Mind, Motion & Matter

Running, Essentially . . .

Category Archives: Exercise


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New York City Marathon, A Shot of Adrenalin

Yesterday I enjoyed a longish, leisurely 14.5 mile run on a favourite route. I don’t often run it however as the group I usually connect are oriented to a different part of the city. All the photos from my run were taken with my Blackberry.

Palace Pier bridge

Humber river bridge near Palace Pier

Running west along the lakeshore, past the Boulevard Club, Marilyn Bell Park, the Argonaut Rowing Club and along the Sunnyside beach boardwalk over the Palace Pier bridge and through what I refer to as the Humber river spit.

My favourite view of Lake Ontario

Favourite view of Lake Ontario

When I get to this spit, I go clockwise once and then counter clockwise for a scenic two-mile section.  On the southern shore there comes a point at which you cannot see a single building.  I love that!

Favourite view of Toronto skyline

Favourite view of Toronto skyline

Regular enjoyment of the most scenic parts of urban Toronto is one of the pleasures of running.  All the better when done in the early morning. The final five miles loop back through the Humber River butterfly garden and through the southeast corner of High Park.  It always feels much easier than any route that goes north as it is fairly flat.

Humber river

View at my Humber spit turnaround point

While crossing the Humber River bridge at Palace Pier the image of marathoners crossing the Verrazano bridge during the NYC marathon flashed through my mind.  I felt a surge of adrenalin.  Yes, I am training for the NYC marathon.

Later in the day I received an email from the NYC marathon telling me that the deadline for choosing transportation to the start line is July31st.  Yikes . . . such is the way when you run the mother of mega-city-marathons and I’m already too late for the bus option which loads a block away from my hotel.  So I chose to travel to the start on the 6:15 a.m. Staten Island ferry, followed by a bus to the start. Marathon morning anxiety begins to kick in and I ask myself, though I feel confident I know the answer, is this marathon worth the logistical hassles?

For past marathons and Around the Bay 30K I have printed out tiled route maps as part of my visualization process.  I think its time to print out the large map of the NYC course to be hung in a prominent location. Yesterday I jotted down a 17 week training plan.  The peak training weeks will be the last week of September and the first week of October.  If all goes well, I hope to hit 80 miles or more for those weeks.

A few years ago I would have aspired to place in the top three for my age category of 55-59 however, I’ve had a hard time keeping focused on intensifying my training lately and I think my goal will be to better my 3:42 time at the Sacramento Marathon.  This time was run on a net downhill course and New York is not a fast course so, that in itself will be a challenge.

But I’m feeling fitter with consistent mileage since our vacation and last week I started weight training again, and it feels fantastic.  I’ve done upper body weights for most of the past 30 years and lower body weights for the past decade. My recent lapse of a couple of months from this routine was unusual.  Partly to blame was a vague plan of replacing some of the weight work with plyometrics and circuit training, a plan which never took shape.

I’ve done four sessions of the anatomical adaptation phase for weight training as described in my post:  Weight Training, Love It or Lose It and I’m looking forward to the maximum strength phase when I get to bulk up a bit.  The goal of the lower body weight training is to maximize the the musculoskeletal system in preparation for the heavy mileage that will come later on.  While I won’t be trying to log the 100 mile weeks I once did, the time has come come to run, run, run as much as I can!


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Ed Whitlock’s Advice: “Run as much as you can!”

Recently, I was reminded of the virtues of simplicity while weight training at the local gym.  A group of women and one man were involved in what appeared to be resistance training on a small 15- laps-to-the-mile track that circles the weight training area.  Some were hunched forward pushing 25 pound circular barbell weights, made slide-able  by a towel underneath in an inverted “V” posture that seemed to lend itself to back strain.  Another participant was pulling a couple of these same weights  with a makeshift rope and belt combination attached to her waist.  My impression was that this complicated endeavor had something to do with improving leg strength.

Toddler running

My three year old niece in the 20 meter dash for toddlers

While trying to figure out what they might be trying to accomplish, Ed Whitlock’s deceptively simple words popped into my head. “Run as much as you can!” is was what he told me when I asked him for advice. And then another thought, variety for its own sake, is the mother of ridiculous inventions.  One place where odd physical challenges are at home is the community picnic, summer camp or team building activities.  During this busy summer we’ve had our share of those, along with the hilarity and laughter while taking part.

