Finding balance

Life is tricky. When the alarm sounds at 04:30 on cold, dark winter’s mornings, the urge to silence it and roll back over, snuggling deeper into the covers, is strong. Sometimes too strong. Life is hectic. With sick children (and sick selves), moving cities, changing jobs, new people and new (and old) stresses, it’s not always easy to manage the balancing act required to get out on the road. Or get to the gym.

Five months ago, we made the move from Joburg to Cape Town, uprooting our little family for a change of scenery (and more importantly a change of pace). We sold and packed up our house, drove two cars, a cat and a dog to Cape Town (and flew a kid – ain’t nobody got strength for an 18-hour drive with a 2-year-old), and took the “plunge”. I was lucky, I didn’t have to change jobs, but transferred to our Cape Town office – same work, same team, different (better) view – but Becs had to move to a new school, with new colleagues and new kids. Not just a new school to her, a start-up school! And like a start-up business, start-up schools come with all kinds of teething problems. Things no-one has ever done before uncover glitches no-one has considered. Kids with needs that none of the other kids have unearth a whole host of new hoops to jump through. New schools also need to ensure growth, meaning aggressive student acquisition strategies, and that translates into a lot of hard work for teachers.

On top of all of that, there’s Fletcher. I mean, he’s a gem, but he hasn’t exactly smoothly transitioned to the ocean air. He’s missed school 7 times since April, been in hospital with pneumonia, visited countless GPs, the allergist and the paediatric pulmonologist. He’s on asthma meds, antihistamines and a nose-spray daily, and does his own nebuliser. The poor kid is like a 2-year-old pharmaceutical rep.

Since my last post, a lot has happened. In October 2017, I ran Jacaranda Marathon (and had an absolutely dismal time, but that is a story for another day). I followed that up with Sasolburg Marathon in February 2018, where I qualified for Two Oceans. At the end of March that year I ran my second Two Oceans Ultramarathon. Crossing the finish line at UCT on 31 March 2018, I knew my decision to enter Comrades had not been an entirely foolish one. And on 10 June 2018, I completed my first Comrades Marathon. It was amazing. What a rush. Enough of a rush that I entered again, for my back-to-back.

My comeback from the post-Comrades rest was dismal, I was plagued with injury and illness. I had 5 failed qualification attempts and in the middle of all that moved cities. After Two Oceans this year, I decided to abandon my back-to-back medal in favour of quality of life. (I also managed to give myself micro-tears in my left calf at Two Oceans, so probably all for the best really.)

Since then, I’ve struggled to strike the balance needed to manage running, a full-time job, two dogs, and being a mom and a wife. Life has just been too hectic. Let me rephrase that. I’ve prioritised other things over running, and rightly so. I’ve now entered the Chapman’s Peak Half in October, so I’m getting myself back into the swing of things and I’ve been amazed at the muscle memory that exists in my legs. My muscle memory is far better than my actual memory! I’m never going to break any land-speed records, but I’m beginning to find my balance again.

Remind me again why I run?

Since May, we’ve been diligently running with the club twice a week with a longer run most weekends. And what do I have to show for it? Sweet F-A! For the past few weeks my running experiences have been steadily declining. I default to my asthma pump at least once per run, I often find myself doubled over, retching with the dreaded ‘vomit-cough’ and all this so I can fail miserably at trying to keep up with Carmen, Chet and Gareth.

I consider turning back about a thousand times a minute and often end up having to cut short, or I get home so late I’m in a flat spin trying to get ready to leave for work on time (and generally failing). I find myself repeating the phrase, “you guys go on ahead, I’m fine really,” hundreds of times a week. I plead for them to leave me behind, because I hate the fact that I’m holding them back, but they don’t – they won’t. All this just leaves me feeling even worse about the whole situation.

