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2012 Run For Autism: Starting The Journey

June 10, 2012 By

Many of you already know the story.

You already know how I was a runner way back when, and then stopped and completely neglected my physical health after the birth of my kids. You know how I always wanted to get back into running, but never found the discipline. You know how I became completely comfortable as a couch potato but never quite got rid of that residue of regret.

You also know how an email landed in my inbox one day that completely changed everything. The email was an invitation for me to join the team being put together by the Geneva Centre for Autism for the forthcoming Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront races. Participants could run the 5K, half-marathon or marathon, and in the process raise funds for services for children and youth with autism.

It turned out to be just the motivation I needed. Within 24 hours I had made the transition from couch potato to speed demon extremely slow runner. Six months later, I had dropped almost sixty pounds and I was standing exhausted but triumphant at a half-marathon finish line, clutching my finishers medal and sobbing with emotion.

Here I sit, three years later, getting ready to embark on training and fundraising for my fourth Run for Autism. Since that first half-marathon in 2009, most of the weight has stayed off, my half-marathon time has improved by almost ten minutes, and I have raised over $2000 for the Geneva Centre for Autism.

This year’s race is on October 14th. My fundraising goal is a cool thousand dollars. This means that for the next four months, I will be shamelessly asking people for money – friends and family, complete strangers, and everyone in between. The money will go towards supplies and services for children and youth with autism. These are services that can provide skills that will last a lifetime, enabling people like my son George to lead happy, productive lives as fully integrated members of their communities.

Some examples of what $1000 can do are as follows:

  • Art supplies for 40 children and young adults
  • Sports equipment for 20 children and young adults
  • Musical instruments for 15 children and young adults
  • Job training for 15 young adults
  • Field trips for 10 children and young adults
  • Summer camp for 4 children and young adults
  • 2 iPads loaded with apps for individuals with autism
  • 1 piece of state-of-the-art sensory equipment

This list goes to show that every single cent really does make a difference. If you have the ability to, please consider sponsoring my Run for Autism and contributing to this incredible cause for my child and for other people with autism.

To donate, please visit my fundraising page.

It takes a very special kind of village to raise a child with special needs. Today, I invite you to be a part of my village.

(Photo credit: Brightroom Professional Event Photographers)

Filed Under: autism, Autism Services, Finish Line, fundraising, Geneva Centre for Autism, Half-Marathon, running, Running for Autism, Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Races Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Toronto Womens Half-Marathon: Getting By With A Little Help From A Friend

May 28, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

Phaedra and I, sharing some post-race happiness

I am always a jittery mess leading up to races, and yesterday’s Toronto Women’s Half-Marathon was no exception. If anything, I was more nervous than usual. I had trained hard, coached by my friend Phaedra, and I wanted to realize the fruits of my efforts. As I wandered around the starting area eating my pre-race peanut butter sandwich, I thought back to my season of training. Instead of thinking about all of the great runs I had, my mind stubbornly focused on the not-so-good. Like missing my very first week of training due to a stomach bug, and having to take an emergency trip to the other side of the world during my second and third week. I thought obsessively about how my training went a little pear-shaped a month ago, due to circumstances beyond my control.

I knew that these nerves would vanish as soon as the starter’s siren went off. The slight stuffiness in my nose would disappear and the tightness in my right calf would magically loosen up. I would be lifted by the collective energy of the 1500 runners around me, and I would be spurred on by my natural tendency to compete with myself.

Seeing a couple of familiar friendly faces right before the race started helped immensely. My friend George from the Geneva Centre for Autism was there to cheer on his girlfriend. Phaedra was there too, already lined up at the start. I squeezed my way into the crowded corral and waited for the siren.

And then we were off! I was forced to start at a moderate pace: this invariably happens when 1500 runners are competing for space on a narrow park trail. It is at times frustrating to be trapped behind slower runners with no immediate opportunity to pass them, but it can be enormously beneficial to be forced to keep the brakes on, particularly early in a long race.

I was aiming for an average pace of 6:30 minutes per kilometre, and for the first few kilometres, I hovered between 6:34 and 6:40. I was OK with that. Usually I increase my pace over the course of the distance, so starting slower than my goal doesn’t worry me.

The course was a challenging one. The entire race took place on park trails that at times, were barely wide enough to allow for the two-way traffic on the out-and-back segments. The trails were mostly paved, which was nice, but in places they were uneven, so I had to watch my footing very carefully. While the course was not as hilly as, say, the 10K race at the Toronto Zoo, there were enough undulations to create a challenge – most notably, the hill leading up to the bridge going over the railway line.

At about the 5K mark, I was running the out portion of an out-and-back segment, and I saw Phaedra coming towards me, running the back portion. She was looking strong and moving fast, right near the front of the pack. We cheered each other, did a high-five, and went on our way.

The kilometres ticked by. I marked the little milestones as I passed them. 7km – a third of the way there. 10.5km – halfway there. The 12km milestone is always a big one for me, because it means I only have 9K to go, and I am counting down single digits.