At the Toronto Japanese Community Picnic, despite my protests, I found myself in a three-legged race with a brother whose strategy was to go out hard and if we get in a groove well great and if not . . .  Well, you get violently pulled to the ground by your out-of-synch bound legs, experience near concussion and scrape your face as I did and still come up laughing.  Of course this was recorded by numerous family members on video, footage I’ve yet to see.

Japanese getta race

A traditional competitve event at the picnic

My husband and I were the winners of the egg-on-your face award during the egg toss competition.  Couples toss an egg back and forth, at increasing distance until disqualified by a broken egg or a grassy landing.  My husband got egged by the splatter from the couple next to him and I got splattered by his inaccurate toss, causing great laughter. I have fond memories of summer picnics and park track and field days as they were the scene of my earliest running victories.  My memory is that my skinny  self never went down to defeat in the short dashes we took part in as kids.

My husband and I were at a camp in the Muskokas this weekend and took part in various team challenges which included a relay race where you had to spin around five times at the turnaround point, causing utter disorientation on the homestretch, a tug-of-war and wild multi-age soccer and volleyball games.  My two camp mornings started with a multi-age run, as all were invited to join me on my laps of the dirt track surrounding the playing field.  I ran 5 miles the first morning and 6 miles the next morning with companions dropping in and out.  The first part of my run involved going round to each cabin and bunkhouse to do wake-up calls at 7:15 a.m.  Never did my morning run feel quite so useful.

Tug-o-War

Our team wins the tug-o-war

The other team

But going back to Ed’s advice, he’s telling us to RUN not cross-train or push weights around on a track but run.  His regime of 2-3 hours a day of running gives testimony to the amazing capacity of the aerobic system to improve à la Arthur Lydiard.  If injuries limit how much you can run, that is the time to look for strength and flexibility training to increase your capacity to run.  In addition, “as much as YOU can” points to the wisdom of Matt Fitzgerald, author of Mind, Body, Running who advises that to improve as a runner the role of all the other stuff should be to strengthen your vulnerable spots, those the keep you from running “as much as you can”.

Apart from taking up an inordinate amount of space on a track meant for running or walking, the complicated weight pulling and pushing activity seems wildly off the mark in anyone’s total fitness package.  Grandmaster Ed’s advice points us all in the direction of better running but also vitality and quality of life. Advice well demonstrated by the natural instincts of toddlers as they enjoy their first years on their feet.


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If My Husband had a Tattoo

It might read “I ran a 2:36 marathon”.  I find his time impressive considering that while in his first year of university the three sports he chose for his mandatory physical education credit were fencing, bowling and swimming.  His discovery of long-distance running shortly after, was his first real foray into jockdom, if you can call it that.

Pat Deutscher, Patrick Deutscher

Finish Line Proof, Vancouver Marathon 1982

He ran his first marathon, the Ottawa marathon in 1977 in a time of 3:13.  His second was the Toronto marathon later that year where he qualified for Boston with a sub-three-hour effort, easily going under the qualifying mark of 3 hours.  At Boston on a very rainy day he ran 2:47 another P.B. despite making a pit stop in a restaurant where he ended up using the women’s washroom.  Porta potties were not as plentiful back in the day. His fourth consecutive P.B. was posted at a small marathon in England called the Milton Keynes marathon.  After that he took quite a few runs at going under 2:40 and then finally ran a 2:36 at Detroit his all-time P.B.

Pat Deutscher, Patrick Deutscher

Racing indoors at Hart House, U of T in the early eighties

Injuries, including knee problems, and fatherhood intervened and since then he has only run one marathon.  That was the Columbus marathon in 2000 to celebrate his 50th birthday in what for him was a hugely disappointing time of 3:14:03. I ran that same marathon and finished in 3:15:22.  It is a part of family lore that had the race been 800 meters longer, I would have passed him.  He was in fact, fitter than I was but went out too fast with a 1:30 half-marathon split and a very painful and plodding 1:44 second half. Had he paced himself more wisely, I think he would have gone under 3:10.

