Life's Curve Balls

Life has a habit of throwing us curve balls and over the years, I’ve certainly learnt to adapt and to maintain my optimistic outlook on things. This generally happens when I’m in control, not that I’m a control freak by a long shot, but I do like things to be orderly and to be completed within a reasonable time frame.

As soon as I arrived home from Javelina at the end of October, I knew that I needed to renew my passport as it wouldn’t have the full 6 months before expiry that is required to access the USA again in December for Desert Solstice. It was one of those things that I should have done during the summer months when travel plans hadn’t been confirmed, but with Andy being away so much and with having to deal with Brandy and Wilson’s regular visits to the vets along with a whole multitude of other things, I never got around to it.

I applied to renew online which was meant to reduce errors and speed up the process – the average time quoted for renewal of a British passport from overseas said 6 weeks but it was usually around 4 weeks – from my perspective, I had plenty of time and was convinced it would return in time for our next flight to Phoenix on December 6^th.

It was quite interesting tracking my humble little passport on its travels across Canada and then it’s journey over the Atlantic Ocean, but on its arrival in the UK, it stalled. It was stuck in customs awaiting clearance for 9 days and I was so frustrated and angry but there was no way I could speed up the process. It eventually arrived at the passport office in Durham where it was once again sitting in a queue awaiting further action.

Believe it or not, I’m not stupid and I am well aware that there are thousands of others applying to renew passports every day but having seen my poor little red passport again just waiting for the past 5 days, the frustration once again started to build. It still needed to be approved, then printed, then prepared for posting, and then it had to travel 4,500 miles to eventually land on my doormat here in Leduc. I am meant to be travelling to Phoenix in 2 weeks and whilst it has now passed to the printing stage, I am started to think that my ambitious plans for Desert Solstice will not come into fruition, simply because my passport will not arrive in time. I investigated the requirements for obtaining an emergency travel document and whilst this would involve a trip to Vancouver, I was happy to do it if it meant I could still race. But then I cannot apply for an ESTA on the ETD, I needed a visa. I already have a visa, but this too is stuck in England in my old passport - US immigration needs to see the actual visa despite everything being electronic so I couldn’t even use a colour photocopy, and they won’t issue duplicates – I would need to apply for a new visa and cancel the old one.

Needless to say, it’s been pretty stressful for the past 3 weeks have been which I could have done without given that I have a big race on the horizon.

As the old wartime British posters used to say, I’ve tried to keep calm and carry on, and I have still been following my training plan in the hope that the fitness I am feeling will be put to good use in a little over 2 weeks.

Post run pizza with Dennene - that was a great session :-)

As the ice and snow arrived in Leduc, I turned to running indoors for my faster paced runs and a couple of weeks ago, I joined my DS Crew Chief Dennene at the indoor track in St Albert for a 15 miles steady run. I was greatly encouraged by this run, running strong for just under 2 hours and maintaining a consistent pace of around 7.37 miling – 90 laps of the track went extremely quickly and I felt focused the whole time.

The following day, I joined a webinar with the GB 24 hour squad and it was great to see old and new friends on the screen and to chat about the World Champs along with motivation techniques during training and racing. Talking to such an amazing group of athletes certainly made me feel even more motivated and determined to make that British team standard, and I put the thoughts of a delayed passport to the back of my mind.

Despite the treacherous conditions on the pavements, I have been doing some outside running and have joined the Wild Rose Runners on a couple of runs this past week or two, as well as completing some slower, easy solo runs around roads and trails in Leduc. These too have gone extremely well, and with the track sessions, I felt like my prep for Desert Solstice really couldn’t be going any better.

Trail run with a few of the Wild Rose Runners

But then the next curveball got thrown at me.

Last Wednesday I once again went to the indoor track, this time for a 6-mile tempo run, and I was really looking forward to seeing what I could do and how it would feel.

