Same old gory details: Gold Coast Airport Marathon 2014

I'm going to warn you upfront: you will have heard this story from me before. It's like a horror movie where you know exactly who jumps out of the bushes and who dies at the end. Same old story. It's going to be a little repetitive. But you can read it anyway.

If you recall I had a nice little race strategy all planned out:
- Absolutely no faster than 6:22/km for the first half
- Shot blocks every 5km; electrolyte tab and a minute's walk break every 10km
- I am allowed to run-walk if I cramp - I will probably cramp... (OBVIOUS FORESHADOWING, I COULD BE A SCRIPTWRITER NOW)

On Friday morning Holly got into Gold Coast and we ran about 2.5km to the Broadbeach convention centre for bib pickup, stood in line for five minutes, picked up bib, wound our way through the usual assortment of watches/gear/ads for other athletic activities

This watch is telling me it's 'exercise day'. What, you mean like every day except Wednesday? 

and popped out the other side...

...just in time for a Friday afternoon coffee with Char, who was in town for her 10th Gold Coast 10K in a row. We'd never met in person before but when you share your lives on the Internet it can feel like you've known someone for a very long time.

Photo credit: Holly and her long arms

I was suitably impressed, by the way. I haven't lived in one place long enough to do 10 of any race in a row.

And it was incredibly sweet of her to bring us (cup)cakes despite having had a rough week - thank you!
Here are the ruins of one of the cupcakes. Didn't pause long enough to take photos. Rest assured they were very pretty. And delicious.

On Saturday morning we went to watch the 10K and get the lay of the land at the race precinct, and then went on a whale-watching cruise. Humpback whales come up the Australian coast from Antarctica in winter to calve and mate, and we saw several pairs.

I was not fast enough to catch a photo of a whale.
Fortunately, clouds don't move as fast as humpback whales, so I got a nice picture of one shaped like a boxfish. 

That afternoon, three more friends got into town. Holly, Mel and Sarah were doing the half; Boya and I would do the full, and it was Boya's first full marathon. (You never forget your first...though sometimes you'd like to, especially around the 30k mark!)

Sunday morning was race day, involving a 4am wakeup for the half marathoners and a 4.45am wakeup call for the two of us full marathoners. Race organisers had provided shuttle buses to the start and the early ones were apparently very crowded with long queues (said Holly). But by 5.30am they were fine and we hopped on the first bus that arrived, for a 15-minute bus ride to the start.

That sunrise. I was pretty chilly, but I really can't complain.

but first, let me take a selfie...

We shuffled our way into the last corral. I had picked up a 4:30 pace band at the expo but was so far back, and so relaxed about the whole affair, that I never even really saw the 4:30 pace group. I had no time goals for this race except 'maybe finish under 5 hours again?'

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and there was really no excuse not to high-five all the little kids, including a small girl in unicorn footy pyjamas.

And this view. I could have high-fived this view. 

Along the beach there was a guy in what I can only presume were very small and possibly hideous swimming trunks, holding a large and alarming sign in front of them: 'Run faster or I drop this sign'. And around a corner, there was a nine-year-old boy holding a sign that could really only have been composed by a nine-year-old boy: 'Run faster, I just farted'.

The course wound its way south for 15km, then turned around and continued north for another 15km along roughly the same stretch we'd come down. I obediently chugged on at 4:30 pace, stuck to the fuelling plan, and went on feeling pretty good. Ominously good. I knew I'd maybe be a little sore by the end, but experience tells me there is a big difference between sore and damaged, and I was not going to be damaged.

And then, going uphill around 31km, disaster struck. (DUN DUN DUN.)
It was a totally predictable, very familiar sort of disaster. With a terrible sense of deja vu, I felt my right vastus medialis muscle, the lower part of my inner quad near the knee, go TWANGGGGG and seize up in a spasm so powerful I nearly screeched. And then my left one. For probably three or four minutes, I stood there, clutching the centre rail, trying to stretch. I'd stretch one leg and the other side would clench; I'd stretch the other and the first one would fire off - TWANGGG. And again (twanggg). And again (TWANGGG). And again (ARGGGH COME ON STUPID LEGS WHY WON'T YOU COOPERATE).

