Form

   Earlier on in this running adventure, it was very easy to lose my form. I would find myself running with my head down, hunched over my knees. This always seemed to be the result of being tired and having to concentrate on forcing my legs to follow each other. The feeling was that my weight was centred over my knees and that my knees were then being forced to propel me not only forward but upward. Not only that, every now and then one of my feet (the right one, for some reason) would shuffle and catch pavement. To top things off, I would get wobbly-kneed and head off in one direction or the other.

Courtesy of newbreedrunning.com

   This was not how I was taught to run. I was taught to run with an upright posture, looking ahead, with my torso centred over my hips and a bit of a forward tilt. When I am struggling, I remind myself of this and try as much as possible to go back to a more upright running posture. Whenever I do this, the running immediately seems to get easier. My legs feel more like they are gliding across the pavement, rather than pounding down on it. The sensation is that my legs are being flung out and then back by my hips, rather than as part of a conscious effort on my part. Breathing also seems to get a little easier with all my internal organs in a more natural alignment (at least I guess this is what's happening...)
   When I began running, I was a heel striker, meaning it was my heel which hit the ground first with a running stride. I assume I had run this way since Day One. I never even knew there was more than one way to run. I was quickly taught, however, that a mid-foot strike was a more efficient method  and caused less impact as well.
   It took me a little while to re-train myself. Soon, however, running with a mid-foot strike seemed like the only natural way, and occasionally reverting back to a heel strike seemed awkward and jarring.

   If there is an area of my running form which might require some attention, it might be my arm movement. My arms have a very minimal swing to them and tend to stay centred on my mid-torso. Apparently a runner's arms should swing back and forth from the shoulders and should maintain an approximately ninety degree angle at the elbow. I have no idea how close I come to that!
   So, as with everything else in my running life, my form is still a work-in-progress. My form at rest has lost about twenty-five pounds at this point, since the beginning of August. As the weight has come down the running has, naturally, become easier. I am currently able to do things that just five months ago I would never have thought possible, let alone likely. All I really wanted to be able to do at the beginning was a 3k fun run. Now I'm contemplating 10k races somewhere in the not-too-distant future and it would always be kind of cool to say I ran a marathon once.... 
  

The "Veering The Wrong Way" 9k Run

   It is Saturday today and Saturdays are when I do my long runs. Over the last few weekends I have been slowly working my way up to the 10k distance by adding one more kilometer to the length of my long runs. Today I ran 9k.
   I mapped out a route which took me from my house in the northwest end of Byron to the easternmost parking lot in Springbank Park, at which point I would simply turn around and run back.


Storybook Gardens--take the top path, not the bottom one...

   When I picked the route, I was looking for something fairly flat. I wasn't interested in a hill workout, I just wanted to be able to run the distance. What I got was a hill workout.
   In looking at a map of Springbank Park, there are essentially only two routes which get you from one end to the other. There's a route down along the river and there's another route which takes you up closer to Springbank Drive. The running is fairly flat until you get almost to Storybook Gardens, at which point you veer off to the left or veer off to the right. I veered off to the right, as this was the course I'd chosen.
   I really don't know what I was thinking. I grew up in London and have been to Springbank Park several hundred times. I absolutely know you're going to run into hills if you veer off to the right and, yet, I veered off to the right.
   I think that when I tried to visualize the route in my head it just seemed like a more scenic route. This is possibly true but I neglected to actually run the course, in my head. The hills were killer. The nature of hills, of course, is that for every one you run up you then get to run back down it on the way back. What's not taken into account, though, is that running down a hill closer to the beginning of a run means that you're going to have to run back up it when you're just that much more tired, on your way back. This is what happened to me today. There is a hill just east of where the deer enclosure used to be (if you're familiar with the park) which was delightful to run down but then became a monster to climb back up. It was the steepest hill I've ever had to ascend.
   So I ended up with more of a workout than I had originally planned but it's hard to complain about a workout of any kind. The point is I survived quite nicely and got that 9k distance out of the way!

If you veer the wrong way in Sprinbank, a man with a tire may try to run you down

   After the hilly portion of the run was over, I was running along the flat portion toward the park exit. All of the sudden, I am almost run down by a runaway flat tire which some man had been rolling down the snowy field, hit the curb of the roadway and bounce right in front (almost on top) of me. The man apologized, sort of, and continued to push the tire ahead of me, on the roadway, making it necessary to run around him. Strangest incident I have encountered so far!
  

Limits

   I ran 5k in the wind and the cold today. I've been doing 5k pretty well every time I've been out lately and never had a problem with not being able to run the whole way.
   Today, I had to stop and walk twice, for about forty seconds each time. This didn't make a huge difference to my average time but it was a bit of a mess for me, psychologically.
   As is my habit, I tried to analyze the lack of energy today and none of the usual culprits made an appearance. It wasn't until I went back through my training log that I realized I'd just run three days in a row as well as five days out of the last six. On top of that, one of those runs was an 8k.
   In retrospect, I've never run three days in a row before. The 8k distance is brand new as well and came as part of the working up to 10k. It kind of took me by complete surprise when I checked the log and found out I hadn't run three days in a row, it seems like I've been running so much that having run that many days consecutively wouldn't have been that unusual.
    I'm using that as my reason for being tired today. Within the last week, it's occurred to me that I could be running a little more frequently than every other day and I'm in the middle of trying to come up with a new and more suitable training schedule. If anything, I'll avoid running four days in a row!
   So now I'm becoming more familiar with what might be my limits, at least what my limits might be right at the moment. Limits will always change and I guess that's why they need to be tested once in awhile. This evening, I'm actually looking forward to taking a day off from running tomorrow. I may feel differently when tomorrow gets here but I think I might actually force myself to take a day's rest and see what the result is!
  
