It’s been a good couple of weeks since my last blog and it’s all because over the Easter break I lost the love! I just decided I’d had enough and it really wasn’t working for me. That’s right.... I broke up with Running, relationship over!
I love to run, it’s my thing. It’s my escape from the real world into a world of distraction and relaxation. But there I was over the Easter break sad and unmotivated, hoping Running and I would realise what we had lost by not having each other in our lives. But the love was gone – nowhere to be found!
So, in a period of seven full days I did not do a single bit of movement that could be considered even remotely close to a slow jog. I will call this seven day period the ‘Lost Love Time’. So what happened?
Well for starters, those little blisters that permanently made a home on my little toes were not so little anymore. I tried those special second skin blister patches, but they continued to get worse. During my ‘Lost Love Time’ I managed to find these things call toe separators. They are a fabulous little invention. Basically they are small pieces of foam you put between your toes to stop them rubbing and blistering. Who knew there was a market for this? Clearly someone else who got blisters while training for a marathon – they have probably now made millions of dollars just from cutting up pieces of foam for toes.
After 15 full weeks of training the thought of running for two hours was unbearable. I didn’t want to have to find ways to entertain and motivate myself all the way to Runaway Bay and back. I didn’t want to listen to Boom Boom Pow by Blacked Eyed Peas, or The Anastacia Club megamix on my Ipod for the millionth time. I didn’t want my muscles to be in pain or to have trouble walking up stairs for the next two days. I didn’t want to see those happy little suns on the pathway or battle against a 20knt southerly wind for half my run. So I just didn’t.
I don’t normally believe in romantic movies or that they happen in real life - maybe I’ve just had my heart broken too many times. No one realises how stupid they were to break-up and proceeds to do the dramatic dash to the departing train to proclaim their love in front of hundreds of people. But on the Wednesday following Easter there it was, bounding towards me with its arms wide open screaming don’t leave me, you’re the one I want to be with! Yes, it was Running – it was back and so was my burning desire to have it in my life.
I think in the end my ‘Lost Love Time’ was really my body telling me to slow down, take some time out and do a bit of recovery. I’m so happy that running and I have made up and we realised what we were missing. I’m in love again and this time it’s serious! We’re having our honeymoon at the Gold Coast Airport Marathon.
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Sunday, 17 April 2011
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
I think some people would see running as quite a lonely and boring thing, especially when training for a marathon. My training involves hours and hours with just myself, the pathway and my Ipod.
For me running is the time of day I love most – it’s the time I remove myself from all conversational interaction and get a lot of good hard thinking done. I find I get home and feel clear headed, happy and ready to take on anything – or I may just be confusing this with pure exhaustion.
I am not the sort of person that gets bored easily and I very much like spending time on my own. My sister use to tell me that I was the only person she knew that could sit and do nothing for hours. When I travel, I rarely read books or play games...I just sit and get lost in my thoughts. It’s a bit the same when I run. I spend a lot of time thinking and having little conversations with myself in my head – particularly about the things I see or notice while out running.
Have any of you ever run on the footpath that runs along the Broadwater Parklands on the Gold Coast? Well if you have, you may have noticed the smiling suns that are printed into every fourth or fifth concrete block. They very politely tell you to ‘Have a Happy Day’. I usually am having a happy day when I run over them heading north; it’s when I am running back south and getting to around the 18km mark that I’m not having such a happy day.
If you look closely though, you will see that some of the suns really are not that happy themselves. In fact there is one sun that is missing its face completely. There is another that is missing one eye! I always think to myself ‘poor little things’.
Now I have been running the same track between Surfers Paradise and Southport, then around the back of the Marriott Hotel to Budds beach for around 5 years – yes I know I should really try a new route but I like the familiarity of my track.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s morning or afternoon or where along my run I am, I always see this lady walking her poodle. I see her along the esplanade, on Macintosh Island and on the boardwalk at the Marriott. She is a very well dressed older lady and her dog is equally well groomed. I often see her chatting to people along her walk and I always think to myself ‘one day I will stop and introduce myself’. I wonder if when she sees me she thinks ‘there’s that girl running again’. Maybe she has never noticed me at all!!