So that was yesteryear.  Yesterday my husband ran around Queen’s Park circle, a popular downtown running loop in Toronto and spotted a crew from the local news station.  He made a detour, worried that his knee doctor might spot him on TV, blatantly disobeying his orders to avoid any vigourous activity.  A blog or two ago, I inadvertently offended my husband by referring to the current state of his running as meager.  When he mentioned this to his boss, a long-time and often-injured runner himself, his boss laughed in commiseration. Well, at least my unintended insult had the positive effect of a lightening the workday with a laugh.

Yukon river run

Running together since 1985 (Yukon river run, June 2011)

As for lightening up, that is our current mantra as we are hoping and praying that physics will be on our side and a weight loss of 7-10 pounds might be all that is needed to  put his knee on the right track.

Incidentally, the 5 X 7 proof above was mailed to every finisher by Marathon Fotos, rubber-stamped lightly with the words, “PROOF ONLY Property of Marathon Fotos”.  Things change.


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Back to Basics, A Three Mile Run

Last night I went to bed at 8:30 p.m. feeling quite exhausted and with a bit of indigestion.  Although, a mere sliver of the discomfort that I felt the evening before while in the throes of food poisoning.  I have only myself to blame for the indigestion in being less prudent than one should be the day following illness.   For lunch I had a slice of pizza, an arugula, pear and walnut salad and vanilla ice cream.  I had intended to eat lightly and blandly but I was seduced by the lunch special at a new pizza cafe on Ossington avenue.

Because I run at least 40 miles a week and quite a bit more at times, I don’t have to be too careful about what I eat.  I also have a pretty sturdy stomach and a good appetite.  Was illness my payback for stealing the tidbit of prime rib my husband had sliced off for himself after dinner while cleaning up and before putting the roast in the fridge?  I think it is going to be a very long time before I feel in the mood to eat roast beef as it is high on the list of poisoned food culprits, along with the ham sandwich I bought at a tiny snack bar and a danish with a mushy cream cheese centre stored unrefrigerated. A bout of illness is a good motivator to think more seriously about diet.

I woke this morning at 5:30 a.m. and the first thing I said to my husband (even though I wasn’t sure he was awake) was, “Wanna run together?”  He is not a morning person so I won’t go into the details of his initial reaction but run we did. It has been quite awhile since we’ve been able to share a run with his limited routine due to his torn meniscus but three miles was the perfect distance for us both today.

It felt fantastic to get out and move!  It was better than a massage to get those joints and muscles in motion and the sensation of all that blood flow propelled me back to feeling a sense of well-being in short order.  Ah, running . . . how I love thee, let me count the ways.


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Rats ‘R’ Us – Running for Research

Yesterday was my first day off from running in 2011, which is a step towards getting faster.  Today, I ran just over two miles and this short run confirmed that taking yesterday off was a wise move.  My ligaments and muscles are definitely feeling the after-effects of the much-harder-than-usual workout with the U of T Masters group.  The day of rest, and the very easy day will ensure that my body will come back stronger, rather than accumulate stress and break down.

So the blogging versus running count for 2011 now stands at:

Blogging = 64 days (65 posts) Running = 67 days (67 runs)

And this day off came just in time to avoid (ever so slightly) comparisons with the overworked rats with heart troubles mentioned in an article in today’s New York Times called . . .

When Exercise is Too Much of a Good Thing.

Recently, researchers in Britain set out to study the heart health of a group of dauntingly fit older athletes. Uninterested in sluggards, the scientists recruited only men who had been part of a British national or Olympic team in distance running or rowing, as well as members of the extremely selective 100 Marathon club, which admits runners who, as you might have guessed, have completed at least a hundred marathons.

All of the men had trained and competed throughout their adult lives and continued to work out strenuously. Twelve were age 50 or older, with the oldest age 67; another 17 were relative striplings, ages 26 to 40. The scientists also gathered a group of 20 healthy men over 50, none of them endurance athletes, for comparison. The different groups underwent a new type of magnetic resonance imaging of their hearts that identifies very early signs of fibrosis, or scarring, within the heart muscle. Fibrosis, if it becomes severe, can lead to stiffening or thickening of portions of the heart, which can contribute to irregular heart function and, eventually, heart failure.