And that's why my splits look like this:

'30 to 35km: 42 minutes 16 seconds'. Not stated: 'Five of those minutes were spent stretching and screaming invective at the sky in front of hundreds of spectators'. Yes, my quads had chosen the start/finish point to seize up. 

When I finally started hobbling on again, my crazy sport-psychologist bike-crash-survivor long-distance-triathlete friend popped into my head. 'What would Kirsten do?' The answer turned out to be 'relax and focus on the process'. The process turned out to be:
- Drink more water.
- Take another salt tab.
- Run six minutes. Cramps? Walk one minute. No cramps? Run another six minutes and check in with your body and make sure you're running tall, loose, and tilted slightly forward. Rinse and repeat. You know perfectly well you can do this because you've done this a dozen times before.

The remaining 10km became a sort of death-march shuffle, a delicate exercise in warding off cramps, at exactly the tipping-point speed between bobbling along and debilitating spasms. God, but I loathe my treacherous quads. (When other women say they hate their thighs they usually mean something different.)  I have cramped in exactly the same muscles for five marathons now. Also one sprint triathlon. And very probably one hot-weather OD triathlon in September. Do they do muscle replacements?

So at this point I had plenty of time to pay attention to the signs and road signs along the rest of the course.

Along a narrow bend there was DO NOT OVERTAKE. (I followed instructions.)

A spectator held one that said WORST PARADE EVER. (I kind of agreed.)

I counted down shot blocks to the finish. (30, 35, 40... just three more! 35, 40...just two more! 40k...last shot block! As I finished chewing the last one I realised I had only one mile left but I was proto-spasming too hard to run for it.)

Hence the hunched-over, paroxysms-of-agony marathon shuffle in this photo at 41k:

Photo credit: Char

In the end, I PRed by one crucial but deeply unsatisfying second: 4:54:17, down from 4:54:18 in Perth. I know I said I was going to chip away at my PR but seriously this is ridiculous! Is there even an upside to this? Yeah, well, I guess I now know a sub-5 marathon isn't a fluke.

Temperature-wise, while the temperature hovered between 12 (at the start) and perhaps 20C (at high noon), much of the course was in full sun and I ended up feeling like a salt-baked chicken by the end. I was wearing shorts, compression socks, a tank top and arm sleeves and thus have some interesting tan lines...

Ten minutes after I finished I had already snacked, cleaned up, stretched, and was lying on a bench with my legs up in the air texting the husband when Holly and Mel found me. Normally after a marathon or even a long run I'm passed out by mid-afternoon, but on Sunday afternoon I was still bouncy. We waited for Boya to finish, scraped her off the ground, and then headed back to the apartment for a shower and some hot-tub time, already plotting where to have dinner. (Priorities.) (Indian food followed by churros, bitches. I finally passed out into microsleep mid-churro.)

But really? Do all my marathons have to go the same way? It's like a bad movie script. In the last 10k and in the few minutes after I finished, I probably went through all five stages of grief that I was taken out by something so utterly stupid. Yes, all five at the same time.

Denial - This isn't happening. This isn't happening. Maybe if I ignore it it'll go away.
Anger - UGH WHY did I decide to do this STUPID thing to myself? !$(*(&# marathons.
Bargaining - C'mon legs. You can do this. Just six more minutes of running and then you can walk.
Depression - I'm never going to not cramp in a marathon. I should just give up now.
Acceptance - FINE. THERE. I'm DONE.

Right now I'm just kind of meh about the whole thing. In general I really did enjoy it. The race was well-organised and well-supplied with bananas and oranges and water, and man, did those volunteers and spectators know what they were about. The breeze! The sun! The views! The signs!

If I had no real time goals, why am I so mad? Well, I'm disappointed because the whole thing was so predictable. Frustrated because I know I'm aerobically, at least, capable of much, much more. In the final 10 km or so post-spasms I felt like I was shuffling along solely to ward off cramps. If not for the cramps I would've literally been bounding happily along, I had that much energy left over. I'm deeply annoyed that I never even got the CHANCE to hit the wall. Look, I HAVE a 4:30 in me. (Well-hidden.) Just that my legs seem to disagree...

