Happy Anniversary

This week I celebrate my one year anniversary; an anniversary that was so life-altering that I just had to write a post about it. One year ago I started running.

I know I am about to start sounding like a religious convert; but running has changed my life. I could never have guessed that putting one foot in front of the other could make such an impact.

One year ago I hit the Trans Canada trail in my almost dead winter boots. The trail was packed with snow and ice-- but I felt the time had come to get out and do something for myself. In the past seven years I rarely found time to do anything recreational let alone physically challenging-- my mind and body were crying out for it-- but it was a need that would not be easily met after such a long period of physical dormancy.

I have always been an active person to some degree; have had bouts of being a weight-lifting gym monkey, dabbled in martial arts, fencing, kayaking, rock climbing. I have always been a prodigious walker. But running was a new challenge.

In the beginning I hoped to run 20 minutes without stopping; other than that I had no goals. I just wanted a 20 minute work out to fit into my always busy day.

Things started off pretty good by my standard—some of my first days out I could run for 10 minutes. Then other days doing five was a real chore. But once I had done 10 I knew I could do more.

In three months I was up to 20 minutes, not every day but most. I could run 5 km in about half and hour and was pretty happy with that. I ran almost every day that my kids were in school.

And then summer came.

Most people would consider summer a blessing for any running enthusiast but for me it meant less time to get out on trails and dirt roads because the children no longer had school.

It became my habit to run during every birthday party the kids got invited to; this often meant new roads in different areas of the county. Exploring new ground added to the adventure.

Luckily birthday parties were not the only excitement on offer for kids in this area over the summer holiday and I enrolled the kids in almost everything –recreation for them meant running for me.

I also went home to Massachusetts and went running there with my cousins and ran my first race—a 5 km to raise funds for a Boston bombing victim.

And when my family came to Nova Scotia for a visit, I had a running buddy and a supply of aunts to watch the kiddies while I hit the road.

After my first race I started to dream of more-- I got ready to tackle a 5 mile race in my home town. At first that seemed like an impossible goal but I did it and then did another 5 mile road race in the next town down the shore.

In July and August running 5 miles was the end of me for the rest of the day-- I had to come home and sleep. I could not run the next day. It took all my energy. So 5 mile runs were not something I was planning to make a habit of doing-- regular 5 km runs seemed good enough.

And then there was the dreaded coming of winter. I could not imagine being a winter runner. Those people were nuts!

Yet again I surprised myself and learned how to run through the winter. Running in the winter when it is harder to get overheated helped me run farther. I went from a regular 5 km run to a regular 5 mile run several times a week.

Now we are heading into a new spring and today I ran just over 6 miles and didn't feel like a limp rag after my run. I have also managed to stay up past 10 pm with no post-run nap.

Every day is not a 6 mile day but they are feeling more normal-- 5km is just enough to get me warmed up now.

When I used to see people running I would ask myself-- why would you do that to yourself? Now I have a few answers to that question.

Running has made me feel more energetic and less stressed. It is my form of meditation, my time to work out everything in my head.

Running always leaves me thinking about how much I can do the next day; excited to get out of bed and back on the road.

Running has brought me closer to some members of my family and my community. It has made me a better person who is disciplined in at least this one aspect of my life (despite my passion for writing I am never disciplined about sitting down and getting the words out on the screen).

The experience has been a conversion for me-- a new way of living, a new force in my life.

It warrants celebration- one year on the run.

Inspiration

I have added to my running repertoire since last year's great treadmill experiment; now I am running outside.

This is a major step forward for me. I have tried many times to be an outdoor runner and it just didn't click for me. Today, I am not a runner who makes it look easy but I am a runner who is outside enjoying fresh air and the sights and sounds of my neighbourhood.

It's been just over a month since I started running outside and sometimes it has been a real struggle to keep one foot moving in front of the other. When I have those moments, when I think of how easy it would be to stop, I think of Terry Fox.

I have always considered Terry Fox a hero. One of the few that deserve that label. He struggled through pain and sickness to run his Marathon of Hope.

Since I have been back in Canada I have taken part in the annual Terry Fox Run every September. And since that time I have learned that the Terry Fox Run is held globally including in my old home base, Bangkok.

Terry Fox is a true inspiration, for me as a novice runner and for thousands of other people in many different facets of their lives.

Today I posted his picture on my Facebook page making note that he is my inspiration to take the next step. I did this not only because Terry Fox truly is my inspiration when I am out on the trail but also as a protest. I despise all the fitness inspiring posters that pollute my Facebook feed on a daily basis. The posters generally show a woman, who is in absolute peak physical shape, with some bland inspirational message written in bold script.

The reason I hate these types of posts is that they are unrealistic and once again have women perpetuating unreasonable expectations on the female body. These posters are a sort of pornography that we are spreading among ourselves. It's unhealthy and I wish it would stop. Like the porn industry, these pictures are distorting the female body; what it is and what it can be.

And to add a little more fuel to the fire—we don't even know these women in these pictures. I doubt they are women with jobs and families. These bodies are achieved through hours of training a day; that is if they are true depictions and not an airbrushed fantasy. Most women don't have that much time to invest in their bodies and some will give up on exercise if they find themselves failing to meet this unrealistic depiction of how a physically fit woman should look.

