Runners High
For years I didn’t think this actually existed. It was a way for the avid runners to trick the beginners into thinking there is some special reward for the punishment of pounding out miles. I always thought it was some secret club I could never belong to. I mean I have been running for a while now. I wouldn’t call it training for a marathon style, but I have always been an active person and enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing I was doing something good for my body. But it wasn’t until I really decided to start running, the 5 days a week kind of running, that I finally realized what this all elusive runners high was all about. Now I know what you’re thinking, ” good god do I really have to run that often to feel good about running?'” The answer of course is no! I think I must have experienced it before but paid no attention to what my body was telling me because I was always thinking, I could have went faster or I should have went farther. My own mind was getting in the way of really reaping the chemical rewards of running. It wasn’t until I actually came to terms with what my body was achieving and what it’s limits were(based on how hard I actually decided to train) that I was able to see past what I didn’t accomplish and really accept what I had. Now that I have realized this connection I feel this “high” so much more often than I ever thought possible. Whether it’s 3 miles or 26.2 miles, to me it’s about pushing yourself at that moment. Give everything you can at each run and accept the limits your body puts on you. Some days are gonna hurt and some days are going to be glorious. Some days you’ll feel like you can run forever and some days a mile is going to feel like the most difficult thing you have ever done. But that is the beauty of running to me. I love the...
January Training Update
Ok so I thought it was time for an update as it’s been about a month since I registered for the Squamish 50 50km trail race. I am still feeling very excited about the race which is a good sign. But I am not going to pretend that I have been super motivated all the time. Despite feeling excited about the race, I also know what’s involved to get my body to a level that running that kind of distance won’t be absolute torture, and some days it’s down right tough to convince myself to get out there. Lately my goal has been trying to run more, you know just trying to get the ol’ running legs back. My brilliant idea has been to get up earlier during the week and try to get a run in before breakfast. Hmm let’s count how many times this has happened over the last few weeks….zero! It could be the dark mornings, but really I think it is just my mind playing games with me, and it’s really a game I don’t have time for. So new goal: DON”T GIVE IN ! Now that I have that rant over with, let’s get right down to it. The last few runs I have been on have felt great. Mind you, they have only been 4-5 mile runs, but I am running them at a good pace. Last week I ran a 4 miler at a 7min 47sec/per mile pace, which is good for me. It’s nice to know that all the extra hiking/climbing, snowshoeing, biking etc. that I have been doing over the last while is keeping my fitness level up. So cross training is definitely going to play a huge part in my training this year. The last 2 marathons that I trained for (training on my own after doing my own research) ended up being just about running. While I know getting miles on your legs has its merits and I think you should train long distance to race long distance, I really want to add more cross training into my plan this time. I am hoping to get stronger and faster by supplementing my running with biking (mostly hills of course), skiing, back-country snowshoeing etc. I am still going to be running long distances during the training but on non-running days I am going to mix it up and just enjoy being active. And hey what’s stopping me from biking to a trail, going for a run and then biking home. That’s the plan anyway and we all know plans can change! So as the weeks go by I will be tweaking my...
Mt. Rainier
The highest point I had been too before I attempted Mt.Rainier was the summit of Wedge Mountain at 2892m’s, in Garibaldi Provincial Park, B.C., and I remember feeling a keen sense of achievement at having scaled that height. Just knowing that it was the highest summit in the park made it feel like more of an achievement for me, like I had conquered some invisible force, a force that as you reach higher becomes more and more oppressive. Rainier, which stands at just over 4300m’s (14,411ft), was now going to be the tallest mountain I had climbed to date. Despite the many mountaineering trips I had taken in the last few years, the trip to Mt. Rainier felt like something outside of the scope of anything I had known. This was a big mountain and it felt like it deserved a deep respect of it’s own. “….the most luxuriant and the most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings.” - John Muir As I stood at the Paradise visitor centre looking up at Mt. Rainier on that hot August afternoon, I couldn’t help thinking of how close it seemed. It looked no farther than a stone’s throw away. Rainier just stood there in all it’s glory, streaks of grey rock showing through the late summer snow, deep crevasses gouging the glacier that tumbled down within my view, brightly colored wild flowers dotting the grassy meadows in the foreground. Standing alone in all it’s immensity with no concern for the tiny creatures standing below looking on in awe; standing there thinking that we could somehow conquer this mass of stone and ice. But as usual the mountain doesn’t care that we are there or that we care to struggle and gasp our way up it’s flanks. It is just there, and it was in my own mind that I felt this sense of the mountains willingness to accept us, allowing us to pass and giving me the opportunity to test myself. I remember looking at the winding path that made it’s way in the direction of Camp Muir, comparing it to previous hikes in my mind, thinking it wouldn’t take long at all. The mountain after all looked so close, like a super-imposed image on a screen, but no matter how long I walked that image remained the same distance away. My sense of scale was becoming more and more obscured. At that moment I remembered a quote I had seen in an outdoor store earlier that year regarding the Himalaya, it said “everything is so much bigger and so much farther away than you can imagine”....
That Moment in the Mountains
Spending time in the wide open spaces of the mountain valleys and even in the more enclosed spaces, when I feel myself right up against the rock, I feel this sense of “this is the only place that I belong”. Being in the mountains, pushing my body to its physical limit, leaves no room for any other thoughts in my mind than just putting one foot in front of the other. I love this detachment from my “real” life, this detachment from the thoughts that usually cause me unneeded and undesirable stress in the “real” world. The petty thoughts that don’t really matter but seem to crowd my mind at work or at home, now have no meaning out here. My mind is free and clear to think about staying warm, safe and attaining that desired summit. My physical needs are all that matter now. It’s this stripping down to basic needs that appeals to me. We have become so used to being distracted; to having our senses dulled that we sometimes forget how alive we can feel by feeling the bitter cold on our face, by feeling the rush of fear that forces us to focus on holding on tighter or by feeling a thirst that causes to crave water so bad that you can literally smell water vapor in the air. It’s these raw and very real needs that make me remember how simple life actually is. In these wild places I feel so small. I feel this comforting sense of insignificance, like very little of what I do here out here will actually change this wild place. The rivers will continue to carve the land and the mountains will remain still and cold. I am calm. There are no requirements out here, the wild places demand nothing of me....
Ultrarunner?
Oh my goodness, what did I just do? Ok so I just signed up for the Arc’teryx Squamish 50 50km race August 10,2013. So far my amateur running career (if I can be so bold as to call it any kind of career) consists of a 10 mile and a 13 mile in 2009 and then a full marathon in 2011 and 2012. Just looking at the list on this page makes me realize I don’t really take baby steps when it comes to things like this. It’s all or nothing I guess. I convinced myself to jump to an ultrarun with the rationale that it’s really only 8km more than a marathon, even if it’s all on technical trail; plus we do a lot of long tiring mountaineering trips most weekends, which is a good base, right? I rather enjoy the suffering involved in these types of sports and from my limited experience have found that, along with a lot of training, there is a huge mental aspect involved. Just being able to talk yourself through discomfort and pain and still being able to carry on is a huge part of it, right? Well this is what I will keep telling myself for now. I have 8 months to get ready for the biggest race of my life. What do I expect from myself? What kind of time goal should I expect? What kind of training plan will I use? These are all questions that I am sure I am going to be agonizing over for the next month or so before the real training starts. Until then, I will enjoy the “just registered for my first ultrarun” high I am feeling and deal with the knots in my stomach that I feel are slowly forming tomorrow morning! If you want to follow my progress and updates then bookmark this: http://pebbleshoo.com/tag/Squamish50/ Video of myself and a few other runners by...
