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Fishing for runners

October 18, 2010 By

A decade ago, when I was training for my first-ever race (a 5K, if memory serves), my Dad taught me how to fish for runners. You start at an easy pace, he said, and you don’t allow yourself to be deterred by the hordes of people passing you. When you pass the halfway mark, you pick a target: a runner far ahead of you who you can set your sights on. You gradually reel in the runner and eventually pass them. And then you pick a new victim to fish for, and you keep doing this until you have about five hundred meters to go, at which point you just go hell-for-leather until you cross the finish line.

In his prime, my Dad was one of the top marathoners – and for a time, ultramarathoners – in South Africa. I had a great deal of respect for the running advice he gave me. I used the technique of fishing for runners in my first half-marathon, back in 2001, and it worked like a charm.

Dad was my unofficial coach. Even though he lived on the other side of the world, he was always giving me snippets of advice that ranged from, “Shorten your stride and keep a straight posture going up hills” to, “Bring your own toilet paper to races because the portajohns tend to run out”. He taught me that hydrating in short, frequent bursts is better than gulping down sixteen ounces of water every five kilometres. He took one look at me after the one race he saw me in (a 10K in North York) – he saw the fine layer of salt covering my skin and turning my clothes white – and told me to ditch Gatorade and get a better electrolyte source. He taught me how to shop for running shoes, and explained why good socks are almost as vital as good shoes.

By the time I returned to running after a seven-year gap, Dad was no longer with us.  When I was out on my Sunday long runs, and when I was running my first half-marathon in eight years in considerably less than stellar shape, I had to rely on memories of what Dad had told me. I missed him bitterly on the day of my first Run for Autism, just over a year ago. I did not get to call him for a pre-race pep talk. I was not able to imagine talking to him on the phone later, going through a post-mortem of the race. I was so anxious about simply finishing the race that I found following any kind of a strategy difficult.  I knew, however, that he would be immensely proud of me, and that was enough.

Throughout this running season that is just drawing to a close, I have felt Dad’s presence from time to time. I have remembered more and more of what he told me, and I have read through his old training logs for tips and ideas, and for general inspiration. And then, on Saturday, something weird happened.

I was registered for a 10K run at the zoo.  Initially, I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to run it: it was just three weeks after a half-marathon that left me walking funny for days. I had not really gotten back into proper training since the half-marathon, and I figured that this would be a problem because there are a lot of hills at the zoo. So I went in with absolutely no expectations of myself.  My plan was to just finish the run and enjoy myself.

About two kilometres into the run, I found myself getting frustrated by slower runners ahead of me.  The road was just too narrow for me to pass them; I was waiting for an opportunity to slip by them and surge ahead. All of a sudden I heard Dad’s voice in my head: “What’s the rush?”

“It’s a race,” I pointed out (in my head, of course.  I haven’t quite reached the point of conversing with my deceased father out loud).

“Sure, it’s a race,” said the voice of Dad’s wisdom, “but you have 8K to go. You’ll get your chance a couple of kilometres from now, when the runners are more spread out.”

“But I feel good,” I argued. “I want to go faster.”

“Trust me. You’ll thank me for this later.”

I briefly debated whether to listen to my own actual voice, or the imagined voice of a man who passed away almost six years ago. Imagined voice, I decided.  If there is an afterlife, and if Dad is making the effort to coach me during a race from the Beyond, the least I can do is listen and give it a try.

I approached the first hill of the run, and thought, “Uh oh.”  From way back in the past, Dad’s hill mantra came back to me. “Shorten your stride. Keep your spine straight. Focus your vision on the crest of the hill.” Because I followed the mantra, and because I hadn’t burned off all my energy five hundred metres previously by barrelling past the slower runners, I made it to the top of the hill without even slowing my pace. As it turned out, I passed a number of runners going up the hill.  “Thanks Dad,” I said mentally. “Told you so,” he replied.

Before I knew it, I was running over the timing mats at the halfway point. I was feeling good and enjoying the scenery. Suddenly, Dad was back, as if he’d just popped off to see the lions. “Speed up,” he said. “Where do you think you are, a picnic?”

“Cripes, Dad, you were just telling me there was no rush,” I grumbled.

“That was then,” he said, cryptically. “It’s time to fish.”

I looked up and scanned the runners ahead of me. “The one with ears,” said Dad.  This would have startled me if I hadn’t seen, just in my range of vision, a runner wearing a pair of rabbit ears on his head (one thing about a run at the zoo is that people get creative about what they’re wearing).

Rabbit Ears turned out to be the perfect point of focus for me. By now, the runners were spread out enough for me to pass without impediment. I picked up the pace and bit by bit, I closed in on Rabbit Ears. When he slowed for a drink at the water station, I zoomed on past (another bit of advice from Dad: always take your own water to a race to reduce the number of times you have to slow down at an aid station).

