2010 did not start off well for me, especially from a running perspective. As I rang in the New Year with Gerard, I was high on Percocet that was barely making a dent in the pain I was in. Two days previously, a chiropractic adjustment had gone horribly wrong, and damaged a bundle of nerves in my neck and going all the way down my left arm. For the next six weeks or so, I was in unspeakable pain. The next few weeks were a blur of doctor’s visits, emergency room visits, nights of crying myself to sleep in agony, and many, many drugs. A series of physiotherapy appointments gradually got me back on my feet, and almost three months after the original injury, I was finally allowed to try running again.
The first post-injury run did not go well. I was only able to run for about one kilometre, and it took more than eight minutes. I kept getting shooting pains going up and down my left arm and I had to keep stopping for walk breaks. The following day I needed about an hour of intense physiotherapy. But I was officially on the road again. I had graduated from injury status to rehabilitation status. My next run two days later was a lot better, and from that point on, the improvement was exponential. Still, it would be several months before I could say that my rehabilitation was complete. Even now, I get the occasional twinge in my arm, which I am trying to resolve with the help of a sports massage therapist.
Despite the rough start to the year and the hammering that my average pace took as a result, I ended up having a busy running season. Here is a list of the races I took part in:
– Early April: 10km waterfront race in Pickering. It went OK, especially considering that this was just two weeks after I had started running again.
– Early May: Sporting Life 10K down Yonge Street. I enjoyed this event and I was happy with my time of 1:05:00. Sadly, though, when I got home from the race I got word that my friend and fellow writer Tim had lost his battle with cancer.
– Late May: Whitby half-marathon. Despite some pre-race concerns about the organization of this event, it went really well. Gerard and the kids, along with some extended family, were cheering for me at the finish line. My time was just over 2:25:00. This was just over two months after my first post-injury run – I was thrilled just to be able to finish a race of that distance.
– Mid-July: Acura Ten-Miler in the Distillery District. The less said about this, the better. It was not my finest moment. Life had gotten in the way of training, the course was mentally challenging and offered almost no shelter from the midsummer sun, and I pulled a hamstring. I finished the race in less than two hours, which is a miracle considering all that was wrong that day.
– Late September: the main event – my 2010 Run for Autism, the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half-Marathon. I cannot put into words the emotional high I was on when I crossed the finish line. It was phenomenal. I managed a negative split, and beat my time from the previous year by a full six minutes.
– Mid-October: 10km zoo run. I did this race purely for the fun of it. I had no expectations whatsoever. I had an absolute blast and got a respectable enough time of 1:06:00 to boot.
All in all, not a bad year. I put in almost 90km in races, and hundreds more in training. I overcame a debilitating injury that I had at one point feared would sideline me for good, and I am looking forward to another great season in 2011.
So what does next year’s race calendar have in store for me? I will start with the Resolution Run on New Years Day – just a fun 5km event that’s not even officially timed, but that does throw in a nice running jacket with the race kit. After that, I’m thinking of doing an 8km race in High Park in early April. There are lots of hills in High Park, and they’re big hills. It will be a tough run, but it will force me to be disciplined about hill training.
I have to give the Sporting Life 10K a miss because it’s happening the day after I get married. I don’t think my new husband will be too pleased if I jump out of bed to go to a race at six in the morning.
At the end of May I will be running the Toronto Women’s Half-Marathon. They have a chocolate station and a water station manned by hunky shirtless firefighters. I will be a married woman by then, but I am still a woman. And chocolate is chocolate and shirtless firefighters are nice eye candy.
I’ll skip the Acura Ten-Miler, because my experience with it last year was enough to put a huge mental block to it in my head. I am thinking about the Midsummer Night’s Run 15K instead, but that follows most of the same route. I may have to figure out a summer race later on. I may even have to find one I need to travel to.
At the end of September I will do the 10K zoo run again. I had way too much fun to even consider missing that. And then, in October, it will be time for my 2011 Run for Autism. I have big plans for that – to break two hours. That will mean chopping at least 22 minutes off of this year’s time, and that’s a massive chunk. But I am nothing if not ambitious, and assuming I don’t start the year with an injury, I think it might be possible. Especially since I am doing it for my boys.
There is no time for slacking. Right after the Resolution Run on January 1st, I will be diving straight back into training mode.
