Saturday, August 24, 2013

Bit of a Springbank Redemption

   Two weeks from now, on Sept. 8, I have a race! I hadn't had a race since April as I've spent way too large a portion of the summer rehabbing from PF.
   London Honda sponsors a string of six races of varying lengths over the running season, beginning in February and ending in October. There is generally a 5k and a 10k distance in each race. It's pretty cool because they actually keep track of your results and award points on them. Then, at the end of the year, they tally up the points and declare winners in the various event and age categories. I'm entered in the 5k division of the Springbank Road Races.
   These are races held in Springbank Park, a very old and expansive park in the west end of London. There is a system of roadways and paths there which make it extremely inviting for runners and bicyclists.
   It is also extremely close to where I live and I have been taking advantage of this by training there, running the same route the race will be run on.
   To my likely disadvantage, however, the course has been kicking my ass. Regularly.
   It's a fairly level 5k except for about several hundred meters where it dips down and runs along the Thames River (yes, I know, how quaint that a city named London, in Canada, would also have a Thames River flowing through it...) and is bracketed by reasonably steep hills at either end. It's an 'out and back' course setup, so every hill you run down means you're gonna have to run right back up it before you're done.
   My first time out on it, I ran at a slow pace that would allow me to finish it without walking. As I remember, this took me in the 37:00 range. The next time out, I tried to run it a little faster. I did run a little faster but I got tired repeatedly and found myself walking. I walked three or four times but tried to run faster when I was running. I figured that because I'd had so many walk breaks, my time would have been way slower than my first time, when I had no walk breaks. Guess what? I was wrong!
   Including some walking breaks actually improved my time by about two full minutes. This kind of blew me away, of course, until I applied my analytical brain to it.
   It occurred to me that my slow running is really not that much faster than my brisk walking. Taking the odd walking break, however, meant that I could run faster. So, the slow running from the first attempt was more or less negated by the brisk walking in the second attempt. The second attempt also included some faster running which meant, overall, a faster time!
   Now, if that was a little hard to follow, all you really need to remember from it is that it really screwed me up! Realizing that I could take walking breaks and actually maybe lower my times suddenly gave me licence to walk almost whenever the hell I felt like it! From that point on, my times ballooned. It seemed as though every time I ran, it took me longer. What kind of race training is that?
   Early this morning, I re-visited a 5k race training plan I'd bookmarked ages ago. One of the suggestions was to plan walking breaks at specific intervals. I took this to heart. I planned a one-minute walking break after the first ten minutes. I then scheduled the next one for about the twenty minute mark. The plan was to hold myself to just the two breaks.
   It worked! I shaved about two and a half minutes off my most recent attempt and got my time back down to under 35 minutes.
   The other thing which might have factored into a better time today was the fact that, although I ran the same route as usual, I ran it in a different direction and started from a different spot.
   When I got to my normal starting location, I discovered a number of other runners milling about the area. They appeared to be part of a run club and I simply wasn't prepared to plop myself down in the middle of them and demonstrate what I perceive to be my "running rookiness". I then drove around the other side of the park and began my run there.
   For whatever reason, this made it easier. The hills seemed to pop up when I was more prepared to handle them and already knowing when the walking breaks would occur made it easier to not walk whenever the urge hit.
   The one other factor today was the fact that the park was crawling with runners. I've been to the park many times and I have never seen as many runners as I did today. They were running in all directions, at different speeds and intensities and at different ages. What this did for me was to provide as close to a race milieu as possible, without actually being in a race. People would pass me and then I would pass them in return. I could pace myself with other runners and, more than anything, I was afraid to stop in front of other "competitors". I also found myself paying more attention to form than I might normally.
   So this felt like one of those "breakthrough" days we all seem to have from time to time---just when we think we're totally off the rails, suddenly we're right back on them and chugging, full steam ahead.
    All I need to do now is convince the race organizers to start on the other side of the park...! 

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