READ MORE . . .

The study was supposed to mimic marathon training as  “. . .  scientists prodded young, healthy male rats to run at an intense pace, day after day, for three months, which is the equivalent of about 10 years in human terms.”  I have questions, serious questions.  Were the rats given easy days?  Did they wear heart rate monitors and were they able to vary their pace from very easy to very hard with interval breaks between the hardest run sections?  Did they have sedentary time in front of computers, at work and at play?  Were they encouraged to stretch?  To me the training sounds more like a ten year tempo run.  The study is published in the journal, Circulation.

My husband had questions as well.  The one-hundred-marathon group is self-selected.  How many of the rats were truly talented distance-running rats?  Did they hold rat time trials to select their subjects?  If you are naturally a sprinter will it be damaging to your heart to try distance running?

Due to the short supply of female marathoners available for an equivalent longitudinal study, I’m waiting for science to call.


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Running at the YMCA on Family Day

In Ontario, the 3rd Monday in February is now a statutory holiday called Family Day.  My treadmill view at my local YMCA was the perfect vantage point to see the many families in our neighbourhood, taking advantage of a Family Day Activity event in the gym.  Staff and participants looked like they were having a ball.

February has been great for outdoor running however this morning was not.  Uncleared sidewalks and slush forced me to hit the treadmill for my 10 miler.  Once I settled in, it wasn’t SO  bad and I recognized that the quality of my run was the best of runs done over that past couple of weeks.  I did 45 minutes at marathon pace and tempo pace, which was fairly taxing but, hey, Boston 2012 beckons. Afterward, I did my weight routine and ab-tightening planks, and vowed to increase my twice a week planking to 5 times a week.

We celebrated Family Day by driving our son back to Kitchener-Waterloo and we enjoyed a dinner of leftovers while watching a BBC DVD of the Life Collection, narrated by David Attenborough.  Much of this show was about life and death races between hunter and prey.  Our son is nearly half way through his one-year internship at Research in Motion and has adjusted to his new life remarkably well.  We feel blessed to have him as our son.  Life is good.

Happy Family Day to all, in whatever shape, form or meaning that may have for you.

The future which we hold in trust for our own children will be shaped by our fairness to other people’s children. ~Marian Wright Edelman


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Geese, Galas & More

I found my 9.5 mile run with speedwork, done yesterday, tough. My legs have been feeling quite heavy lately, which may well be the effects of the Maximum Strength (MS) phase of weightlifting that I am going through. I’ve done squats with 110 pounds on the Smith machine and 210 pounds on the leg press machine. My goal is to squat about 1.2 times my weight and leg press, 2.3 times my weight of 110 pounds.

Walking on Water

I stopped during the run to watch geese on Lake Ontario walk gingerly over the ice, which due to the very temperature was covered with a thin layer of water. There was quite a bit of slipping on the part of the geese, which led my husband to remark that Toronto geese are urban critters, who have lost some of their natural coordination.

The day was full and with evening plans, a post about what is keeping both my husband and I very busy seemed appropriate.  This being,  People4Kids, a Gala to Benefit AIDS Orphans in Ethiopia. The idea to create this event came out of my experience with gala events, including the Grocery Foundation SuperGala at one time the biggest gala in Canada with over 4000 guests and over $3 million in funds raised.  The Beach Boys (or what is left of the Beach Boys, post-law suits) and Nelly Furtado were the headliners during my years of involvement.

Our gala is a baby Gala and a labour of love. We were motivated to get involved with People to People AID Organization Canada as one of my husband’s workmates, who came to Canada as a refugee from Ethiopia many years ago, works tirelessly as a Board member towards the sponsorship of greater numbers of orphans.

Subaru Concept Car

In the evening we were off to attend a preview of the Auto Show as special guests, along with the 8,000 or more other special guests. This is an educated estimate as the SuperGala took place on one floor of the same venue and this crowd seemed at minimum, twice the size, using three times the area.

