gym and hope there is one of the three stationary bikes free for me to use. If it doesn’t sound like a long time, it is when you’re timing yourself. By the time I’d hurriedly scrubbed up and completely dried off it’d been a good 5 minutes. After quickly getting dressed, darting upstairs and looked for a bike, it’d been 8 minutes. I’m sure this would be dead last in any triathlon and about eight times longer than average, but I was working with what I had! Rules are rules.

The bike started out average. I fumbled around with my Ipod trying to connect it to the computer system mounted in front of me, but with no luck. I persevered for a minute or two, but realised I was hardly spinning the legs at all and decided to forget it all together. I expected to cover the 20k stationary ride in somewhere around the 45-55 minute mark, considering I hadn’t jumped on a real bike since June. And when I say “real bike” I mean my girlfriends commuter bike she bought from Walmart for $200…so a professional tri bike it was not. It’s like training for a hot dog eating contest by eating hamburgers every night. (Which I was doing that too).

My view during the ride. NFL on the screen and "motivational" whiteboard by the stairs

 

Although it was only a short 20k ride, to be honest, after only ten minutes I could feel the burn and knew that with no specific bike training this was not going to be smooth sailing, especially after a stint in the pool. I kept checking my time, and the miles covered, then converting them into kilometres, then trying to figure out my pace-all things that would be done for me if I could have use my GPS Garmin watch. I’m sure that slowed me down, as well as the fact my mounted TV screen was showing NFL highlights from the weekend making my concentration drift elsewhere. This “simulation” was starting to get farther from realistic with each minute.

At the gym, by the stairs there is always a daily motivational message to get you going as you enter. The other day’s was- “Change ‘I can’t’ into ‘I can’ and pretty soon you’ll be saying ‘I did’”. I thought that one was pretty neat. Looking for some instant inspiration on the bike, I looked towards the whiteboard and read the message “Don’t strive for perfection, strive for improvement”. WTF! I was looking for inspiration-this was crap! Maybe only because I was struggling on the bike, I interpreted this negatively and thought they might as well write “meh, why bother trying to be the best, just be average, it’s fine, take a break!”. Not exactly what I was hoping for.

53 minutes and 16 seconds later I was finished with the bike. Not a fabulous result, with a 23kph average, but it would do for a first attempt back in the saddle for awhile. I wiped the bike down, and refilled my bottle, within two minutes, jumped on the closest treadmill I found and started a jog. Unfortunately it was one I’d never used before and couldn’t work out how to even show me my elapsed time or distance. (That is now two simple electronic devices I couldn’t work today-I thought you were immune from that cluelessness until you were at least 40!). Quickly hitting the “emergency stop” button, I bailed on it, and went to a more old school one, but this chewed up a bit more time and unnecessary running into the mix.
I set it to 8mph speed, guessing that was around 5min/k’s. This wasn’t blistering pace, certainly not for a quick 5k run, where I’d hope for like 4min/k’s, but I thought I’d settle in and see how I felt. Whether it was because the treadmill was displayed in miles or otherwise, the numbers ticked over painfully slowly, and instead of pumping the pace up like I’d expected, I often found myself nudging it down a few notches. Heck I even considered walking after ten minutes, especially after I felt the oncoming rush of a full fledged GINTEN brewing, but decided I wouldn’t have lived it down and pushed on. It was moments like these where I could see why having a crowd cheer you on in the race would be a massive boost, rather than in simulation mode, staring at a wall, with the thoughts going through your head that if you quit, no one would ever know. The unsympathetic wall didn’t motivate me to increase the speed, but my bowels and my pride did, and I finished the run in a decent enough 23.30. A time I would have been far less than happy with were it a stand alone run, but after a swim and a ride, was quite content with.

Couldn't find a good treadmill picture. So here's one of an astronaut rocking out

 

Stumbling down the stairs and back to the locker room I checked the time. 10.11. I’d just completed a Sprint Distance Triathlon training session, albeit in a little different circumstances, in around 1:43, and was quite happy with myself. Sure, it’s the baby distance of triathlons, and would be around back-of-the-pack effort on your average Sunday Triathlon, but knowing I could cover the distance gave me the confidence to actually enter one and give it a real shake, with 100% effort in a race environment.

Looking back at the result, I know I can improve on my swim time, as that was literally my seventh time in the pool in (just about) as many years, and am just getting back into it, let alone looking to improve speed.

