Plan A and B

My plan for the Fall was pretty straightforward.

My plan was to train for the Medtronic Twin Cities 16k but to toss in a few 20k runs so that I would have the training distance I needed to run the Niagara Falls Half Marathon two weeks later.

My plan was to focus on the TC 16k because that was my big Fall race. The half marathon was just icing on the cake.

My plan was to run the 16k and then take stock of how my body was feeling. If it felt ok, I'd sign up for Niagara Falls. If not, I'd call it a day. Because I've pushed my body all spring and summer and I didn't want to push it too far.

Yesterday I decided to check the Niagara Falls website just to make sure that it wasn't close to being sold out yet.

And I saw that the cost of the race was going to go up by $10 on October 1st.

So I panicked.

I grabbed my wallet.

I filled out the registration form.

I signed up.

So much for my plan.

*sigh*

All Tied Up and No Place To Go

"Hi ladies. How was your swim?" asked the nice lady (whose name I always forget) in the locker room.

"Hard" I replied. "She tied us to the side of the pool today...I can't believe we actually pay for this kind of treatment!".

Everybody laughed, including my two swimming buddies who were also tied to the side of the pool.

I knew something was up during our warmup when I spotted Christine carrying a pile of stretch cords. Then she started tying them together. Good lord, I thought, it's 5:30am. Be nice!

After the warm-up, she explained what we were going to be doing. She broke us into groups of 2. I got paired with Jamie.  The other pairs were two girls and two boys (not that it really matters - I just like giving details like that). There were three activities to complete and we would rotate through them in pairs.

Activity one: swim 200m using a pull-buoy and breathing every 5th stroke and then swim 200m using the pull-buoy and breathing every 7th stroke.

Activity two: swim 5x100m. Each 100m was to be done on 2 minutes. This means that you check the clock when you start and check again when you finish. You have two minutes to complete 100m so, if it takes 1 minute and 30 seconds, you get 30 seconds rest. If it takes 1 minute and 55 seconds, you get 5 seconds rest.

Activity three: tie yourself to the side of the pool. Christine had hooked a waist belt thingie to a stretch cord. She then hooked the stretch cord to the side of the pool. "Tie this around your waist" she said. "I want you to swim out as far as you can. Once you stop moving forward, I want you to swim hard to stay in place for 30 seconds. Then swim back to the wall. Repeat 10 times. Each one on 1 minute.

Jamie and I started with the 200m pull buoy activity. The ladies started on the 100m swim and the boys started with the stretch cords. One of the boys is new (as of Wednesday) so I don't know him very well yet. The only thing I know is that he is built more like a bodybuilder than a swimmer.

I watched them both do their first pull. The first guy got about half-way across the pool before he stopped moving. Strongbad made it almost to the other side of the 25m pool. And then broke the cord.

Bloody hell. Seriously?

He swam back and Christine built him another, stronger, contraption.

He broke that one too.

She fixed him up again and then he managed to complete his 10 reps.

Jamie and I were next. We strapped ourselves in and started swimming. We both made it about half way across the pool before we stopped. I realized pretty quickly that you don't just stop and hang out. You stop and swim for dear life because the cord that is stretched now wants to contract and drag you back with it. Like water rushing up your nose drag back. I pulled and kicked like a madwoman, panting all the while. After 30 seconds Christine gave the signal to stop and I stopped with relief. Then I flashed a huge grin. With no more resistance, the cord contracted and I was flying through the water. Like Harry Potter on his broom. It was awesome. Totally worth the exertion.

We did ten of those. Swim like hell and then fly back. By the end, my arms were shaking with fatigue.

And no, I did not break a stretch cord.

(But thank you for asking)

After that workout, the last set of 5x100m was so hard it was ridiculous. Each one took 1 minute and 50 seconds so we had hardly any rest in between. And my arms were so weak that I could hardly push off the wall when I turned. I felt like I was swimming through mud with weights tied to my arms.

Apparently we're repeating the whole thing on Friday.

In Spades

It's that time of year again.

The leaves are starting to run. Apple cider is being sold by the jug at every roadside fruit stand. Cravings for homemade soup and hot chocolate are starting. My nose drips every time I go outside.

And my marathon man is in training mode.

It's definitely autumn in Ontario.

The next six weeks are rather busy. I have two races coming up. Doug has one (New York). Two if you count the fact that he's my Global Heroes running buddy but I don't really count that because I don't think it's called racing when you have to slow your pace down on the day of the race. It's more of a recovery run for him...

Anyway, let's take a look at long runs for a minute, for a bit of perspective. Long runs are those Saturday morning runs that build build build over the race preparation period and then taper towards the end. Over the next four weekends, I'm going to run 20k, 16k, 10k and 21.1k for a grand total of 67.1k.

Remember, we're only counting long runs here. Not weekday runs.

During that same period, Doug is going to run 32k, 16k, 35k and 25k. A total of 108k. Then he still has a 15k long run followed by his 42.2k marathon.

During the week - I run twice. During the week - he runs four times.