I arrived before 6pm and it was so quiet that it made me even happier and I started the run feeling fantastic, knocking out what felt like a comfortable 6.35 minute-miling pace. As the hands on the clock signaled the hour, a group of about 20 young children joined me on the track and they wanted to sprint past me and cut in front of me to prevent me overtaking them, despite me having far longer legs and running much faster for longer. I lost count of the amount of times I had to dodge them and after 10 minutes I was getting so annoyed that I stopped to help me to refocus.

Cue the next two groups, both consisting of about 10 to 15 teenage lads who were all trying to impress each other my doing pull ups from the low ceiling whilst in the middle of the track. Yet again, I found myself swerving and weaving and dodging, getting even more frustrated at the older group as they did their warm up and wandered on to the track without checking for others, then jumping out of the way at the last minute as I tried to pass by.

It was inevitable that with so many people using a 195-metre track, there would be a collision at some point and about 4 miles into my tempo run (which had now become more of a rep session due to all the stopping!), I collided with the older lads as they were doing their warmup and walked straight in front of me without looking. I stumbled, punched one in the stomach as I was running fast, and kicked another as I tried to avoid an embarrassing fall – I was so pissed off!

I’m usually quite tolerant of others using the track and expect the younger kids to be unaware of track etiquette, but these lads were so ignorant. I tried extremely hard not to yell at them, but I was fuming!

Following that collision, I noticed a tightness in my glute and my calf started to get sore, and whilst I completed the session at a good pace, I literally limped the last couple of laps as the soreness in both legs got gradually worse.

Since that session I have ran and I did do another 12 miles at the track last weekend, but my left glute and my right calf are still not happy. This week I have some faster paced sessions scheduled in, but I am trying desperately to be disciplined and trying not to run for the next couple of days to give things time to settle down, concentrating instead on stretching, icing and massage. I’m meant to be joining Dennene in St Albert again on Saturday, this time for 20 miles, but I need to see how the next couple of days pan out as I don’t want to make things worse.

I’m trying not to take the delayed passport and the niggles as negatives. Along with my DNF at the recent Javelina Jundred, I’d like to think that things can only improve from here onwards and I will do all I can to ensure that if I do make it to Desert Solstice, I will do the best I can to qualify for the British Team, given the added stress and worries this past month.

On a positive note, Andy will hopefully be joining us in Leduc next week and he will be here for the whole of December – whoo hoo! I’ve also started to plan my races out for next year and have already registered for the Blackfoot Ultra 100km in May which will be one of my goal races. In addition, I hoping to register for the Canadian Death Race (125km) in August, and then fingers crossed, the World 24 hour Championships in October which will take place in France. If the latter doesn’t happen, provisional plans are to return to the desert for the Javelina Jundred where I will once again target that sub 19 hours that I know for sure I am capable of.

For now, I’m taking things a day at a time and maintaining that positive focus on December 8^th. If things change, rest assured you’ll be the first to know 😉

Happy trails and happy running to you all!

Back on the Track again :-)

It’s 2 weeks since Javelina and I have to say that my body seems to have recovered ok and I was back running by the following Wednesday, albeit only 3 miles or so at an easier 9-minute mile pace. By the following Sunday, I was back up to 7 miles and having picked up the pace for a couple of miles mid-run, I was happy to see that I was running a relatively comfortable 7.35 pace.

I’ve since received my next block of training from Adam in the lead-up to Desert Solstice 24-hour race on December 8^th and whilst the mileage is low, the intensity is high which will hopefully benefit me next month.

Having arrived back home in Leduc just over a week ago, I was greeted with much colder weather and it is pretty much certain now that winter has finally arrived. We had some snowfall a few days ago and with frigid temperatures of -10 even during the day, it’s pretty slippery outside on the pavements. The cold weather really doesn’t bother me and I still run outside, but with some of my runs being at a faster pace, I don’t want to risk a fall that will put DS in jeopardy.