14km – two thirds of the way there. At this point I was really starting to hurt. A twenty-year-old ankle injury was acting up, no doubt aggravated by the uneven path. There was no way I was letting myself stop, though – I had only 7km left. 7km is like a walk in the park to me.

At 16km I hadn’t quite managed to hit my target pace, and I found myself having to revise my “A” goal of beating 2:15. I mentally shifted to my “B” goal – a personal best time. I had to beat 2:19:46 and I thought that I was only just in for a shot at accomplishing that. All I had to do was ignore the burning in my legs for half an hour or so.

18km – there are the firefighters! Sadly, none of them had their shirts off, but they were absolutely gorgeous. They were a welcome sight at a point in the race when I always start to struggle. There was no way I was going to slow down. I had to show off for the handsome firemen. I wasn’t exactly looking my best, so I had to impress them in other ways!

At 19km I saw two things: the chocolate station and Phaedra, who had finished her race and run back to meet me. I guzzled down a chocolate bar, desperately in need of the sugar rush, and then set off for the last 2km, with my friend running beside me, not letting me give up, reminding me that the prize of the finish line was just minutes away.

I was hurting, really hurting. My legs were begging me to stop, or at least slow down. Just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, Phaedra said, “Come on! You have five minutes left! You can do anything for five minutes!”

All of a sudden, I rounded a final bend, and there it was – the finish line. I have a strong finishing kick, and it didn’t let me down. Phaedra hopped off to the side and I charged to the finish, crossing the line in a time of 2:20:11.

I missed my personal best time by 25 seconds, but considering that my personal best time was set on a much easier course, I was satisfied with my time. I was particularly pleased that my final kilometre was by far my fastest, at 5:56.

It is worth pointing out that before Phaedra helped carry me for the last 2km, she had finished the race fourth overall, and first in her age group.

I am already looking ahead to my next half-marathon, my autism run in October. It is perhaps a good sign that as I sipped my wine and soaked my aching legs in a bubble bath last night, I was reading my copy of The Art Of Running Faster.

(Photo credit: Phaedra Kennedy)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, Phaedra Kennedy, Race, running, Toronto Womens Half-Marathon Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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8 Things Runners Should Do The Day Before A Race

May 26, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

This time tomorrow, I will be about an hour and a quarter into the half-marathon I’ve been training for since February. If things go according to plan, I will have a little less than 10km to go. I will have been injected with the mental boost that comes from passing the halfway mark, and I will be mentally preparing strategies to overcome the energy crash that usually happens at around 18km. I will be visualizing myself crossing the finish line, hopefully with a personal best half-marathon time under my belt.

But that’s all tomorrow. Today I have to get through my final day of pre-race freak-out. I am a bag of nerves and my body is trying to play its usual tricks on my mind. And somehow, while these butterflies create havoc in my stomach, I have to get myself organized for tomorrow, and make sure my body has the nutrients and hydration in place to go the distance.

I have run my share of races, so I have been through this enough times to be in a position to share a few hard-earned points of wisdom with runners who suffer from pre-race jitters.

1. Your body is thirsty. As athletes, we all know that we’re supposed to drink x-number of glasses of water a day. But some of us aren’t as diligent about it as we should be. If I was better about my general hydration needs, maybe it would kick up my race performance a notch. It would certainly be better for my overall health. As lax about it as I am, I always make a special effort to hydrate properly the day before a race. It does mean more trips to the bathroom, but going into the race with at least a day’s worth of proper hydration behind me really does make a difference.

2. Watch what you eat. This one seems obvious. We want our bodies to be properly fueled for the big event. Don’t go nuts on the carbs: it’s actually better to do your carbo-loading two days before the race. The day before, you want to keep your diet simple and healthy. My pre-race day nutrition consists of lean protein, very little fat, and a small amount of carbs. That is what works for me, and it is important to note that something quite different could work for someone else.

3. Now is not the time for experimentation. If you just bought a new pair of six-inch heels, wait until after the race to break them in. Especially if you’re a dude. Keep that new jar of miracle wonder-vitamins in your medicine cabinet with the seal intact. If you’ve never had super-hot Thai curry, don’t eat it today. Everything you wear today should be something you’ve worn before, and everything you eat or drink should be something that you know from experience is tolerated well by your body.

4. Remember that your training is done. Going out for “one last speed training run” is going to serve absolutely no purpose, and may in fact do you harm. It is easy to worry, on the last day, about whether you have done enough training. You start to obsess about the week you had to take off due to a cold, or the fact that you had to cut short your last long run because you turned your ankle on an uneven paving stone. Remember that training is not an event, it’s a process, and you will have built your base long ago. The best thing you can do today is loosen up with an easy run around the block, and then rest for the remainder of the day.

