Just One Marathon

Ten Big Ones

Oh, happy day: I am finished hill training! I did my final hill run on Friday morning – 12K and ten hills. And yet, I still huff and puff when I climb stairs. What’s with that?

Here are the haikus:

Ten hills all alone

I could just run five, or six

Now, you’ll never know

Done now. If I face

One more hill, I’ll stamp my feet

Until it’s removed

Grit, dust and hot sun

Time stands still while I count down

To that long last climb

Next week, we’re on to training activities with funny names, starting with the fartlek.

My Internal Speedometer

In my head, I have an idea of how fast I can run. Sometimes I wonder if I’m simply afraid to try to run faster. I’m not sure what I think will happen if I run “too fast”: that I’ll run out of energy, or hurt myself, or start to flail my arms around like a maniac and look silly.

Anyways, I was running the last of nine hills on Thursday at what is, for me, a comfortable but challenging pace. Two of my speedier running buddies, no doubt giddy with joy at being almost finished, raced up behind me, grabbed my arms, and started to pull me up. We laughed and I said, “Okay, fine, I’ll run as fast as you, then.” Then I proceeded to keep pace with them, for a few metres anyways. At the top of the hill, I looked at my Garmin and was surprised to notice that I had actually shaved two seconds off my average pace over nine hills. That means that for that last half-a-hill, I must have been burning up the road (relatively speaking, that is). Can it be that I’m capable of more?

Here’s the experience in 5-7-5:

That wasn’t so hard

Starting on a gentle slope

Oh wait! Yes it is

Briefly, they pull me

Up the last long hill. We laugh

Then I run faster

One more week of hills training to go! But still a long road ahead until the marathon, and it seems longer after my discouraging 32K run this morning. I’ll post more on that shortly.

Six Hills

For some reason, only the fast runners showed up for hill training last night. The fast runners … and me. My running clinic pals zipped up and down those hills like they were nothing, while my body protested every elevated inch.

Having said that, it wasn’t so bad. I put on some tunes, high-fived people on the way up and down and got home in time to watch Lost.

Here’s this week’s haiku action:

From warm restaurants

The tempting smell of hot meals

While I chew on hills

The cold biting wind

Makes the hills a frozen slope

But still whispers, spring

On Sunday – 19K (12 miles) – a little island of low mileage in a sea of big, long runs that I plan to thoroughly enjoy (The island that is, not the sea).