Not To Be Trusted With Knives

http://runforyourlives.com/

Props to Dr. Erika for passing that along to me!

In keeping with my trending of stealing marathon-related blog posting titles from Dr. Dan, I’m writing this second Scotiabank Half Marathon-related posting.

First of all, stuff I meant to write about in the previous posting, but forgot to mention – probably due to half marathon-induced delirium:

• Props to my co-worker Raj who ran her first half marathon at the Scotiabank. Like Kim, she’s totally stoked to run more and is seriously contemplating the Victoria half in October.
• Another sign that I forgot to include in my previous list: the sign said, “Cliff Ahead! Turn back now!” and also included awesome stick figure drawings of runners falling off a cliff. Similarly, at about the 17 km mark, a spectator yelled, “The shuttle bus is broken, you’ll all have to run back to UBC after you finish.

Second of all, some thoughts on my running playlist during the race. I’ve mentioned before that music motivates me when I run and there were a few songs, in particular, from my new playlist that really inspired me on this run:

• Rolling in the Deep by Adele was the song that I set to play first on my playlist. This song – in fact, all songs by Adele – make me think of Derek ever since he wrote a blog posting about her. I figured this was a good song to start out my run and I was not disappointed.
• Firework by Katy Perry made me think of Rick and who wouldn’t be inspired by The Inspiration himself?
• Bulletproof by La Roux was introduced to me by Kalev, so of course when it came on, I thought of him! As I told him after my Victoria half marathon, when this song comes on during a race, it’s like he’s there with me! </cheesiness>
• Say Hey (I Love You) by Michael Franti & Spearhead came on just as I was running near the beach, so it was doubly inspiring because (a) I freaking love running by water and (b) it was recommended to me by Dan, inspiration personified.
• Closet Freak by Stef Lang featuring Ray Black happens to be one of my favourite songs and it came on when I knew I was getting very close to the end of the race. Needless to say, it fired me up for a final sprint!
• Teeth by Lady Gaga was the song that was playing as I crossed the finish line. Teeth is a *great* running song, so I really couldn’t have planned that one better!

Third of all, the over-priced photos of me running the half marathon that are taken by the company that marathons get to take over-priced photos of the runners so that they can try to sell said over-priced photos to said runners are now available for your viewing pleasure. I can’t post them here because (a) they are copyrighted and (b) I’m not going to buy said over-priced photos, but you can go here to see them. You can also see a video of me crossing the finish line there – you can see me near the top of the screen at the 0:25 mark of the video. As you can see, I like to sprint to the end!

I’m taking a page out of the Dr. Dan book of blogging by titling this blog posting about my race using the best sign that I saw along the route. In addition to the sign that said, “Worst. Parade. Ever.” my favourite signs that I saw along the half marathon route today included:

• Your legs hurt because you are kicking so much ass!
• Go Random Stranger Go!
• Stop Reading! Get Running!
• Where is everyone going?

So, yeah, I ran a half marathon today. Originally, when I first set out to run this half, I wanted to aim for a 2 hr finish, given my kick ass 2:07 finish last October in Victoria¹. However, given my quarter-assed² training – for which I completely blame the Vancouver Canucks for making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, necessitating me to watch hockey and drink beer instead of training for my race well into June – I revised my goal and merely hoped that I wouldn’t have my worst finish ever. In truth, I was hoping that, despite my lacklustre training, I could use my experience at running halfs, the fact that I did do all the long runs for the training, and my good looks³ to pull off a 2:15 finish – that would be my second best time ever. And, happily, I did manage to beat that revised, revised goal! My official time was:

2:10:48!

So, not only did I *not* set a personal worst, but I set my second best time ever and my best for the Scotiabank Half Marathon. Not too shabby for a slacker such as myself!

Also, props must go out to my friends Kim and Lance on their first half marathons! Kim’s training was even more disrupted than mine, thanks to her taking a new job with insanely insane hours and she finished her race in 2:31:03. Lance, despite running on a (possibly) broken foot and running with Kim for the first 10 km before taking off, kicked our butts with a 2:09:35 finish!

Me & Kim before the race!

Kim & Lance before the race.