My next victim was a woman wearing a bright red shirt boasting the words, “Toenails are for sissies”.  Once I got past her, I set my sights on a man with some kind of turban on his head, followed by a man wearing a pair of butterfly wings. Throughout all of this, my legs were feeling strong, I was enjoying every step of the run, and I was running up and down the hills with not a care in the world. With five hundred metres to go, Dad had one last piece of advice: “Pretend they’ve let the lions out after you.”

I pretended the lions were after me, and sprinted to the end.  I crossed the finish line feeling strong. I missed my personal best time for the distance by about a minute, and I was OK with that. My personal best was set on an all-downhill course; I performed a lot better here at the zoo and felt stronger at the end.  From the perspective of pacing, race strategy, and running mechanics, this was my best race since my return to running.

Thanks, Dad!

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2010 Run for Autism 2:22:38

September 27, 2010 By

Last week I actually thought I was going crazy. I was leading up the Big Race, which meant that I was running 60% of my usual mileage.  Which in turn meant that I had this build-up of energy that I could not expend in the way I usually do, which is to lace up my running shoes and hit the road. As a result of all this, I was hovering around at home, engaging in these weird frenetic bursts of activity, filling up everyone’s Facebook walls with meaningless status updates, and generally being a bit of a nuisance. Thanks to over a week of very little sleep, I advanced about eight levels in Frontierville.

I started experiencing odd little aches and twinges – tightness in the glutes, a rickety left ankle, what felt like an impending cold – all carefully designed to mess with my mind and convince me that I was not ready for this race.  When I looked back at six months of training, I didn’t see all of the long runs I had clocked up, the hill training or speed reps. I saw the gaps – the long run I missed six weeks ago because of a cold, the two speed training sessions that I was forced to do on a treadmill because of my schedule, the midweek run that I had to cut short because of a thunderstorm.

I was, in other words, experiencing the phenomenon known to runners as taper madness. Some runners are able to completely chill out and relax during their tapering.  Others tend to bounce around inside their own heads as if they’re trapped in a pinball machine on steroids.  Guess which category I fall into.

On Saturday night I went around the house, setting every audible alarm I could think of.  The alarm clock beside the bed. The alarm clock in the living room. The timer on the oven. My BlackBerry. I was so paranoid about oversleeping on the day of the race (never mind that I had been too wired to sleep for a week), and I figured that out of all these alarms, I was bound to hear at least one of them. Of course, all that meant was that on Sunday morning, I woke up at 4:30 and had to creep around the house turning off all the alarms to avoid waking up the kids.

As it happened, my wonderful husband-to-be got me to the starting area without incident, with plenty of time to spare. I checked my bag – a remarkably efficient process, considering I was in a bag-check lineup of maybe 2000 people, and I was in and out of there in less than ten minutes. Then I made my way to a prearranged meeting spot for the Geneva Centre for Autism team photo.

As I lined up at the start line, I could feel those tight glutes, that rickety left ankle, the sense that I was getting a cold and therefore not in the best physical shape. But then magic happened. The starting siren went off and as the crowd surged forward, my glutes instantly loosened up, my ankle found stability, and I was breathing strong and clear. As I crossed the start line, I winged a prayer to whatever supreme being you happen to believe in, put a picture of my son George in my head, and went on my way.

I had a series of mini-goals to accomplish for the race. I knew that the Geneva Centre representative would be at around the 6km mark along with the photographer, so my first goal was to simply get to that point. Once I passed them, I would be almost a third of the way there! As I had thought would happen, I got a great boost of energy from seeing people I knew who were cheering my name, taking my picture, and waving a banner for the cause closest to my heart.

That energy boost was enough to get me to my next mini-goal: the 10km point.  I felt a sense of exhiliration as I ran over the timing mats, and shortly after that, I reached the turnaround point.  Now I was not only more than halfway, I was physically heading back towards the point from which I had started. I was getting tired and pushing myself harder than I had in my training runs, but by breaking down the large distance into smaller goals, I was able to keep going.

With 8km to go, I started running in 2km increments. I reasoned that no matter how rough I started feeling, I would surely be able to manage 2km. As long as I focused on nothing else – not the full distance of the race, not the distance I had run or the total distance that was still to come – if I focused only on the 2km segment of the moment, I would be fine. I told myself that if things started to get really bad, the only thing I had to do was get to the end of those 2km, and then I would figure out what to do next.

And sure enough, before I knew it, I found myself with 2km to go.  I was feeling completely exhausted at that point, feeling as if I had little or nothing left to give. I took one last one-minute walking break, took a deep breath, a braced myself for the finish. With 1km to go, I turned onto Bay Street, and then I knew I would be OK. I knew that the crowds of cheering spectators lining both sides of the street would carry me for the last several hundred metres. The crowds got louder as I got closer to the finish, and despite feeling utterly devoid of energy, I found myself passing other runners leading up to the finish.

I rounded the last bend, and the finish line was in my sights. Right on the other side of the finish line, I could see a welcome and familiar figure – my man, having talked himself into getting a media pass, was crouching there with his video camera. I dug deep, and somehow found a reserve of energy that enabled me to sprint for the last 100 metres. Two hours, twenty-two minutes, and thirty-eight seconds after starting the race, I crossed the finish line, waving both arms triumphantly in the air and smiling so much I thought my face was going to split in two.

