A few weeks ago, my friend Venks told me about the upcoming Run 4 Fun 10K out at Olympic Park. I hadn’t run farther than 5K since mid-August, right before I got sick and had to pull out of the half-marathon. Since then I’ve mostly been doing short run/walk training intervals to build up my leg strength and transition to forefoot running. The Run 4 Fun was a new event though, and it was billed as a Fun Run. So what the heck? I could walk if I needed to. I signed up.

A week before the race, Eileen and I did an easy 6K jog (with walk-breaks) around the neighbourhood. On Thursday, I did a 5K run/walk around the city at lunch. I really wasn’t sure what goal to set for the race, so I did one final test on Friday: a 5K run without stopping. To my surprise, I felt pretty good during it! My pace was less than 7:00/km, and I felt like I maybe could’ve gone a bit farther. So when race day dawned on Sunday, I posted my official goal: to run the whole 10K without walking. (The farthest I had ever run without a break before was 8K, so this was going to be a challenge.) I also set a back-up goal of finishing in 75 minutes, which I thought was achievable even if I had to walk.

Here I am before the race. It was a gray morning with rain threatening (perfect weather for a run, really). I felt good. I’d had a PBJ for breakfast and I was decently hydrated. My calves were still a bit sore from my last run, so I worked in some Dencorub. At 8:45am, I said goodbye to the Snook and headed to the starting line. I did some stretches and jumped in place to warm up. The crowd was pretty mixed, with lots of little kids and even some people in costume. I even spotted a guy dressed as a kickboxer with boxing gloves on! With five minutes to go, the rain finally came down. (Bugger.) It stopped just before the gun… and we were off!

I went out slowly, deliberately letting lots of people sprint past. I told myself several times in the first few kms to just run my own pace without worrying about the time. I didn’t care if I was fast so long as I didn’t walk. To my surprise, at the five minute mark RunKeeper announced that my average pace was just under 7:00/km. This was crazy; I hardly felt like I was putting in any effort at all. It wasn’t a fluke though; my second and third kilometers were even faster. I wondered if this was due to the forefoot running being more efficient. I really was going faster without any perceived increase in effort. I tried hard not to look at the clock, and to just concentrate on keeping moving. I didn’t feel winded or tired at all. The course doubled back on itself a few times, so the Snook was able to cheer me on at 3 different places during the run. He snapped this photo at one of them. (The lens distortion is pretty fun.) I wasn’t struggling at all.

In the latter half of the race, I started to seriously entertain the possibility of finishing in under 70 minutes. My pace had slowed down a little bit, but my average was still hovering right around 7min/km. I decided to conserve what little I had left in the tank for the last kilometer, when I’d do my best to push. At the 9km mark, I realised that I was right next to the kickboxing dude, who I’d been following for most of the race. I said hi and introduced myself. His name was Peter. He asked what my goal was for the race, and I said I was successfully running the whole thing without stopping. I also admitted that I had a secret goal of finishing in 70 minutes. He checked his watch. “We can do it! Come on, Kris!” So Peter and I pushed ourselves through that last km. We urged each other on. Finally we were at the tunnel into the Stadium, and then we emerged out onto the grass with the finish line only 50m away. I sprinted, and the stitch in my side finally exploded. I didn’t care. Peter and I crossed the finish line at 69:06 and I gave him a winded hug of thanks. (I found out later when I checked my stats on Runkeeper that the final kilometer racing with Peter was my fastest of the whole race. Thanks again, Peter!) I was wheezing and stuggling with the pain in my side, but I managed to collect my bottle of Powerade and my medal before going to find the Snook. He was very proud of me! He’s the best support staff a runner could ever have.

