Poitras Pushes Past Pain to Podium

My muscles were no longer a seething Revolutionary Tribunal and seemed to have given up on complaining . . . I realized all of a sudden that even physical pain had all but vanished. Or maybe it was shoved into some unseen corner, like some ugly furniture you can't get rid of. (Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. A Memoir. 2008)

Who knew? 

Who knew that despite having very sore quads from running down a mountain on a Saturday (OK part of a mountain. OK in Ontario. OK a slope) that one could "push through the pain" and actually place first in one's age category in a road race the following Tuesday? Not me. But I did. And I did.

I was certainly the last person to think I would place first in any running category at any time in my life. Hell, I am the last person to think I would even bother to "push through pain" in order to achieve something (well, except childbirth). I'd rather have a glass of wine and read about someone else doing that (like one of my favourite authors, Haruki Murakami, who is a runner, and who decided one day to run solo from Athens to Marathon. Or, for that matter, like my mighty little sister-in-law, Mandy Poitras, a former cyclist for the Canadian National Team, who has plenty of "pushing past pain" stories.). But - three cheers - I did, last week, at the 5th annual Summer Solstice Run in Alliston, organized by Thrive Fitness Studio. First out of 12 women in the 40-49 age group at 1:05:26 for 11K. 

Nice tech shirts in the race kits this year and special "I Was On the Podium at the Summer Solstice Run" shirts for first and second place winners as well.
(Perhaps THAT was my motivation: a literal podium fashion statement?)

Now, I must admit, as much as I enjoy entering running events with my good friend and neighbour Janate, I was quite OK with her not being available for this one. Because then I would have placed second. And the woman who placed first overall for females may have also placed second at her 50-minute time, because I think Janate probably runs a comfortable 11K training run in about 45 minutes. Yep. She would have screwed up a lot of podium honours for a lot of people. Thanks for working that night Janate! 

(And naturally, it was also a bonus that our run coach, Ann, didn't run it, because she would have given Janate a run for her money, and if we stretch even further back in history, our good friend Janette also would have kicked ass (and will again, at some future race, very soon) if she 1) hadn't broken her leg last year and 2) wasn't volunteering as the emcee for this event. Oh, right, and then there's Ang, who is young and strong was always in the lead during our tough winter training runs, but who also opted out of the race in order to volunteer at the registration table. So thanks to my friends who work a lot and/or are very giving of their time, I was able to podium!)

Whereby the "40-49er" Waxes Glorious About Her Podium Race, Ad Nauseam:

Leading up to the start the only thing that made my quadriceps feel better was a ton of stretching. As soon as I stopped and walked, it felt like the muscles would start shrinking back again into tight little knots. My head really wanted to run this race, just to be out on a country road with no roots, rocks or mud to contend with. I felt strong in every other way, except for those quads.

When the start gun blasted, I plugged in my iPod Shuffle (first time ever using one in a race) and began a slow hobble, which isn't so unlike how I usually begin a race. That is probably why I never opt to run short races. I am very slow to start. The hobbling continued, through a lovely country road route just south of Alliston, until almost the halfway turnaround point. The road was hilly, but not too strenuous. The sun was shining. I saw another running pal, Mhairi, who is usually ahead of me, at the rest stop grabbing a drink of water and stretching. Ha! I thought. Mhairi doesn't usually stretch mid-run! What's wrong? I am not supposed to be catching up to Mhairi! But I am! (Secret "WhooHoo" for me! haha). 

"What are you doing Mhairi?" I asked my friend, "Don't you know you are my pace bunny at most races?"

"Ok, Ok," she responded, in typical "boot camp style," as she picked up the pace for the next incline. But my pace was just a tad faster, miracle of miracles. (Maybe it was my iPod music, that masked the sound of my heavy breathing, especially during the hill ascents.)

With my friendly competition behind me just enough that I couldn't see her shadow anymore, I pushed my sorry legs (at this point just numb to the post-mud-run pain and putting up with me and my pointless ambition) over the hills again and - with Pink blasting "Raise Your Glass" - straight to the finish line. (Thank-you, Janette, for the compliments over the microphone about my fashionable running dress: Skirtsports.com.)

When Mhairi was called to podium right after me for placing second in our age category, we both looked at each other in giddy astonishment. ("What? Are we the only two women in their 40s who ran it?")

Congratulations, belated as it is, to all those who ran the Summer Solstice runs last week, both the 5K and 11K. There were "firsts" for a lot of people. First race, first time running the entire distance, personal bests (LeeAnne, way to go on that 28 minute 5K, that is FAST girl!), perhaps even firsts after recovery from an injury. 

As for my quads, they felt better after that big push. Go figure. 

** Note to Local Readers: Thrive Olympics this Wednesday night, June 26, 7 p.m. 

Visit www.thrive fitness.ca for more info.**

Post Met Con: A New Recruit's Journey into Mudness

Who's Your  Momma?