Should I try something new? A different challenge? I refuse to even dream of doing an ultra until I've got this marathon-cramp thing sorted out. An OD tri, maybe. But let's face it, I tri purely for amusement and running is where my heart is.

So in future, what are my options, really?

a) Maybe it was hot and the perfect fuelling strategy was short of perfect, and maybe I could have taken in more Endurolytes and water. Endurolytes do have more magnesium than other brands but perhaps a dedicated magnesium supplement might help.

b) Maybe I'm just destined to cramp, so instead of cramp prevention my race strategy should be cramp anticipation. The cramps seem to show up no matter what I wear or how I fuel or how slowly I go at the beginning or however cool/ flat the marathon is, so perhaps I should just run very fast for 32km and hobble 10km? This will make me a very good half marathoner...and make for a pretty unhappy marathon experience.

c) What about doing faster/ longer training runs? What if I ran a marathon as my long training run for a marathon? (The most likely outcome would be 'here you go, two sets of cramps'.)

d) Is it something about my gait? Should I bother investing in a gait analysis that costs more than a marathon entry, just in case that's the problem? I'm not exactly going to win any medals anyway and I'm not fast enough to be worth it. I'm just a back-of-the-pack hobby jogger who runs because I happen to really really like running.

e) Or maybe I should stop trying to run marathons and just retire from this full-marathon shtick altogether, because I am flipping tired of writing the same race report over and over. 'Felt good for 30+km, then cramps, then long cramp-prevention shuffle'. I'm fed up and bored of it. Help me out - I know you are too.

T-minus 4

Well, it's now four days out from marathon number 5. The first one was in 2009; then 2011; 2012; 2013, and now 2014. As a mere hobby-jogger I refuse to do more than one marathon a year - it wouldn't be healthy for my sanity or the sanity of those around me! 

I've learnt new things with every marathon cycle. Things that range from 'when I try to take in a gel I feel like throwing up so this invention called shot blocks is a lifesaver', to 'don't steal your sister's shorts', to quite simply that I CAN finish a marathon at all. Let alone in less than five hours. Don't laugh.

This time round? I've focused more on the process than the outcome. (As Holly put it - "Well, you'll have over four hours of process, so that'd be a good thing to channel.") Last time round it was all about the sub-five or die. Which is more entertaining than slowly and methodically making small changes to training, but, you know...kind of a crapshoot. 

And so here is the theoretical race plan.  

- Take a shot block every 5km or 30 minutes.

- Take a short (1 to 2 minutes) walk break every 10km.

- ABSOLUTELY NO FASTER than 6:22/km pace for the first half.

- I am allowed to run/walk the last quarter if I am cramping as usual. (I will probably cramp.) 

I have no time goals except for 'maybe finish under 5 hours again?' Nobody cares about my race time but me anyway, and I don't care so long as everyone has a good time and I get cake at the end... 

So far this trip to the Gold Coast has been remarkably amusing in all sorts of ways. 

First at the immigration and customs line, one of the security officers asked me (because you have to be over 16 to go through the e-passport gates on your own) "You look very young - are you sure you're over 16?"

To be fair to her, it was 8am and I had just got off the red-eye and I had my glasses on and my hair in pigtails and she probably hadn't had any coffee yet. 

What I thought: Aw, I look 16? That's cute...I'm closer to twice that, honey.
What I said: I'm definitely over 16, but thank you!! 

Next, this afternoon, I was trying to get my prepaid SIM card activated and Vodafone's automated system refused to accept my hotel as a valid address. 

And then neither did Vodafone's call centre representative. 

Of course it's a valid address, I said. I'm standing right here! Even Google Maps knows where it is! 

And finally, I was enjoying a coffee at a little coffee shop by the beach in the sun, when a shadow the size and shape of a small dinosaur fell across my ankles. 

