Race Recap: Highlands Ranch Backcountry Wilderness Half Marathon

Last Saturday I ran my second half marathon since starting running about 14 months ago, proving to myself that I’m making a lot of progress and that crossing the finish line of that first half marathon wasn’t a fluke!

The distance was way less intimidating this time around and I was a lot more prepared.  That’s not to say I didn’t have butterflies last Saturday morning and think to myself, as I stood in the kitchen all dressed and ready to go, “why exactly do I do this again?”

I got in several 9 and 10 mile runs this training cycle and peaked with one 11 mile run two weeks before the race.  For my last half, I did one single 9 mile run as my longest distance prior to the race, so the addition of 4.1 miles on race day was a huge physical and mental challenge, whereas now I’ve been doing a lot of trail running and have become quite accustomed to and comfortable with 2.5+ hour runs.  I was nervous before the race last weekend, but I knew I was prepared.

This was a trail race – not a true hard core mountainous race with 2,000+ feet of elevation gains and losses, streams, wildlife, etc., but this was 95% dirt, about 50% single track, and did have some leg trashing hill climbs and descents.  I had run on part of the course a handful of times leading up to the race to train, but now this area and trail system is definitely one of my go-to spots here in the Denver metro area.  You have a spectacular view of the whole Front Range for pretty much the entire time, it’s really quite lovely.

This was my first race without music, and it was a totally different experience.  I have been doing most of my trail/mountain runs sans music, but I decided given the nature of the course to forego music for the race, and honestly I will be doing that again.  Not only is it a more “pure” running experience – you hear each breath and footfall, tuning you into your own body more – but I had a totally different and enjoyable experience with my fellow runners!  I had several conversations during the race, I overheard other groups’ conversations, I spoke more with/to the volunteers – I was tuned in.  It was really enjoyable.  I’m an introvert who is always more comfortable alone and with my own thoughts in a crowd, but this was a worthwhile and cool experience.  I highly recommend it.

About a month ago, I scored an amazing deal on a pair of New Balance MT1210’s and they are great!  They are a perfect dirt/trail running shoe and I think I’m permanently switching back to New Balance for all of my running shoes.  That’s what I was running in before my injury and running in a pair again has just reminded me how well they fit and suit my physiology.  I’ll finish out the life in my Brooks Addiction 11s, but then I’m switching back to NB for trail and road shoes.

The weather was glorious and the race went well.  I fueled and hydrated perfectly, felt great the whole time, and just thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience.  After crossing the finish line and getting my medal, I got my free beer from Grist Brewery and indulged in a 10 minute session with some Normatec Recovery boots.  Every race should end like this!

My official time was 2:36:45, which considering the terrain, I was quite pleased with.  I’m obviously not a fast runner and I’ll never be one of those ripped women at the front of the pack clocking 6-minute miles uphill, but dammit, I can conquer this distance like a champ and feel good doing it!

Neal and I treated ourselves to sushi later that night.  It was the first time I’ve broken my vegetarianism since I started that about 3.5 months ago, and it was delicious!  It was one meal though and as much as I enjoyed it, I have been right back to the veggies since then.  I had really been craving fish (I still haven’t missed chicken, turkey, pork, or beef) and so I decided to pay attention to my body and eat fish without guilt.  A craving like that probably means there’s something lacking in my vegetarian diet, which I will explore over the coming weeks, but it was another epiphany in my journey into vegetarianism that I will be meat-free 99% of the time because I really do like it and feel better, but if I want fish a couple times a year, that’s perfectly okay.  This may also still just be a stop on the way to 100% vegetarianism, which is okay too.

I am proud of myself.  I felt so good the rest of that day – that high is just unlike any other.  It’s a lot of work to chase it, but man, is it worth it.  That grin on my face in the chair, holding my medal and beer – THAT is why I do this.  I reveled in that feeling for that moment.  Life was perfect for another brief instant.

Becky

This Is My Therapy

Last week, the findings of a decades-long study on the effects of physical activity on depression over the course of an individual’s life from the ages of 23-50 were published online by JAMA Psychiatry.  The findings of this study were pretty widely distributed and referenced in the days thereafter.  My Zite reader suddenly filled up with all kind of articles on the topic, specifically referencing this study.  Click here and here for two good recaps.

About a week prior to these study findings being released, I watched this video of Rob Krar opening up about his struggles with depression.  This video in particular gained a lot of exposure in the running community (and here on WordPress) and I recommend giving it a view when you have seven and a half minutes to spare.

I have fought a long battle with depression and its ugly effects.  I’m in a much better place with it now than I was from the age of about 14 to 26, but I have come to realize that it never fully goes away and one is never “cured” of depression.  I am managing my depression these days, and it’s been at least a year since it was debilitating enough to interfere with my job, family, or friends.  However, the tricky (and frankly, downright terrifying) aspect of depression is that even if you’re managing it relatively well at any given point, it’s still a constant, daily battle of eternal vigilance to keep the darkness at bay.  I still exhaust a significant amount of mental energy working to keep that cloud from rolling in.

Even currently, I occasionally have brief periods of 1-3 days where life just seems so overwhelming and every little task is infinitely more difficult.  The most basic and brief social interactions become laborious, painful, and anxiety-inducing; laundry and dishes seem like unachievable tasks; dragging out of bed by 8 AM, much less my normal 6, is almost impossible.  The walls start to close in and if I don’t take steps to halt this onslaught within a matter of days, there could very easily be a point of no return.  Robin Williams’ suicide this summer was particularly poignant because I felt the world was witnessing exactly what I’m describing.  He was 63 years old and managed to keep that darkness at bay every day for decades, until the day he couldn’t.  That is what scares me – everything can be relatively under control until one day when it just isn’t.

