I haven’t felt really perky this last week following my speed workout at U of T. And in the last leg of my 14.5 miles on Saturday I stumbled while running down Christie street and pitched forward completely sliding on my hands along the sidewalk. I was able to pick myself up and continue running but I had a bit of stiffness afterwards from the jolt. Then yesterday I did a bit of gardening which I find very hard on the lower back so this morning I was feeling quite stiff. When I hit the cold morning air, I decided to head straight for the treadmill at the YMCA where I did a very slow five miler.
My thoughts are coming together on the marathon I’m supposed to be training for. I’ve been doing a lot of research but have been unable to come up with a stand-in for Boston. I considered the London marathon but that sold out ages ago. I’m pumped for Boston 2012, and New York 2011 so I’m on the verge of deciding that I’ll start my training for the fall NOW and skip the spring marathon. The next 7 weeks are going to be crazy with gala work, so I won’t be in great shape this spring anyhow so fall marathon here I come.
A part of the decision to skip a spring marathon will be committing to regular speedwork with the Masters group at U of T. For the first time in my life, I’m finding it hard to increase my mileage and increase the quality of my workouts in tandem. With the longer build-up I can take my time to get some speed back and then start building my mileage. So there you have it, my short-term goal. The medium term goal will be to run some shorter distance races once I get a bit of speed back. If things go well, maybe I’ll even do some outdoor track.
I attended a birthday celebration for Ed Whitlock held this afternoon.
Ed is most proud of the 2:54 marathon her ran at age 73. His all-time personal record (PR) is 2:31:23 run at the relatively youthful age of 48. While in the 75-79 age group he has run a 3:04:54 marathon and a 39:25 10K. He is still the only 70 year old to have run under 3 hours for a marathon.
All were encouraged to share Ed anecdotes. I told the story about the pre-marathon lunch with Ed that I had blogged about earlier this week.
Ed's Birthday Bash
Yesterday I had a free cupcake at Starbuck’s to celebrate its 40th Anniversary. Today, I felt I could not say no to a piece of Ed’s 80th birthday cake. We went to a Scottish pub for dinner and my husband insisted that since he had given up alcohol for Lent I should use up my one night of the week for a drink and order a drink given the pub ambience. I’m going to have to rethink my lenten sacrifices as I don’t think I’m off to a good start here.
Earlier in the day I ran 14.5 miles but in spite of the good conditions never felt great on the run although I did feel good about the run afterward. Good things happening in the Gala department. My sister and her family are going to be Family-Patron Sponsors and Franklin Templeton is going to buy ten tickets and the Royal York is donating a certificate for a one-night stay to the Silent Auction. WooHoo!
But I am in Toronto and like everyone else in Toronto, waiting for spring or at least the promise of spring to arrive. My husband spotted these crocus making their way towards the sun on our front lawn.
Friends in the neighbourhood have chosen a fantastic time to be away and are enjoying the legendary Spanish sun. They sent photos of the Barcelona Marathon, likely taken while sipping wine or enjoying a latte. These friends have let us know that they have watched and admired us through the years, going out for our runs but have never felt compelled to run themselves.
Barcelona Marathon - Seen by Toronto Tourists (Rick M.)
One of our Saturday run regulars responded promptly to the regular Are-you-running? email with news that he is in California and had to apply a second coat of sunscreen.
Let’s be happy for all those Torontonians who are away in sunny places to enjoy a wonderful preview of spring and summer! And another cheer for runners who need wet sponges to cool off a bit.
We visited Spain a couple of years ago in late-May. Retiro Park in Madrid is a fabulous place to run. We were one block away and this park feels fairly safe for a lone female. Barcelona, especially the Gothic quarter is a place to take great care while walking or running. Barcelona was named the pickpocket capital of the world by Trip Advisor. Gaudi’s Guell Park seemed to be a favourite with runners and although it is quite a climb to get there I would definitely like to run there should I visit again.