When I talked to Kim before the I left on my trip, she was not feeling too keen on this whole long distance running thing and declared that this would be her first and only half marathon. After the race today, she was making plans with me to run the Royal Victoria Half Marathon in October! I have brought one over to the dark side! Where by “dark side,” I mean “awesome side.”

Also, I am happy to report that my new running playlist was super kick ass and kept me motivated the whole time. W00t!

Scotiabank Half Marathon 2011 Route

After the race, we hopped on the shuttle bus back to UBC – the race starts at UBC, but finishes at Stanley Park, so they shuttle everyone back to their cars that they left on campus via yellow school buses – and then headed to Cafe Deux Soliels for brunch⁴. I believe that I have mentioned before how post-race food is the most amazing food of all the foods that have ever nourished human beings since the beginning of time and by the time we got to Cafe Deux Soliels Soleils, I would have punched a baby dolphin in the face for a coffee. The coffee was not as good as it could have been⁵, but my omelette and homefries were the most amazingly delicious omelette and homefries that have ever been made in the history of omelettes and homefries.

Now that Half Marathon #1 of 2011 is complete, it’s time to focus on getting ready for my insanely long 10-day hockey game. This will involve, as it turns out, a boot camp, but that, my friends, is a topic for another blog posting!

1. Originally originally, though, I intended to run the BMO half in May, but postponed it ’til this race because the winter was too winter-like to actually do any proper training. [↩]
2. “Quarter-assed” being even more half-assed than “half-assed.” [↩]
3. Good looks may or may not have contributed to my running speed. [↩]
4. Nonconicidentally, this is the same place that Kim and I brunched after our 8 km race in May. It’s kind of our thing now. [↩]
5. I don’t remember their coffee being that weak before, so either I’m developing a taste for stronger coffee or I just happened to get a poorly made pot. [↩]

I’m home from my whirlwind trip and have much to blog about, but that will have to wait as I’m hitting the hay early, since I have to be at the starting line of the Scotiabank Half Marathon at UBC at 7 a.m. tomorrow. Which means that we’ll¹ be leaving here around 5 a.m., to give us plenty of time to get to UBC, find parking, deal with bag check, do some stretching to warm up.

Wish us luck. And send us warm glowing warming glowing happy run fast thoughts tomorrow around 7 a.m. Pacific time, ok?

Also, you’ll be able to see the results here after the race is done. Although I’ll probably blog it – and definitely will tweet it – first!

1. Where we = me, Kim & Lance. [↩]

Two days from now I leave for my vacation to visit the fam. Two weeks from now I will back from said vacation and running a half marathon! My training for this particular half marathon has been rather lacklustre, so I’m not expecting to set another personal best like I did last time. At this point, I’ll be happy to (a) finish the race, and (b) not set a personal worst.

In preparation for the race, I emailed Dan and Rick – knowing that they are both runners and both have excellent taste in music – to ask for recommendations for some new music to add to my running playlist. I already had a fairly extensive playlist, but given that my long runs are now into the 2 hr range – meaning that I listen to a lot of songs on each run – I’ve started getting kind of bored of it and felt that some fresh songs would help keep me motivated. And not only did they give me some great suggestions, but Dan also introduced me to jog.fm, a site that suggestions songs based on the pace you plan to run!

Today is my last big long run before the half marathon¹ and I have to run 20 km. So I got a bunch of songs – or added songs I already had in my main music library to my running playlist – and I’m going to test them out on today’s run. The ones I like running to will end up in my playlist for the big day²! This is my playlist for today’s run:

• Rolling in the Deep – Adele
• Take Me On The Floor – The Veronicas
• Hello – Martin Solveig featuring Dragonette
• Set It On Fire – My Darkest Days
• Combat Baby – Metric
• Backstabber – Ke$ha
• Girlfriend – Avril Lavigne
• Till The World Ends – Britney Spears featuring Nicki Minaj & Ke$ha
• Firework – Katy Perry
• Blow – Ke$ha
• Monster – Lady Gaga
• Contagious – Avril Lavigne
• Price Tag – Jessie J
• Bad Romance – Lady Gaga
• Bulletproof – La Roux³
• Tik Tok – Ke$ha
• Say Hey (I Love You) – Michael Franti & Spearhead
• I Can Do Better – Avril Lavigne
• Womanizer  - Britney Spears
• More – Usher
• Tightrope – Janelle Monae
• Dangerous – Cascada
• Gold Guns Girls – Metric
• Kiss N Tell – Ke$ha
• Chelsea Dagger – The Fratellis
• Whataya Want From Me – Adam Lambert
• Only Girl (In The World) – Rihanna
• Telephone – Lady Gaga
• Soundsystem – Michael Franti & Spearhead
• Untouched – The Veronicas
• Marvellous – Dragonette
• Closet Freak – Stef Lang featuring Ray Black
• Teeth – Lady Gaga
• Evacuate the Dancefloor – Cascada
• Let’s Play – Kristina Maria
• We R Who We R – Ke$ha
• My First Kiss – 3OH3 featuring Ke$sha

