Hill Training or Fatigue Training

I have Barry on my mind as I sit down to write this tonight. When he returns home he will have graduated from the hill repeat section of our marathon training.

Sometimes the hill feels like it will never end

I finished mine this morning. What a sweet celebration I had! This has been a big week for us with a 32k run on Sunday, a 6k tempo yesterday and today 10 hill repeats. It is only Wednesday.

Every Wednesday for the past 7 weeks we have ran to a hill and ran up and down it, starting with 4 repeats and adding one every week. I could say that I will miss it but I would be lying. It is hard and sometimes the only thing that can keep you going is mental strength. I had to dig deeper this morning than I ever have before. I have enjoyed the strange looks and waves from those who see me out there, but the most enjoyable part of hill days is completion.

We are following John Stanton's (founder of The Running Room )book "Running" to train and have had fabulous success with it in the past.  We completely trust his training methods and we have and will continue to recommend his books to everyone!

I never really questioned the training method, I just did it , but this morning I understood it more than ever. My body was fatigued from Sunday still, and yesterday, and there I was coaxing my butt up a steep hill over and over again. I kept telling myself that I could do it. Nothing hurt, except the lactic acid buildup. I know that pain. I had to get comfortably uncomfortable 10 times. That may be what it feels like to finish the last 10k in a marathon. I don't know, I haven't been there yet. It is different every time for everybody but this week I have definitely earned mental strength.

Why do I do this? Because I really really really want to run a marathon and this is how I will do it. By preparing my body and mind to connect and help each other to get through the tough parts because the reward is success in finishing upright and smiling.

So here comes the analogy.....

We want to grant a wish for a child and we need you to help us reach that goal. We can't do it alone.

A child with a life threatening illness and a wish on their horizon has more strength to fight through the tough parts.

Well Barry will be home soon, and I will celebrate and congratulate him on completing the hill section. And we will move forward to the next part.

We are going to run a marathon.... We are going to help a child.

Karen

We Did It!

This update is long overdue. We wanted to update much sooner, but both of us have been incredibly busy with work, regular house maintenance, and well....training for a marathon eats up a fair amount of time as well. Thank you so much to everyone that has donated to our 2DreamRunners 2012 campaign. So far we have raised $405 !

When Barry told me about the Sinister 7 Ultra + Relay in the Crowsnest Pass mountains last November I had no intention of participating because I felt that it was way out of my capabilities. I was saying no before even thinking about it. Are you crazy? Through the dense mountains, up and down steep slopes, with grizzly bears and cougars? And have you seen the elevation?

It wasn't very long..maybe an hour later before I started imagining what it would be like as a spectator and I actually imagined that I would feel jealous of the ones who weren't afraid to go for it. I knew I wanted to participate because a voice inside me said "You can do anything you train for and there is plenty of time to train."  I studied the course and decided Leg 1 would be a reasonable challenge for me. It is rated difficulty 1/7 so it must be pretty easy right?...."This race will punish those who are not prepared" Those words from the Sinister website rang through my head as I interrupted Barry at work and enthusiastically said "I am in! I am in! I can do Leg 1, it is mostly flat and uphill and I won't have to face my fears of scaling down!" 

We had a month to build a team, we succeeded and were super lucky to get in as this race fills up an hour after registration opens! 

Oh-oh, there is a time limit and I am out first and if I don't make it, the entire team will be disqualified! Pressure? Yes! Fear? Yes! Motivation? Incredibly powerful yes! So what motivates me is pushing past what I have never thought I could be capable of.

So, on to the weekend!  The weather forecast - Sunny and HOT - well not ideal but it's better than rain.  Our team travelled from far and wide (various locations across BC and Alberta) to meet in Blairmore.  Most of us made it to the pre-race banquet where the local conservation officer thoroughly scared everyone with his instructions on what to do when you meet charismatic mega-fauna like grizzly bears and mountain lions. Afterward we set up our luxury tent accommodations in a baseball diamond in town and spent a few hours that evening talking out the key details of the race and summoning our collective courage.

