Saskatchewan Marathon: 10 K Race Results

I initially registered for the Half Marathon, but then decided to downgrade to the 10 km race given the bits of adversity I had to contend with in the past couple months.

 

SRRA Pasta Supper

The Day Before:  Attended the Marathon Expo at Prairieland Park. Ran some drills and a light 30 minute run with MJ. Napped. Went to the SRRA Pasta Supper at 5:00 and listened to talks from two Canadian Olympic Marathon runners. Soaked in Epson salts, and watched TV for the remainder of the evening. Ate more carbs in the form of bread and popcorn. Went to bed at 11:00. Very fitful sleep. Maybe the material from the documentary I was watching was giving me nightmares.

Wake up/Breakfast on Day of Race: Alarm set at 6:30 but was awake by 6:00. Breakfast was a banana, and orange chopped up in Greek yogurt with a scoop of Kaizen Protein powder, and one cup of decaf coffee. About 480 calories.

Ten kilometer race start time: 8:00 AM, arrived 20 minutes early. Thankful that I was walking distance to the event. Traffic access and parking was hell for those who drove there.

Weather Conditions: I thought they were perfect: only 11 degrees Celsius, cloudy and cool, no wind. There was a sprinkle of rain the previous evening that tamed down some of the dust. The humidity was ideal for my best conditions for breathing well.

Start Position: I chose the 1 hour  to 1:15 goal part of the pack.

Most Challenging Part(s) of the Race: The nagging fact in my head that I'm eight to twelve pounds over my ideal body weight. The only thing notable that was a challenge was dehydration after 7.5 km, but I did OK with managing it.

Things I’m most pleased about with my performance: I initially gave myself a goal pace of 7' 00" to 7' 30" /km to work around; I exceeded that. I didn't stop, nor did I walk at anytime throughout the course. This race was the best running performance I had since the year began. Neither the injured foot, nor twisted ribs, nor erratic heart rate, nor respiratory bugs, nor the recent food poisoning, managed to conquer me. My resilience prevailed, and after this, I feel even more driven to take on my full regimen of training for the Half Marathon of the River Run in July.

Final Results:

• Time:  1:07:55, last year I was  55:49
• Rank: 753rd (out of 1306 racers).
• Average Pace: 6'48"/km (honestly, better than I expected after doing so little training).
• Average Heart Rate: 168 BPM
• Place in Sex Division: 269th (out of 393 men racing).
• Place in Age Division:  54th (out of the 71 male runners in this race who were between 40-49 years old)

Post Race: Soaked in the tub, started blogging a bit of this, and pursued my rewards.

What I’ve Learned: The great exercise in patience in trying to heal.  Even the best have upsets when trying to reach goals, as in the case of last night's Olympian speakers.

My reward(s): Planning on checking out a Sunday matinee (Star Trek: Into Darkness) with a leisurely walk to the downtown ( to keep from stiffening up), dining on some spicy protein, grabbing a beer at Hudson's. Given that extra distance in walking to there and back in addition to what I ran, I can say that I did actually then do a half-marathon distance today.

Thankful for: A relatively flatter course compared to last year; exceeding my expectations, the ideal weather, the close starting point,

 

Decision Deadline, The Body Politic, New Wheels

It has been a very busy week, and I'm glad that it's over. I'm outside tonight, enjoying this magnificent full moon, having a midnight snack of some piquant leftover Moroccan beef tagine recipe I was experimenting with, and listening to the loud crowds exiting Prairieland Park from the Top of the Hops venue. I'm regretful that I couldn't go this year, and I was reminiscing about the past ones I went to with my cousins, whom I'm beginning to miss.

Sitting down to write this has been my only moment of leisure throughout this week. Today, I feel like I'm back to normal physically, but I claim this reluctantly, as not to jinx myself with some other impending upset. I felt and thought the same thing earlier last week, and on that same day of that conclusion I ended up acquiring and suffering perhaps the worst case of food poisoning I ever had in my life. It resulted in the most unwelcome way to have a ten pound drop in weight overnight (I'll spare the graphic details). I've been carless for a long while, and after running short of food and supplies; toting full backpack loads of groceries (up to an extra 20 kg in weight) on long bike trips was beginning to take a toll on my knees as well through that week, so that has been no help either. It has been so long since I've felt or functioned anywhere close to normal, I suppose I've become estranged for so long from what "normal" feels like. It goes without saying that given the circumstances, the commitment to training has faltered badly. I ran three times this week, and my heart rate and breathing were much better.