As you can see, it’s pretty heavy on the cheesy pop music, which is my favourite stuff to run to! Now wish me luck as I go out to run almost a half marathon today!

1. We get to taper down in the last two weeks [↩]
2. Some of these were already on my running playlist, but have been just recently added so I’m not yet bored of them [↩]
3. Props to Kalev for this one. [↩]

On the advice of my chiropractor - who I’m sure is sick of having to adjust my feet, which seem to get super duper tight when I run long distances – I went to Kintec, a specialty shoe/orthotics store for athletes, to get some kick ass insoles that will keep my feet from getting all stupid tight like they have been lately, what with the running of long distances and all.

I usually buy my running shoes at the Running Room and every time I do, the salesperson watches me as I walk and then as I run and then tells me that I neither supinate nor pronate. Every. Single. Time. My chiropractor, however, claims that I am a supinator¹. But the guy in Kintec said that I supinate one foot and pronate the other foot. WTF? Do my feet have multiple personality disorder?

At any rate, I bought some new insoles that are cushiony and will mold to my feet over time as I wear them, so hopefully they will just mold to whatever the hell my feet are doing.

I took them out for a spin yesterday and they felt pretty good, so that’s something.

Also, while in said store, I saw these socks:

I was very, very tempted to buy those, I must say!

1. Unlike most people, who are pronators [↩]

My calves are yet again displeased with me. Ever since I ran the 8 km race two weekends ago, they have been super duper tight. And I woke up with a charley horse in my calf at about 4:30 this morning¹.

After my long run on Saturday, I had a massage. I told my massage therapist about my unhappy calves and she worked them over pretty good. To the point that they’ve been super achy – like the kind of ache you have after a really good workout – for the past two days. And, like the last massage therapist that I had work over my calves, she commented on how ridiculously tight my soleus muscles are. “Your gastrocnemius muscles are fine, but your soleus muscles are TIGHT!”

For the uninitiated, the soleus muscle is this one:

Now, the first massage therapist had given me a standing stretch to do that will stretch out the soleus. But this massage therapist told me, “I have a great stretch you can do while sitting at your desk!” Well, you know how I feel about multi-tasking my stretches!

To do the stretch, you just take off your shoes and sit in your chair with your knees bent like normal, but you put your toes up on a book, making sure your heel touches the floor, like this:

It doesn’t look like much, but it super duper helped my tight calves! Honestly, even after my massage on Saturday, I couldn’t get my toes up on a book that was half the size of the one in the above photo² and still have my heels on the ground, but after a few ~5 minute rounds of this stretch at the office today I can now, as you see in the photo, do it just fine.

Of course, if all else fails, you can just go for some of this, which I found while searching Flickr for “soleus”:

Image Credits:

• Funky picture of muscles of the lower leg was posted by Rob Swatski on Flickr.
• Soleus Wine picture was posted by J.P. Hussey on Flickr
• Photos of the stretch itself are all mine!

1. Do. Not. Like. [↩]
2. For the record, the one in the above photo is Infinite Jest [↩]

How, exactly, did the weekend go by so fast? I fully expected this weekend to be low key and then, somehow, it got super busy! Hence, I’m writing my first blog posting of the weekend at 11 pm on Sunday night!