Sponges for overheated runners. (Rick M.)
But back to reality, I left the house with a base layer of shorts and singlet should I decide to run indoors, under my lined wind pants and a Gore-Tex jacket. I ran past the YMCA and decided that the this was a day when the owners of Gore-Tex, waterproof pants would feel the purchase justified. I could not bear the thought of clingy wet, pants so did my short three miler on the treadmill. Oh mister sun, sun . . . and I promise to clean up the garden and front yard on the first sunny day.
This year, for Lent I am not going to give up anything completely. In regard to temptation, I sometimes find it easier to give something up altogether, rather than practice moderation. The last two years I have given up sweets and shopping and limited myself to two drinks, taken on one day of the week.
Part of the over-shopping seems to stem from being too busy. I would just buy stuff because I’d say to myself, if I don’t get it now, when I do need it I’ll have to spend more time looking for this. In the end, short-of-time-panic shopping seems to override taking inventory of what you do have, and “making do”. And during Lent it really hit home how much time one spends wandering in and out of stores, lured by the almighty ON SALE sign. A lot of time is saved when you cut shopping out of your life!
So here is my plan of moderation. Sweets, once a week. Alcohol, once a week. As for the shopping, I feel confident that I am now well grounded in a “making do” mentality that I don’t need to give up or moderate shopping as I’m definitely in a frugal state of mind.
My husband is giving up alcohol with an exception or two. Did you know that at times a dispensation for St. Patrick’s Day has been issued by the church for those who are abstaining from alcohol? So over the following weeks, life will be fairly simple although very busy up until May 3rd, the day of the People4Kids Gala.
I woke at 4:30 a.m. today, really excited about my new job and a bit anxious about all the work I have to do for my volunteer job, the Gala. For the past few days I have been suffering from a bit of dizziness and slight nausea, vertigo perhaps? So feeling a bit queasy after being up for awhile, I made my way back to bed. Fortunately, this was a day off from work and another hour or so of sleep seemed to improve the situation. I considered skipping my run but by mid-afternoon I felt well enough for a bit of a jog and I really needed the mental break from Gala work. As soon as I hit the sidewalk it was apparent that my legs were still feeling very heavy from Monday’s workout. There was some consolation in knowing that I could not have run more than three miles, even if I were feeling better. Well, tomorrow is another day.
As for the alcohol, our wonderful roommate Alain knows how to choose wine and is a chef,who leaves us notes telling us to “help ourselves” to wine and food. Lately these notes have been appearing more frequently, and very close to my laptop from which I blog, example below.
And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. – 1 Corinthians 9:25a NKJV
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.
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.
Hear what Joan Benoit Samuelson, two years my junior, has to say about growing up as a runner, as Title IX introduced in 1972 opened up a “myriad” of opportunities for women in the U.S. Joan Benoit is the winner of the first Olympic marathon for women held in Los Angeles in 1984.
Yes, our hometown hero Ed is 80 years old today. Holder of multiple world records, Ed’s best training advice is simple. He once told me, “Run as much as you can.” and the mileage he logged while in top form bears witness to this. His 2-3 hour daily runs in the Milton cemetery are much documented and would have put him at over 100 miles a week as an average. Read more about Ed and his accomplishments in this Running Times INTERVIEW.
Photo of Ed from Complete Running
I once interviewed Ed for a website and found myself quoted on the internet, and most recently in a book on masters runners called Fitter For Life by Ed Mayhew . Unfortunately, that interview is somewhere on the hard drive of an old computer. Those who have been following this blog will know this is the 3rd or 4th time that I’ve mentioned articles stored there. I’ve got that old computer set up on my dining room table but the operating system has disappeared so I may have to take it to a shop to access my mother lode of blog-worthy material.