Startled, I looked up to be greeted by one of these, loitering about for crumbs: 

What's black and white and terrifying the first time you encounter one? An Australian white ibis. SERIOUSLY.

It's always a strange adjustment to run in a drastically different climate. It's super sunny here, and if you're in direct sun it feels pretty hot. On the other hand, it's also very dry, and if you're standing still in the shade, it's chilly thanks to all the wind. How am I supposed to run in that? 

A few selections from the runner's dictionary

With apologies to Ambrose Bierce.

Fart - deeply suspicious. Never trust one.

Fartlek - Swedish for 'running full tilt until the next lamp-post, then walking three miles home'.

Foam roller - simultaneously a torture device and instrument of mercy

Lube - slathered liberally on intimate parts to...get your mind out of the gutter... prevent chafing...get your mind out of the gutter.

Long slow distance - Vital opportunity to get dropped on a group run 

Masochist - see 'runner'

Monsoon - a minor obstacle

Puddle - see 'monsoon' - the best part of a run, naturally  

Runner - see 'masochist'

Shower - failproof instrument for locating all the spots you've chafed, just in case you miss one

Give me some more suggestions! 

Gold Coast training log, week 16 (June 16 to 22)

Monday - 5.5km + yoga 

Tuesday - AM Track: 3[7(40s hard/ 20s easy) + 3min recovery] ; PM 3km eeeeeaaaaaasy and Body Pump. (Heart rate - don't know, don't care; pace - don't know, don't care; distance - don't know, don't care; effort - on target.) 

Wednesday - rest 

Thursday - 15.2km tempo at 1:36 (6:22 minutes per km with BEAUTIFUL PERFECT AMAZING weather - now I just need to hold that for 42.2km...) 

Friday - 5.64km easy + core and ITB routine 

Saturday - slept in 

Sunday - 23km in bits and bobs at the Run for Cover event (more on which later!) 

Total: 59km (estimated) 

Peak week

Hello from the loopiness that is peak week!

I hit 70km last week. For me, that's a lot. Possibly the most I've ever hit in a marathon training cycle. If you are paying attention to the Hansons plans, it is not remotely near the actual peak mileage one is supposed to get. But in terms of absolute time on my feet, that's certainly equivalent to other people's manymoremiles.

Every marathon cycle gets more interesting. Longer peak weeks? More ways to hurt? Adding a strength class? Bring it on. At this point I think I've been fairly good about those resolutions to stretch and do strength training. That was another little goal that I set down at the start of this cycle.

Oddly enough, I'm not totally wiped out and hungry and sleepy all the time. My body seems to have adapted just enough that I'm hungry and tired and sleepy, but not horrifically so. I would say I'm almost feeling good, but I'd rather not jinx it.

In honour of this I've been reading a couple of things:
- Nonrunners often ask me: Why are you running so much? So - How many miles is enough? The answer really depends on the distance of race you pick, the rate at which you ramp up, and the amount your body can handle. Me, I'd like to train just hard enough to hit whatever goals I've set over the distance I've picked and still finish smiling. For too many reasons to list I will never be competing at the Olympics, so I don't believe in suffering all that much.
- On un-becoming a runner is a musing on running, identity, and the extent to which being a runner is or isn't an identity. (The wag in me would like to pipe up: the sight of me running is pretty unbecoming anyway.)

Gold Coast training log week 15
Monday: 7.5km easy, followed by yoga class. I often run this easy run a little harder than I should be doing, because I am perpetually running late for yoga class.
Tuesday: AM: a very confused mixed-up speed session at the track with a substitute coach who accidentally got the location wrong. 5x800 with plyometrics, 4x100 sprints, 400m cooldown. PM: Bodypump class preceded by a meandering 3km because I (miracle...) got to the gym early.
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: 12km tempo
Friday: 11km easy
Saturday: 25km long run. I'm solidifying my fuelling plan: endurolyte capsule before I start; one shot blok every 5km; an endurolyte cap and a minute walk break every hour.
Sunday: 5.9km less easy than I ought to (had to rush off to work after that)
Total: 70km 

More gelato than speedwork

Well, that was a rollercoaster three weeks. 