The transition 1 time is something I’ll have to live with, being in a gym environment. It sucks having unnecessary minutes tacked on to your time showering/drying/changing because of the environment and rules, but I won’t complain since I have a perfectly flat bike and run course to follow-maybe it all evens out in the end?

The bike session didn’t throw me any surprises, although it was harder than I thought. I don’t enjoy the bike as much as I do running, and my lack of training (absolutely ZERO) shines through. With a weekly session or two on the bike, I’m sure I could drop this time by a good ten minutes.

The run was a lot tougher than any other 5k treadmill run that I’ve done, and if I think about how knackered I actually felt yesterday during it, I’m happy with that result (for the moment). It’s not my best distance (what am I talking about-I hardly ever do speed work or race-no distance is my best distance!), but I’ve gone sub 20 mins in 5k training runs before. That might be a tough ask initially, after a swim/ride, but I’d likely aim for around 22 mins next time.

Overall, it was clean, good ol’ fashioned fun on a Tuesday morning, considering it was -10 degrees outside. Perhaps I’ll repeat it, and try and beat my time next week. If I’m really committed, I might even shave the beard off and really give that swim a crack!

Swim	17:00	Approximate. From analogue clock on wall-could have been 16:XX, or 17:XX
T1	8:00	Approximate. From analogue clock, until I reach my  watch in my locker. 7:XX, or 8:XX
Bike	53:16
T2	2:16	The treadmill stuff up contributed here, but should be 60 seconds generally
Run	23:30
Total Net (w/out transitions)	1:32:46
Transitions	10:16
Total (Incl. transitions)	1:43:02

 

Early December Happenings

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I swapped my running shoes for, well, no shoes, and have been getting in the pool 2-3 times a week. I’m yet to see that “practice makes perfect”, but it sure makes for massive improvement. My first attempt at being Ian Thorpe saw me cover 750 metres in total, in the slowest possible fashion, mostly at a mere 50 metres at a time, and never more than 100 consecutive metres before needing a rest. Ok less like Ian Thorpe and more like Geoff Huegill...(not in his awesome Olympic-medal winning form but when he retired and was 138kgs a year later I mean)

But, with nowhere to go but up, I set out to do each session a little longer, or a little faster, or with a few less breaks. And like Geoff Huegill’s waistline, my performance levels increased. In my 5^th pool session I managed to cover the same 750 metres, without breaks, all in one go. In my 6^th and most recent session, I upped it to 1km, again, without a break. With perhaps time for another 6 sessions before the end of the year when we move to Australia I’ll set 1.5kms straight as a goal. Then I’ll likely swim as often as I did before this (hardly ever) and could quite possibly be 138kgs shortly afterwards.

Like Huegill, with the lack of swimming, and increased number of beers and pizzas I'll have next year, this will probably be me.

 

Speaking of swapping shoes, I got a brand spanking new pair this week…my first pair since April. I wasn’t particularly looking for a pair, but after discovering a Saucony outlet store on my way home from Toronto on Wednesday, I stopped in and pick up a pair of Saucony Peregrines, for the outlet price of $90…too good of a deal to pass up. I haven’t really owned a specific “Trail running shoe” before, but starting next year my TNF100 training will be based mostly off-road, so I thought I’d make the jump…and although I couldn’t test them out on the trail just down the road (the causeway to cross the river was flooded due to melting snow) I tried them out on the gravel roads-and they felt quite good! In fact the guy that finished 2^nd at TNF100 last year wore this shoe, so it can’t be too bad!

The new kicks

With no snow falling for a week and some not so friggin bull-bustingly freezing temperatures days of 3-6 degrees the majority of snow around town melted away enough and I was able to get a few road runs in, and I was able to avoid the dreadmill for another week. But the current 14 day forecast doesn’t have a day above 0 Celsius so I might be stuck inside more than I’d like. (I think I’m pretty hardcore, but -11 degrees isn’t exactly tanning weather). Luckily I found an alternative…

A few Snowmen died this week in Clinton...but they'll be back next week

 

From my observations, a general rule in rural small town Canada, is if your town is big enough to have a dinky little corner store, it’s also big enough to have a state of the art indoor ice-hockey arena. Which is good news for runners as there will generally be a walking/running track surrounding the ice in which to strut your stuff. Although running circles around a track is nearly in the same boredom category of a treadmill, in my town of Clinton, the track is elevated above the stadium seating, meaning not only do I have 200 metres of track to play with, but can do stair sessions by scooting up and down the seating aisles each time I round the track. With six aisles of 18 stairs for a total of 108 stairs per lap, it adds a little variety, and as I found out after my first session the other day, if I run the stairs exclusively (without rounding the track) it gets pretty tiring pretty quickly! Since it’s indoors it’s a little annoying I can’t track these runs on Strava, but a nice little bit of variety anyway.