Why do I mention all of this?  I have come to believe exercise, especially running and particularly endurance running, is a very powerful tool in combating depression and associated disorders such as anxiety.  Ever hear of Team RWB?  It’s a military veteran organization that relies on the science of physical activity’s effects on depression and PTSD to help our service men and women re-integrate with their families, lives, and society.

I personally have discovered that running is my anti-depressant.  I have been more happy, level-headed, motivated, energetic, and even-keeled since I started running over a year ago than I have ever been at any other time in my life.  Particularly within the past two months since (mostly) recovering from my tibial stress issues in my left leg and have become increasingly interested in and pursuing endurance running.  The highlight of my week has become 2+ hour runs on Saturday morning on trails.  Not only do I get fresh air, sunshine on my face, meditate by focusing on every breath and footfall, but I reach that place of physical suffering.

Not suffering like a broken bone, burn, etc., but the kind of suffering that I suspect is really more mental than actually physical.  No doubt running for that length of time or longer pushes your body in ways shorter runs or a spin class never could, but it’s really reaching that point where your mind is screaming – stop!  What the hell are we doing??  Only crazy people run this long/far!  These legs can’t carry you any farther! – and yet pushing through.  Pushing through until at some point, it really is over, and you realize later that there was no room in your head for the dark thoughts.  Your mind was cleared, the chatter stopped, the world made sense, you felt at peace, you were in the moment…you were happy.  Content.  Fulfilled.

I run to literally chase that place.  Because the alternative is no longer acceptable.  This is my therapy.

Run well, friends.

Becky

A Running Data Nerd’s Dream

I recently gave in and bought my first running GPS watch.  I agonized over the expenditure a little bit once I hit “process order” on Amazon, but that guilt/apprehension completely disappeared after using it for the first time yesterday!  I jumped right in and went with the Garmin Forerunner 220.  Lucky for me that purple is my favorite color, because that’s the only women’s option.

It even has a purple theme option for the screens!

I have been using RunKeeper for the past year, and while that is definitely a solid app, this watch and the accompanying Garmin Connect website and app are just in a whole other league.  The watch syncs with Bluetooth to your phone, where you can download the app and not only upload all of your activities, but get access to a bunch of extra data for your runs that isn’t available/viewable on the watch itself.  You can also set goals, create training plans to send to the watch, share with friends (if you’re into that, I’m not), save routes as courses to be repeated and times compared, and on and on.  Specific to your runs, you will have access to more data about your run than you ever dreamed possible.

Routes, maps, elevation profiles, split info (pace and speed), cadence, calories, best pace, average pace, run profile replay, etc. all laid out in a really nice dashboard and with charts.  You can also send all the data to a spreadsheet, view your stats in a calendar format (how far did I run this week/month/year???), create reports….okay, I know I’m getting a little excited here, but perhaps a little bit of context will help.  I love data.  I perform data analysis for a living and get to play with huge sets of data all day.  Sure, it’s a corporate job and has all the attendant drawbacks, but overall, the job itself is pretty cool because I get paid to analyze large sets of data, which I love 🙂  So, you can imagine that getting to experience this in relation to my running now is very exciting for this data nerd!

I love a good data dashboard!

I’m experimenting more with trail running (as evidenced by some of my splits above, sheesh!) and I’m really falling in love with it.  I am not a fast runner, so while I still really enjoy road running/racing, I think I’m going to include a lot more trail racing in my repertoire.  It suits me – slow and steady.  Also something about having to focus on every single footstep helps me reach that zen mode a lot quicker than running on smooth surfaces where you don’t have to worry about falling so much.

I have a trail half marathon on November 8th, and yesterday’s run was exploring that course, which I really loved and am now even more excited for that race!  Before that though, I have a 15K race in one week!  Yes, one week!  My leg has been giving me some issues that I just have to keep an eye on, but overall, I’m excited to race next weekend.  I won’t be breaking any personal records since I’m still dealing with this injury and honestly just haven’t trained as much as I would have liked to, but it will be a fun day.  It’s a big national race, so it will be an experience.

The other new thing I tried recently is another app I highly recommend for anyone who loves to run with music and is very motivated by the music itself.  I read about an app called RockMyRun in Competitor magazine recently and I decided to give it a try.  Boy does it knock the socks off of Pandora!  It’s playlists/mixes created by DJs specifically for running.  You specify the genre(s), BPM, length, and whether you want PG or R-rated lyrics and it gives you a list of playlists!  When you pay the $36 annual subscription to get a premium membership (highly, highly recommended), you get access to all mixes, access to mixes over one hour (I think 45-60 minutes is the max on the free version), no ads, you can adjust the BPM on mixes, download/cache mixes for playing at times without a signal, etc.  The mixes are so motivating!  It’s better than just a playlist and is now an essential tool for my runs.  It’s one of my favorite apps of all time now.

What’s new with running for you these days? 

Have you recently tried/found something that reinvigorated your workouts or runs?

Sidebar – there is a chocolate peanut butter flavor of GU energy gels, I’m getting down on some of that in next weekend’s race!

🙂

Becky