Two weeks of this:

Atop Pietra di Bismantova in Reggio Emilia (photo credit: Mr GCA)

I had gelato from this particular gelateria three times while we were in Florence.

The view from atop Il Duomo

Hikes and museums and cathedrals and gelato, oh my. 

Followed by nearly a week of this: 

working our tails off 8am-10pm each day to cover a confluence of three conferences - World Cities Summit, Singapore International Water Week, and CleanEnviro Summit

And a couple of tiny life triumphs: 

- I just found the swimsuit wringer machine in my gym. How have I lived without this before? Now after my long run I go and do my cooldown (five minutes on a stationary bike), my strength and core, my stretching...and I soak my shirt in water and wring it out manually a couple of times - and then stick it in the wringer so it's practically dry for the unfortunate folks around me on the train ride home! 

- A couple of my poems are running in the Manoa Journal's special Singapore issue, Starry Island! 

Gold Coast training log week 11 (May 12-18)

Monday: 11km of trails, then TRX in the evening

Tuesday: 10.53km -- mile reps with warmup and cooldown

Wednesday: 5km and stretch class 

Thursday was a travel day. 

Friday: 5km around Rome (we did a loop of the Colosseum!), 

Saturday and Sunday were spent walking around Rome. While wandering around we walked straight into 

a Race for the Cure 5K - Komen Foundation, pink ribbons and all - happening just around the Colosseum! 

Note: I'm not even going to count mileage for this and the next couple of weeks. Who knows how much time we spent on our feet? Nor do I really care - the point of this trip was a physical and mental break. 

Gold Coast training log week 12 (May 19-25)

Monday was another travel day - this time from Rome to Florence, and then getting settled in at my husband's uncle's place with my in-laws (they were with us from Monday till the end of the trip) 

Tuesday: 8km loop around Florence, in the hills south of the old city

Wednesday: Early morning hill sprints while nervously watching for SUVs to come barrelling down the narrow, steep road 

Thursday was spent wandering around Venice. 

Friday was in Florence again followed by a long drive up to the small town of Borgomanero to visit relatives. 

Saturday and Sunday involved a lot of heavy-duty eating...

Gold Coast training log week 13 (May 26-June 1)

Monday: 8km hill loop around Florence in the morning, followed by a 6km chunk of the Renaissance Ring to a small, ancient monastery. If you are in Florence for more than a few days I recommend taking a day out to do this; it makes a great break from fighting with the crowds of tourists. 

Tuesday: We drove to up a small Italian mountain town in the Appenines, got on a trail in the mist and fog, and then promptly veered off-course to an expert trail that involved a considerable amount of scrambling. Epic.

Wednesday: A far better hike.

enough said

Thursday involved SO MUCH CHEESE - a tour of a Parmigiano Reggiano factory, to be precise - and SO MUCH CURED MEAT (we hauled 2 kilos of prosciutto di parma and a kilo of sausage back home). This trip had all the elements of a perfect holiday: a little museum-ing and cathedral-ing, a little family time, a little outdoors time, and a lot of food. 

Friday to Saturday were also epic: woke up -> drove to Parma -> waited for train -> got on train to Bologna -> waited for train -> got on train to Rome -> waited for train -> got on train to Rome airport -> checked in -> waited -> sat on plane to Dubai -> napped, waited -> got on plane to Singapore -> landed in Singapore at 8pm. Total travel time: 30 hours. 

Sunday morning: 17km. 

 

Gold Coast training log week 14 (June 2-8) 

Monday and Tuesday were spent at the Epic Conference.

Wednesday was also spent covering the conference, but I hauled myself out of bed at way-too-early o'clock to run 8km. Instant mood lifter.

Thursday: 12.2km tempo (AM), 6km easy and core (PM). 

Friday I slept in.

Saturday: 10km tempo with colleagues for the Run for Cover 2nd qualifying round

photo credit: PictureArt

followed by 7km of mind-numbingly slow plodding because my legs refused to go any faster

Sunday: 14.5km of a planned 20, cut short in the interest of my poor right knee which was feeling off-kilter and somewhat sore (not severely, just like...*wrong*, as though the ligaments have got tangled which I swear is physically impossible). I think my ITB and calf are tight and pulling. Core and stretching. 