Six months of dedicated training, almost $500 raised for the Geneva Centre for Autism (which was part of a total of over $35,000 raised collectively by the Geneva Centre runners), a personal best time for the distance that beat last year’s time by six minutes.  What a day. What a phenomenal event to be a part of.

Am I hurting today? You bet. Will I do it again next year? I’ve already started to plan the training!  My Run for Autism is over, but only for this year.

With Holly Bannerman from the Geneva Centre for Autism

With John Stanton, founder of The Running Room

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Running lets me be… and other reasons for running

September 21, 2010 By

One of my co-workers recently asked me why I run, just what it is about the sport that I find so appealing.  There’s a part of me that understands where this question was coming from.  Back in my twenties, when I was smoking thirty a day, not caring what I ate, and generally leading an unhealthy, sedentery lifestyle, I would have been hard-pressed to get why anyone would voluntarily spend their Sunday morning running twenty or thirty kilometres.

When my co-worker asked the question, my response was, “Running allows me to just be.”  This is probably not a very satisfactory reply to be on the receiving end of, but it was the best I could come with at the time.  It’s an interesting question though, one that I will try to answer now.

Here, ladies and gentlemen, are the top ten reasons why running is the sport for me.

1. I’m crap at tennis.  And baseball, and soccer, and pretty much everything else that requires hand-eye coordination.  I have to do something (trust me, I do – I have the kind of metabolism that works just fine when I exercise, but grinds to a screeching halt when I don’t), and the simple action of repeatedly putting one foot in front of the other is something that even I cannot screw up.

2. I’m very competitive with myself.  This is another reason I should never play tennis.  If I miss a shot or send the ball into the net, I get really mad – not at my oppononent for being better than me, but at myself for making a mistake.  Running allows me to channel my inner competitor by targeting personal best times.

3. You can run anywhere.  If you’re, say, a golfer, and you find yourself in a place with no accessible golf course, you’re pretty much S.O.L.  You can’t exactly take your golf clubs down to the nearest main road and start hitting the ball into traffic.  Well, you could, I suppose, but there would be a lot of broken windows and people thinking you were completely off your head.  As a runner, on the other hand, I can take my sport wherever I am.

4. You don’t need a lot of stuff. Tennis players and golfers have to lug around lots of bulky stuff.  And don’t get me started on hockey players – have you seen those bags they use to put all their kit ‘n’ kaboodle in?  You could stuff a dead body into those things and no-one would be any the wiser.  I could technically go to a race without even having to take a bag with me.  Shoes are on my feet, hat is on my head, fuel belt stocked with water, energy drink and gels is around my waist, race number is pinned to my shirt.  When I do take a bag, all it contains is a bottle or two of water and a sweatshirt to put on after the race.

5. You don’t have to join a team to participate in events.  With very few exceptions (such as the Boston Marathon, which you have to qualify for), I can sign up for pretty much anything I want. No-one cares how fast or how slow I am, and the only person who gives a damn what my finishing time is is me.

6. Runners have a great sense of fellowship with one another.  When I’m out on my long runs on Sundays, I always encounter several other runners.  I don’t know any of them from Adam (actually, I do – I have a friend named Adam, but you know what I mean), but we exchange waves, smiles, thumbs-up of encouragement. You feel a kind of kinship with those other souls out there who are pounding the pavement.  From time to time, I even receive shouts of encouragement from other runners who are not actually running at the time.  I know they are runners, because they say things like, “Great leg turnover!” or “Keep going and you’ll get that PB!”

7. You can get all kinds of cool stuff at running stores. Seriously.  You don’t just get shorts and shoes in running stores, you get all kinds of things. Fancy shoelace thingies, race number holders, fuel belts, gel bottles, reflective gadgets.  Watches, heart rate monitors, pedometers, things that hold your music player so you don’t have to.  Sunglasses. Recipe books. Hats – who knew there were so many different kinds of hats?  And that’s before you even get to the section of running clothes.

8. I get to use my Garmin.  This is kind of related to the previous point, but deserves a point all of its own.  I love my Garmin.  It’s a training watch that does everything but slice, dice and make the coffee. The built-in GPS tracks distance as I’m going, so I can make adjustments to my route on the fly. The “virtual partner” tells me at a glance whether I’m running on target, or whether I need to slow down or pick up the pace.  The heart rate monitor is a barometer of whether I am in good shape.  And when my run is done, the watch starts sending data to my computer as soon as I’m within range.  By the time I sit down, there’s a new window open on my computer that has all of the run data, including my times for each kilometre, and a nifty little map of where I’ve run.

9. The feeling I get at the end of a race or a long run is phenomenal. Part of it is the sense of accomplishment at having finished the run, part of it is the “runners high” that gives you a general sense of wellbeing and happiness. When I’m nearing the end of a run and eeling really rough, I motivate myself my reminding myself how great I will feel fifteen or twenty minutes from now.