6:30 am and the team escorts me to the start line!  It is clear and cool and we are ready to go!  The race starts, I'm off and running and John board's the bus to the first transition area where he will take the baton from me and begin Leg 2. Even though I barely slept the night before, I felt great. I thought I would feel the elevation more than I did, so I was pleasantly surprised that my pace was faster than I thought. I decided to abandon my planned pace and just go hard for the first 8k because I knew there was plenty of up hill and unknown trail when I hit the mountain in the last 8k. I was NOT prepared for the teeny weeny goat trail that zigged up and down the side of the mountain. I struggle with a fear of falling off the edge. I actually get vertigo any time I am close to an edge of something (a cliff, the top of a grandstand, a balance beam,even the Imax theater) I have tried to shake the fall fear off my whole life. It has gotten better, as it does not completely paralize me anymore, but it did slow me down considerably and in one spot, I actually slid down a section on my butt just to keep going.
After that section, there was a lot of mud. I loved just plowing through it and felt like a warrior for what I had just overcome. Then, there he was, at the top of the last hill I needed to climb, when I thought there was still 1km to go, the angel volunteer pointed to my finishing shoot to the transition area!

John was there cheering me in and I finished 15 minutes faster than I had planned!
I passed John the timing chip and cheered him off and then got on the bus loaded with other Leg 1 finishers back to transition 2/3 and our team!


Around 11:30ish, John comes ambling down the mountain into the Leg 2/3/4 transition and the first thing he says to Barry as he's handing off the baton, "its so hot!".  He's right, by this time the temperature is about 30 C ( 86F) and there's hardly a breath of wind.

Barry takes the baton and heads up Leg 3.  By the time Barry was half way out and in the middle of the Lost Creek burn, the temperature had climbed to 35 C ( 95F) and the heat was taking its toll on all the runners.  Around 8K, Barry and a group of 5 other runners missed a turn (we think the sign must have fallen) and ended up running 2 extra kilometers off course.  This was a bit of a set back but all part of the race.  8 Litres of water (3 reloads of the camelback) later Barry returned to the Leg 2/3/4 transition happily high-fiving Dave as he handed over the baton.

Dave enthusiastically sets out on Leg 4 while Barry settles into a nice cold beer.

We later make our way up to transition 4/6 to cheer in Dave's arrival and see Richard's departure. At the same time we escort Jake and Cassidy to their volunteer station where they will be the little angels who aid the hungry runners through the wee hours of the night.

Dusk was setting in while Barry, Richard, Lisa and I watched the runners come down the hill. One of the hardest things about this race is waiting to depart! Dave came in right on his predicted time! What a fabulous job he did!

We planned to bring Lisa up to transition 5 where Richard would be coming in and sending her off on leg 6. This is where we messed up. The drive up the mountain was much longer than we thought it would be and Richard was much faster than predicted! We arrived to find Richard had already been in for half an hour! Super fast in the dark!

Lisa quickly took off into the darkness and we made our way back down in the car to transition 4/6 to bring in Lisa and send out John (again) to the finish.

As I watched our wonderful volunteer teens from afar I was filled with pride. Our kids have grown into helpful, caring, beautiful people. Yeah,*sigh* I had a teary moment there. But then I was quickly submerged back into reality when I overheard on the safty radio that there was a cougar spotted on the trail! Oh no! An ATV was quickly barreling up the trail to check it out in protection of the runners. Don't worry, there were no tragedies or cougars found for that matter.

We were so happy to see Lisa and cheered her in! We learned that her headlamp had died and two other runners gave her flashlights to use. How kind. She had many obstacles in the beginning of her run, yet she finished fast and strong! Way to go Lisa!

John set off into the last leg to bring us home. I am sure he super sprinted because it seemed like no time and he was coming through the finish line.

That’s the hardest run I have ever done”, “With the heat, we are just relieved there were no fatalities”, “epic, can’t wait to do it again next year”.  These are some of the quotes we heard after the 2012 Sinister7 Ultra-marathon.  

It’s an incredible effort that we tackled as a team – 6 people covering 148 km of gravel road, single and double track trail and some downright nasty wet areas.  

With over 5,000 m of elevation gain with an equivalent elevation drop, the Sinister7 stands as one of the toughest ultra’s in western North America.  Without an incredible support system in place – the volunteers – runners would be hard pressed to finish. A big thank you to the organizers and volunteers of this epic race! The volunteers are the runners’ lifeline – an oasis in the desert – a warm smile offering hydration, nutrition and some empathy – to the weary warriors.  Cassidy and Jake were part of that lifeline helping runners with nutrition and rest at the Leg 5/6 transition area through the night.  From 9pm until 5 am they prepared and served sustenance like fresh fruit, cookies and cake, chile, scalloped potatoes and coffee for the runners. Superstars??? Oh yeah!

Thank you to our team! We came together and conquered something brand new, exciting, challenging, breathtaking AND we met our goal to have fun and finish!