We SURVIVED our first Met Con Blue! 

What a blast. Loved it loved it loved it.

My body has been on fire for two days now. Walking has proven to be quite a challenge, especially after sitting for a stretch of time (hell even after sitting for a brief period of time, like, say, on the toilet. Helloooo? Can anybody help me up to the standing position?) You know you may have overworked your quads a tad when, 48 hours after you descended a mountainside, you wince in sheer agony when your kitten walks across your legs.

But would I do it again, you ask? HELL YES! How insane is that?

A Helpful Chart for Those Thinking About Trying Met Con Blue 2014
(Circled Are All the Muscles Currently in Shock on My Sorry Body!)

As sore as my body is, I have already taken advantage of the "early early bird" registration and signed up for next year, as has my daughter and hopefully most of our team from this year! My goal, and my daughter's, and my friend Dawn's, is to train like hell this year to improve our upper body strength. I thought I had a little. Apparently I have none. Unlike my iron woman friend Janate, who helped heave oh, I would guess about 250 live bodies over various obstacle walls, all the while wearing a GoPro head cam. (I cannot WAIT to see that video.) I mean, she had to do something to entertain herself while waiting for the weak links of the team to catch up to her, right?

Mud Patties Rule!
(Those boulders are real)

Seriously though, we all signed up to have a hell of a lot of mud-slinging, body bruising fun and that's exactly what we accomplished. The vertical climb at the beginning was quite the challenge. Many people walked it, pacing themselves, considering all the crazy obstacles that the twisted, sick minds of the Met Con Blue organizers concocted for their recruits further up the mountain. I soon found my mantra of "You can do this. You can do this" turned into, "You paid for this. You paid for this. Hahahaha. You paid for this." (Sort of like an insane narrator from an Edgar Allan Poe tale. Maybe it was the oxygen deprivation at the high altitude, I don't know.)

The "scariest" part, to me, was probably when I had to force myself to submerge fully under icy cold brown water, under a floating log (as in a wood log. Frig! Not like the "floating log" in the pool scene from Caddyshack. You middle-aged movie buffs will remember that one.) Although who knows, right? Ewwww! Anyway, despite its murkiness, the water felt invigorating on the hot, sunny day that it was.

Me & Dawn = Middle-Aged Crazy Girl Power.
(Friends for nearly 35 years)

The most difficult parts for me, and the reason my pecs and external obliques are so sore today, were any obstacles that had to do with climbing/scaling a wall. If it wasn't for the help from our stronger team mates, I would still be there now. Push myself up and over? Ha! I became nothing better than a limp rag doll as the bicep babes on our team pushed my sorry ass and yanked me up (and I'm sure felt like heaving me over) so I could sling my leg over and jump down to the other side. I must admit, our strong team members were great. They bit their tongues and cheered us helpless cases onward and upward, telling us we were doing great. That's what makes a great team. In fact, many strong people helped the physically challenged in this race. There was even a guy competing in a wheelchair (who I later learned was the incredible, unstoppable Chris Stoutenburg) with a whole team cheerily manoeuvring him through all kinds of terrain and obstacles. Awesome sight to see. 

The most hilarious moments happened right at the end. Our video-camera-wielding leader Janate (the one who convinced us to sign up for this journey into madness and whose husband, after editing the video, is convinced she is going to lose friends if she keeps this mud run enthusiasm up) hopped into the little mud box (picture a sand box but with higher walls, that you have to climb into, and just replace the sand with oozing muck that fills your socks and shoes up to about mid-calf) and relentlessly started flinging big gobs of muck at her fellow team-mates. "It's a MUD RUN after all!!" Janate roared with delight. "GO MUDDY OR GO HOME!" We returned fire, naturally. (I wonder if one could drown another person in mud...I paid for this...I paid for this...haahahaha. I digress.)

Mission Accomplished
(Note to daughter for next year: Bring a clean pair of shoes for post-race!)

TEAM SPIRIT

Loved how creative people got with their team t-shirts. 

(If you haven't seen the "Honey Badger Don't Give a Shit" YouTube video that inspired the team name above, take a look. It is hilarious. And who doesn't love Betty White's inspirational mantra for living a long life!)

Thank you to these people I don't even know for letting me take your picture.