So, a quick recap:

• Friday night – went out with Kalev, who is in town for a couple of weeks, and his friend, Craig, for dinner¹ and a movie².
• Saturday – ran 15 km and then went for a *much needed* massage. My run was supposed to be 16 km, but I got up too late and spent too much time chatting and then suddenly didn’t have enough time to run my full 16 km and get home and showered before my massage appointment, so I had to cut the run a bit short. Massage was awesome – painful, but oh so awesome.
• Saturday night – Went to Shalu & Deepak’s to watch the game. Though the Canucks suffered a sad defeat, it was a more entertaining game to watch than most of the Nashville series has been³ and Shalu made us some ridiculously good food. And then Shalu and I planned for our next spa day!
• Saturday night later on – Since the Canucks game was an early game⁴, Kalev and I made plans to hang out after the game. Hanging out turned into “let’s go watch Thor!” My verdict on Thor – very entertaining, but Chris Hemsworth really should have spent more time in the movie with his shirt off.
• Sunday – Spent most of the day making something awesome with Kim! Something which I shall blog about in more detail soon!

Now, I’d like to be able to report that this week will be a little more chill, but somehow I’ve managed to book something every single night for the next 6 nights. And next Friday and Saturday is the Northern Voice conference, so I’m booked up those two days as well.

Can someone please tell my social life to calm down already?

1. Old Spaghetti Factory, since it was close to the theatre we were going to [↩]
2. Scream 4. Which I really enjoyed, though I think it’s not getting good reviews from most people [↩]
3. Nashville should be renamed Yawnsville! [↩]
4. 5 p.m. start [↩]

Remember how I discovered last year that you get a medal for running the 8 km race at the BMO Vancouver marathon and why the hell would you run 42.2 km¹, or even 21.1 km², when you could just run 8 measley km and get a medal? Yeah, so I did that again.

Actually, the main reason that I wanted to run the 8 km at BMO this year is because my friend Kim is going to run her first half marathon with me in June at the Scotiabank half. And Kim has never run a race before, so I suggested that perhaps we do the 8 km so that she could experience what it’s like to be in the race atmosphere (which can be a bit overwhelming) in a shorter race rather than trying to do her first half without having ever been in a race setting.

Kim & I before the race:

Kim & I after the race – look at how happy we are:

And why are we so happy? Why, because we both set personal best records, of course! Sure, Kim’s never done a race and I’ve only done an 8 km once before and ran really slowly that time, but no matter. Personal bests, I say!

And how best was my personal best, you ask? Well, last year it took me 54:40 to run 8 km³. This year: 43:59! That’s a pace of 5:30 mins per km! w00t to the w00t!

And speaking of kicking ass, congrats to my friend Erika & Paul, who ran their first FULL marathons in a time of 4 hours and 10 minutes – i.e., holy fuck that’s fast!

And in completely unrelated news, I can’t write “8 kilometers” without thinking of this video:

1. A full marathon [↩]
2. A half marathon [↩]
3. I told you I ran it really, really slowly! [↩]

So, I may have mentioned that I’m training for yet another half marathon. The training plan I’m following involves running your “long run” on Sundays¹ and the length of the long run gets longer pretty much every week. It starts off with what I’d consider a short run – 7 km – and you do that for three weeks, followed by two weeks of 9 km runs, then two weeks of 10 km runs. And then, we hit my least favourite run of all the runs – the dreaded 12 km!

Why do I dread the 12 km run? Well, I’ve found that throughout all my training, I’m totally content with the long runs up to 10 km and once I hit 16 km, I’m fine with that too. But 12 km always kicks my ass. I think what happens is my brain just can’t seem to mentally prepare itself for a 12 km distance. 7, 9 and 10 km are good solid runs, but not what either my brain nor my body consider “long,” given the number of times I’ve run 16+ km runs. But 12 km is a distance where my brain and my body are not on the same page. No matter how many times I tell my brain “12 km is a good long distance! You are going to be out there running for more than an hour!”, it just won’t listen to me. It’s like “Whatevs, Beth. Easy peasy.” And then I get out there and run and run and run and my body goes, “WTF? Why are we still running? DO NOT LIKE!”

I have a similar thing happen with 14 km runs, but I think the 12 km run is worse because my brain knows “Even after you finish this stupid, stupid 12 km, next week you have to do a stupid, stupid 14 km and you are going to hate it too!” But at the end of the 14 km the following week, I know that my brain will resign itself to the fact that we are, in fact, doing long runs and so the 16 km run the following week is all well and good. I know, my brain is weird.

1. or, in the case of this week where I had Monday off work, on Monday! [↩]