The first official run work out I ever did, was play a game of Capture The Flag with my high school cross country team. It was during a before season Captain’s practice held in late June of 1993, a couple of months before the coaches were on the scene, and the real work began. These practices were meant to be a fun a way to entice new members to the team without scaring them off with any actual running. It worked. I had a blast at that workout, and officially joined the team minutes after the game was over.
Mini-T in 1993, running toward the finish line of a cross-Country race.
Last Sunday, (two days ago), nearly twenty-six years after that first game of Capture The Flag kicked off my crush on running, I ran a very different workout, a 30km + 20min. warm-up interval track workout, (yes, that is many, many laps), plus another easy run that afternoon to make it a “marathon” day. If I knew back then as a naïve teenager that I would ever become the kind of runner to handle that work out with fresh legs, let alone run it the day after riding 100 miles, (and on top of countless hours of training the week, weeks, before), I might not have believed it. Then again, maybe I would have?
Back then I believed I could do anything, because I had no idea what I couldn’t do. Ahh, youth. I believed my potential was boundless, so why not try running? However, what I started to learn during that summer of 1993, and have been a dutiful student of ever since, is the power and simplicity of building endurance; embracing the equation of time and tenacity.
It has taken me a lot of time, years, many years, to become a good runner. That is where the time part of the endurance equation comes in, but the tenacity part is a little trickier to tackle and pin down.
Within the last five weeks, since returning from triathlon camp in Tucson, I have run outside only a handful of days. I have spent most of my time running on the treadmill. I love the treadmill, and believe that it is helping to transform my stick straight running gait into a more natural forward leaning, compact gait that is both aero-dynamic, and comfortable; a valuable combination for a marathon runner, but a priceless combination for an Ironman marathon runner.
There is a gaping difference between running a stand-alone marathon vs. an Ironman marathon. I can run a stand-alone marathon fairly well, but in my first fourteen attempts, I have not been able to run an Ironman marathon well. I am determined to figure it out, which is why I welcomed that psychotic track workout last Sunday.
I ran it once before during my prep for Kona, but the interval times I was prescribed to hit then were not as ambitious as they were this time around. That is the stinging part of the workout, it isn’t just running a million laps around a track, it is running (most) of them quickly around a track. Still, I was looking forward to it all week.
It rained on Sunday. Isn’t it nearly the end of May? Ridiculous. Anyway, the upside to the dreary conditions was that I was not running solo this time, but I soldiered through the workout with my friend, teammate, and fellow Ironman Boulder racer, Cortney.
Yours truly and Cortney after pedaling 100 miles and running a few together last Saturday.
t made a huge difference suffering/experiencing that workout together, once again solidifying my belief that there is no greater energy source than team camaraderie.
I fell off pace for a more than a few of the intervals, but I snapped back to the proper pace near the end, and told myself on the drive home that that those strong final laps made up for the weak ones in-between.
But I wasn’t satisfied.
While I rumbled north over the Sepulveda pass, I acknowledged that I completed the workout better, (faster, and more efficiently), than the first time I ran it in September, but I still felt empty. It was probably just the common let down of an adrenaline charged week, or it was the snobby runner in me who was annoyed to run such a meaningful work out in sub-par conditions, believing I could’ve run faster if the sun was out, my feet weren’t soaked from stomping through puddles for hours, and if the wind would’ve taken the morning off, slept in, and left us alone to run in peace. Oh well, none of that happened, but we did it anyway, shouldn’t that have been enough?
I haven’t bonked in a while. I don’t think I have at all yet in 2019, but that changed on Sunday afternoon. After the morning run, I ate, and relaxed for a few hours, still feeling a little off, but ready to knock out the second run of the day. The pace was meant to be easy and the distance was short, (I only needed to run about four miles to make the required daily marathon mileage), but about 1.8 miles in, I felt that gumby-like numbness wash over me, and stopped to walk. I walked for about a mile, and then jogged the last quarter mile to my front door.
I was still a couple miles short.
Even though I felt like crawling in my bed and eating an entire pizza while watching strangers pick out a vacation house on some gorgeous island, (I love HGTV), instead I decided that spinning on my trainer might wake me up, because I wasn’t done running for the day.
I was tasked to run a marathon, and I was going to run a marathon.
An hour later, after a forty-five minute spin on my trainer, and gobbling three Clif Bloks, I laced up my running shoes again, opened the door and started to run. I began slowly, respecting that my legs had a BIG morning, but after about eight strides, I started to feel good.
Post marathon feels.
Like a runner.
Like a marathon runner.
Like an Ironman marathon runner.
I topped out my daily mileage to just over a marathon, (I wanted to make up for the one mile I walked), and finished feeling relieved that even though it wasn’t pretty, and required some creativity, I did it.
Post BIG Sunday sundae.
I know I will draw upon that Sunday workout at some point during the marathon at Ironman Boulder, it may be when my energy is high, but most likely when it is low, either way I will remember that I had the tenacity to not give up when no one was watching, so I know I won’t when they are.
The song choice this week is a classic tune, and was popular the week of that first Cross Country work out in 1993, it is What’s Up from The 4 Non-Blondes. You’re welcome.:)