I want to be inspired by real people, with real lives. I am inspired by Terry Fox and if you want to inspire me to exercise with a post on Facebook, upload a picture of yourself doing your body some good. I know you and I will respect you and be inspired by what you are doing.I'm not inspired by some gym bimbo I don't know who doesn't have a life outside of the gym.

I know some of my friends who post these types of pictures on Facebook may disagree—but I ask you to post pictures of yourself and see how much more inspiring that can be.

Guysborough run

Today I took a walk on the route I usually run. I start on a little path through a marsh near my house.

The pussy willows are out in the marsh.

Then onto the dirt road --Prince Street.

And down the Trans Canada Trail.

See the water for the trees.

Like any good course there are water hazards.

And it would not be Guysborough without a Christmas tree farm.

Go past the Mill Pond. Every other day there have been ducks on the water--today out and back, no ducks.

Inter-species tree hugging.This birch is wrapping around this spruce. Feel the love.

And a seed that survived a squirrel's very thorough demolition of a winter stock pile of spruce cones.

Tree fall--great place for little critters to lodge.

And almost at my turning point.

I see the sign.

I see civilization--time to head back into the woods.

This is my run--I hope you enjoyed this preview and come out on the trail soon.

Run

The past week and a half I have done something that I had always aspired to but had, in almost 40 years, never managed to accomplish: I started to run. About two weeks ago I stopped thinking of my treadmill as an expensive dust bunny generation unit and decided to throw caution to the wind and see what thrills awaited on the sleek black band of the running board. I'm not sure what caused this sea change; perhaps the excitement of the coming summer Olympics or perhaps a photo posted on facebook of a friend of mine completing a race under the sweltering Southeast Asian sun, whatever it was, I looked upon it on the seventh day and saw it was good.

I've always wanted to be a runner and I am not quite sure why- maybe because it just seemed like such an impossible thing to do-the more I tried the further away I was from my goal.

In my teens my main running disability was located on my chest. My cups runneth over and prevented me from running comfortably. It's only in recent years that I have found training shirts that literally bound my breasts to my chest, allowing no uncomfortable and painful wiggling and wobbling. But 20 years ago, there just didn't seem to be the sport wear technology that there is today and I was severely handicapped.

In university I tried very hard to learn to run. I knew the correct way to train and work up to a longer and longer run but I could never do it.

My second foray into university taught me a lot about running and fitness and once again I tried hard to be a runner. I was enrolled in Dalhousie's Kinesiology program and almost everyone in the program was a confirmed jock which is something I would never call myself.

I did exercise labs, learned about muscle fibre types, the best training regimes for endurance, speed, weight loss ecetera but I never managed to learn how to be a runner myself. I did learn a lot about weights and trained to be a person weight trainer but left the country before taking my final exam for certification.

In one exercise lab the professor took my stats; blood pressure, heart rate, lung capacity and he turned to look at me and said, “You must be quite an athlete.” I didn't tell him that compared to my classmates I was a couch potato. My heart rate and blood pressure have always been preternaturally low and my lung capacity I chalked up to several years of playing a wind instrument. So I continued to longingly watch runners ply the streets around the university; always a spectator never a participant.

Despite not running I was/am a pretty active person. I could walk all day and not get tired. I walk fast. The longer I walk the faster I go. I seem to just get into high gear after one hour on the road. And of course there was a time when I was queen rat at the gym, lifting weights three hours a day every day. But no matter what I bench pressed, I still wasn't a runner.

So what was different this time around? Why do I call myself a fledgling runner now? How did it happen? I will give credit to The Nature of Things.

About a month ago I watched a show entitled The Perfect Runner which explored the bio-mechanics of barefoot running. This was something I had heard of before and it really seemed to make sense. So almost two weeks ago, against all the manufacturers recommendations, I started running barefoot (actually just with socks). And it worked. All the manuals for treadmills say, “wear appropriate footwear.” For me it seems the appropriate footwear is none at all. In the past, during my many attempts at running, lacing up my shoes seemed to automatically increase my workload by 100 percent. Running barefoot makes me feel like I am running on air.

From that first day last week, I ran/jogged 15 minutes without stopping. Five days later I ran 30 minutes without stopping. I am steady at 30 minutes (I don't have time for more than that) but have increased the speed to 5mph from 4.5mph and added an incline of 2 degrees. 

Now, after all these years, I think I have finally broke my body code; bound breasts and no shoes seems to have corrected all past wrongs and allowed me to run like I never have before. To finally reach a goal that you have attempted and failed to achieve so many times is a true victory.

In addition being top heavy and shoe encumbered, part of my problem, I believe, was pacing. I am an all or nothing kind of person and when I started to run I just put in as much power as I had thus hitting my exhaustion point very quickly. In school I had been good at sprints and hurdles but nothing that required endurance. On the treadmill the pace is set and there is no jack rabbit start zapping my energy.

I am still just a treadmill runner and don't know if/when I will run in the out of doors. There I'll have to wear shoes, face road conditions, and weather but I will give it a try at some point. For right now I am happy to be a indoor runner.

In some ways I feel like I have started a new life. Running is my new addiction. I feel good.