Late Night Loops, Rallying The Troops

Today was one of those days where I should have stayed in bed. I woke up late to the phone ringing, only to find bad, expensive news on the other end. I weighed myself for the first time in ages, and was pleased to note that I am fifteen pounds heavier than I was when I completed my last marathon. I also realized I am a full month behind in my training, which means I have to increase my workload drastically in the next three week or face skipping my taper. Yikes.

If you're like me, your mental state can positively or negatively impact your training. When I am feeling aggressive, competitive, or focused, I can usually count on having a decent run. When I am depressed - and today bordered on depression - I have a hard time dragging myself out of the house, let alone running at my full potential. So, instead of getting my run out of the way early as planned, I sat in the house, picked away at my daily to-do list (it was more of a didn't do list today), and felt sorry for myself.

By the time I was up for a run it was nearly 11:00PM. I almost put it off until the morning, but I didn't think it would actually happen, so I laced up my sneakers and headed out into the dark.

As this was a speedwork day, I decided that I should try out the loop in front of my house. After a short warmup session, I hit the timer and started peeling off 400 meter loops. I haven't run too many fast 400s this year, so I didn't know what to expect. I went out hard for the first loop - it was easy to do, as it started out downhill - and finished about eight second faster than I planned. For a guy fifteen pounds heavier than he'd like to be, that's not bad.

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to maintain that pace, but it wasn't going to stop me from trying. I held my pace for the second repeat, and was a little less than a second slower for the third. The wheels started to fall off for the next couple of repeats, but I reined the times back in by focusing on my form. I ran seven loops total, and the difference between my slowest loop and fastest loop was only three seconds. Very good effort, if I must say so myself.

Tomorrow is a rest day, but I will be back with a vengeance this weekend. With only four weeks before the big day, I will need to increase my mileage and lose some weight in a hurry. Wish me luck!

Fundraising update: I will be announcing some new sponsors/donations shortly, and a group of nordic walkers are signing up for the half marathon to help raise funds for the InterAction School of Performing Arts. Here's a note from the group:

Marilyn Inch, from Interaction’s Board of Directors, met with her old Nordic Walking group tonight. They meet every Tuesday and Thursday at 6:30 at Daytripping in the Lily Lake Pavilion and go on group walks to help keep them motivated. With Marathon by the Sea fast approaching, they are thick into their training program to meet their Half Marathon goals. Many of them have participated in numerous Half Marathons since beginning Nordic Walking. They took up the sport thinking they could never complete such a challenge but have since proven to themselves that they CAN do it with the proper 12 week training program and the continuous motivation of Daytripping owner, Yennah Hurley.

Now that Marilyn has told the group about Action for Interaction, the group is jumping on board to help raise funds for the performing arts school by getting pledges from their families, neighbours and co-workers. One woman said that asking for sponsors would cement her commitment to actually completing her first Half Marathon where she was sitting on the fence up to this point.

For more information about Nordic Walking in Saint John, check out Daytripping’s website http://www.daytrippingnb.com/home.html.

If anyone else wants to raise funds on behalf of the InterAction School of Performing Arts, please drop me a line and I'll let you know how you can get involved!