Favourite use for Clinton Arena: Watching a hockey game with a beer in hand

Second favourite use: Running the track and stairs

 

I was at Goderich gym after my pool session this week and noticed a bloke doing pull-ups, who was maybe in his mid fifties, athletic as all hell and sported a classic yellow and blue “2009 Boston Marathon” shirt on. I thought I’d give him some props, and we had an exchange like this:

Me: “Nice shirt you got there mate”
Him: “Thanks, have you got one?”
Me: “No, but I hope to one day”. (I’m assuming he meant a Boston Marathon shirt, not just a shirt in general, since I was wearing one)
Him: “I’ve got nine of them”.

Jerk.

After clarifying that he meant nine Boston Marathon shirts, and not nine “2009” ones that he picked up in a sale after the race, but that he had actually ran the Boston Marathon nine years in a row, we got chatting about our running resumes. Well, his resume mainly. When he introduced himself as “Steve”, I realised who I was talking to. This was Steve Beasley, a Goderich local and renowned runner in these parts. I’d heard of him back in April when he came 3^rd in his age group in the Boston marathon. That’s right-not only does he qualify for and run in the iconic Boston Marathon each year, but he competes in it at a competitive level. After creeping looking up some results online, turns out his 2:49 effort this year was good enough for a finish 744^th overall, which although doesn’t sound super impressive, consider the following:

-There are around 27,000 who enter this race, the vast majority of which have to qualify to enter, therefore
-It is THE most competitive marathon in the world, attracting the world’s best runners.
-Steve is a 50-something year old bloke from Canada, not a 20 or 30 something year old Kenyan.

It sure says something. And that something is that Steve is a gun runner. I never asked what his marathon PB was, but after bitching about the cold weather to him, he mentioned he’d run in -42 degrees Celsius in Northern Ontario, which is nearly as impressive as his marathon times I reckon. It was pretty cool to swap stories with a runner of that calibre, and it certainly made me think I can suck it up and deal with the temperatures this next week anyway!

 

 

The unstoppable, unpleasant, unwanted occurrence known a GINTEN

Disclaimer: this post is not exactly classy, and if you prefer not to read about poop, maybe you should skip this one or read another post. Here is one that mentions the word poop less than three times. If you don’t mind some toilet humour writing…you are in the right place!

Shit happens. Whether it Forrest Gump coined that phrase, or it was the Italians back in the 1700’s when they said “le shit le happens”, we can never really be sure of, but we all know it’s true. And unfortunately for runners, sometimes you just get it has to happen midrun. We’ve all been there. (Or maybe we all haven’t…if you haven’t, I have been there enough for all of us so don’t worry). You are zipping along at a nice pace, listening to your favourite music, nothing could be better…and then all of sudden you think “Geez I Need To Excrete Now”…or if you prefer short form- GINTEN. In fact, we’ll just call acting on that impulse a GINTEN, to keep it PG-rated. Anyone that’s run with me, or listened to me talk about running will know, a good ol’ GINTEN gets the best of me on just about any run longer 10 minutes an hour. It’s my Achilles heel if you will. Some runners look at focusing on improving their speed, others their endurance, and they will do specific workouts to target their weakness. Me, I need to somehow work on avoiding the curse of GINTEN, and I’m just not sure how to train for that. Sure I need to improve my pace, endurance, hills, and all sorts of stuff as well but those don’t leave me with my pants around my ankles.

Now when you are trail running, it almost comes with the territory…you can duck off through the trees, off the path and GINTEN your little heart out, with an abundance of natural TP (leaves) at your disposal. When it’s a Canadian winter the natural TP becomes snow, which as you can imagine, leaves you with a chilly bum for the remainder of the run. But when you’re out running on the roads, it’s a bit of a different story. You are left with your head buzzing with a million different options, none of them very good.

Do I wait til there’s no cars, and go for the super speedy sneaky GINTEN?

Do I go behind that house over there and hope no-ones home?

Do I just forget about all the worries and do the there-for-the-whole-world-to-see GINTEN?

There is no way you can continue enjoying a nice run when these are the immediate thoughts and this is THE priority in your head.