Today was the rotten cherry atop this cake of crushed dreams and broken spirits. Less than 2kms into what was supposed to be an “easy 10km”, I was heaving and spluttering, praying for death (or at least a serious fall that would warrant turning back to the club). After begging Gareth and Carmen to carry on and just let me turn back on my own to no avail, I dragged my laboring lungs on for another 3kms before we decided to cut short and loop back to the club. On inspection of my Garmin Connect data, I discovered that I was actually quite close to death a few times on the run, most notably when my heart rate touched 211bpm. Yes folks, you read that right – 211bpm! Or as I like to call it 112% of my maximum heart rate. My average heart rate was a cool 87% of max and according to Garmin’s Aerobic Training Effect scale, the run was 5 out of 5, meaning I was “overreaching” . And all this for a 7km run at almost 7 minutes per kilometer. Great.

I was meant to start quality training with Jeanine next week, but after this morning, I’m so completely terrified of tying my laces ever again, that I’ve decided to take a few weeks “off” from chasing Carmen, Chet and Gareth, and run with the Fledgelings. I’ll build up to a nice slow Old Eds 21km in a month’s time and then reconsider my options. Hopefully by then, I’ll be stronger – mentally and physically.

Two steps forward…

Having officially gone back to running with the club last week I’m hoping to see steady progress away from “fat and slow” (my current state) towards “slightly less fat and a little faster”.  Last week started out exactly how my first journey to Two Oceans began, with a 4km easy, 4km fast – I think that’s what Oprah calls a “full circle moment” – although my 4km fast was probably the same pace as the 4km easy (which nearly killed me).

Running with Carmen and Chet is  a whole other story. They’re both naturally fitter and better-built for running than I am, so keeping up with them in the long-run is going to be challenging (actually, keeping up with them now is challenging). My only saving grace at the moment is Carmen’s fitness level, which – although probably still better than mine – is not up to her usual standard, and Chet’s commitment to “starting together and finishing together.” If I can manage to tie myself to their heels on Oceans I think we can pull a sub-6 out of the bag.

Carmen has run one Oceans before, back in 2013, and she finished in 06:42:01. At my first Oceans in 2015 I came in 06:24:33. Chet has never run the full, so we’re going to be a bus almost as experienced as our 2015 bus (where only one person had ever done Oceans before). Fortunately, we have our “get faster guru” Jeanine on stand-by to teach us her wise ways.

Races on the horizon are currently in flux, but I reckon if we can smash out a 21 early in the season, like September (or August if we can sneak it), we should be on-track for a good Tough One and maybe – just maybe – a sneaky Kaapsehoop in November. If we’re going to push for a sub-6, we need to shave our times down by quite a bit and that means stronger legs, more hill work and (dare I say it) probably running with Jeanine. Gods help us.

Here we are again

So, here we are again… It’s (almost) May and I’m about to be starting from (almost) scratch, gearing up to the Two Oceans next year. Sounds like a familiar story, doesn’t it? But, this year it’s a little different.

Firstly, I’m a somewhat more experienced runner than I was two years ago. I’ve got a few 21kms under my belt, I’ve completed a 32km, a marathon and the ultra. Secondly, I have a bit of muscle memory to fall back on – I’m not completely starting from scratch, even though I was off running for a few months. My legs know how to do this, my lungs (sort of) know how to do this, I know how to do this.

And finally, our D-minus running school has grown, developed and evolved. Jeanine is (as she always was) some sort of machine – smashing out a Bill Rowan Comrades last year and training hard to match that on the up run this year. I had a baby four months ago and am contending with extra baby weight, both Becs and I are dealing with sleep deprivation and we now have to juggle our schedules to make sure someone is home with the baby. Hilary is… welll who knows what Hilary is doing, but she hasn’t been running. Our group has also gained a few members – Carmen will be making her Two Oceans come back after a three year hiatus, Mickey will be doing her maiden fun run and Jeanine’s (much) better half, Des will also be doing the fun run (but she’s a fake fun runner because actually, she’s faster than Jeanine). Who knows, we might even convince Chet to join us.

This year’s build up started slowly, first with my challenge to myself to purposely move every day. This is going well so far. I’ve joined the gym and have been doing treadmill running to build up my fitness again. I’ve also been mixing it up, throwing in some swimming and weight / strength training to teach those muscles what they should be doing. All in all, it seems to be going quite well.

We’re targeting a 21km sometime in early October and then I’ll be looking to Tough One again in November (not sure yet, which of the others will join me for that). In the meantime, everyone will be back running with the club from May and hopefully that will pull us in the right direction. Onwards and upwards, as they say.

