Last week I started telling you a story about how I got into long-distance running. It's a pretty cool story. If you want to you can catch up here.
But I made one mistake in that story, that is, I misremembered an important detail that I only caught after I'd already published the post. I missed one whole ultra marathon. 🤦♀️ I guess it's fair that the details might start fading more than 12 years on, right?
So, let's go back. I'd completed my first ever ultra-marathon, a 100km team event in the astonishingly beautiful but incredibly difficult terrain of the Blue Mountains (west of Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia). It took more than one entire day and we walk through the whole night to get it done. Mad. 😄
But then, we long-distance, challenge-chasing humans are rather mad sometimes I think. 😅
Less than a month after completing this event, I flew to the U.S. to work at a summer camp. Sometime in the lead-up to that I had read the seminal book Born to Run which forever changed the way I viewed my feet, my body and this thing we call 'running'. 🏃♀️
The first full day of camp was my 28th birthday. I bought myself a pair of Vibram Five Fingers and very slowly and very deliberately I started to transition my feet from their 'overly protected, locked up in stiff shoe, orthotic wearing' ways to... well, something more like a healthy foot is supposed to be like: free, robust, strong. 👣
I did a lot of walking around the U.S. over that four month period, a lot of it in these Five Finger shoes. I did tiny bits of running as my feet got stronger and when I was in locations that allowed for it. I think that by the time I got back to Australia in October I was barely needing the "orthotics you'll need for the rest of your life" at all.
I settled in at home. I got a new job. I made new friends. 👫👭👬
Somewhere, somehow I got the idea that I could go back and do the same ultra-marathon again (this was the detail I'd misremembered in my last post; I skipped this ultra and went straight to the next one!) but this time as a team relay.
Myself and Tegyn (my buddy from the first ultra) plus one other guy we knew from our work as Outdoor Educators, would do the first "half" of the ultra (48km) and my new friends from work would do their very first ultra, and the second "half" (52km) of the same race.
To prepare my new ultra running friends for this adventure we did a 10km race together. I seem to remember they all did okay (even though it was a new distance for them and they were, understandly tired). But the main thing I remember is that, even though I'd been walking a lot and running some in these Five Finger shoes, after I did that 10km (on hard surfaces) my calves were like blocks of steel for three days afterwards. 😯
Whoops! Too much, too soon!
A couple of months later, after several more runs together, my new friends plus my work buddies got our butts up to the Blue Mountains again and did this, my second ultra.
I'd done precious little training with Tegyn or Jasper (my other work buddy) this time because 1. I figured they knew what they were doing, 2. I wanted to spend my time helping the newbies prepare, and 3. I was arrogant.
I thought, "Oh, it's only 48km! That's nothing compared to 100km."
Peeps! I can tell you: 48km is not nothing! 😂
Far out it hurt! But we did it.
I finished with a smile on my face (I was pretending 🤣 so that when we sent the newbies off into the night they would keep their positive vibe going as long as possible).
I could look up the official time but let's assume I remember correctly, hey? No idea what the final time was for the whole team's ultra effort. (I didn't care. We didn't come first, so it didn't matter. We cared whether we'd met the fundraising target, which we did). But for our half, Tegyn, Jasper and I completed our very hilly, very hard, very beautiful 48km in roughly 8 hours and 50 minutes.
Not to shabby at all. 🙌
More importantly, I did the whole lot in those Vibram Five Fingers and came away with only one blister, on one foot (last time both feet were covered in blisters, it was awful!) and I was able to run one week later (instead of a whole month later).
Amazing! 👏
So I was undertrained, yes. I learned some important lessons, yes. But when Tegyn suggested we step it up to a solo 100km it felt scary, and a stretch but not out of the question.
So I signed up for The North Face 100, another epically difficult Blue Mountains based 100km ultra. But this time, I was going alone. 🏃♀️
{Story to be continued next week. Now, onto marathon training for this week just passed!}
I had a quiet ish week. My numbers are all low. Yet, I haven't lost my mojo. I'm not injured, I'm just quietly listening to my body and trying to be kind to it.
