My arch rival

Though the pleasures and rewards of running are many and varied, I have to admit that my greatest pleasure used to be beating this one particular girl. She's always at the same races as me and I used to beat her all the time. Lately however she is pulling away from me, actually her performances are constant; I am falling back. I have my excuses lined up: she's four years younger than I am, she didn't have two years of trying to conceive and then a pregnancy and then a C-section, she trains harder, more consistently and more intelligently than I do. Regardless, there are huge implications if I can no longer beat her: it means that my fastest times are behind me which means that I can no longer achieve my fundamental goal as a runner. Because, you see, that girl is me... four years ago. In 2006/2007, I set personal bests in every distance from 5 km to the marathon. Those performances were deeply satisfying to me because ultimately I run to see how fast I can drive my body to go and it was a thrill to be along for the ride as my body went faster than ever before.

Fast forward four years. My training times are slower. My races are slower. I am still riding the post-pardum excuse but after this spring season I no longer think that excuse will be valid. I might have to face the fact that at 35, I may never be as fast as I was. As an aside, I don't think it is because I am 35, I think under the right circumstances runners can continue to improve well into their forties and even fifties if they have started running later in life. In my case though, I have 20 years of pounding on my legs and my current personal bests were achieved with arduous training and laser-like focus. I don't forsee having the time nor perhaps the drive to train even harder than I did in 2006/07 to reap the benefit of new personal bests.

Which leaves me wondering, if my biggest motivator for training and racing is no longer viable, why run? I can think of tons of reasons from the vain: stay thin(ish), to the more profound: running is my identity and my community, to the obvious: I just really, really love it. But I have to admit, without being able to beat myself, it feels like something is missing. One souvenir I really wanted to take home with me after this year in Italy was a personal best run on Italian soil (well I am definitely going to run a personal best over 12.3 kilometers next week-end :) - but I wanted a PB in one of the standard distances).

My goal race, a half marathon on a very fast course, is in seven weeks. This will probably be my best chance to beat my current personal best before I return to work. In a sense this race will define my running from now on. Will I still be striving to run faster than I ever have before or will I be seeking other, more subtle rewards?

Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

25 km today and 111.15 km for the week. Oufa. This week was a bit of a gamble. I took a chance in increasing my mileage by far more than the standard 5% per week and, riskier, increased my quality mileage at the same time (9.2 km of aerobic intervals, 10 km of lactate threshold). I feel tired but not injured or over-trained so I think/hope the gamble paid off. However I think my original plan of going up to 115 km for next week is too much of a gamble and will instead back off before building up again. 7 weeks to the goal race.

When does mileage become junk mileage?

I'm tired. Very, very tired. The problem with goals is that it is one thing to plan a progression of mileage: 110 km, 115 km, 90 km weeks but quite another to carry it out. I have run 52.6 km this week and so have 57.4 more km to go. I do believe in the importance of volume for getting into shape but I don't believe in running junk miles. When does mileage become junk mileage? I felt like I was running junk mileage today because my legs were heavy, tired and generally I did not feel like I was running a recovery run. On the other hand I really do think I need a couple of weeks over 100 km to get where I need to be. I have two work-outs (6 X 1 km and 8 X 400m) and a long run to do this week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get my legs back for them.

Daily Double

I did something I haven't done in awhile, I ran twice. Nothing makes me feel more motivated than running twice in one day, plus it's a great way to sneak in some more miles towards the weekly goal. I did 6.4 km easy this morning followed by 15.5 tonight which included a 10 km tempo in 39:03. This means I only have 71.1 km to go this week. With a 25 km long run and one day off, I only have to average 15.4 km on the other 3 days. Totally doable!

110 kilometer week

A funny thing happened while racing the past three week-ends in a row. I got out of shape. I think. The problem is that I tapered for all three races. The two xc races were important for my club so I tapered for those and the half marathon was important to me so I tapered for that and the end result was 3.5 weeks of reduced volume, quality and long runs. Now I find myself 8 weeks away from my most important goal race for the spring/summer, the local half-marathon, and I am not quite where I need to be fitness wise. I also have no plan. I have been essentially deciding what to do on a day by day basis with the general guidelines of getting one lactate threshold (tempo run/intervals) and one VO2 max session in per week and running at least 80 km. This has to change, I need to plan the next 8 weeks including what work-outs I will do, how long my long runs will be and what my mileage pattern will look like. While I am working on that, I have set the (somewhat arbitrary) goal of running 110 km this week with a long run of 25 km. That would have been an easy week back when I was marathon training. These days it constitutes a challenge. In fact it will be my biggest week since before I was pregnant. If I want to take one day off (and I do) this means averaging 17 km for 5 days plus my long run. Today's 17 km run has already been put to bed. 93 km to go...

New style of work-out

The runners I have met here seem to incorporate, as a staple in their training program, a type of work-out I have never done before and it is really growing on me. My training week typically consists of 1 session of aerobic intervals, 1 session of threshold intervals or a tempo run, 1 long run and then runs to fill in whatever my mileage goal is for the week. Pretty standard. My running companions here have added a twist to the tempo run. First, they run 8 km slightly slower than 1/2 marathon pace (only a couple of seconds slower) then without stopping, they run 2-3 more km as fast as possible. I LOVE it! First, it keeps my tempo run honest as normally I tend to run too fast during my tempo runs and then am burnt for either my long run or aerobic intervals. Second, it teaches the legs to turn-over quickly when they are already tired i.e. exactly what one needs at the end of a race. I will be incorporating this into my training plan from now on.

Baby Jogging

Let me provide a bit of background to this post by stating outright that I ran throughout my entire pregnancy. I'm not talking a little jog here and there... I'm talking I racked up over 1500 km during my pregnancy, over 3000 km if we include cross-training. For the first five months it was enjoyable if slightly slower than my pre-pregnancy running, months six, seven and eight were noticeably slower yet still enjoyable, months nine and ten consisted of ten minute miles, occasional stops en-route for orange juice (and in one desperate incident a doughnut), they were enjoyable but definitely hard work. Yesterday baby & I went for our first run together with her outside the womb (she is now almost 7 months old). Hmmm... I am honestly not sure what is more taxing, running while heavily pregnant or pushing the baby jogger. It is hard, hard work! College physics is a distant memory for me but somehow I thought that fact that I was pushing the weight on wheels would make baby's 7 kg plus the 10 (?) kg of the jogger negligible. So not the case! I would say the baby jogger adds 10-15 seconds per km. It also definitely changes my already poor form for the worse. Perhaps I just need to adjust. Perhaps I can parlay this into an opportunity to work on strengthening and posture and both are sorely in need of work. (As an aside, I had secretly hoped that as baby gained weight my biceps and triceps would grow in proportion to her gain so that a) she would not feel heavier to me and b) I would actually get stronger - ha! how naive). But I do wonder if this baby jogging thing is an effective training mechanism for my primary goal which is, of course, to run fast!

The good news and most important aspect is that baby really enjoyed it. She slept through some of it and commented through the rest "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba".

What it was going to be

This was going to be a blog about running and keeping fit during pregnancy. Everyday for nine months I intended to start it. Now my baby is almost 7 months old. Then it was going to be a blog about moving overseas and adjusting to life as a new mom in a foreign country where I don't speak the language and know absolutely nobody. Now we have lived here for almost six months, I am moderately capable in the language (Italian) and I am fortunate to have made many acquaintances in both the running and mommy world.

So now it is just a blog... in which I will mostly ramble about training & racing for long distance running but also share my experiences and probably naive observations about being a Canadian living in Italy. No doubt the baby love of my life will receive frequent mention.