In fall of 2005 I had Ed and Diane Palmason over for lunch the Friday before they were both to run the Toronto Waterfront marathon. At the age of 46, Diane Palmason set a Canadian age-group record of 2:46:21. When I commented to her that this time seemed even more remarkable given that she is the mother of four. Her reply was that it wasn’t so bad because some of her kids were teens at the time. She told me that she would get her miles in by running to and from work. So a working mother of four — a high bar — no?
Ed arrived for lunch with a bottle of red and a bottle of white wine, surprising both Diane and I, but we both had a glass. I told Ed that this was the first time in my life, I had ever had a drink before 5 p.m. Ed loves a good bottle of wine and he loves opera and has recommended a few choice performers, performances and vintages.
Diane Palmason to go after W65+ marathon mark on Toronto Waterfront this Sunday
TORONTO. 20 September 2005.
Diane Palmason has confirmed that she will be joining Ed Whitlock in this Sunday’s Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, and will be gunning for a new Canadian women’s 65+ marathon record on the flat, fast, Lakeshore course. The current mark is 3 hours 51 minutes 44 seconds.
Now a resident of Blaine, Washington, Palmason began her illustrious running career in 1976. She was one of the leading figures in Canadian marathoning, and in promoting women’s distance running in the first “running boom” of the 1980’s. Together with Kathleen Switzer, the first woman to complete the Boston Marathon, and Ken Parker of the Ottawa Lions, Palmason was instrumental in bringing the Avon Running Circuit for Women to Ottawa (then her hometown), with the Avon Women’s International Championship Marathon in 1981. Together, they were part of an international movement that culminated in the establishment of the women’s marathon in the Olympic Games, at Los Angeles in 1984.
Diane is currently holder of several Canadian Masters marathon records: 45+ (2:46:21) 55+ (3:14) and 60+ (3:16:29). In 2003, she also broke four World Records on the track—400m, 800m, 1500m, the mile, and set new Canadian marks for 100m, 200m and the marathon.
Diane will also be speaking at the Waterfront Marathon EXPO in the Metro Convention Centre, Exhibit Hall C, on Front Street, on Friday afternoon at 4:30pm. Her session is on “First Marathons”.
On the heels of this luncheon I ran 1:30:19 for the half-marathon, Diane ran 3:55:36.4 and Ed outpaced his Dutch rival Joop Ruter with a 3:02:37. This showdown was billed as the Battle of the Ageless Titans.
It wasn’t until I took a hot shower a couple of hours after my run this morning that I warmed up. Brrr . . . winter rain, nothing like it. Rainy weather in the transition months of March and November can make for some miserable runs.
So what to wear on days like this? There is a big difference between running more than an hour in this weather. After an hour or so water repellency and even waterproof Gore-Tex begins to break down. The temperature upon leaving home at 7 a.m. was +3C with a 9K southerly wind.
Gore-Tex membrane under an electron microscope. Size of islands about 10µm.
This was my cold rain gear of choice: ball cap, long-sleeve wicking top, Gore-Tex jacket, 3/4 capri tights under single-layer warm-pants, ankle socks and Gore-Tex mittens. This was comfortable enough for the first rainy hour but eventually my mitts were soaked and I had to head back into the south wind and my hands got so cold that I could barely manage to unzip my pocket to find my key.
As I write this my husband reminds me that I rushed into the bedroom this morning, waking him with the news, that “It’s a mess out there!” He says I’m losing my nerve for facing the elements. And, he’s probably right. I think my diminishing resolve is due in part to the absence of a solid spring running goal but I’m working on that. I sent an email to my Saturday run pals warning them that I may only run half of what I had planned. In the end, I ran 10 miles, four miles short of the pre-rain plan.
My reward for 10 miles in the rain was a bowl of Canadian Colada Oatmeal a tribute to my favourite Booster Juice smoothie, The Canadian Colada. I wonder if anyone has ever made oatmeal with coconut milk, pineapple bits and shredded coconut, topped with maple syrup, pecans and cow’s milk? It wasn’t bad but I think I have some work to do on the proportion of ingredients.