I consider myself a bit of an expert on knowing exactly where every water bubbler is located between Surfers Paradise and Runaway Bay (again because I regularly run this track). But don’t be fooled - one water bubbler is not the same as another, even if they look the same. There are only a couple I will actually stop at and attempt to drink water from.
Broadwater Parklands have great bubblers that have good water pressure and deliver a nice even flow of water. Up near Charis Seafood at Labrador, however, it is a different story. There is one bubbler that has such bad water pressure you practically have to suck the tap to get a drop. Note – do not be desperate for a drink if you are stopping at this one. Go just 50m up the road and there is a bubbler whose water comes out so hard and fast it nearly knocks you off your feet! Back down in Surfers Paradise a bubbler in the new foreshore redevelopment is already missing its button which turns the water on – again do not be dying of thirst if stopping here, you won’t survive!
I love analysing the different types of people I see running. There are those super fit people, usually the guys wearing no shirt and the girls wearing tiny little shorts and an even smaller running top. These are the people I would like to look like. When they come bounding past me I think ‘yes, if I had a body like yours, I too would wear skimpy little outfits’.
Then there are the older runners, the ones that overtake me and disappear into the distance quicker than I can take my next breath. The thing about these older runners is they are not just a little bit older than me – they are considerable older, by say 20 or even 30 years. How on earth can they be running that fast at their age? Are they out to try and make people my age look bad...well they do a good job!
Then there is my least favourite runner, or should I say group of runners. These are the people that run in groups of 3 or 4 people and think they own the footpath. I shouldn't discriminate, these groups can also be walkers. They make absolutely no attempt to move over and I often spend the next couple of kilometres writing the Runner’s Book of Etiquette in my head.
The longer my runs get, the more interesting things I see and the more thinking I can get done! By the time the marathon comes around I’ll have spent so much time thinking and working things out in my head I won’t have to think again for another good few years! I’m looking forward to getting out on the weekend so I can spend another 2.5 hours lost in my own little world. Imagine the things I can think about on race day – I’ll have a whole 4.5 - 5 hours to talk to myself...what a great challenge!
For me running is the time of day I love most – it’s the time I remove myself from all conversational interaction and get a lot of good hard thinking done. I find I get home and feel clear headed, happy and ready to take on anything – or I may just be confusing this with pure exhaustion.
I am not the sort of person that gets bored easily and I very much like spending time on my own. My sister use to tell me that I was the only person she knew that could sit and do nothing for hours. When I travel, I rarely read books or play games...I just sit and get lost in my thoughts. It’s a bit the same when I run. I spend a lot of time thinking and having little conversations with myself in my head – particularly about the things I see or notice while out running.
Have any of you ever run on the footpath that runs along the Broadwater Parklands on the Gold Coast? Well if you have, you may have noticed the smiling suns that are printed into every fourth or fifth concrete block. They very politely tell you to ‘Have a Happy Day’. I usually am having a happy day when I run over them heading north; it’s when I am running back south and getting to around the 18km mark that I’m not having such a happy day.
If you look closely though, you will see that some of the suns really are not that happy themselves. In fact there is one sun that is missing its face completely. There is another that is missing one eye! I always think to myself ‘poor little things’.
Now I have been running the same track between Surfers Paradise and Southport, then around the back of the Marriott Hotel to Budds beach for around 5 years – yes I know I should really try a new route but I like the familiarity of my track.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s morning or afternoon or where along my run I am, I always see this lady walking her poodle. I see her along the esplanade, on Macintosh Island and on the boardwalk at the Marriott. She is a very well dressed older lady and her dog is equally well groomed. I often see her chatting to people along her walk and I always think to myself ‘one day I will stop and introduce myself’. I wonder if when she sees me she thinks ‘there’s that girl running again’. Maybe she has never noticed me at all!!
I consider myself a bit of an expert on knowing exactly where every water bubbler is located between Surfers Paradise and Runaway Bay (again because I regularly run this track). But don’t be fooled - one water bubbler is not the same as another, even if they look the same. There are only a couple I will actually stop at and attempt to drink water from.