So that’s it! I met my official goal, and also my top-secret speed goal too. This goes a long way towards making up for the disappointment of missing out on the half-marathon a few months ago. I really think that changing to a forefoot strike has reinvigorated my running. My persistent lower back pain is gone. I’m running faster with less effort. And now I’m thinking about the Sydney half-marathon in May, and maybe finally breaking that 100min barrier at the City2Surf next year…

I haven’t done one of these in a while, huh? I’m happy to report that I’m back into a regular running schedule. I’ve been running three times a week following the Couch to 5K plan to rebuild my fitness level. I’m also using this as a way to transition into forefoot running. I’ve just finished Week 5 and did my first 20 minutes of continuous running since before I got sick. It was great! Forefoot striking is starting to feel really natural, and my lower back ache is pretty much gone. My right hip is still tight and frozen though, so I may need to see the physio for that. I had sore calves for the first few weeks, but that’s mostly gone now. My knees feel a bit achey after today’s run. I’m definitely going faster with the same amount of effort though.

“Wiggling Their Toes at the Shoe Giants.” An article about the current interest in barefoot running…

If you’re interested in running shoes and why the Newtons I bought are different from others, check out this video about their design technology and shoe philosophy.

Trying out the Newtons
I still feel like crap, but dammit, I wanted to try out my new shoes yesterday. So I headed out to the Domain for a very, very easy run. You’re meant to ease into forefoot running because it uses different muscles than a traditional heel strike. I did three intervals of 5 minutes running followed by 5 minutes walking, and I concentrated hard on my form. The “actuator lugs” are a little weird at first. (I was reminded of those special shoes people use to increase their vertical leap.) I tried to lean forward a bit, to increase my cadence, and to run lightly as if I was barefoot. The Newtons really do make you more aware of and connected to the ground surface. I don’t think I was using more effort than I usually do, but my speed graph shows I was going a fair bit faster than my usual plodding speed. Here’s the cheesy bit: I actually felt like I was RUNNING. Yeah, I’ve said for years that running isn’t about speed, but the truth of it is that when I’m on the road, I never feel as effortless and athletic as the people that pass me. But by avoiding heel striking, suddenly I felt like a fleet-footed Olympian… for a few seconds. I figured out pretty quickly why they said to start off easy. My lower legs got TIRED. The last of my intervals was a big drop-off from the first as I struggled to maintain proper form while my calves and ankles were aching. With every step, I could feel the force of impact being absorbed through the muscles in my bent legs rather than shooting up into my back. (My usual lower back pain? Didn’t bother me a bit.) Today I’ve got some soreness in my lower legs on up through the lower part of my thighs, but I expected that. I checked out the bottom of my Newtons and was gratified to see some wear on the actuator lugs. It looks like I was landing in the right spot! (There’s a tiny bit of wear on the outside of each heel, but I think that was probably from walking since I tend to do that in all my shoes.) I’ll probably alternate shoes/styles for the next few weeks. I wonder if I’ll be strong-enough to use forefoot running in the half-marathon? I’ve still got just over three weeks to go…

Last week started so well and then fell apart. Tuesday I had a fantastic 5km run in the Domain at lunchtime. Afterwards though, I developed a little bit of a cough. I figured it was just from pushing myself a little harder than normal, but it didn’t go away. Wednesday I did a workout at Spudds and felt okay, but when I got home that night, I suddenly realised that my throat was sore. A headache soon followed, and I ended up staying home from work Thursday. I saw my doctor that night and he told me no running for the rest of the week. So here I am less than four weeks out from the half-marathon, not having run in the past 7 days. ARGH.

This week: 5.25km (3mi)
Last week: 20km (12.5mi)

HOWEVER – things are looking up. I feel like I’ve turned a corner today, and I’m not coughing nearly as much. I’ve been thinking about running form, and specifically whether forefoot running would help with the persistent back pain I’ve been having. Brandon is a big proponent, and Steve Runner is a recent convert. Brandon is always raving about his Newton shoes, which promote landing on your forefoot. On a whim, I looked them up and saw that there were a few retailers in Sydney. So I emailed HERT and Mark told me to come on in and check them out. I went over at lunchtime to try some on. He was clearing out last year’s models, so they were $60 off. What the hell. I decided to go for it. So I am now the proud owner of some very ugly shoes. I’m hoping to try them out tomorrow for a very short run around the neighbourhood. (I know you really have to ease into the forefoot technique.) I’m excited to see if it helps at all!