I mention all of this, because less than two weeks ago, I got caught GINTENing.

It was a chilly Monday morning in Goderich, and I’d found a new patch of bushland and new there was a looped trail in there somewhere. So off I went. Within a few minutes of setting off through the thick pine and cedar trees, it was not only the cold that made me want to crawl back into the warm comforts of the car, it was my gut-it was hintin’ for a GINTEN. I thought about giving in to the urge, then and there at only 1km into the run. I thought about stopping my watch and perhaps starting over again once I’d made myself a bit lighter. I thought about why people don’t say “world wide web” yet say the three times as long “double u, double u, double u” when speaking of a website. And by the time I’d thought of all these things, I’d complete one loop of the 3km trail and was back to where I’d begun, in sight of the car park where the car was.

I waddled to the car, trying not to look like hippo about to give birth to a brown hippo baby and grabbed some tissues. As I headed back toward the trailhead to find some cover, I saw there were now two cars that weren’t there when I started, which presumably meant there were at least two people using the trail. I now had two options of where to drop a GINTEN…left or right. I picked right, since I’d just come from the left and hadn’t passed anyone on my anti-clockwise route, and figured that the new trail users must have also gone the same way. Knowing that it was such a short loop and time was of the essence, I picked my spot a few metres off the path and did what had to be done. Midway through, I heard a voice…”Sammy!”. “Sammy come back here!”

As it turns out, Sammy was a big slobbering German Shepherd with a keen nose for pooping runners. She followed her nose towards me and just about bowled me over as I was mid-GINTEN. With Sammy vying for my attention, I hastily finished up my biz, and returned those few metres back to the trail and put on a sheepish smile as Sammy’s middle aged owner looked at me with a confused look on her face. In what was an extremely awkward exchange, I said hello, and she continued to look at me like I’d just come out of the bushes with her dog while having my pants down. (Which, I guess was technically true). She continued on her way toward the trail entrance, and I pretended to started jogging the other way, but instead of feeling wonderful, light and ready to run post-GINTEN, I felt weird (and still extremely cold), so called it a day, trotted back to the warmth of the car. I drove back home, where I could poop in the privacy of my own bathroom, without the risk of being interrupted by a German Shepherd.

 

Fail...I dumped

 

 

 

I thought the bush was thick enough cover...apparently not for Sammy

 

Maybe this book isn't as stupid as it sounds

 

 

 

 

I just signed up for the North Face 100

What’s 100km long, gnarly as all hell and will most probably beat the living crap out of you if you dare to challenge it?

If you answered an extremely long Anaconda who is majorly pissed because you just stole its eggs and pooped in its nest, I will accept that as a valid answer. However, why anyone would steal Anaconda eggs, or poop in its nest is beyond me. I’d be getting in touch with Guiness World Records first of all. Actually now I think about it, that answer isn’t going to fly anymore you egg-stealing, nest pooping freak.

I’m sure there are other equally stupid and suitable answers but if you answered The North Face 100 ultramarathon race, you are most definitely correct.

Today I signed up for a new challenge, one I’ve wanted to get involved in but the timing was never right…the North Face 100. The TNF100 is a 100km ultramarathon that snakes a trail up and down the massive gorges, valleys and ridges of the Blue Mountains, just west of Sydney. It is run by under 1000 runners on a Saturday each May (it actually goes until 11am on Sunday, as some people don’t finish it in 24 hours-yep it’s a big one). Next year, I will be one of those roughly 1000.

To say I’m pumped is an understatement. To say I’m absolutely packing it, is pretty close to the mark too. It’s not the only the fact it’s 100km that overwhelms me, among numerous other things, it’s the elevation. Over 4500 metres in elevation over the course, meaning finishers will have run an accumulative incline of over half the height of Mount Everest, with not a smelly Sherpa in sight.

I know a handful of people that have done TNF100 (and some that have been extremely competitive) and it certainly has interested me. It was always on my bucket list, but I never seriously set my sights on it for myself or gave it much serious thought. Never more serious than a Kardashian marriage anyway. But now, I’ve decided next year is THE year. With our Perth to Sydney bike ride plan scratched, I needed something to fill the void, and although there may be a different charity adventure with the boys a-brewing, I’m excited for the TNF100 to be a part of that hole-filling.