Broadwater Parklands have great bubblers that have good water pressure and deliver a nice even flow of water. Up near Charis Seafood at Labrador, however, it is a different story. There is one bubbler that has such bad water pressure you practically have to suck the tap to get a drop. Note – do not be desperate for a drink if you are stopping at this one. Go just 50m up the road and there is a bubbler whose water comes out so hard and fast it nearly knocks you off your feet! Back down in Surfers Paradise a bubbler in the new foreshore redevelopment is already missing its button which turns the water on – again do not be dying of thirst if stopping here, you won’t survive!
I love analysing the different types of people I see running. There are those super fit people, usually the guys wearing no shirt and the girls wearing tiny little shorts and an even smaller running top. These are the people I would like to look like. When they come bounding past me I think ‘yes, if I had a body like yours, I too would wear skimpy little outfits’.
Then there are the older runners, the ones that overtake me and disappear into the distance quicker than I can take my next breath. The thing about these older runners is they are not just a little bit older than me – they are considerable older, by say 20 or even 30 years. How on earth can they be running that fast at their age? Are they out to try and make people my age look bad...well they do a good job!
Then there is my least favourite runner, or should I say group of runners. These are the people that run in groups of 3 or 4 people and think they own the footpath. I shouldn't discriminate, these groups can also be walkers. They make absolutely no attempt to move over and I often spend the next couple of kilometres writing the Runner’s Book of Etiquette in my head.
The longer my runs get, the more interesting things I see and the more thinking I can get done! By the time the marathon comes around I’ll have spent so much time thinking and working things out in my head I won’t have to think again for another good few years! I’m looking forward to getting out on the weekend so I can spend another 2.5 hours lost in my own little world. Imagine the things I can think about on race day – I’ll have a whole 4.5 - 5 hours to talk to myself...what a great challenge!
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
THE PAIN FACTOR
When I think about what running my first marathon will actually be like I think: 1. start line, 2. a bit of running for a few hours, 3. the finish line – which will of course have many of my adoring fans there cheering and congratulating me on my great effort. Then we will head off to the nearest bar to enjoy a few chardy’s and talk about what I have just achieved.
Well this is how I would like my first marathon to play out anyway, and up until recently I really thought it had the possibility being just like that. You see the problem is others who have run marathons always seem to talk about them in high level terms. They say things like “it will be one of the greatest things you do in your life” and “crossing the finish line is the most amazing feeling in the world”.
They lure you into this false world of make-believe glory and achievement, but what I am discovering the more I train and the longer my runs get, is that these people seem to have left out some very important details about marathons.....the pain factor!
What they should be telling me are things like:
“You get these blisters on your toes which are really painful and they don’t go away until after you stop training for the marathon.”
“Your ITB will tighten up so much that your knees become extremely sore. Go to your physio and ask them for this foam thing and roll across it every night. The pain of rolling across this foam thing is actually far more painful than your knees, but you will eventually feel better.”
“After about 30km your glycogen stores will probably get really low and your muscles will start to waste away if you don’t replenish these. This is also known as ‘hitting the wall’ because that it what it feels like.”
I have discovered that there is a pain worse than any of these things and again it is something that no one has really described in detail....CHAFE!!!
I thought chafe was something only the boys at my life saving club got because they had been walking around in wet DTs for too long. But let me tell you girls can get it too and in places I didn’t realise possible. After a long run I find big red (and sometimes juicy) welts under my arms, between my toes, between my legs, between.....actually I don’t think you need to know the other places. Luckily I have found that paw paw gel is a great relief.
I can clearly see that my first marathon will not consist of just ‘a bit of running’ and some ‘celebratory drinks’ at the end. Instead I think it will turn out to be one of the most agonisingly painful days of my life. I no longer want adoring fans waiting at the finish line; I feel two paramedics and an ambulance might be more appropriate.
I am off to my physio for yet another hour of pain. Last week I was feeling great about my challenge but after writing about all this pain and missing skin I am seriously starting to question why I, and anyone else, would want to do a marathon. Today’s verdict on marathon running: definitely stupidity!