The man is a machine.

You would never guess by looking at him that he's at the hardest part of his training. Not because he doesn't look fit and fabulous - because he does. But because he looks the same as he always does. Long-limbed, full of energy, a constant bounce in his step and an impish twinkle in his eye.

He thrives on this level of activity and, other than an extra yawn or two in the evening, he's good to go.

I used to be impressed by that. Then I tried training for my own marathon. Now I am in absolute awe of it.

Yesterday I wrote about fitness.

Doug has it in spades.

Fitness

I find the notion of ‘fitness’ interesting.

In my world, people mention the word with a fair degree of frequency but never really talk about it. Fitness is used more as a catchall term – I can run faster than I could last year because my fitness level is higher. I can swim more lengths because I have better fitness.

But what the heck is fitness? And why am I all of a sudden thinking about it?

Monday morning masters’ swimming is what triggered the whole thing. It was a busy morning at the pool and we had 6 people instead of the usual 3-4 in our class. There was a girl that I have not seen since the summer class whom I knew to be fast. Our assistant coach Jamie joined the workout and there was a new guy I had never seen but figured out from the way he did his warm-up that he had been in the pool once or twice before...

Then there was me and two other regulars who have been swimming hard three times a week for several weeks or more.

In other words, a bunch of people one might describe as ‘fit’.

After our 1200m warm-up, Christine has us do 12x50m followed by 3x(150m, 100m, 50m). Towards the end of the workout, you could tell we were all exhausted. The recovery period no longer felt long enough and our times were getting slower. Some people would groan every time she said ‘go!’. I mumbled ‘shit’ under my breath more times than I care to admit and the guy in my lane who seems to spend his life doing one activity or another was gasping and looking pretty humbled by the end.

Despite the grumblings and the heaping serving of humble pie, we all survived the workout because we are ‘fit’. We will all be recovered and ready for more on Wednesday morning because we are ‘fit’. Yet I found it interesting that, no matter what our overall activity schedule is – we were all struggling at the end of our swim. There are hard-core, competitive swimmers in our group. There are triathletes (me!). There are people who do a wide variety of activities in a week (running, cycling, swimming, weight lifting AND yoga). No one seemed immune to swimming exhaustion.

So I looked up fitness in Wikipedia. First of all, there are apparently two kinds of fitness: general (which refers to our overall state of health and well-being) and specific (which refers to our ability to perform specific aspects of a sport or activity).

The general health part takes into consideration things like: flexibility, cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, muscle endurance etc. The specific skill part deals with things like: agility, balance, coordination, speed, reaction time and power.

Ok, that makes sense. But how do I know how fit I am?

I then went on to see if I could find ways to measure my overall fitness and found some pretty entertaining websites. One wanted me to power walk for a minute and then take my pulse. Then they wanted me to do as many pushups as I could. Powerwalking would be fine but the pushup thing would place me somewhere close to the nearly dead part of the fitness scale. I can’t do one – never have been able to.

Another site told me to get a stopwatch, measuring tape and a scale. I stopped reading at that point so I’m not sure exactly what I was going to be measuring. The distance from the couch to the fridge perhaps and how quickly I could get there and back? Followed by a quick hop on the scale to see what sort of damage the cheese tray caused?

Then I found some other sites that describe the fitness tests that those in the military have to pass. Scary stuff that is.

Fitness seems to be this umbrella terms that covers many things. The 100m dash runners in the Olympics have superb muscle strength and the ability to perform anaerobically. Marathon runners, on the other hand, have muscle endurance and the ability to perform aerobically. Is one more fit than the other?

I don’t really know.

What I do know is that, last year, when I was running five days a week I was exhausted and sore all the time despite having two days off to recover. This year, I am working out 6-7 days a week. I am working out harder and for longer periods. I should be more sore and more exhausted but I’m not. The opposite is true.

I might be exhausted after a hard workout in the pool but I can complete it and keep up with everyone else. I recover enough to run the next morning and swim again the morning after that.

Last year I was fit. This year I am fit. But my fitness level is better. I’m still not exactly sure what that means but I can sure feel it to be true. 

The Motivation Behind the Motivation

Last week I had essentially the same discussion with three very different people. 

Topic: What motivates us to exercise? 

Three different friends. The different body types. Three different jobs, lifestyles, eating habits and weekend schedules. The main thing they have in common is that all three of them exercise. Two of them are, among other things, runners. The third does not run but does other activities. 

All three people I talked with told me similar stories. They exercised to deal with stress or anxiety. They exercised because their bodies needed the release. Two of them even went so far as to say that exercise had nothing to do with health for them. It was all about managing their stress and anxiety. 

I told all three of them that my motivation for exercise is health. Or, to be more precise, my motivation for exercise is diabetes. 

Maintaining a regular exercise schedule does wonders for my health and my blood sugar. It is much easier to control manage appease the diabetes gods if I give them predictable activity. I have found a routine that works for me and makes me happy but I don't technically need to run, cycle and swim. I could just as easily row, powerwalk and take zumba classes. It's not about the sports, it's all about moving. 