What a spectacle! The show is not about the legions of women wearing the most sparkling of dresses and the highest of heels, it’s about the cars, cars and more cars. The evening involves a lot of walking so by the end of it, many women were seen in stockinged feet, carrying their shoes.  One woman remarked to me, “You are doing well, you’ve still got your shoes on.”  I consider wearing heels over two inches to be something of an athletic accomplishment.  One of which I am not capable.  If those men who admire the high-heeled “look” knew what it feels like to wear high heels, I think their appreciation would be greatly diminished.

Car Painter

The event is sponsored by the Toronto Star. Throughout the Metro Toronto Convention Centre are drink and food stations. A few years ago some of the Japanese auto makers were serving sushi. The fare this year was fairly standard with one exception. Tucked away in a quieter corner, Rodney’s Oyster House was serving four different types of oysters. My dad has always loved oysters and as kids we used to have them with shoyu (Japanese soy sauce).

Thank you Rodney's Oyster House

Signs are that automakers are feeling optimistic about business and have done a big paradigm shift,  post-meltdown, adapting to the need and demand for high efficiency vehicles.  There was an area highlighting cars earning national kudos for efficiency.

Here is a photo of us in front of a sign at the Mini-Cooper display. The screen behind us was flashing various words and I was hoping for the word SPORTY.  However my eyes were closed for that one.  But at the moment the word INSPIRING makes me think of my husband, who has pushed himself very far outside his comfort zone to ask a lot of people to support the Gala with tremendous results. Well done my love!

Going the distance for the Gala!


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Runner’s World Rookie Marathon Training Plan

A young American woman, 22 years old is training for her first marathon in Italy.  She is using a plan which is very similar to what both my husband and I used to run our first marathons.  You can find the 16 week plan at Rookie Marathon Training Plan

My husband started running in his early twenties and ran his first marathon a few years later, using a Runner’s World, Three-Months to a Marathon plan.  I was in my mid-twenties and had been running a few weeks, when I decided to train for a marathon using the same plan which Runner’s World recycles yearly.  So I feel some nostalgia in reading about this woman’s ambition to run a marathon when she returns to the U.S.  She is calling it the SkinnyItaly Project. Go, go, young one, you CAN do it.  YES, you can.

I enjoyed reading about her reasons for running and her determination as shown below:

  • It’s FREE
  • Relieves Stress
  • Pushes your mental and physical strength
  • You can do it ANYWHERE
  • Again, it’s FREE
  • Achieve a lean, mean, STRONG physique

I’m going to be MADE. Into a Marathoner.  My coach will be my own stubbornness and muscle tension from my daily lifestyle in Italy.  Running a marathon has been on my BUCKET LIST (aka life goals), along with building orphanages in Uganda.

You can check out the full story of the SkinnyItaly project HERE.

I’m inspired by the marvelous energy and enthusiasm of the young.  It is easy as one ages to view youth as a phase we passed through and thought better of it.   I like to think that we can distill the essence of youth and reinvent ourselves as youth-full in spirit as we age, or at the very least, appreciate it vicariously.   Although, like George Sheehan I’ve often thought that running has been, and still is my fountain of youth.  Vigour is definitely a good foundation for optimism.

Dostoevsky said that “The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.”   However sobering this gloomy outlook  may be, know truly that it is never too late to start exercising regularly, or too early.


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Weight training questions? Talk to the Blog

My husband and I were discussing what stages of weight training each of us is in.  I am in the Maximum Transition (MT) phase and he is in the Maximum Strength (MS) phase.  He asked a few questions about how many repetitions he should be doing and how many weeks.  My answer; um, you could check my blog.  Said he, “So now you won’t talk to me, I have to talk to the blog?”.  I chortled but I think he was hoping for some sympathy.

There is a certain convenience in having some of my thoughts about training collected and recorded.  With 30 years of running experience, I get asked the same questions with some regularity.

A recent question in response to my post on weight training was a recommendation for a current book on the subject that is easily available.  I asked my weight training consultant, champion triathlete Beverley Coburn of Active Age Fitness for her thoughts.