Then we were hit with the final obstacle that was strategically placed right before the chip-timed finish line. A wall that resembled a half-pipe. (I asked my former skateboarding husband what he thought it was, and he said "quarter-pipe" so we'll go with that. At any rate, it was frigging high.) Long story short - I think it took Dawn and I at least half a dozen tries of running up that wall before the rest of our team (except the young lads, who abandoned us in favour of a better finishing time. Heartless creatures.) finally were able to catch us and haul our sorry asses to the top. Toooo funny! My daughter and her friend managed to mount it on their first respective tries. (But they're young and strong and beautiful. So whatever.) All the while spectators and the emcee cheered us on. I even had a feisty old guy coaching me from the sidelines: "You must RUN up the wall! RUN up the wall! FASTER! FASTER!" (OK! OK! I paid for this! I paid for this! Hahahahahahaha)

At an average pace of 18 minutes per kilometre, this was by far the longest 5 K event of which I have ever had the pleasure of taking part. Thanks to our great team of nine, many of whom could have easily kicked ass with awesome race results had they done it on their own, we all had a fantastic time, with enough sore muscles and mild bruises to keep us bragging for a few more days at least.

Rah Rah Mud Patties! See you all next year, PLUS some new recruits! (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE and if you don't, you soon will.)

OK I've been sitting on my butt composing this for an hour or so. Time to get out of my chair. Helloooo? Help! Family members? Anyone?? OUCHHHHH!

One "clean" shot amongst all the dirty pictures.

Thank you to Logan for the great photos.
Too bad you won't be taking them next year, 'cause you'll be in the race.

Mud Run Fashion Update

Very excited for tomorrow's MET CON BLUE mud run. So excited, in fact, that I shopped for white tank tops for the entire team. Cheap white tank tops. Found some for $2 at the trusty local "GT Boutique." 

And then it started getting a bit ridiculous. I would just like to point out that I am not the only one on my team fretting about the fashion statement for this roll in the muck. Three, count it, THREE, of us were texting back and forth earlier today, discussing our unified "look." There are nine people of all ages, shapes and sizes on our team. I am probably the oldest, then the ages go down from there, to mid-forties, twenties, and teens.

So I'm not sure what the boys are wearing aside from the white shirts, but I have a feeling we girls are going to be sporting some lovely pink attire. Cheap pink attire. I found a running skirt for a great price that I actually hope will wash well afterwards, 'cause it's kinda cute. I texted Janate about it and I think she went and bought the same one. My daughter and her friend have these hot pink long spandex shorts, and my friend Dawn, who can get extremely creative with costumes and often at the last minute (she is an awesome seamstress who can make anything) has some kind of get-up in mind that, she says, she is not yet sure if she is "brave enough" to wear. Hmmmm. Come on Dawn, JUST DO IT! And the "piece de resistance" is the neoprene fingerless grippy gloves I bought at MEC. Now those cost a bit more, but I figure they are tough and can stand some future abuse as well, in the gym or out kayaking or something. 

I suppose I should take a pic of the outfits before they get superbly trashed. So here's the squeaky clean gear so far:

Team costumes, pre mud-run! Soooo pretty, right? Then we'll do a TIDE commercial or something...

Hopefully many more pre and post-race pics to come. And I do believe Janate will be sporting a GoPro cam. Fun fun fun! Bring it on, Met Con!

Timid Trail Runner Interviews Alter Ego: Why a Mud Run?

The fact that I had enough energy in my reserves to run 10K the day after the 5 Peaks Rattlesnake Point Enduro run tells you something about my trail running tempo: S L O W.

No, I was not dead last. I think I was about 23rd from the bottom this time, out of just under 300 runners (1.41 to run 12.8k. Nine whole minutes slower than last year, thanks to the ankle issue I am tired of talking about.) The fastest person chipped in at 1:03 (young and foolish, right?) and the last made it in at 2:16 (Bravo! Many more wouldn't even attempt it). Our Thrive Team has many great athletes on it, including Ann and Steve, co-owners of Thrive Fitness, Alliston, who each placed first in their respective age groups for the Sport course! Because of them and some other "natural born" trail bunnies (Janate, Carol, Tony) on our team, Thrive Team is ranked first in Ontario so far! Thankfully I do not contribute negative points!

Rattlesnake Point on the Niagara Escarpment in Milton is a beautiful course. Lots of wide trails mixed with narrower ones but generally feels a lot more wide open when you are in the woods compared to Hardwood Hills. But Rattlesnake has more rocks. Lots of wet, slippery rocks. And that's what slows me down. It slows a lot of people down, as some parts are just not meant for running. Like the two-foot wide vertical rock-riddled climb early on in the run. We all hike up that one ("Why couldn't you run it?" asks my non-running but former high school jock husband. Sigh. He just doesn't GET IT.) 

Then there are the big walls of boulders we get to climb near the end of the course. Three sets in all! My memory blocked out the last two from 2012, so when I told a new trail runner who stayed behind me for a while (nice young man who was supposed to be running with his dad this summer but unfortunately his dad hurt his leg on a training run), right after we ran up a windy forest path, that we had one more big one to climb, I was incorrect by two. Oops. He still made it across the finish line a few minutes before me though. But I must say it was nice for someone (especially a 20-something someone) to tell me I was keeping him at a good pace. He also said he didn't want to injure himself. So there you have it -- pace with me and you may not even sniff the sweat of the top 70 per cent of finishers, but you will cross the finish line fairly unscathed!