10. Running allows me to see a thought through to its completion.  I am a mom.  I a mom of two young boys, both at demanding stages of their development.  When I am at home, any thought I start to have in invariably interrupted by something that sounds like this: “AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!  Mommy!  George won’t let me play with the Lego!” followed by an assortment of thumps and bumps and slamming doors.  When I’m running, I can actually formulate plans, generate ideas, compile shopping lists, decide what to wear to work the next day. If it wasn’t for those five-times-a-week runs that happen at ridiculously early hours of the morning, I would probably go completely barmy.

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Turn, turn, turn

September 9, 2010 By

To everything there is, apparently, a season.  There is a time for the sweltering heat of summer to give way to cooler temperatures and later sunrises.  There is a time for the light traffic associated with school vacations to be replaced by the usual mind-numbing gridlock.  There is a time for yellow school buses to reappear, for kids to start new grades and new schools, for parents to high-five each other over the fact that their household has survived an entire summer at the hands of little hooligans.

For families living with autism, there is a time to anxiously ride out the tough times that invariably come with a change in routine.

And for runners approaching their major race of the season, there is a time to kick up the training for the long runs, and there is a time to taper and rest.

There have been a lot of changes happening in my family, many of them typical back-to-school kind of stuff.  For James, our youngest, the changes have been minimal.  He has just started Senior Kindergarten, although I must admit that I have a hard time thinking about a four-year-old as a senior anything.  He is in the same classroom at the same school as last year, he has the same teacher and many of the same classmates.  I can only hope that this year will involve less upheaval and trauma then last year, when the much-loved teacher of James’ class suddenly died.

James himself is taking the new school year in his stride.  In fact, he was somewhat irritated when the previous school year ended.  From the day school let out for the summer, James wanted to go back. For the last two weeks of the school holiday, I had to do a daily countdown thing on the calendar to maintain my sanity and also James’.  Now that school has resumed, he’s as happy as a rat with a gold tooth. Will he be like this five years from now? Time will tell.

Change is also afoot for George. Last week he completed his formal one-on-one IBI therapy. On his last day we attended a graduation ceremony held in honour of George and one other little boy who was completing the program with him.  The two graduates stood there proudly holding their certificates (laminated, to prevent ripping) and wearing their little graduation caps.  I looked at my son thinking of how far he had come during his two years in the IBI program. Gone was the completely non-verbal, isolated, uncertain little boy who started the therapy.  In his place was a smiling, happy child, still not exactly talkative but at least talking to some extent. He savoured the attention being lavished on him, and rightly so.

This week George started a new phase in his life.  We are fortunate that although his routine has changed substantially, the new routine at least involves the same places that he is used to, and some of the same people.  In the mornings, he is going to the same therapy centre where he did the IBI, and he is attending a “school stream” program (a simulated classroom environment where there is a teacher as well as a one-on-one support person for each of the five kids). In the afternoons he is bussed to school, where he is in a special ed class.  Over the next two years he will be gradually mainstreamed, the general idea being that by the time he is in fourth grade, he will be fully mainstreamed in a regular class, but with special support.

So far, the change in routine has not caused that much disruption. George seems to be enjoying school stream and school.  He likes the school bus, and as mentioned, both school and the therapy centre are places that he already knows.  So we may get lucky with this one – we may escape the usual transition angst that hits our household at this time of year.

And me?  Well, my run for autism is a mere seventeen days away. My training is peaking round about now, with intense speed workouts and long runs.  My final long run before the race will be this weekend, when I will be hitting the road for 20km.  After that I am in taper mode.  I will run less, pre-race jitters will set in, and I will be driving everyone crazy by the time race day arrives.

Oh, and George finally lost his first tooth.  He has already announced that he wants to buy another pineapple with the money left for him by the tooth fairy.

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Getting over the hump

July 27, 2010 By

I have a mantra that I use during difficult runs. I cannot repeat it here, because I’m in polite company and the mantra involves a curse word starting with the letter “F”.  It also involves the name of a politician who I intensely dislike.  When I’m having a hard time during a run, I chant the mantra in time to my pace.  The opportunity to vent about the politican, combined with the steady rhythm of the mantra, helps soothe and distract me.  Interestingly enough, I used the identical mantra, but with a different politician’s name, when I was in labour with my first child.

When the run is going well, I don’t need a mantra.  When the run is going well, I can simply enjoy it.  I needed the mantra two and a half weeks ago, when I ran a ten-mile race in Toronto’s Distillery District. It was a hard race.  It happened on the worst day of my monthly cycle so I felt awful.  I was running in new shoes that I hadn’t broken in properly.  It was hot and there was virtually no shade on-course.  One stretch of the race – the Leslie Street Spit – was mentally challenging because it went on for so damned long.