And, we’re back

After a long (and baby-bringing-into-the-world-induced) lay-off from running, I’m pleased to announce that I’m finally going to be getting back into the swing of things. If you’d like to know more about our journey to momhood, please check out our “other blog”, Amateur Mommies.

In short though, our son was born on 23 December 2016, and although I tried to keep up my running during most of my pregnancy, bronchitis and a huge tummy (and sometimes an over-paranoid Becs) kept me off the roads for large parts of my journey. But now that I’ve got the “all clear” from my midwife, it’s time to start easing back onto the roads and I figured the best way to do it would be with some sort of challenge.

With that in mind… Welcome to the 300 days of movement challenge. It’s pretty simple actually, the aim is to move in some way or another – either a run, a walk, a yoga / pilates / spinning session, a ride through the park, something – every day for the next 300 days. 300 days takes us to roughly the end of October, by which time I want to be in a good enough state to comfortably run a 21km (pretty much like my first year on the road, I guess, but this time I’m going to choose a nicer 21km than Komatsu!).

That’s the challenge, anyone who wants to join in, is more than welcome!

A slight change in plans…

I can still remember the first time I said it out loud, “I’m pregnant.” The words tasted strange – foreign – in my mouth, the sound was jarring and unnerving. But there it was, I was – am – pregnant. It’s certainly changed the way we approach running, in fact it changed the way we approach running months before it finally happened. After Two Oceans, I had big things planned. I was going to run all kinds of PBs – sub-60 10kms (OK, that one happened), sub-90 15kms, sub-2 hour 21kms, sub-3 hour 32kms… You name it, I was going to cane it. But things quickly changed.

In June last year we started thinking about a family, researching our options and making some haphazard plans. In October we began trying to conceive – at first trying artificial insemination before moving onto IVF in the new year.

At first, I didn’t think it would make that much difference to my life – the trying – but as it turns out, the shift in priorities led to a shift in how I thought about running too. Running went from being this thing that I wanted to do, to excel at, to being this thing that I sometimes did when, when I felt like it. We watched our running friends run (and seriously kick ass) at Comrades. We watched them train for months beforehand, but not once did I think I wish that could be me. I stopped thinking about running as something goal-focused, it became a pastime, something I did to keep fit and because I felt like it. It was great!

After the embryo implantation, I took two weeks completely off running (mostly because Becs wouldn’t let me run). After the blood test confirmed I was indeed pregnant and we’d seen the doctor to check everything was in order, I went back to running once or twice a week, and never pushing myself too much – in fact the furthest I’ve run since we found out we were pregnant is 8kms (with a 2km walk afterwards).

I’ll carry on running for as long as I can into my pregnancy, but I won’t kill myself with guilt if I don’t make a run and I’ll definitely go back to running after the baby’s born. But it remains to be seen whether I’ll ever run an ultra – or even a marathon – again.

Finally a sub-60 10km!

After years of pushing for it I’ve finally managed to nail a sub-60 minute 10km race. I’ve done it a few times in training, but never in a race, so never officially. My first 10km race was the first Nike Run Jozi, way back in 2011 and I went into that race wanting a sub-60, but only managed 1:01. Close, but no cigar (and no sub-60).

Having decided not to run any extreme distances in the near (or not-so-near) future, I figured I’d set my sights on running a bit quicker instead. With that in mind I entered the Sarens 10km, which is by no means a walk in the park as far as routes go. It comes with a couple of nice climbs, including a cumulative 105m elevation gain, which is (very kindly) saved up in large part for the last 4kms.

The first 5kms were great, we cruised along at an average 5:36/km (including a 6:30+ first kay to accommodate the walking start). During this we built up a nice cushion, after which we slowed down a bit, averaging about 5:45/km for the next 4kms or so. Then we got into the mineshaft that took us towards the finish, during which time we averaged a blistering 6:53/km (entirely thanks to me and my inability to force oxygen into my lungs).

Reaching the 9km mark with almost 55 minutes gone I knew we had to open the throttle to have any hope of getting in under an hour. Which is precisely what we did (although I nearly puked when we ran onto the field as  result of it). Our 5 minute flat 10th kilometre saved us, meaning we squeaked across the finish line in an official time of 0:59:55 (2 seconds slower than my watch time, but an official sub-60 nonetheless).