5. Do stuff you like. You are tense and nervous, and you need to relax. Don’t worry about the things you should be doing. They can wait. Keep yourself busy with activities that will relax your mind and help you chill out a little. For me, it’s writing and messing around on my laptop. For someone else, it might be reading or watching TV. If you actually enjoy washing dishes and doing the laundry, knock yourself out. Come and do mine while you’re at it.

6. Prepare your running outfit. You don’t want to be fiddling around with safety pins and your race bib while you’re lined up at the start line ten minutes before the siren goes off. The day before the race, you actually want to put on the clothes you will be wearing, along with your heart rate monitor and whatever fuel belt you will be using. Then you can pin your number to your shirt, and experiment with ways to make the number work with everything else you are wearing. Men and flat-chested women have an easier time of this, simply because they have a larger available flat surface. For women like me who are more rounded on top, more coordination is sometimes required. Don’t wait until race day to figure it out.

7. Pack your bag. Most races have bag check facilities, and it’s well worth taking advantage of them. My bag typically contains several bottles of water for before and after the race, the pre-race snack that I eat right after I get to the start (about an hour before the run begins), a light jacket and track pants to put on after the race, and an alternative set of running clothes just in case I get to the start and find that I have miscalculated the weather. Your race bib usually comes with a bag check tear-off strip at the bottom. Remove this from the bib and attach it to your bag.

8. Get plugged in. Charge up your training watch, your iPod, and any other electronic gadgets that you are taking. Getting to the race and seeing the “battery low” message flashing on your watch can be very disorienting. Leave your goods plugged in for the day, and then unplug them and leave them with your race clothes before you go to bed.

Pre-race jitters are normal, and in some ways they are beneficial. They give your adrenaline a handy boost leading up to the race. Don’t fight the jitters, embrace them. Coexist with them as you go about your final race day, getting yourself ready.

And then, when it’s time to line up at the start, enjoy the run and visualize how great it will feel to cross the finish line.

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, Pre-Race Jitters, Race, running, Taper Madness, Tapering Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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A Midsummer Night’s Run

August 29, 2011 By

 

At the finish line!

No matter which way you look at it, fifteen kilometres – almost ten miles – is a long way to travel on foot. For the modern human being, who has all kinds of conveniences available that are designed to help us get places and do things quickly, the  only reason to travel fifteen kilometres on foot is for the fun of it.

Many people just don’t get my preoccupation with running. They don’t understand how I  can actually enjoy the feeling of being on the move for two hours straight, and seeing how fast and  how far I can push  myself. It is beyond their comprehension that I wear my blackened toenails with pride, like badges of honour.

I don’t expect everyone to understand, just as I don’t always understand other people’s interests. I do find it intriguing, however, that many of the people who don’t understand go to all kinds of lengths to tell me all the ways in which running is bad for me.

If only they could see the incredible energy – the special kind of buzz – at the finish lines of races. There is no way you can be in the midst of hundreds of runners basking in the glow of achievement and still think that running is bad for you.

Last weekend, I got to experience that buzz for the first time in quite a while. I participated in the 15K event at Toronto’s Midsummer Night’s Run. Admittedly, I wasn’t too sure about doing this race. Thus far, my season of training can be summed up in one word: abysmal. There has always been one thing or another getting in the way of my training, and I feared that I had simply lost the spark of last year and the year before.

To compound matters, the race was on the same route as a disastrous race that I did last summer and vowed at the time never to repeat.

I knew I was going to be able to go the distance, but I wasn’t too sure how good I’d feel about it.

Despite my misgivings, I started to feel the usual pre-race adrenaline rush as soon as I got to the starting area. As I sat there on the lawn an hour before the start, eating my peanut butter sandwich, I felt the energy of the people around me start to fill me up. By the time I lined up with ten minutes to go, I was literally hopping in my eagerness to get going.

All of a sudden, I was determined to nail this race. I had a score to settle with this route that had soundly defeated me last year.

The run did not disappoint. I followed my usual strategy of running in 2km chunks. This method really works for me. I simply do not allow my mind to think beyond the next 2km. Only in the last 3km or so do I start aiming for the finish line. Running in this way keeps me physically focused and mentally strong.

The last 5km were hard. They were not made easier by the fact that the last water station ran out of both water and Gatorade by the time I got there. Add to that the fact that both my shoes and my orthotics were on their last – um – legs, and you have a couple of kilometres that inevitably felt very, very long.

But eventually I got to the point that I love in any race: turning the corner and seeing the finish line ahead of me, like a shining beacon. Just seeing that banner emblazoned with the word “FINISH” and hearing the cheering and applause of the crowds infused me with the energy that I needed to sprint – yes, sprint! – down the home stretch to the end.

With just metres to go, a well-meaning spectator yelled out that I was looking good.

I was looking like death warmed over, but it was kind of them to say so.

And so I finished another race, carried over the finish line not only by my legs, but by the collective energy of the crowds.

What a feeling. What a magical feeling.

This, my friends, is why I run.

(Photo credit to the author)

Filed Under: Energy, Finish Line, Midsummer Nights Run, Race, running Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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