The biggest problem, though, was my training leading up to the race.  Or rather, my lack of training leading up to the race. For about a month, I struggled with my running.  I couldn’t get the weekday runs in: the kids were going through a phase of not sleeping, so I couldn’t summon up the energy to get up at five in the morning to go running.  And in the evenings, Gerard was working hard to meet a deadline, so there was no-one to watch the kids while I hit the road.  I was able to get out for my long runs on Sundays, but lack of training during the week made the long runs painful. I had to cut a couple of them short because I just couldn’t do it, and I had to skip a couple of them altogether due to scheduling conflicts.

That I managed to finish that ten-miler at all is a miracle.  As soon as I crossed the finish line and retrieved my very hard-earned finisher’s medal, I resolved to get my training back on track.  And so I allowed myself two days of rest followed by a short easy run, then I jumped right back into it.

Two weeks ago, I started a dedicated half-marathon training schedule.  In addition to the obligatory Sunday long runs, it includes tempo runs and hill training.  I have been following the schedule and not skipping any runs. No matter how tired I am, I get up at five in the morning when the schedule calls for it – a painful process, but once I am on the road I am always glad to be there.

In two weeks, I have already noticed a phenomenal difference.  The two sessions of hill training that I have done have started strengthening my legs, and this Sunday past, I went for a long run that was the best I’ve had in weeks. I paced myself right, and felt strong throughout.  I even managed to negative split the run – meaning that I ran the second half faster than the first.  Best of all, when I was done with the run, I felt as if I had enough juice in me to continue had I so chosen. I am also noticing a difference to my pace in my tempo runs. When I was coming out of my injury earlier this year, I would have been lucky to maintain a pace of 7:30 minutes per kilometre.  Now, I aim for 6:30 minutes – this morning, I kept up 6:06 minutes and felt good doing it.

There are eight and a half weeks remaining until my half-marathon.  I am starting to think that if I keep up this progress in my training, the 2:15 time I am aiming for will be well within my reach.

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Half-Marathon triumph – a great day

May 24, 2010 By

Sunday was one of those days where I appreciated the expression “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”. Or in my case, the journey of 21.1km begins with a single step (we’re very protective over that final 0.1km, we half-marathoners – after running for such a long way, we want every single step to count).

I had reservations going into Sunday’s half-marathon. The race was organized by the same guy who organized a ten-miler I ran back in November; the marshalling on that race had been so bad that runners found themselves not knowing which way to go. Then, leading up to Sunday’s half-marathon, the course was completely changed – not welcome news for runners, who train for the terrain they’re expecting on race day. Truth be told, I almost decided not to participate. Everything seemed to be pointing to this being a larger-scale repeat of the disastrous ten-miler.

Now, with the half-marathon one day in the past, I can say that if I had not taken part, I would have missed out on a great race. I would have read rave race reports on runners’ forums and bitterly regretted not being there. The race organization way surpassed all expectations. There were water stations every three kilometres; they were well-provisioned and staffed by enthusiastic volunteers. There was a gel station four kilometres from the end, just when runners needed a boost. The course was well-marked and easy to follow, and as an added bonus, it offered up some scenic views of Lake Ontario.

As is my habit, I started out slow. There was a long gentle uphill near the start, and I handled it well enough, despite having done no hill training. After the first 5km or so, I picked up my pace and ran strong for the next 10km or so. With 5km to go, my energy started to flag and I had to adjust my pacing. With 4km to go, I had to ditch my headband; it was drenched with sweat and dripping salt into my eyes.

After three or so very tough kilometres, I had the finish line within my sights. Having run the race up until now without music, I put on my headphones, and set my BlackBerry to play “Come With Me” by Phil Collins – a song that makes me think of George. After all, if it wasn’t for George, I wouldn’t be doing this. With music in my ears and thoughts of my son filling my head, I sprinted to the finish line.

With a finisher’s medal around my neck, and a finisher’s T-shirt in my hand (a nice unexpected touch), I was greeted and hugged enthusiastically by my entourage. Gerard was there with the two boys, as well as Matt, Gerard’s step-son from a previous relationship. Matt’s wife Jen was also there, along with their three young daughters. To have people I love dearly so happy about my success truly meant a lot.

My official time for the race was 2:25:06. I beat my previous half-marathon time by over three minutes. A day later, my legs are aching, my sense of achievement is soaring, and I am looking forward to my next race (a ten-miler sometime in July).

I love to run!

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About Dad

May 19, 2010 By

Unlike some of the people who can run a full marathon in less time than it takes me to run a half-marathon, I was not born with running shoes on my feet.  We didn’t have track and field at my high school although there were a number of other sports.  We took our swimming very seriously, and in the winter I played hockey (lawn hockey – hockey as we know it in North America has never gained a foothold in South Africa, despite some mild efforts).  I started running relatively late in life, when I was 26.

What happened was that I decided to quit smoking.  I had been a smoker for about nine years, and I had been on thirty a day since the age of 23.  My parents used to despair – they had lost family members to cancer and they literally feared for my life.  And the habit was just getting too expensive for me to afford.  The true reason for me quitting, however, was that I woke up one morning and simply got tired of being a smoker.  So I made the decision to knock the habit on the head.  My co-worker Gary, who was himself an avid runner, suggested that my efforts to quit should be accompanied by changes in my lifestyle.  And so I started eating better and I commenced a very gradual running program that Gary provided.  By the time I moved to Canada four years later, the smoking habit was a distant memory, I was in much better shape, and I was hooked on running.