First, steps:
I made it over 10,000 steps 3 days out of 7. Despite getting my period this week, I still managed to rack up over 5,000 steps on the other 4 days.
Not quite what I was hoping for but at least I got off the couch every time I felt okay/able.
Next, recorded walks:
On the same 3 days I felt like moving more, I recorded walks. On the Monday I did two separate walks to total 2.7km. On the Tuesday I did one 1.1km walk and on the Thursday I did one 3km walk. Total distance covered on deliberate walks, some of which were fast and others which were more like tapping/clearing/emotional processing walks was 6.9km.
Not great. But better than nothing. And, I am loving these tapping walks. So much. So much. That's a win all on its own.
Third, recorded runs:
There was only one. I did 3km on Tuesday mid morning. It took me 27 minutes through the bush with an average cadence of 170 steps per minute. Looking at the graph on Garmin, I started out faster (spm) but it dropped off over the length of the run. I'm still finding it hard to stay focused on the task at hand!
Notably, I did not run at parkrun.
I planned to. I went to parkrun. I was dressed to run. But my menstrual cramping (that's only usually bad for me for about half a day) happened to coincide with exactly the lead up to parkrun. So when everyone else was warming up and chatting and stretching, I... couldn't even stand up straight let alone 5km.
So I didn't. My mind didn't like it but my body was relieved. I'm grateful that Brad didn't push me to run or even expect me to run. He saw me doubled over after I got out of the car and agreed that is was silly of me to even try.
So I had an experience of parkrun I've never had before: through the fog of my pain, curled up on seat at a picnic table nursing a coffee, I watched several hundred runners and walkers mingle, line up, take off and then, 15 minutes later, slowly start to trickle back in. It was kind of cool really.
Finally, strength and conditioning exercises:
I weaved these in when I remembered them during the week. I'd take a screen break to get some (sun)light into my eyes and move my body a little and I'd sneak in a bear crawl, or some foot core moves, or some yoga.
And this morning, now that I'm feeling a little more human again, I recorded 18 minutes of "cardio" on my watch when I listened to music and did a range of exercises from my osteopath + some yoga and core + some stuff from the Born to Run 2 book.
It's wasn't the ideal week of training with an increase in mileage like my mind really would have liked. But I'm happy that, even with the challenges, I'm not at all interested in giving up on the marathon goal. It is possible the date might need to get pushed backwards but that doesn't bother me at all.
The whole reason I set this goal was to help me transistion to better running form (as I talked about in this post). So I'm doing all the right things, as far as I'm concerned. I'm weaving the exercises into my life and I'm getting better at remembering how to do them without needing to refer to the book.
More importantly, I'm weaving into the process the things I've been learning through my professional work about caring for the body, processing old trauma and regulating the nervous system. Not doing parkrun yesterday was a huge win and a turning point for me in taking really loving care of this precious body.
And if I turn my attention now to next week, I have every reason to be hopeful for a higher mileage week.
My plan is to weave back in more short (less than 30 minute), easy, high cadence runs whenever I feel good. (Meaning, if I don't feel like I can easily squeeze it in before breakfast, I'll look for a space during the day. Since I work from home this is entirely feasible for me to do anytime it's not blisteringly hot or raining sideways).
I also plan to keep playing with and practising the Born to Run 2 exercises plus my osteo exercises plus my favourite core maintenance and strength exercises. They're all easy to do almost any time of day, almost anywhere I want, as long as I'm not dead tired or have a really full belly!
And I'll keep walking. 10,000 steps a day each day next week would be rad. So that's the plan.
I hope you have a wonderful week of moving that precious body of yours. 🏃🤸♂️💃
{All photos were taken by me during this week of "training". Any confusion caused by the content and placement of said photos is entirely unintentional. 😉}