To regard it as simply 2.5 marathons is as foolish as a donkey who has just bought volcano insurance and doesn’t do it justice or give it the respect it deserves. Unlike a marathon on the smooth road, the TNF100 is on rough trails, and also has stairs and rocks and creeks to contend with, and even a ladder section or two down rocky cliff faces, if I’m not mistaken. With features such as the Giant Stairway (the 900 steep stairs right by the 3 Sisters), Tarros Ladders, Kedumba Valley, the Golden Stairs (which sound at least a little fancier), and Megalong Valley (which sounds, well mega-long), it’s bound to be hell on the quads (and hammies, and calves!). And that dreaded elevation I mentioned before. The elites finish this race in under 11 hours. (Last year eleven runners went sub 11hrs, with the winner finishing in a crazy 9hrs16mins (that’s even quicker than watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy!) The average competitor might finish in 14-24 hours. The cut off time is 28 hours, which would mean you would have been running/walking/crawling from 7am Saturday to 11am Sunday. And I guess that’s nothing to scoff at-nearly half the competitors DNF (Do Not Finish) or DNS (Did Not Start). Whether the main cause of DNSers is because they chickened out is not known, but I’m going to assume that’s the case.

It’s early days, but my goals are as follows:

A goal: Sub 17 hours (Midnight finish)

B goal: Sub 20 hours (3am finish)

C goal: Simply finish it

Setting an A, B and C goal is the way to go…A goal being the one that you’re aiming for if everything goes your way, get good weather conditions, no injuries in training, no mishaps on the course, everything goes perfectly perfect etc. B goal being one you’re one you are realistically gunning for, and are stoked at achieving, even if the planets didn’t align. C goal being a bit of a back up goal, and one you’d “be happy with” at the end of the day. This reduces the pressure a little, so you don’t end up hurling objects and screaming and breaking tennis racquets like John McEnroe if you miss out on your main goal.

The winner of the North Face 100 gets (among other things) a sweet engraved Gold Belt Buckle. Any runner finishing in under 14 hours gets a coveted Silver Belt Buckle. Finish under 20 hours and you get a Bronze Belt Buckle. Finish in over 20 hours and all you get is a pat on the back, so you better hope your pants will hold themselves up. I’m not a big fan of wearing pants but my goal is to get that Bronze Belt Buckle, even if only to collect dust!

To be honest, if you don’t mind staying awake for over 24 hours and you walked the entire thing, you would most likely complete it within the cut-off time. I think the fact some people over exert themselves and push too hard for a particular time goal is the reason a lot of people DNF. Unfortunately, being someone who doesn’t like to leave a lot in the tank after an event (although something that I’m often guilty of) I am not going to practise what I preach, and I can foresee myself either finishing in under 17 hours, or being forced to drop out entirely, more likely than finishing in a safe walking pace of 24-28 hours total.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, and have 5 months to get training starting TODAY! Well as I look outside there is a foot of snow on the ground…and it’s minus 6 degrees…AND there are three games of American football on today…so today is not looking like a good training day. Perhaps I’ll have to wait until I’m back in Australia in six weeks. Until then I might watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy twice in a row to work out my pacing, and download pump up songs such as “Eye of the Tiger”…gotta start somewhere.

PUMPED!!!!!!

 

As long as my liver is still good for me to ruin that with post-race beers...sounds good to me!

 

Welcome to the jungle

 

Artsy fartsy

 

If I go missing on race day-I will be down here somewhere

 

 

Falling over like a boss

I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve fallen over multiple times while running. Yes it sounds ridiculous, but just like the chances of Lady Gaga’s next single sucking, it’s bound to happen. How many times do you see a baby take their first steps, only to collapse into a hilarious crumpling mess? How many times do you see a fat kid waddle over to the playground, only to trip in hysterical fashion, going head over turkey? Heaps!

The fact they are kids and I’m not doesn’t matter, the fact is, if you do something enough times, things are bound to happen to you. If you enter the lottery each week for your entire life, aside from the fact you’ve mindlessly wasted so much your hard earned cash, you have more chance to win it than the person who buys a ticket just once in their life. If you spend an hour a day staring at the ocean, you have more chance seeing a whale than the next person who just glances at it (let’s not get technical with whale migration seasons here). Hell, I’d go as far as saying that if Lady Gaga keeps releasing songs, eventually (key word being eventually) instead of being cheesy repetitive dribble, she might actually fluke one that is able to be listened to without wanting to stab yourself in the ears. In my case, the fact is, if you spend enough time running, you are bound to fall over here and there occasionally.