When I had the kids, I stopped running.  No time, no sleep, and a sense of being a bit overwhelmed put a halt to all activity.  For seven years I occasionally tried to get back into it, but there was always a reason for it not to work.  Finally, a year ago, I got the email from the Geneva Centre for Autism, inviting me to run for charity, and just like that, I was back.  All I needed was the right motivation.

Throughout my entire running journey, I have had my Dad with me in some form or another.  Dad was a runner himself – at his prime he was one of the best marathoners in South Africa.  For several years he ranked among the top five marathoners in the country, and although his activity did slow down as he got older, he never lost the passion for it.  When I started running he was thrilled.  He was full of advice and anecdotes, all of which I accepted eagerly.  As I trained for my very first half-marathon in 2001, he followed my training with interest, and when I called him after the race to tell him all about it, his enthusiasm was immense.

Dad was there for one of my races – my first-ever 10K in Toronto.  He and my Mom were over for a visit, and on race-day we all bundled into the car and headed for the start line.  I was telling Dad that I wanted to finish the race in less than an hour; he was giving me advice on how to pace myself.  When I crossed the finish line – in less than an hour – it lifted my heart to see Mom and Dad standing at the finish line cheering for me.

Dad died five years ago, and there is not a day when I don’t miss him.  He was a fantastic father, and for the brief period of time he knew George – who is the reason I run today – he was a fantastic grandfather.  He is still with me when I run – sometimes, when my runs are going well, he wanders off for a bit, probably because he knows I’m doing OK.  But when I am on my long runs and I’m starting to hit the wall, I’ll suddenly feel a boost in my energy and I’ll know that Dad has shown up to help me.

When I run my half-marathon for autism in September, there will be two people in my mind.  George – my beautiful boy, the reason I got back into it.  And Dad, my role model, the person who always gave me endless support and encouragement.

Filed Under: family, running Tagged With: , , , ,
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Running and social connections

May 16, 2010 By

I tend to be a loner when I run.  I love the sense of freedom that comes with being out on the road, just me and the music that is playing in my ears.  I love the feeling of being at one with the world around me, of having no walls or barriers.  And I love being alone, especially during my long runs.  It’s not that I’m antisocial – far from it – but I spend so much time around other people.  I have a very hands-on parenting style: being with my family involves a great deal of physical contact – hugging, playing, chasing and catching – all of which I could not live without.  It does mean, though, that I savour my long Sunday runs, which allow me to spend time with myself.  I always feel refreshed when I get back, and ready for another round of being wrestled to the ground simultaneously by both of my boys.

And so it has been something of a surprise to me to discover that I do actually enjoy the occasional run in the company of other people.  My first inkling of this was when my friend Fran came to visit from B.C. for a few days.  Fran has recently been bitten by the running bug, and when she was here we went running together a couple of times, and even went to a race together.  When she returned to B.C. I missed her company on my short runs, while still being glad of my independence and sense of freedom on the long runs.

After last year’s half-marathon, my first for which I raised funds for the Geneva Centre for Autism, I was invited to join the Geneva Centre’s committee organizing efforts for the 2010 autism run.  During the course of committee meetings and informal email threads, I have gotten to know a few of the people who work at the Geneva Centre, including the lady who is coordinating the whole thing.  After I was featured in a Globe & Mail article about the connection between running and philanthropy, the Geneva Centre asked me to write a brief message about my running for autism, for inclusion in the weekly parent newsletter.

And last week, I was an inaugural member of an informal running group that has started up, comprised mostly of Geneva Centre staff.  After work on Thursday, I traveled the one subway stop from my office to the Geneva Centre and met up with the other four members of the group.  Wearing our red Geneva Centre T-shirts, we set off for a half-hour or so of walking/running.  The experience level of the group varied widely, ranging from one lady who had never run in her life before to me, with my average of 40-50km per week.  By any standards, we were a somewhat motley crew, but we had loads of fun.  I enjoyed the company of each person, and I am really looking forward to our planned weekly runs together.

Well, who knew?  I actually enjoy being with other people when I run.  I don’t honestly see myself ever being able to give up my lone Sunday long runs.  I value that time for myself too much.  But I am discovering that the shorter weekday runs can be very fun, social occasions.

As with so many other aspects of running, I guess it’s a question of balance.

Filed Under: autism, running Tagged With: , , , ,
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Stop the world, I need to breathe!

May 8, 2010 By

To say that the last week has been a bit eventful would be like saying Hitler was a bit aggressive.  It’s either feast or famine in my life.  Things will chug along, same-old-same-old, for weeks at a time, with nothing changing and nothing really newsworthy happening.  Then all of a sudden, I will have several weeks’ worth of events will flock to me like mosquitoes flock to my husband (seriously, bugs love him and for the most part, avoid me.  Why is that?)