In a previous entry I gave myself until May 19th to decide as to whether or not to hold my race slot in the Saskatchewan Marathon. The torment I was feeling throughout that week was swaying me to consider the decline option, but ultimately I decided to hold on to it and participate. I definitely won't be breaking records: my goals are simply to start and finish the thing in one piece. To endure this 10 km race, in the current shape I'm in, I expect that I'd have to hold my pace between 7'00" and 7'30" per kilometer. That's somewhat abysmal in my mind, but pushing harder would only wreck me for the rest of the year. I wish my body could govern itself better than it seems to be doing now.

If the human body's functions were controlled by something analogous in terms of a political system it sure as hell would not be a democracy. The body isn't controlled by the some ruling majority of strong healthy organs and tissues that you do have functioning: rather it is controlled and corrupted by the few minor (or just one) tissue(s) that aren't working well. It's always being dictated and limited by the worst of what you have going on, like a banana republic dictatorship. If that isn't enough, there are always foreign terrorist sleeper cell networks . . . most of which are literally single cells, that are trying to take over, like cancer, bacteria, parasitic protozoa, fungi, yeast, viruses, and other such gollywobs that don't even weigh a single gram when numbered in the millions, waiting to strike and dominate when conditions are right. You can bring yourself to your best through training, but your bodily empire can still be conquered by an invasion of something as simple as flu or salmonella (what I suspect I was afflicted with previously).

I finally found a vehicle last Sunday. Its older than I wanted it to be, but it's within budget, has been well maintained, and of a reliable make and model. It has more power, and more luxury options, than my last one. It's a pimpin' machine (for me anyway); so far the best vehicle I've had yet. Its colour is a deeper, darker, more intense tone of red than that of my last car: somewhere between that of a sophisticated oxblood pottery glaze, and a sluttier-looking shade of cherry lipstick: not too low-key, and yet not too gaudy and ostentatious, just the right mixture of the sacred and profane . . . I like that! I wasn't able to get my hands on it until two days ago, and I'm still exploring the bells and whistles. It's good enough for me as one who is driving a car on a more and more infrequent basis.

Zen and Car Shopping

This morning is close to feeling frosty, but I still troubled myself to make time very early this morning to drink coffee on the deck. It's probably the only real moment of peace I'll be able to find today. Some co-workers lately have commented to me on how stressed I look. Sure, I have some weighty issues to contemplate, but it's mostly due to lack of sleep, because I am still having a challenge in being able to settle myself where I'm physically comfortably enough to be free of my remaining aches and pains. I notice how badly I've been dragging myself through the latter half of each day for the past week as a consequence of it.

I've healed up enough though, and now physically mobile enough where I can finally get on with wrapping up the sordid business of settling my insurance claim, so I can finally ditch my old wreck of a vehicle instead of still relying on it to get around. I'm grateful that I'm finally made it to a state where I can walk almost normally, and can endure a prolonged biking trip at least halfway through the city and back. I'll have to manage with doing more of both walking and cycling; since as of today, I'll be carless for an indefinite period of time.

Running, however, still has been too physically demanding and problematic. I still can't push my pace or breathing anywhere near to the intensity I used to do: not without risking more damage. The inner muscles surrounding my lower leg bones are super-tight; my tibia and fibula feel like they are encased in steel pipe. My chances for racing by month's end are looking really hopeless.

Along with that, I've been frustrated and disappointed with so many other things during this week. They range from car shopping still being a bothersome gong show, to discovering the deceptive means that our province's social services use to screw over care aide workers and those they serve, all with the attitude of: "you're just pawns in this game". It's an ongoing adventure in discovering how ignorant, corrupt, and stupid people are, and the lengths they'll go to try to shaft you. I don't mean to get preachy, but it's a good moment to reflect and examine some of the past-goings on, and to put them in a Zen context.

I think of the example of dealing with the matter of car shopping alone to illustrate this. I have been delaying car shopping for quite some time. Procrastination? Maybe, perhaps a little of that . . . but there was also a strong, nagging, instinct in me telling me that I wasn't ready for it yet. In Zen Buddhism, there is the teachings of the three unwholesome roots, also referred to as "the three poisons". They are: hatred, greed, and delusion. On a more primary level, they in turn are generally connected with ignorance, attachment, and avoidance, which are the components and sources of all suffering. In car shopping, while trying to heal myself, it's inevitable that I'd be confronting and clashing with those three elements within myself and in others. The (incomplete) breakdown is as thus, with crossovers and connections between each point:

• Hatred (Avoidance) - hating getting injury irritated by moving around, to appointments that could turn out to be just a pointless waste of time; more negativity and distrust of the sellers, frustrated by misrepresentation in the ads; frustrated by limited mobility; hating not having a work schedule that accommodates me to look at cars at the times when most are available for viewing; dealing with insurer and the idiot who rammed me; I dislike shopping most of the time to begin with, and it's now worsened by feeling pressured to do so out of necessity; ultimately wanting to avoid the feeling of being deceived and cheated; new debts, higher registrations fees, etc.
• Greed (Attachment) - Sellers assigning too much value to a high mileage/older car; me being strict and inflexible with a personal budget; me wanting to use time to rest rather than kick tires; wanting/liking a car and then finding out too late that it has been sold; feeling a lack of options, and forced to buy something out of some duress; buying more than I can afford in the long run.
• Delusion (Ignorance) - my impatience for wanting to heal faster, yet still forced to do things that are counterproductive to allow for it; seeing a person not acknowledging the flaws I detect when I examine a vehicle, and/or flat out trying to bullshit me about them; not having the right senses to detect the real performance of the car and poor/rash decision making (being on pain-killers); failing to ask the right questions/missing details; lacking a consumer confidence in making the right decision for myself; the clash between the reasoning about what is practical need, and what I find more sensually appealing; having too high a standard on things that matter less: having too low of a standard on things that matter more.

Along with healing to get better mobility, delaying (procrastinating) was one way to mentally detox, to clean some of these poisons out of the mind, if I really wanted to put a champion's effort into wisely buying a vehicle, but it's important to limit it before it turns into another form of avoidance.

So today, I face the reality of trying to crack open the trunk for the first time since the collision*, to clear out and salvage my vehicle's contents, and load my bike in there to permit myself a means to ride to the bank with my settlement afterward, and return home. My car served me well enough, but I'll be happy to finally rid myself of that little beast, and move onward. I have no special sentiments attached to it: no regrets, no tears. It just gave me lots of lessons (and repairs) to process for the time I had it.

Back to a more intensified effort toward walking, biking, and hopefully running, better . . . for a little while hopefully.

*- It doesn't matter if it can be shut again, since the car is heading to the scrap yard after I drop it off at the claims centre. Addendum: as expected, the damn trunk didn't close once I dropped it off there.

First Outdoor Run of Spring, Sports Psych Workshop

I cycled over 14 kilometers yesterday, and woke this morning without too much tension and cramping today. So, I gave myself permission to try running again. Today was the first run outside I had since I was injured.

Goals/Objectives:

1. To head out and return home without re-injuring myself
2. To at least break a good working sweat
3. Target: to make it to the Bessborough and back on the Meewasin Trail
4. To burn over 500 calories
5. To cover 5 km of distance, under 45 minutes (realistic given my degree of injury)
6. To keep my heart rate under 170 BPM
7. To reactivate my "muscle memory" in my legs after such a long lapse

Challenges/Discoveries:

I expected that walking was going to be more prevalent than running for today. What I discovered that was even more debilitated than my foot and leg was my breathing. I still have very under-trained lungs, that are filled with a winter's worth of stagnancy. My breathing was impaired even more due to the fact that there still is a high degree of tension in my shoulders, back, and ribs. It didn't take long to stress my heart enough to get up to 170 BPM. The reason to keep the rate below that level is to avoid the chance of serious lactic acid build up. which would consequently and adversely affect my calves and foot. This was a back-to-square-one feel out session; primarily to jar my legs and lungs back into regaining their memory for this sort of rigour.

Today's Results:

• Made it to the Bess and back; minimal aching, and most importantly, no limping
• 8'44"/km average pace
• Calories burned: 729
• Average heart rate: 154 BPM
• Time: 44:40

Future Goals/Decisions:

• To bring 5 km pace back to 30 minutes or less by May 19th
• To build up a range of 8 km or more of steady running by May 19th
• To set my operational maximum heart rate at 170 BPM by May 19th
• To regain medical clearance, or to avoid re-injury by May 19th
• If all these criteria are met by May 19th, I will retain my registration for my spot in the Saskatchewan Marathon

Thankful for:

• Finally having a beautiful sunny day to try all this out
• The inspiration I got from the duathelon I watched yesterday
• The valuable bits of info from the SRRA workshop
• Seeing the ladies on the trail wearing shorts, and Lulu Lemon athletic wear again. Who ever invented this stuff deserves to be awarded the Order of Canada medal

The SRRA Sports Psychology Workshop:

Yesterday's SRRA (Saskatoon Road Runners' Association) workshop was about sports psychology. Typically, I find the act of running more mental than physically: except for this year, now that I'm overcoming being injury stricken. It was important for me to attend it because it's impossible to reacquaint my body to the activity again without having a congruent mindset as well.

There was a review about goal-setting, cool. However, I listened a little more attentively to the process of guided imagery: using some sort of image or scene to help you focus. There was encouragement to allow ourselves to imagine becoming something fast and powerful during the process of running a race, like being an unstoppable train, or a cheetah perhaps. I tend to think of things of the natural world when I willingly bring to mind things that are the extremes of being fast, agile, and focused. My inspiration comes from the birds of prey, despite the fact that their movement doesn't even involve running.