Total: 57.7km, working my way back to fighting fitness

One day I'll laugh about this

Ever have one of those deeply ridiculous, frustrating, disappointing, exasperating days that you just know you'll have a good laugh about - eventually?
That was my weekend: in which the half marathon I was supposed to run didn't happen, and in which I had probably the worst run of this marathon training cycle (let's just say it can only go up from here).

A little bit of background:  So, I worked on Saturday, and when I say I worked I mean I was on the duty roster and I do any and all odd stories that come in - police news, fire breaks out, etc etc. This past Saturday wasn't so bad - only two assignments and three minor freakouts. But it was still a 14-hour day from 8am to 10pm. I managed to eat lunch at 3, and then after the second assignment of the day I had an inauspiciously dodgy greasy wrap thing at 6pm and finally had some water after not drinking anything all day. Then I went to the airport at 10.30pm to pick up the husband and had what must unequivocally be the saddest prerace dinner ever:

a bun wrapped in plastic and about three inches of coffee.

His flight got in at 10.40pm and by the time we got home it was midnight. Obviously this set me up real well for the Run350 half marathon the next morning that started at 5.30am, right? (And I wasn't even racing it really, I had 21km on the schedule that day anyway. I thought I might as well have some company, so I signed up when registration opened months ago. Then we got the monthly roster for April...)

The race organisers were kind enough to arrange shuttle buses to the race from several MRT stations so I'd originally booked a bus ticket from Buona Vista. For 3.50am, the only time the shuttles left.

At 3.50am, I was still asleep.

At 4.15am, I woke up a bit more, had some breakfast, and then my fabulous husband/ support crew was supposed to drive me to the race. ("Why on earth would you want to drive me there? Doesn't that just make for TWO sleep-deprived people??" "Oh no, I can always go back to sleep.")

At 4.45, I made the executive decision that I wasn't going to run a half marathon on 3.5 hours of sleep and hardly any dinner.

It was possibly the ONLY smart life decision that I made all weekend, because at 6am I was woken up by a text from the race organisers to say the half was cancelled due to a massive thunderstorm. (Hooray!) A really smart person would have just declared victory and quit then and there, rolled over, gone back to sleep, and lived to run another day. No, I had to go and try to run my scheduled 21km after the rain stopped at 8am. Mind you, I hadn't had any more to eat since my 4.15 wakeup call. (People make terrible decisions when sleep-deprived.)

I set off, already feeling exhausted and hungry, and a few km in, I ran into a spot of stomach trouble. Remember the inauspiciously dodgy greasy wrap thing? It refused to come back up; it went the other way instead. I grew up on street food and usually have a cast-iron stomach, so I blame the lack of sleep.

So imagine this: 5km into a run; no sleep, no dinner, girl trouble, stomach trouble, and home is 5km away while the nearest lavatory is 4km away in the other direction. What do you do? You run-walk-jog to the nearest loo, of course.

Once inside, you find the nearest loo -- the only loo for miles -- has...no...paper. At which point you burst into tears, then collect yourself and take a cab home.

You might entertain thoughts of trying again and doing another 10km in the afternoon, but the universe has other plans for you and hits you with a migraine, and then you just give up on life altogether and declare it a nap day.

Sunday wasn't a complete wash though - after I recovered from the morning run-disaster we went to our friends' place for some delicious brunch and Ultimate Fighting Championship live on some sports channel (aka: naptime/ playing with friends' dogs/ playing with other friends' cute toddler to distract her from the violence on TV). But yes, sometimes the universe just decides to punch you several times in the face and then guillotine-choke you into submission.