Last Sunday I ran a race, the Sporting Life 10K in downtown Toronto.  It was a phenomenal event featuring more than 14,000 runners and superb race organization.  The logistics of planning something that involves that many people must be akin to a nightmare, but these guys pulled it off flawlessly.  The run itself was a lot of fun.  The route was easy, downhill most of the way, and the weather was perfect.  The predicted thundershowers failed to materialize, but the cloud cover and the gentle breeze were in evidence.  I completed the run in 1:05:00 – fast enough for a personal best time for the distance, but still leaving plenty of room for more personal best times in the future.

A quick word about something Gerard did for me before the race.  When he and James dropped me off at the start line, I gave James a kiss, and then went round to the back of the van to pick up my bag.  Only to see that Gerard had propped up a framed picture of my Dad next to my bag.  Dad, who died five years ago, was also a runner – one of the best in South Africa at his prime – and this was Gerard’s way of telling me that Dad was with me.  I was so touched, it brought tears to my eyes.

Several hours after the race, I started feeling a little off.  I figured that I had pushed myself on the run, not eaten soon enough afterwards, and consumed way too much coffee.  Feeling a little sick made complete sense to me.  But then – there’s no polite way to describe this, really – I started tossing my cookies.  Big time, for several hours.  Many hours, in fact.  Until 4:00 the following morning.  Even when there were no cookies left, the cookies continued to be tossed.  It was clear that I had a bug.  I had felt fine for the run – perhaps the bug was lurking there in the corner, just waiting for its moment to arrive.  Although the throwing-up incidents came to an end after about sixteen hours, I felt weak and drained for several days.

On Sunday afternoon, about an hour after I started feeling sick, I heard from Robert, the brother of my friend Tim.  Tim, who had recently been diagnosed with stomach cancer, had passed away.  Tim and I were friends for years.  We wrote columns for the same e-zine, and Tim was my unofficial tech support guy.  When George was diagnosed with autism, Tim was the guy who recognized my need for an outlet; a place to write and vent about autism and what my family was going through.  He gave me a forum to do so, and he was supremely supportive of everything – my parenting, my running, my writing.  He was also one of the funniest people I’ve ever known.

Fast forward to Thursday afternoon.  I was sitting at work, an hour away from going to the Keg with a few of my coworkers to bid farewell to someone who was leaving to go and live in Abu Dhabi.  I had resolved to drink nothing but water at the Keg – I was still feeling mild effects from the weekend stomach bug.  Work was going smoothly enough, when I got a phonecall from George’s therapy centre.  The news was good and bad.  The good news is that they wanted to put George into something called the school stream.  Instead of receiving one-on-one therapy, he would be in a simulated classroom environment with four other children.  The concept sounded good but the timing sounded bad.  When I expressed the opinion that George would not be ready for this by the proposed start date of September, I was told that if he continued with his one-on-one therapy, he would most likely be discharged in December.  Meaning that by January, he would be thrown full-time into a school system that he is nowhere near ready for.  The one day a week of school that he does get is challenging enough.  What this whole conversation left me with is the feeling that I am having to make a critical decision that could make or break George.  It’s like playing Russian Roulette with my child’s future.  What I decided, there and then, was that we had to fight as hard as we needed to to get the best for George.  Thanks to the advice of someone I know who has been through these fights for her own son and knows the system backwards, I was able to tone down some of the anger and gloves-off fighting attitude that I would have gone in with.

I didn’t only drink water at the Keg that afternoon.

On Friday morning, Gerard and I had a meeting at the therapy centre.  We got to see the classroom that is used for the school stream kids, and we were allowed to observe proceedings.  We asked a ton of questions, and got a clearer picture of the program.  In school stream, a teacher works with a group of five children in a mock classroom setting.  Each of the five kids still has a one-on-one support staff member with them, to prompt them as needed.  It’s kind of like a cross between what George is getting now and school.  The whole idea is get kids used to the idea of following school routines, walking in line, participating in class discussion.  In essence, school stream prepares kids for full-time school.  It’s a half-day program; for the other half-day, the kids are in fact in school.  That aspect of the program is simply to get the kids used to being at a real school every day, even if it’s just for a couple of hours.

Here’s what sold us on this program: social communication.  That is George’s single biggest challenge – one that, by its very nature, one-on-one therapy cannot really address.  The school stream program could be hugely beneficial to George from that aspect alone.  The whole thing is based on group interaction and the need to communicate and participate.  The program typically lasts for a year, but if the child needs it for longer, it can be extended.  It includes regular speech therapy, occupational therapy, and social communication workshops.

We said yes.  On seeing the program in action and getting all the facts, it does seem like the right thing to do.  It is the next logical step in this roadmap that is George’s life, and I am excited about the potential it has for him.  He will be continuing with his current program until September, and then switching to school stream in September.