A huge thanks have to go to Chet for sticking with me through it all, even when I was having a little mock charge on the side of the field. Without me dragging her down she could probably have comfortably run a 55 minuter. But instead she stayed with me and really kept me going towards the end. And that, after all, is what running is all about – dragging each other, kicking and screaming (or limping and mock charging) over the line.

My next goal is a sub-90 minute 15km and ultimately a sub-2 hour 21km, but those are all longer term plans. Oh and I’d also like to run a slightly stronger sub-60 10km one of these days, maybe if I did some training… now that is a novel idea.

Elevation, pace and heart rate

Splits

Stats

Getting back into the stride

Can you believe it’s already the end of January? Sunday marks the last race we can run in our 2015 license numbers (not that I haven’t put my 2016 one on already) and time is marching ever forward, for many towards Two Oceans and Comrades qualifiers (although not for me). Slowly but surely we’ve been getting back into the stride, getting ourselves back on the roads with more regularity and making plans to get better, fitter and faster – well some of us have.

Hilary has been working herself to death and so has been absent from a number of runs, but she’s the first to tell you that she’s a social runner and so it doesn’t matter. Jeanine has been her usual, consistent, speedy self, but is always in the market for something that’s going to make her faster. And Becs and I have been significantly more consistent, I’ve even started running with the B School again, which is definitely a marked improvement on my “once a week run with the Fledgelings”.  I’ve even done a 21.1km race (although it was truly disgusting and officially my worst 21.1, but that’s enough about that), and our merry band of misfits has grown somewhat, with the addition of Saranne and Sam.

On Sunday we’re (almost) all running various distances at Johnson Crane. Becs is doing the 10km, Neen, Saranne, Sam and I are doing the 21.1. Neen will no doubt be looking to better her 21.1 PB, so probably aiming for a 1:50 or something equally unfathomable for me. Saranne will probably leave me for dead again, like she did at Dischem two weeks ago, and Sam… who knows, that chick is such a dark horse. I will miss Hilary on this run though as we ran it together last year and both smashed our 21km PBs, which by the way is slower than Jeanine’s worst 21. It’s all relative, right?

I’m also waiting for Coach Murray to unveil his big “come-back training programme” which is supposedly going to get me a sub-2 hour 21km. *holding thumbs* But we’ll see how that goes, I am a little afraid of Murray still…

A year in review

As the year winds down, work draws to a close and Vaalies head off in droves to inflict their presence on the residents of small coastal towns, it’s only natural to have a period of reflection on the year that was. I recently read an article that said you shouldn’t do year-end reviews, you should rather focus on the year ahead. I’ve decided to take a bit of a hybrid approach.

2015 was a year of firsts for many of us – first marathons, first ultra-marathons, first blue number (for Happy), first Comrades (not for me, but for Jeanine and the Rockets). 2015 was also a year of lasts – or it was for me – the last time I will ever make myself run 42kms around Midvaal, for example. After finishing my qualifier, I made a deal with myself that I would never run another marathon, unless it was worth it! And by “worth it” I mean, somewhere awesome that will distract me from what I’m putting my body through – somewhere like the Knysna Forest or Athens. I’m by no means saying I’ll never run another marathon, I just won’t do it around the Vaal, or around Edenvale, or Secunda (bleh!)

2015 was also a year of loss for many of us. My incredible grandmother passed away, and Jeanine, Candy and Jan lost an inspirational father and literally hundreds of people lost an incredible friend, compatriot and mentor. But at the same time, so many things were gained, I gained the most incredible wife anyone could ever hope for, Becs gained a tan on the third finger on her left hand, Jeanine gained a year of sobriety and is well on the way to year number 2. I also gained some of the greatest friends I could ever have hoped for. The Rockets are the most incredible bunch of women you could hope to meet. We have dragged each other up hills, down hills, and over finish lines all over this great land of ours. I love those chicks and thank the gods every day for bringing us all together (even though I can hardly keep up with them anymore). I’ve also lost and gained a fair amount of weight during the course of 2015, but that’s a story for another time.