Here's one ideal example of creative imagery. The Peregrine Falcon: nature's version of a heat-seeking missile. It's a very sleek and balanced looking bird. Air Forces of the world actually hire ornithologists to study the flight patterns of these creatures in depth with hopes to use the findings to improve aerial combat tactics. When I think about an animal that symbolizes fast, I'll opt for a falcon over fast terrestrial animals, like a horse or cheetah, every time.


However, more realistically, if there was an even more fitting bird-of-prey anima figure that actually did represent me as a runner now, it would probably be the Grey Owl, in both appearance and performance, compared to a falcon. It's the much more portly of the two species, much slower, with a huge fat fluffy grey head mounted on a stockier body. Not so intensely focused looking, like the falcon, but more inquisitive. It's more like nature's version of a stealth drone.

I'm hoping that my progress in going from owl to falcon won't take too long. May 19th is the date set to examine all this again, and to make that critical decision.

Back to Training, Alternative Garden Concepts

I'm outside on my deck this evening; happy to be able to enjoy some fresh air, warmth, and brightness, relaxing with a pot of Oolong tea.

Life is slowly coming back to normal. I'm feeling so relieved, so satisfied, and confident enough to say that spring didn't abandon us after all. There are still a few patches of snow around, but it is with great certainty that they'll disappear by this Saturday or Sunday. I worked four long days this week, and now I begin a three day weekend.

My weekend objectives are: to do some serious car shopping, finally begin some spring cleaning, and to get back into some strength and stretching exercises that build up the core and legs. The course of the past week has revealed to me just how inflexible I'm getting, so it should be neither a shock nor surprise that I'm becoming so prone to injury. Since it's the beginning of a brand new month, I started to schedule and execute my plan for cross-training. I'm ashamed to admit how weak and lacking in endurance I've become in general after this whole past ordeal. I'm left wondering if I should opt out of the race at the end of this month all together. I (re)started out on the first of this month, beginning to use walking poles around the Field House track, to pace my steps with a corrective posture, and to have something to support me on both sides rather than just one, to give me balanced movement. I achieved two kilometers until enough aching forced me to sit down. My other instruments of torture are: the yoga mat, the stability ball, my chin up bar, and a foam roller.

With the clean up plans, and the even brighter and sunnier weekend predicted ahead, my thoughts also turn to gardening, or rather just greenery in general. This long dreary winter has rendered me more appreciative of living plants. So, I've been daydreaming as I sit out here, giving thought as to how to completely transform my green space on the deck. That is: minimizing the footprint and waste of space on the floor plan, while maximizing the growing space off of it. I've been researching vertical gardening methods, and dreaming up of ideas for including planters along the deck railing, fence bars, and window sills,* and creating a rain water collector/reservoir and drip irrigation system, with a hydroponics system operated by a solar powered pump. It's rapidly turning into another one of those mad scientist thought experiments of mine. I'm imagining, given the shape of my building, that if all the exterior wall and balcony space was utilized like what I plan outside my own suite, the whole place would look like some sort of ziggurat, like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The between-the-ears concept is getting extreme, and because I'm becoming really curious, I'm also getting too hyper-analytical**. A small sample of the general questions I'm generating for myself, and flooding my own mind with, are things like:

• How much plant biomass could realistically be generated on an average deck space like mine? 
• How sustainable would this sort of system be?
• How much of my own food could I produce?
• Are there any real economic benefits and practicalities that would follow doing this? 
• How much initial cost and work will there be for the design?
• What am I limited to doing by the current condo board regulations?
• What materials do I already have that I can reuse/refurbish/convert?
• What structure and drainage issues could I potentially have?
• Is there anything about it which I could enhance and make marketable?*** 

Search Engine Key Words: Small space gardening, vertical gardening, balcony vegetables, hanging container gardening, urban garden space design, Alternative Gardening techniques, solar hydroponic systems, drip irrigation systems, low maintenance outdoor plants Western Canada, railing planters

Some Interesting Search Results: Straw Bale Gardening - Not really an option for a condo, or other small space dwellers, but still quite interesting enough to note. It's too bad square bales are fast becoming obsolete, as farming around here gets more large scale and industrialized.

Here is a link for a cool idea for a solar thermal hydroponic system, using pop bottles.

All this was at least a nice little distraction away from reviewing car specs anyway.

*- I estimate that I'd have an extra three to four more times more growing space than if I had just used the floor space on the deck alone.
**- This is why vehicle shopping is such a pain in the ass for me.
***- And no . . . I don't mean starting up a cannabis grow-op. A guy who can't even play the Facebook game app, Pot Farm, shouldn't be messing with such a thing.