  

Getting there...

   Way back at the beginning of this running adventure, in early August, Doralyn and I found ourselves engaged in the Running Room Learn-to-Run clinic.
   We combined walking and running in timed intervals and gradually worked it so that eventually the running part of it took over.
   Doralyn was able to program her iPhone so that an alarm would sound at the end of intervals. I very clearly remember, very early on in the process, being engaged in a three minute running interval and thinking to myself please, please, please, please, PLEASE make that alarm go off so I can stop this torture! And every time we increased the running interval, I would more or less think the same thing. I was never sure how I was going to manage to run one extra minute.
   Yesterday, I ran for over an hour.
   I ran non-stop and, honestly, could have run longer. At the end of the hour, I had run eight kilometers. My normal routine involves running 5k on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Saturdays, though, I have been gradually increasing the length of the runs by one kilometer per week. Currently I am at 8k and am aiming to reach 10k in another two weeks.
   Yesterday, I simply ran my old 4k route twice, in different directions. I remember the effort required to work my way up to being able to run 4k and just how gradually I had to do it. I also remember just how exhausted I was when I managed to do it the first time without stopping. If someone had come along that day and said "Well, now you have to do that again...", I'm sure I would have punched them, had I been able to muster the energy! Yet, that was what I did yesterday.
   The weird part was I thought I could have quite easily run farther, I'm pretty sure I could probably have tacked on the extra 2k that would have gotten me to my 10k goal. I was, however, trying to remain true to the process (on top of being pretty damned tired) so I didn't.
   I had planned an entirely different 8k route for yesterday, one that would have taken me from this end of Springbank Park along the river to Wonderland and then back. It had snowed the night before, however, and was very cold so I was unsure as to the running conditions in the park. I was pretty sure the streets and sidewalks would be okay so I stuck to them.

   I did have some trepidation with running the old 4k route twice, simply getting back to my comment above about punching anyone who might have suggested me having to do this earlier on in the training. I was worried that this might be a bit of a psychological barrier, that I would get to the end of the first 4k and not have the will or energy to do it all over again. Wasn't a problem. Reversing the direction made it seem like a whole new course, hills I'd struggled with became easy runs and winds that were in my face were now at my back. Piece of cake, really! Was still pretty tired at the end but not as tired as I was last week when I ran 7k for the first time.
   Hey, this training thing works! On to 9k next week!

10k?

   Lately I have been aiming towards competing in a 5k trail run coming up near the end of April. To this end, I have spent a lot of time running 5k routes in my neighbourhood.
   It has been suggested to me by Kathryn, Fearless Leader, that I start incorporating the occasional longer run into my weekly run schedule. She suggested that once a week I should lengthen the run by one more kilometer.

Was thinking more like 3 weeks...

   Two weeks ago, on a Saturday, I ran 6K for the first time. I know that for many more experienced runners, running 6k is small potatoes. For me, however, 6k represents the longest distance I have ever run in my life. The following Saturday, I ran 7k. This then became the longest distance of my life. Barring the unforeseen, next Saturday will put me up to 8k, and so on.
   Not too long ago, I was happy running 5k and never thought I'd need or want to run any farther. I'd been asked to join the Running Room 10k group and thought that it just wasn't for me. I have been in a couple of organized runs now, both of which have had longer race divisions but both times I opted for the shorter race and the thought of ever competing in a 10k race seemed totally outlandish.

Good route to follow

   Now, however, my interest has been piqued. At any run I've completed lately I've always felt I could have just kept on running. These days, I have no fear that I will need to stop and walk at any time during a 5k run and it has been the same every time I added more distance. The fact that I am not yet running fast at those longer distances doesn't faze me, eventually (hopefully) the speed will pick up.
   So right now my goal is to be able to run 10k. All I want to be able to do is to say that occasionally I run 10k, I don't know that I will ever enter a 10k race or not. There was a time, though, when I thought the same thing about a 5k race...

Running-In Spite Of It All

   We had a blizzard hit southwestern Ontario last night, continuing on in through most of the day today. It dumped a whole bunch of snow on us in a very short time.
   It would have been very easy to look out the window and say to myself well, no running today! Today, however, was a scheduled run day. More than that, though, I had been looking forward to running and so I ran.

The view from my garage, as I set out to run.

   By the time I had done a few things around the house and was ready to run, the sidewalk plow had been through and cleared a bit of a path. I set off with snow falling steadily but not violently enough to affect the running. In actuality, running this soon after a snowfall was actually an improvement over what some of the running's been like the past couple of weeks. We have gone through some temperature extremes in these parts and this has produced a pretty wide range of running conditions--from dry pavement to ankle-deep puddles to rivers of slush to sheer ice. Quite often, I found myself running into combinations of all of these. The blizzard, once the plow had gone through, produced a very level, consistent and cushioning running surface. Apart from having to negotiate the tricky areas where the plows criss-crossed each other, the running was wonderful. Due to the weather, the traffic was minimal and I pretty well had the route to myself. The scenery looked like something out of a Christmas card.
   Awhile back, I wrote a blog entry called "Am I a "real" runner...?" At the time, the running was pretty new and I was all involved with comparing myself to other runners I had seen out there. I came to the conclusion that I was a real runner at the end of that post. Today, running through the remnants of a blizzard and enjoying every moment of it only confirmed the fact that a real runner, in spite of whatever an obstacle there might be, is what I am!