Last Saturday, I joined the Wild Rose Runners for a lovely trail run in Devon. The snow made it look like a winter wonderland and I was beaming with happiness at how beautiful it looked with the trails and the trees covered in snow that glistened in the sunlight as we passed through. Running in fresh snow is much more fun and less risky, but the pavements back in town were so icy that we all tentatively jogged to parking lot, trying to avoid embarrassing ourselves with a clumsy fall.

Snowy Devon Trails :-)

Snow trails in Devon :-)

My first run of the new week was an 8 mile negative split and I so desperately wanted to run outside but I knew that it would be too risky. I do have a treadmill which is currently in our heated garage, but whilst doing a hill session a couple of months ago, the belt slipped off and I haven’t yet had the time to fix it. This meant that I either had to do a slow run outside or finally head over to the Leduc Recreation Centre to use either the indoor track or one of their treadmills.

I haven’t been to a gym or rec centre in a long time – I actually find them quite intimidating with all the folks there working with personal trainers to improve the muscle tone on their already considerably perfect bodies. For a runner, I’m not particularly toned nor strong and I didn’t want to look frumpy in front of all these other folks - yes, even runners can have issues with their body image in certain situations! – and I knew that I would probably feel extremely self-conscious and uncomfortable.

I dithered most of the day trying to decide what to do, and after a walk at the dog park, I bit the bullet and headed back to the rec centre to purchase a membership.

I really needn’t have worried. The lady on reception was most welcoming and she had actually seen me out running around Leduc for the past few months (that’s what happens when you live in a city with just 34,000 people – everybody seems to  know each other or is a friend of a friend), and all of the other folks using the centre didn’t stare or point at me – phew! In fact, everybody was amazing, and a couple of folks even went out of their way to come and talk to me because of my accent – I guess a Stokie accent really does break the ice!

The next dilemma was whether to run on the track or on the treadmill. I had been told by a couple of folks that the indoor track wasn’t particularly good and wasn’t even the usual 200m that you expect at an indoor. I took a look and discovered that it was around 195m if using the outside lane – stuff it, Desert Solstice is on the track so I may as well get used to it. I stripped down to my shorts and t-shirt, and an hour later, I had completed 67 laps of the track in a little over an hour to give me my full 8 miles. I was so chuffed!

Running on the track for that long wasn’t actually too bad. I put my music on, got my head down and found myself in good a rhythm that I was able to keep going. There were a few PT sessions going on around the track and a couple of groups of school kids were also running which meant some weaving in and out at times, but in general I can honestly say that I found the change of environment fun and I felt good, knocking out consistent 57/58 second laps and then 51/52 second laps when I had to pick things up. I fully intend to use the track or the treadmill for all my faster paced workouts during the winter months, or at least for as long as the snow and ice is on the ground, and of course the track running will be perfect practice both mentally and physically for when I do DS in just over a month’s time.

Trying to calculate how number of laps for 8 miles!

Talking of Desert Solstice, I am absolutely delighted to say that in the absence of Andy, my good friend Dennene has offered to crew me at the race and she will be flying down to Phoenix with me. For those of you that don’t know Dennene, she is pretty awesome! She too had a rough day at JJ the other week and is no stranger to trials and tribulations of ultra-running having been there herself. She’s also ran on the Canadian National Team at both 100k and 24 hours, and I know that her experience will be of great benefit to me. The good news is that Dennene will be running ATY at the end of the year so we hope to do some runs together, starting this weekend when once again we’ll be hitting the indoor track for a couple of hours, followed by coffee and maybe a spot of lunch. WE're both feeling extremely motivated about things right now, and I think we are feeding off each other's energy which can only be a positive thing.

Me and Dennene on a trail run in Phoenix :-)

It’s funny how the mind works and I’m feeling optimistic about DS as things stand. I’ve already identified my 3-tier goals – I just have to get through the next 4 weeks of training without overdoing things, and hopefully this time, things will come together on the day.

Happy trails - and track running! - my friends :-)