Off the top of my head I can count four occasions. The first, being the near death experience of being eaten by furious red ants near Yarrawarrah, which I posted about previously.

The third time, was during a freezing cold February day in Dublin, Ontario, when the ice on the road was thick and the snowy conditions that day made it worse. As I was running, I peered through the snow thick snow hitting me in the face and made out the headlights of an oncoming car approaching. I attempted to cross to the other side of the road, only to sprawl clumsily flat out on my stomach, belly sliding for a good distance before coming to a less than elegant halt in the slush. Making matters worse was the fact the oncoming car A) saw this embarrassment take place, B) didn’t stop or slow down to check on me and C) sprayed a heap more icy water in my direction as I lay there feeling cold, wet and sorry for myself. Did they think I was just making a snow angel in the middle of the road? Jerk. Was probably Lady Gaga driving that car.

The fourth time was just the other week, when I discovered some nice trails running through a conservation area not far from home. This new trail cut through a grassy area beside a cornfield. Finding it impossible to watch my every step as my feet hit the long green grass I looked up to get my bearings. My hit-and-hope method, was more hit than hope, and stepping into a nearly knee-deep Groundhog hole, I was quickly turned upside and rattled, on my stomach sprawled out. At least it wasn’t snowing this time.

The second time turned into more of a story. It was a Sunday in September 2011 leading up to the Sydney Marathon. It was a couple of weeks away and I knew I needed to get one more long run in at race pace, and then I could taper my mileage until the event. I planned to do a 32-34km out-and-back run down the Old Princes Hwy south of Sydney. Now the Princes Hwy is a major highway running down the coast from Sydney to Melbourne (and further onto Port Augusta, South Australia for the record), however the OLD Princes Hwy is just as it sounds. Old. It has lost most of its use, as the newer road is faster, straighter, and bypasses a lot of things the older version doesn’t. With a few exceptions, the only reason people would need to drive on it, is for a scenic drive, or if they are lost.

Anyway, enough of the highway history lesson. I was enjoying my run along the relatively quiet, narrow and winding Old Princes Hwy and keeping the pace I was aiming for. Things were going great guns. Until I was nearing the 16km turn around point when all of sudden a little bump in the gravel threw me off balance and I went hurtling forward towards the ground. I put my hands out in front of me and the sharp gravel pieces did their worst. Even throwing my hands out was not enough to save the harsh meeting between the ground and my face. Yep…I faceplanted.

I sat up, inspecting my palms and noticing the dark blood already pooling in them while the gravel-ranging in size from a grain of sand to a small sharp marble-littered my hands and forearms. I touched my cheek…bleeding too. “What a knob” I thought, quite correctly.

I sat there for a little longer, wondering how best to handle the situation. No phone, no transport. Guess I just have to suck it up and run the 16km home. As I dusted myself off and starting limping in the direction I had come from, the blood starting circulating a little faster and in turn, my hands started bleeding more. I tried to stop it by pressing my palms against my shirt, turning it from a nice white colour to deep red where my mitts where. It slowed the flow temporarily, and as I kept running, I kept my hands on my stomach, which made me look like a chuckling Santa clutching my belly. Well, a skinnier version of Santa, and without his costume on. And without reindeers (otherwise I’d just ride home on them). Come to think about it, I didn’t look much like Santa at all, but my hands were on my belly nonetheless. To be honest the last thing I felt like doing while my palms and face was throbbing was running another 16kms home after just doing that.

The normally low traffic on the road was even lower being a Sunday, with cars driving past at a rate of about 1 per 5-10 minutes. When I finally heard a car coming from behind me I wondered if this was my ticket out of this horrid run. Continuing to jog slowly, I stuck my thumb out as a hitch hiker would, put on a hopeful smile and twisted my head a little, to see if the car was interested in picking me up.

The wind in my hair from the car as it passed me suggested otherwise. A few minutes later I heard another car and tried the same method to no avail. Same with the third attempt.

I thought about this failing strategy, and realised how stupid it was. Of course they don’t want to pick a runner up-they’ll be thinking “just keep going you lazy slob, you are meant to be running, man up you baby-you’re not going to get any fitter if I pick you up”.