Gold Coast training log week 8 (April 21-27) 
Monday: 10.5km + TRX
Tuesday: speed set
Wednesday: TRX with Shirlene
Thursday: AM: 8km tempo. PM: 5.6km at the JP Morgan Challenge with colleagues (5:10 pace, yes I do go out too fast during races)
Friday: 11km easy
Saturday - skipped planned 10km, working
Sunday: 9km misery
Total: 49km + TRX

Flying solo + week 7 training log

I've been flying solo this week because the husband is away at a conference for work. It turns out that an apartment occupied by one person (even if that person is out for a great deal of the day) becomes just as grimy as an apartment occupied by two people, but the difference is that one person gets to do all the chores herself.

On the plus side, that one person gets to burp, fart, eat cereal and prunes for dinner, finish off the very good cheddar cheese, and stay up much too late reading a giant Haruki Murakami novel that is fat enough to hurt when I fall asleep with it on my face. It's midnight and I have 10km on deck tomorrow morning and I'm about to read another chapter. Smart life decisions.

Also, one is never really done with dishes. Now I know how Sisyphus felt.

Gold Coast training log week 7 - April 14 to 21 

Monday - 5.1km + yoga

Tuesday - track. 9 by 400 hard with plenty of rest (was supposed to be 10 but I had good old bronchiospasms midway and couldn't breathe so the last, oh, five of them were about half a minute slower than they should have been. delightful)

Wednesday - 1-hour TRX class - probably my new favourite strength class; it's a full-body workout but doesn't completely kill me

Thursday - tempo: 11.2km with five of those at 6:00/km, and yoga

Friday - 10km easy

Saturday - 11km trail, easy

Sunday - 16km continuous, 18km with a bit more jogging: Went around Gardens by the Bay via the river.  After last week's slightly epic long run I felt I ought to back off a tiny bit. I'm only just starting to do about 60km a week consistently. I looked back in my training log and last week's 64.5km is the farthest I've ever run in a week. Ever. (New achievement unlocked! I did do 80km once but that included rather a lot of hiking.)
I realise this is pretty miserable for someone who's somehow managed to jogwalkbumblethrough four marathons but let's face it, I've trained through these things since 2010 with a full-time job and a half, and life happens. I could add more easy mileage and I probably will, but I am so slow that it will involve multiple doubles.  Anyway - I feel I'll do better on 60-70km/ week consistently than 80 one week, 40 the next. Ehh. Baby steps.

Total: 61km, TRX, yoga 

Ultra volunteering, tri spectating

A couple of weeks ago I volunteered at the Twilight Ultra Challenge organised by the Running Guild.

If you remember this was on my list of 2014 Things To Do. I'd never volunteered at a race before, but I picked Running Guild because I LOVE their small community-focused events - those events are really well-organised, by runners for runners, and they really do know what runners need. At Twilight, most of the volunteers were high school kids who needed to get community service hours, but quite a number were runners themselves.

So, I signed up back in January, and we got our briefing packets through email. I was assigned to the 'special needs table' - if you're not familiar with ultras, those that come in the form of multiple laps typically have a spot where you can drop off stuff you might need over the course of the race, but that you don't want to carry with you. People stash food, extra gels, a spare shirt, phone chargers, and in the case of one runner, an entire set of shower stuff so she could take a shower and change mid-run! (It worked - she ran 100km...) Another runner had a pack of cigarettes and would go for a smoke every lap or two (!...) . Another one chatted on the phone with a series of friends overseas nearly the whole time.

For the first hour or two we were super busy just taking in people's drop bags and labelling them with masking tape and marker pens (should just get sticky labels next year - save on masking tape).

At 7pm the runners were off! The race course consisted of a 10km loop, with a main aid station in the middle and one at each end. Race format was as many 10km loops as you could run in 16 hours (!!!).

We spent another half hour arranging the special needs bags by runner bib number. For the first couple of hours, as people came in, we directed them to their bags; by about 11pm most people had a pretty good idea of where their stuff was. I feel like I could have been redirected to labour-intensive stations that really did need more volunteers, like the food station (they were kept busy boiling hot water for coffee, cooking hotdogs, slicing watermelon, and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all night).

At 1am I took a tiny nap because we weren't needed that much, then alternated between directing people to their bags and handing out gummi bears and biscuits. At 4am I took a slightly longer nap (it was supposed to be half an hour but it inadvertently turned into an hour and a half, oops).