Which leads me to my next pondering. And I decided to write it out as an interview between me and my, I guess, alter ego. (I am alone most of the day, with kids in school and all, so to carry on conversations with myself in my head is normal. To me.)

TIMID TRAIL RUNNER INTERVIEWS SELF ABOUT WHY THE HELL 

SHE IS GOING TO ATTEMPT INSANE MOUNTAIN ADVENTURE RACE

Me: When you talk about trail running, you always mention how you are afraid to hurt yourself, to fall. Why is that?

Alter Ego: Because it hurts.

Me: How would you know that? Just because of one dumb sprained ankle from last year that now refuses to feel normal?

Alter Ego: Yes.

Me: Did you hurt your ankle at Rattlesnake Point?

Alter Ego: No. But it winced a couple of times. And I fell onto my hands once (finally a reason why I do so many planks at core strength class! So I can sustain the full weight of my body onto my hands when I trip on a rock in a forest!) and got dirt on my hands and one leg.

Me: You do realize what event is coming up in four days from now.

Alter Ego: Yes! Met Con Blue. THE most insane 5km mountain obstacle race ON THE PLANET. Or something to that effect.

Me: So you understand you will be running uphill on a mountain side, dealing with all kinds of bizarre obstacles and in-between all of that, running not only on forest trails, but in many instances, very mucky forest trails where you will inevitably slip and fall several times.

Alter Ego: Yes!

Me: You are a sad, strange little woman.

Alter Ego: Yes! But I am in good company: metconrace.com

5 Peaks Prep & June Wardrobe List

You gotta love race organizers with a sense of humour. The 5 Peaks people are hilarious. Just read their pre-race email about tomorrow's event in the Southern Ontario series. My favourite line was, "Unattended children will be tattooed and taught to swear in foreign languages." I liked it so much I had to reply email them to let them know.

I am really looking forward to tomorrow's run at Rattlesnake Point, despite having felt rather winded running uphill this past Monday night on a local trail. I am just going to blame that on not enough sleep or something. Onward and upward! The weather looks like it will co-operate, and hopefully I just didn't jinx the forecast by writing that. What is great about this run is it mixes trail running with a little rock climbing. To me, that's a nice break from the cardio, and gives one a chance to actually use one's upper body strength that one has been honing over the past year for no other reason except to have upper body strength. OK and to look a little better in a sleeveless top. Loosey goosey 40-something underarm flesh be gone!

This might be a good spot to quote Jerry Seinfeld. I happened upon his old book in my eclectic collection the other day, Sein Language, and started flipping pages (it's addictive, that book). I found a great jibe about going to the gym which relates to my upper body strength comment above:

"In modern society, you really don't have to be physically strong to do anything. The only reason that you're getting in shape is so you can get through the workout. So we're working out, so that we'll be in shape, for when we have to do our exercises. That's comedy." (Jerry Seinfeld, 1993)

So, I guess those of us who exercise regularly should thank all of these run organizers for giving us more reasons to get in shape. They provide a goal for us to reach, and we don't need to worry about being televised or evaluated by judges! We can rely on ourselves to kick our own asses and improve our own PBs (Personal Bests)

Also remembered to carb-load last night and even went to bed early, since I probably won't sleep tonight, as I lay awake trying to remember the best way to wrap my perpetually stiff and wimpy ankle, and which colour wrap matches my outfit. (Some friends would actually think I care about that...). It's noon on Friday right now and I haven't even thought about what I am going to wear tomorrow. With this freakish June weather we've been having it's hard to say what the ideal running outfit would be. Perhaps I should write a list of ideas right here, as it could be useful for others who are running the trail tomorrow, or for that matter, just going anywhere in Southern Ontario that involves being outside.

What to Wear if You are Heading Outside in Southern Ontario 

This June 8-9 Weekend Based on This Past Week's Weather:

1. Shorts, or maybe not. Maybe pants.
2. A short-sleeved t-shirt. Or maybe a long-sleeved one.
3. A sun hat, but pack a toque just in case.
4. Sandals, unless your feet get cold easily, then runners, with warmish socks.
5. At least bring a lightweight sweater or hoodie. Down-filled is good too.
6. A wind-breaker. It would be good if it was water-proof too, with about a -10C insulation factor.
7. Gloves or mitts. Seriously. It's only June.
8. Not to wear, but maybe pack a blanket.
9. And bring rubber boots, just in case. And extra socks.
10. Again not to wear, but bring water, or maybe a thermos of hot tea/coffee/chocolate/toddy.

If I think of anything else I'll add it later. Gotta practise wrapping the ankle now. I am determined to break out of the bottom 10 tomorrow! Or at least break my PB and finish fifth from last instead of fourth.