Monday, 21 March 2011
I DON'T DO THINGS BY HALVES.
2011 is the year I turn 30 and the year I will attempt my first ever Marathon at the Gold Coast Airport Marathon! Why? Because I’m not getting any younger and having loved running for my entire life I decided I wanted to have a crack at the ultimate running challenge.
After three months of marathon training, however, I am starting to question whether or not running 42.2km really is the ultimate challenge. When I tell my friends or people I meet that I am training for a marathon the usual response is ‘Really?’ Followed by a long pause which is accompanied by a blank look.
Suddenly that hot tingly feeling waves through my body – you know that feeling when realise you have just locked your keys in the car or torn the backside of your pants in public – and I realise what I’m attempting to do is really, really stupid! Did you know that the first person to ever run a marathon died from exhaustion!? I don’t doubt it; I get exhausted scrolling back and forth through the marathon course map.
The problem is this feeling goes away. I watch some inspirational video on YouTube or come across another running obsessed person who convinces me that a marathon is the best thing I will ever do. They suggest, and almost persuade me to think, that I might even do more marathons in the future.
My other problem is I don’t like to do things by halves. If I bother to do something, then I give it my all or it’s not worth the effort in the first place. My theory is that if I give 100 percent and I fail, then at least I will fail spectacularly.
So why did I think that when I committed to doing my first marathon I would be any different? While most people would probably do some good, hard training sessions and get a good sleep the night before the race, I find it completely necessary to do the following:
So at this moment in time I am feeling good about my preparations and with my first Blog done, I am in the “Marathon is a great challenge” frame of mind. Let’s see what the next 16 weeks bring.
Happy running!
Marathon Megs
After three months of marathon training, however, I am starting to question whether or not running 42.2km really is the ultimate challenge. When I tell my friends or people I meet that I am training for a marathon the usual response is ‘Really?’ Followed by a long pause which is accompanied by a blank look.
Suddenly that hot tingly feeling waves through my body – you know that feeling when realise you have just locked your keys in the car or torn the backside of your pants in public – and I realise what I’m attempting to do is really, really stupid! Did you know that the first person to ever run a marathon died from exhaustion!? I don’t doubt it; I get exhausted scrolling back and forth through the marathon course map.
The problem is this feeling goes away. I watch some inspirational video on YouTube or come across another running obsessed person who convinces me that a marathon is the best thing I will ever do. They suggest, and almost persuade me to think, that I might even do more marathons in the future.
My other problem is I don’t like to do things by halves. If I bother to do something, then I give it my all or it’s not worth the effort in the first place. My theory is that if I give 100 percent and I fail, then at least I will fail spectacularly.
So why did I think that when I committed to doing my first marathon I would be any different? While most people would probably do some good, hard training sessions and get a good sleep the night before the race, I find it completely necessary to do the following:
1. Follow the training diary to the absolute letter and feel bad if I only run for 1hour 45mins on a Sunday when I'm meant to do 2 hours.
2. End up on a television documentary about me doing my first ever marathon.
3. Talk constantly about running to all my friends, family and work colleagues and hope they are not totally bored of hearing about it before the race even starts.
4. Put myself through agony every week at the physio (not to mention the cost) to ensure my back holds out for the entire distance.
5. Very minimal drinking for 6 months in the lead up to the event - again hoping not to bore my friends and family at every social event before the race.
6. Join every running social network I can to make sure I’m on track with my training (GC Airport Marathon’s Facebook, and runGC are two I can recommend in the lead up to the GC Marathon!)
7. Spend every day stressing about the fact that I might not make the distance (yes even with all this preparation!)
8. Set up a Blog to document every excruciating detail of my preparation – once more hoping not to bore my friends, family and readers before the race!
So at this moment in time I am feeling good about my preparations and with my first Blog done, I am in the “Marathon is a great challenge” frame of mind. Let’s see what the next 16 weeks bring.
Happy running!
Marathon Megs
** Tell me what you think and vote- Marathon: Challenge or Stupidity?
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