Back to my conversations from last week... 

One of my friends was been injured for a few months and therefore cannot run. She is finding that very difficult because her stress level is less manageable without that regular release. She has tried swimming but it just doesn't cut it. 

Two other friends have found other ways to manage their anxiety levels and, as a result, the crazy drive they used to feel has diminished and they no longer have the push they need to get out there and exercise. They both recognize that their motivation has all but disappeared and are both trying to find other ways to push themselves but it is a struggle. 

During my Saturday morning long run, I was thinking a lot about those conversations. I realize the ridiculousness of this next statement but I still believe that there is a lot of truth to it: I am lucky to have a chronic illness that scares the bejesus out of me. 

I love cycling.

I love swimming. 

I love running. 

That alone is enough to get me moving most mornings. 

But knowing that I dramatically increase my chances of staying healthy and whole if I exercise keeps me moving when I no longer want to. When the mornings are cold and dark and I would rather curl up in bed. 

Unlike my friends who exercise because it helps them deal with stress and anxiety - my motivation will never go away. 

Lungfuls of Air

Wednesday morning, after our 90 minute workout in the pool, the four of us left feeling like we hadn't really pushed our bodies very hard.

But we all also agreed that it was a pretty tough workout.

Wednesday was less about working our muscles and more about working our lungs.

We started off with our regular warmup which is always a combination of swimming, pulling, kicking and dragging. At the end of the warmup we had covered 1000m and were ready for the workout.

Let me backtrack for a moment. A few weeks ago, Christine was able to convince the pool folks to buy us a white board. So now, instead of trying to memorize our workouts, she writes them on the white board for us.

By the time we finished our warmup, the workout was written and ready for us.

It read as follows

10x100m

100m    3-5-5-3
200m    3-5-5-3
300m    3-5-5-3
400m    3-5-5-3
500m    5-7-7-5
600m    5-7-7-5
700m    5-7-7-5
800m    5-7-7-5
900m    7-7-7-7
1000m  7-7-7-7

6x25m

Four confused swimmers staring with goggle-clad eyes at the instructor must have looked rather amusing.

The translation of that was the following:

Every hundred metres is broken down into 4 25m sections. The 3, 5, 7 numbers indicate how many strokes you take between breaths. For the first 100m, you breathe every 3rd stroke in the first 25m, every 5th in the second and third 25m and every 3rd in the fourth 25m. Repeat this four times. Then for the next four hundred metres you breathe every 5-7-7-5 strokes. Finally, in the last 200m, you breathe every 7th stroke for all 200m.

Got it?

Breathing every five strokes is hard when you're used to breathing every third. After a few trips across the pool though, it starts to feel ok. Then you switch to every 7th and that's pretty hard. Every 7th never feels easy per se but it does feel easier after a while. I've gone up to every 11th before but that's really hard and I can't sustain it for long.

The trick, I've learned, is not to swim too fast. I used to think that I should swim as fast as possible so that the opportunities to breathe came at a faster rate. But I found that really difficult because my muscles were struggling for oxygen as I worked them really hard. So I slowed down. I now take deep breaths and I exhale slooooowly as I swim. As long as there is air in my lungs to exhale, I'm ok. As soon as I run out, I need to breathe. Therefore, the more strokes per breath, the more slowly I exhale.

So I swam a rather leisurely 1000m and worked on my breathing.

When we finished that, we were told we had to swim 6x25m. Each 25m we had to explode off the side of the pool and get as many strokes in as we could without breathing. We would then get 40 seconds rest before the next one.

Normally, I breathe more frequently when I'm working hard. But, after having finished that breathing exercise, I was surprised to find that I was breathing every 12-13 strokes during the 25m set. I would explode off the wall and just swim. Head down, legs kicking, arms flying - I would breathe once, maybe twice, the entire length of the pool. AND, I did 25m in about 18 seconds.

Holy bananas!

So, by the end, we did not have a very hard workout. But our lungs were put to the test. I don't know about the rest of my swimming buddies but I was pretty surprised at the result.

Really Real

The Medtronic Twin Cities race weekend is coming up.

It's been official for months but it's starting to feel really real.

On Tuesday, Doug and I received our e-tickets for our flights.

Then we received our email confirmations and details for the 10-mile race.

And finally I came home to discover a FedEx package sitting on the counter.

Inside were our race singlets and a lovely leather case with our luggage tags, weekend itinerary and all the information we would ever need to know about our hotel.

Two weeks today, we're flying to Minneapolis. We're being picked up at the airport and driven to our fabulous hotel. We get to meet the other 24 people from across the planet who were chosen as this year's Global Heroes. We get to have a tour of Medtronic headquarters. We get to be celebrated and celebrate some pretty amazing people.

Last week I knew I was looking forward to going but I was still pretty calm and cool about the whole thing.

Now I'm starting to feel like a giddy little kid and I can hardly stop myself from bouncing up and down with excitement.

I'll settle for trying on my race singlet and modelling it in the kitchen.