Hmmm. I had to change plans. I know! When I hear a car, I’ll stop running, turn around, and look like an actual hitchhiker-that should work! So that’s what I did. First attempt-unsuccessful. Second attempt-unsuccessful. What the hell? It was at this point I had a good hard look at myself (both physically and proverbially) and realised the copious amount of blood on my shirt, arms, hands and I presumed, my face. I looked like I had just murdered a kangaroo and eaten it’s flesh and drank it’s blood. If drivers were unsure about picking up a hitchhiking runner, they sure as hell weren’t going to pick up one covered in blood.

I put my head back down, and continued running home, knowing the only way I was getting there was on my own two feet. Until, finally, luck was on my side in the most remarkable way. Up ahead of me I noticed a car, but not any old car-it was my Dad’s car.

My luck was finally about to change. I’ll get Dad to drop me home-sweet! As the big fella drove towards me, I waved my hands in the air, flagging him down. And then, my confidence turned to heartbreak…he gave me a wave as if to say “G’day mate” and kept going on his way. I turned and watched as his car disappeared south into the distance.

“Are you serious?” I thought to myself. Apparently so.

The good news was that my luck was about to change, just a little later than I expected. And that came in the form of the field my Dad was driving towards happened to be closed. Which meant that within ten minutes Dad was heading back toward my direction, and this time he actually stopped.

“What happened to you?!” he said, as he noticed the blood all over my clothes, arms and face.

My reply was about as extended as I could make it considering I was so over the past two hour run “Stacked it. Tried to get you to stop before, cheers for that.”

“Oh I thought you were just waving, I didn’t see the blood”.

I didn’t really mind about too much else at that point, I was just happy to be in a vehicle heading home as my hands were still throbbing in pain, and I was keen to start digging the gravel out of them. We drove up the road and I was home 10 minutes later. Ironically, all of this happened on Father’s Day.

So there you have the four times I’ve hit the deck while running. And considering I’m not planning on stopping running anytime soon, I’m sure I’ll have more to come. In fact, I can almost guarantee the next one will be before Lady Gaga finally releases a decent song.

 

The aftermath of the faceplant...and I wondered why no one would pick me up!

 

I know how ya feel buddy

 

Steven Bradbury and his Olympic Gold medal thinks people falling over is awesome

 

 

Feeling like a fish of water

Last weekend I watched a sweet two hour highlights package of this year’s Ironman World Championships, which are held on Hawaii’s big island each year.

Unless you are lucky enough to be Robert Downey Junior, to be deemed an “Ironman”, you must complete an Ironman distance triathlon, consisting of a 3.8km swim, 160km ride and 42.2km run in that order, in the 17 hour cut off time. Watching these elite triathletes swim, bike and run around Kona all day once again made me realise how much I want to achieve this feat before I die, and got me pumped.

With that being said, I’m very easily influenced though. I also saw an ad for the McRib being back for a limited time, and within 48 hours I found myself ordering one from the drive thru (that's no joke!), despite not having McDonalds for well over half a year. Ok so that was a flash in the pan, and I could have done without the McRib, but the Ironman thing is a goal I’ve always kept at the back of my mind, never really acting on it (I’ve been told it’s a little harder than eating a McRib though). I’m not exactly planning on acting on it anytime soon, but it got me thinking about just how little experience I have swimming (and cycling to a lesser extent) and maybe I should vary my training a little bit. I mean, if you were to throw me on the starting line of an Ironman triathlon, first of all, I’d thank you kindly for paying my ~$800 entry fee, but I’d also start thinking of what I’d be capable of...

42.2km run…My strongest suit-I’ve run plenty of these, both in training and in actual races, and although my legs would be totally wrecked after hours of swimming and biking, I’d be confident I could do this.

180km ride…like Oprah with salads, I’m not massive on cycling, and only put in a few token rides a year. The longest ride I’ve done is around the 100km mark, which isn’t very impressive at all (well maybe to Oprah, speaking of her), but no matter how long it took, I’m confident I could get through 180km of cycling.

3.8km swim…nope. If I was standing at the side of a lake or an ocean and you told me to swim 3.8kms, I would politely tell you where to go. I’m just not sure I would be able to sustain a continuous swim over that distance, and if I could, I'd be close to that 17 hour mark on the swim alone!

Sure I can swim-I’m a competent swimmer and love a good dip in the pool or to go for a surf. But endurance swimming is not my thing. Hell the last time I swam in the lanes properly more than two years ago (probably the last time I had a real “I want to be a triathlete” urge), I could barely string together 100 metres without needing a breather.

So, after pushing out a 26km and a 28km run within four days of each other this week, this morning I thought I’d ease up on the running for a couple of extra days and take a turn in 25 metre lap pool at the local YMCA.