As for Booster Juice, three cheers and hip, hip, hooray and a carrot juice toast. Booster Juice has agreed to be one of the People4Kids gala sponsors!
Immigrant Song is my all-time fave for fast running and it is a 41 year old, way-back, play-back from 1970. I would never choose to listen to this as recreational background music but while running it somehow expresses the energy of adrenalin and heart-pumping, fast running and makes a workout seem easier.Two favourite upbeat, feel-good songs that help me get out the door are As by Stevie Wonder and Moonlight Kiss by Raul Malo.
The evening after finishing the California International Marathon last December my husband and I visited the new San Francisco location of the famous Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland. Raul Malo was performing that night, a show which I found moderately entertaining. However, a couple of days later when I downloaded some his music, I realized the degree to which my enjoyment had been moderated by my post-marathon fatigue. Post-Yoshi’s, I found myself bouncing off the walls to the effervescent and sunny beat of Raul Malo and his band.
Raul Malo has been to Toronto as I discovered. He has performed at Hugh’s Room, however without his whole ensemble. I hope to see Raul Malo again but not the evening after a marathon.
I celebrated my 40th birthday by running four marathons in a month. Why? I have always been into hero worship, particularly those who have survived great feats of endurance – Magellan, Shackleton and Dean Karnazes. Although I wish to follow Karnazes’ footsteps, I was not prepared to run 50 marathons in 50 days. However, the number four has been lucky for me and running four marathons in one month seemed like a worthy challenge. I even had a name for this endeavor – Four for Forty. The four marathons would be: the Toronto Waterfront Marathon, the Toronto Marathon, the Detroit Marathon and the Niagara Marathon.
Both marathons in Toronto were excellent training runs and I was able to train for upcoming marathons in conditions that could only occur during races – high traffic water and gel stations, and dealing with ‘runners’ high’ at the beginning of races.
Four For Forty!
At the Detroit Marathon race expo, I told Dick Beardsley about my Four for Forty challenge. Beardsley, along with running legend Alberto Salazar, participated in one of the greatest duels in marathon history – the 1982 Boston marathon – where they battled stride for stride for more than two hours with Salazar edging out at the end. This remarkable race was chronicled by John Brant’s book titled,Duel in the Sun. When I bought the book, Dick Beardsley personalized a message on the front cover. He called me “The Marathon Queen”. That short message brought a huge smile to my face!
The Detroit Marathon was the closest to the spirit of a 40th birthday celebration. The start was preceded by best wishes from celebrities including Haile Gebrsehassie. Gee, what a treat! Even the world record holder wanted to be partake in my birthday celebration! My finishing time in Detroit was a spiritual sign that I was meant to pursue this challenge – achieving my personal best marathon time of 4 hours and 40 minutes during my Four for Forty challenge!
The Niagara marathon had its own set of “memorable moments”. How can I forget getting a police escort to the start line and having cups of water handed to me by bikers in Halloween costumes! But I received a remarkable gift during my run from Buffalo to Niagara Falls – a consciousness that I was becoming more confident in myself to pursue ambitious challenges that I had always dreamed of.
With each step, I was starting to believe that I always had the resources – aptitude and attitude – to pursue ambitious dreams, whether they be summiting majestic peaks, paddling temperamental coastlines or cooking a home-cooked meal. What this Four for Forty challenge made me realized was that with proper planning and risk management, I could follow the footsteps of my heroes, or even create my own footsteps. I can now take this trust in myself and use it to pursue other ambitious dreams on my life’s must-do list. When I crossed the finish line in the Niagara marathon, I felt blessed as I had become one of the heroes I always wanted to emulate.
So what did I get for my 40th birthday? Not a Porsche or a surprise party, not even new athletic gear. I did get four marathon finisher’s medals, and a realization that I have become my own hero.
TORONTO. 20 September 2005.
Mind, Motion & Matter 