Here they are:

“Really like the book, Encyclopedia of Muscle & Strength by Jim Stoppani (Human Kinetics). This book has everything in it for building programs for beginners up to bodybuilders. I especially like the details. Stoppani describes the muscles and exercises for each muscle group i.e. shoulders with isolation and compound exercises for the front, rear and medial deltoids – great for developing muscle balance. Another book that has great pics is Strength Training Anatomy by Frederic Delavier.

I’ve seen Strength Training Anatomy in bookstores for around $25. Encyclopedia of Muscle and Strength, I purchased on-line through Human Kinetics – possibly in bookstores too (somewhere around $25-$35).”

Would someone you love, like to receive this as a Valentine’s gift?


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Another Day, Another Run

February 2011 it turns out, will be a very social month for us, more so than the holiday season.  With an outing tonight and tomorrow, I decided to do a solo long run this morning to avoid a weekend long run.  For a moment, I considered doing my 14 miler on the treadmill, discouraged by the overcast sky but thought better of it.

Four miles into the run, I took part in an email exchange around a confusion about whether the racing, mentioned a few days ago, was happening today.  I suppose having a BlackBerry is a bit of consolation, a kind of companion when you are slogging it out in the winter with no company.  There are those days when it takes a lot of positive self-talk to get out there and train so if the promise of being able to check email every few miles makes it a bit easier, so be it.

I enjoyed the section in Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running where he describes his interview with Toshiko Seko one of Japan’s great marathon runners.  Murakami asks Seko if there are days when he doesn’t feel like running.  Seko looked at him with a you-must-be-joking expression and answers that of course, there are those days, every day in fact!  If one considers the difficulty of his training routine, it makes perfect sense.  As we say in the business, the man is a “machine”.

In truth, for those who run every day, however humble our goals, we rely on all manner of mental gymnastics to get out the door.  Discipline is a lot about becoming highly adept at finding the many reasons, why, why, why when so much of the mind and body says, no, no, no.  Anyhow, today was such a day but as usual I reminded myself of how great I feel after a long run and how much I like the results of being highly fit and running fast times.  Additionally, I remind myself of how much I dislike the results of less activity.  When I started running, I was very motivated by the benefit of stress release and used to visualize that I was leaving stress behind like a trail of soot on the road.

My route in a nutshell was west to High Park with a short loop there, then back east through the CNE grounds, past Ontario Place and over to Harbourfront, with a northwest beeline for home.

View From Ontario Place

There was a very pretty pink hue hovering on the horizon which made for a pleasant sight while running past Ontario Place. East of there is the Tip Top Tailor building.  I’ve run by the Tip Top Tailor building, now converted into lofts for decades, and often wondered about the interior. Today I’ll get the inside story, as that is where we are headed this evening.

I made a pit stop at Harbourfront Center and took a moment to enjoy a photography exhibit.  A photo by Jesse Boles which is part of an exhibit called Piles caught my eye.  The aesthetic is similar to art that I enjoyed in my younger days.  And then I hit the road again, face to face with a  very strong west wind.  This is the first year that I’ve had a vented face protector and it is a big improvement over the muffler style face warmers which can get iced up in super-cold temperatures.

Photograph by Jesse Boles

My final stop was the dry cleaners, from there jogging the final stretch home, cleaning in hand.  Finishing felt so good that I cheered out loud for myself!

As with the camping experience, food tastes better after a long run, so I eagerly dove right into breakfast by making my quickie version of Carrot Cake Oatmeal. If you haven’t tried it yet, you really must.  It is super-fine stuff.

Breakfast of Champions

Recipe: In large microwavable bowl combine 1 cup grated carrots, 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup oats (not quick cooking oats), 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, a dash of cinnamon, raisins (optional), dried cranberries (optional) and cook on high for 5 minutes. Stir. Add chopped pecans, maple syrup and milk or cream. Make sure the bowl you cook the oatmeal in is at least twice the volume of the ingredients as it will boil and bubble vigorously.

YOU MUST TRY THIS!

There was some leftover whipping cream in the fridge so I indulged, and used that instead of milk.  This is my third post about Carrot Cake Oatmeal, and I urge you to give it a try.  It’s a real winner and will add excitement to your breakfast table this winter.  And how virtuous one feels starting the day with a cup of grated carrot in your cereal, especially after a hardy workout!

“Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.” Benjamin Franklin