Just like a few years ago, I didn’t string more than 100 metres together without pausing for bit, and ironically felt like a fish out of water for the whole time. In between rubbing my stinging, goggle-less chlorine-filled eyes and getting chatted up by a male lifesaver mid-swim, I managed to stay in the pool and get through 30 laps, or 750 metres total. Nothing impressive (and even less impressive considering how long it took). Not exactly an Ironman effort (ok, far far far from an Ironman effort), but you gotta start somewhere right? And considering there are plenty of shorter distance triathlons waiting to be struggled through, I think it’s time to promote the triathlon thoughts from the back of my mind to a little further forward, and at the very least, set my sights on a sprint  distance or Olympic distance triathlon next year.

 

I'm guessing this is about how adorable experienced I looked while in the pool this morning

Of highways and wearing pants

Running on the shoulder of a busy highway is kind of like wearing pants.

Sometimes you are obliged to do it, even though the alternative seems so much better. I try to avoid both at any cost if possible. Instead of having “no pants Fridays” like a lot of workplaces do these days (or was that casual Fridays? I can’t remember, I only lasted til Friday at my last job for some reason) I have been unsuccessfully trying to incorporate no pants month into my apartment. Not only because my girlfriend is a smoke show, but because then it’d be like Friday every single day of the month!

This morning I nearly had to bite the bullet and just do it (run on the highway that is, I haven’t worn pants since I got home). Last night I decided I would make todays run from Goderich to Clinton, and snagged a lift as Michelle drove to work this morning. Along the highway, the two towns are about 19kms away. That’s a decent run in itself, but choosing the direct route I was not only afraid of getting hit by a truck full of pigs or cement or something I was also afraid of falling asleep due to monotony (which is not a good thing to do in zero degree temperatures on the side of a boring highway).

I’ve always had a hate-hate relationship with highways, ever since spending days and days on the never-ending Hume Highway (the dirty dirty Hume if you will). Sometimes there’s great views, or a reason to run along a highway from time to time for sure, but with a countless line of cars whizzing by your ear as you try and have a nice run is a buzzkill, and I try to avoid them at all costs. I’d rather be out in the bush, or along the beach, or rural roads, with as little distraction as possible-running is meant to be fun after all. I’m a fan of the saying “it’s my way or the highway”, not because I’m some stubborn bad-ass or anything (well I’m that too), just because highways suck!

I found an alternative, if only I was willing to up my run distance from 19km to 28km. Deal! Instead of following the direct and busy highway heading southeast the whole time, I could stay on the back roads. In these rural farmland parts of south western Ontario, the vast majority of roads are in a grid, either heading north-south, or east-west (more or less). The roads intersect each other at exactly every 1.25 miles. When referring to where someone lives, let’s say, Billy, it’s normal for you to hear “Billy’s house is on the next mile-and-a-quarter”. Or “go for two mile-and-a-quarters and turn left and you’ll get to Billys”. Normal that is, unless Billy doesn’t actually live there…then you’ve been led on a wild goose chase and your friends are jerks for giving you false information. It works out nicely doing the maths, because 1.25 miles is bang on 2kms, so doing a loop of a country block will net you an 8km run. Going an extra mile-and-a-quarter up before looping, will be a 12km run. Nice for maths, but not nice for mental stimulation.

Anyway, the main highway from Goderich to Clinton is one of those few roads that buck the trend and slices its own unique diagonal path right through the boring grid of rural roads. This meant that if I was to avoid the highway, yet travel in its south-easterly direction, my path would be south for 1.25 miles, then east for 1.25 miles, then south for 1.25 miles, then east for 1.25 miles, etc etc. all the way home, which in itself is a little bit boring…but at least I was less likely to end up as roadkill, and if I was it would be from a tractor or Combine, rather than a truck, which would be a cooler engraving on my epitaph.

While in the freezing cold at 8am this morning, I might have temporarily thought differently, but now, sitting in the comfort of my pantless home, it was definitely worth adding 9km to my morning run.

 

 

My run this morning, showing the lengths I'll go to avoid the highway

Not sure what the 1% of highways I like is yet, but I'm a benefit-of-the-doubt kinda guy

 

Directions I wrote out for the run in case I got lost...probably could have done without them and just got clued on to the pattern

The grid-like roads of Huron County. What does this mean for runners? BOOORRRRIINNNGG!!!

 

Back home to pantsless Tuesday!!!