Runners sprawled all over the place - about 3am

And then, sunrise!

As the morning wore on, the special needs table team took turns manning the spray bottle to spritz runners with ice cold water - by about 8am, they really, really needed it.

Photo credit - Dave of PictureArt

Finally, at 11am, the ultra was over. The eventual winner ran 145km. In 16 hours. Let's just say that's faster than my long-run pace.

The medals are the size of your face, just in case you need bragging rights.

A few of the volunteers. Photo credit - Ben Swee (race director!)

I don't feel any urge to do an ultra in the near future, but if I did, it would be with these guys. And would I volunteer for another Running Guild race again? You betcha.

---
Gold Coast training log, week 6 - April 7 to 13 

Monday - 6km to gym, yoga

Tuesday - 16x400 leaving every 2:30 - this was a tolerance set, so 400s at moderate pace, about 2:00.

Wednesday - a true rest day

Thursday - AM: tempo - 1.2km warmup, 7km at 6:00/km, 2km cooldown. PM - 5km easy with coworkers after work near the office, chatting all the way.

Friday - 'GRIT strength' class at the gym -- half an hour of high intensity interval strength workout that is way tougher than it sounds + 1.2km cooldown. All I can say about this one is, burpees are the exercise from hell and no one should ever do them. It's Sunday night and I'm still sore.

Saturday - 10.3km to and around the Botanic Gardens

Sunday - 25km from downtown to Changi Beach for more tri spectating. Once you get on that Changi park connector, you really have to commit because it's the middle of nowhere and there is no turning back. I ran a little bit longer than expected because I suck at estimating distances - I'd thought it was 21k from downtown to my destination. Also, one of my water stops was simply not open at 8.30am when I got there, so I arrived at the end point ABSOLUTELY STARVING and Shirlene had to feed me a Snickers bar to stop me from tipping over.

Shirlene and I are rapidly becoming Super Tri Spectators. This morning we chalked up some more tri spectating points by cheering our heads off at the Metasprint sprint-distance tri at Changi Beach Park. Her husband and his friend were racing each other - I mean, they were racing, but the actual race doesn't matter as long as Eugene beats Aylwin. Or vice versa. You know. Boys.

Total: 64.5km + yoga + GRIT + tri spectating

The Great Hansons Marathon Experiment, Round 2: Here we go again

After several weeks of dithering, I've picked this year's marathon: the Gold Coast Airport Marathon.

Based on what I can do for a half marathon, I'm shooting for 4:30* and those are the paces I'm training at, but given the unpredictability of my work schedule and my long history with muscle cramps, let's see how it goes!

*an almost entirely arbitrary number; I might as well pick a perfect square, or a prime number, or no number. At some point I will have a Conversation with Coach Shem about choosing a marathon goal. Hopefully sooner rather than later. It kind of dictates what paces I train at.

One of my mini goals this time around is to be able to finish strong, happy, and cramp-free. (Please, running gods? Can I have just one marathon without cramping? Internet, can you find me salt tabs I won't throw up?) In Perth, things were all right all the way until the last 5km, when the cramps hit and I had to sit down and wail for a while. I think the secret is more tempo runs. Long ones. Long, painful ones.

Gold Coast training, week 4 (March 24-30): 

Monday - 5km easy and yoga. Or rather, because I woke up late, yoga followed by half an hour on the treadmill to undo all the nice stretching that yoga did for my legs.

Tuesday - speedwork. 7x800 on the track - did a few of them at 4:00 with 30s rest, and a few of them at 3:45 with 2 minutes' rest. Very, very confused.

Wednesday - off

Thursday - 9.5km tempo run at roughly 6:08/km (a little bit faster than marathon goal pace - this is good)

Friday - 8km easy + strength work

Saturday - 18km to and around Macritchie Reservoir; met friends near the visitor centre and carried on around the reservoir with them

Saturday to Sunday - ultramarathon volunteering at the Twilight Ultra Challenge

Sunday - lots of sleep and 4.5km Running of the Errands

Total: 50.6km + yoga + strength training