After this was all sorted out, Gerard and I went on to James’ school where there was another occasion for us to attend.  James is a new inductee to the school system, having just started Junior Kindergarten last September.  With a Christmas birthday, he is the youngest and smallest kid in his class.  He needed special nurturing in the beginning, and his teacher, Mr. T., took him under his wing.  James adored his teacher, who was popular with the entire student body: he doubled as the school librarian and frequently gave the kids a break on their late fees.

In December Mr. T., who had recently celebrated his thirtieth birthday, contracted pneumonia and died.  It was a huge shock for everyone; I found myself with the task of explaining the meaning of this to a kid who was still a couple of weeks away from his fourth birthday.  I had to try and make him understand that Mr. T. loved him very much, but was never coming back.  Over the last few months, James has dealt with alternating cycles of grief, denial, and acceptance.

On Friday, he got to say goodbye.  The school put together a memorial assembly, a celebration of life in honour of Mr. T.  James and his classmates sang a song called “It’s a Great Day”, a cheerful song that Mr. T. would have approved of.  My heart swelled with pride and my eyes filled with tears.  There were more songs performed by other classes, quotes, a wonderful slideshow.  I had the honour of meeting Mr. T.’s family – his wonderful parents, brother, and partner.  Will this be effective closure for James?  Only time will tell.

So now I am in a state of exhaustion and very heightened emotion.  I feel overwhelmed and a little stressed.  I know that I just need to give myself time to wind down from all of these happenings.  I am sure tomorrow’s 19km training run will help!

Filed Under: autism, Bereavement, Medical, running, School, Teacher Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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Against the wind

April 28, 2010 By

Preparations for my weekday runs usually involve a great deal of stealth.  I wake up at five in the morning, and then sneak around in my own house, getting dressed as silently as possible.  There’s a lot of tiptoeing and feeling my way around in order to avoid alerting the short people to the fact that I’m actually awake.  It’s dark and I look like a burglar.  Once I’m dressed, I make my way to the front door in my socks, grab my shoes, and leave.  I close and lock the door behind me as quietly as possible, and then put my ear up against the door to listen to the blissful sound of silence coming from within.  Now that I have successfully made my escape, I put on my shoes, plug in my music, fiddle with buttons on my training watch, and set off.

If the kids wake up at any point during this process, I can say goodbye to my run. They tend to be somewhat Mommy-centric in the mornings (if they wake up and I’m already gone, Daddy is an acceptable substitute; but if they wake up while I’m there, they want me and only me). On those days, I tend to their needs and then get ready for work, staring wistfully at my pile of discarded running clothes.  In general, though, I have become very good at the art of stealth.  I could probably give James Bond a run for his money, except that I can’t fire a gun, I don’t have any fancy gadgets in my car, and I like my martinis stirred, not shaken.

Anyway, yesterday I was able to go for a run at a normal time of the day, without the stealth factor.  I was working from home, which meant that I had an extra two hours – time that is usually spent commuting.  So I got up at a time of day considered by most people to be reasonably civilized, offloaded James at his daycare, and returned home to work.  I planned my day’s activities around an early afternoon run, which would have me back by the time George got home from the therapy centre.

Halfway through the morning, though, I was not so sure about this plan.  I had been steadily working through the morning, and had gradually become aware that the house was feeling a bit stuffy, like a vacuum cleaner’s armpit (to borrow a phrase from comedic author Douglas Adams).  I poured a cup of coffee and went out onto the back deck, where I almost got blown away by a gust of wind.  If I’d had an umbrella I would have been like Mary Poppins.

I don’t mind a bit of a breeze, but I hate wind.  I can handle just about any other weather condition, but wind makes me intensely irritable.  It blows my hair everywhere, makes my ears hurt, and generally sets me on edge.  I will not forego a training run because of rain or snow, but I must confess that I have rescheduled runs because I just didn’t want to run in the wind.  So when I went outside yesterday and stood there in the wind, I seriously questioned whether I really wanted to go running in that.

I quickly got a hold of myself, though.  I have a 10km race coming up this weekend – one that I’ve been looking forward to for weeks – and this is really not the week for me to be flaking out because of a little bit of wind.  I need to be well-conditioned this week; my limbs need to be loose and agile.  And besides, what I am going to do if it’s windy on race day?  Whine about how I don’t want my hair to get messed up?

So yesterday afternoon, I surfaced from my work and got ready to go running as planned.  I braced myself, opened the front door – and stepped out into a stunningly gorgeous afternoon.  The sun was shining and a light breeze was blowing – nothing like the gusty wind that had set my teeth on edge just four hours previously.  As I set off down the road, I could not believe that I had almost foregone this run.

It turned out to be fantastic.  The sun was gently touching my shoulders and the breeze was keeping me cool.  In the beginning I was taking it slow and easy; for the last two kilometres I was flying.  I was on a high for the rest of the day; the physical activity boosted my energy, and as always after a run, I felt a sense of accomplishment.

If I felt that great after a 5.5km training run, imagine how I will feel standing at the finish line of my run for autism.

Filed Under: running Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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