Looking ahead to next year, I can’t say we have too many concrete running plans, beyond the fact that we’ve all entered the Dischem 21.1km in January and neither Becs nor I are really adequately prepared for it. We haven’t entered Two Oceans next year because we will be celebrating the nuptials of two of this earth’s most fantastic characters. As far as Comrades is concerned, our only plans are to travel down and support next year, which we unfortunately couldn’t do this year. What happens in between remains to be seen, all I know is that wherever we run, whoever we carry, or whoever carries us over the line, it will be part of a bigger adventure – the adventure of Life and I’m super amped for it!

Happy trails everyone, see you in 2016.

(P.S. I say “see you in 2016” because I’m unlikely to write anything further this year because I’ll be very busy being on holiday in a few hours.)

And, we’re back

I’ve just had a look at when I last posted and it was a loooong time ago. So, first of all, let me catch you up on what’s been going on:

1. 21-day no bread, no booze, no sugar detox thing went pretty well, all in all. We didn’t quite last 21 days on everything, but for the most part it went well and we definitely felt a difference.
2. The commitment to training 3 times a week went less well. I took a tumble on the road and did some damage to the soft tissue around my knee and took a few weeks off to recover. Becs’s ITB (this time in her left knee) is still not right (and not just because it’s her left), so she also took some time off. There were other factors as well – work was mad for both of us, Becs was asked to participate in SA Champs for Irish dancing, so she had to focus on that and we went away. The net result, very little running for the last 3 weeks.

With all that in mind, on Sunday I decided enough was enough and committed to getting back on the roads this week (by setting a 04:20 alarm labelled Get up FATTY!), which we duly did. Becs did a speed session at Jeppe with the Fledgelings and I ran with (lagged behind) the B-School, as they did Dean Street rectangles (Hilary slept in and Jeanine did a power session with Murray and Happy, who by the way were not very happy with her having missed long runs last weekend to go away – naughty Neeny, naughty!).

Knowing full well that I wouldn’t manage four repeats of Dean Street rectangles I went in with absolutely no disillusions, completely happy to just do two. I realised on the ‘warm-up’ just how unfit I really am at the moment, 90% of the time I was too out of breath to talk, which made me ever-more grateful for Taryn and Shan yacking away merrily. We got to the corner of Dean and Kings and I found Sam who I had arranged to run “nice and slowly” with this morning and we set off.

Half way up the first hill my lungs were starting their protest and by the time we rounded the corner at the top of the hill I was almost in full vomit-cough mode. I had a brief pause, took a few deep breaths and we set off again (although I had resolved to give myself a rest while everyone else did repeat two and I would join them for number three, which I duly did – yes Murray, I know, I’m lame and fat and lazy, get over it).

While waiting, I was joined by Pippa, who had overslept and decided to join us on Dean Street (high fives all round for that show of dedication), and when the others came down the hill on their second repeat, we all fell in line. We were completing repeat number two and heading down the hill, when Taryn suggested doing one more hill section (i.e. up Dean to Bowling) and then instead of turning right, turning left and going along Bowling and heading back to the club that way, instead of going up van Buuren. I’m really not a fan of that section of van Buuren so I was all for the change (even though it involved another hill repeat), so off we went.

And that’s where things went wrong. We headed down Bowling and when we got to the first four-way stop (which our brains told us was Kings road) we carried on straight, intending to turn down Florence and head back to the club. Only we’d started at Kings road, so the first four-way stop (you remember the one we went past?) was Florence road and by the time we realised our mistake we were nearing the bottom of Pine road. So instead of saving ourselves having to come up van Buuren, we ended up having to backtrack down van Buuren all the way back to Harper and the bridge and added ±2kms to our run.

So much for the shortcut. By the time we got back to the club I was about 1000˚C and totally buggered!

The plan at this stage is to run tomorrow and (possibly) Thursday. It depends how late tomorrow night’s work function finishes whether or not I’ll be up for an 11km tempo run on Thursday morning… my spider senses tell me I won’t. Maybe I’ll try and catch it up on Friday… although we’re going to Pippa for dinner on Thursday so the chances of that are pretty slim too. Dammit! So much for good intentions.