After two weekends with races, I had a much-needed recovery week.

This week: 20km (12.5mi)
Last week: 24.9km (15.5mi)

My lower back is still killing me when I run though. I think I need to go to the physio again.

Huh. It’s been pretty much all running, all the time around here lately. Sorry about that! It’s just that I had two races in a row, so I haven’t had time/willpower for much else. Getting back to normal now. Six weeks til the half-marathon!

This week: 24.9km (15.5mi)
Last week: 17.8km (11mi)

Today was the day of my fourth running of the 14km City2Surf… and my first without the Snook! He said that our run last year “nearly killed him,” and he hadn’t done any training this year. So I was on my own. (Technically there were three guys from my company running, including my buddy Paul here that I met up with afterwards.) I headed over to the Blue start on College Street this morning at 9am, knowing that it would take ages to get started. The crowd was a record 75,000 runners, and the weather was gorgeous and sunny. I told myself over and over that this was just a training run, that I wasn’t going for any specific time. I set RunKeeper to intervals of 5:00 running and 1:00 walking. Our group finally crossed the starting line at 9:28am. We were off!

My enforced walk-breaks worked well for the first half, and I tried to take a photo during most of them. (Unfortunately they didn’t all sync to the map, but you can see them above. Optus’s network failed bigtime.) My pace for the first half was fantastic, even with the walking. Oddly enough, I actually ran into my teammate Venks around the 5km mark! I can’t believe out of 75,000 people, I ran into one of the few I knew. Venks was taking a break himself, so I left him behind when RunKeeper told me to speed up again. Soon we were at the hill… and that’s when it started sucking. I got a stitch/cramp in my side that just would not budge. I took an extra walk break, taking exaggerated breaths to try to stretch it out. I ended up walking most of the hill, and my pace just wasn’t the same after that. No matter, I told myself. It was just a training run! I tried to enjoy it. At 11.5km I stopped for a second to send the Snook an SMS telling him I was getting close. I ended up crossing the finish line (hunched over, fighting the stitch) at 111 minutes, which is about 5 minutes slower than we did last year. It’s okay. It was good just to be out there with everybody else.

I was thinking about why I love this event. I think it’s because it reminds me that you can’t judge a person’s athletic ability by their shape, and you’re really only out there competing against yourself. I was passed by people that I wouldn’t think could run 2km, much less 14km. And because of how many people there are and how staggered the starts are, there’s no point in comparing yourself to anybody else on the road. We’re all running our own races. It’s the great equalizer.

Anyway, the end of the race was madness. I couldn’t find the meeting point where my teammates were supposed to congregate, and I nearly couldn’t find the Snook. (Optus and Vodafone SUCKED.) Eventually we met up with Paul, who’d already had a shower and change of clothes! Then the three of us joined a queue for the buses and made our way back to the city. I had a long hot shower and a hot lunch before heading over to Broadway for a much-needed full body massage. Ahhh, *bliss*.

The new highly-anticipated (by me, anyway) release of RunKeeper finally got approved yesterday. It’s got some nice improvements with real-time mapping and iPod playlist integration, but the killer feature for me is the ability to take photos and have them geotagged along the route. I thought it would be super cool to do it on Sunday during each of my walk breaks along the City2Surf. So I went out for a run this morning just to test it out.

I did notice some weirdness at first, mostly regarding the pace calculation and voice feedback. (My pace showed up as 0 for the first 10 minutes or so.) The time and distance were correct though, so I wasn’t too worried about the pace (which eventually came good). Posting a “status” message is pretty easy, akin to sending a tweet really. There’s a word balloon that you type in, and you can click the little photo icon to take a picture. I only had two problems with it. First, as you might expect it’s not easy to type a message on a touchscreen keyboard while you’re running down the street (or god forbid, riding a bike). You can hit the photo button relatively easily, but to actually add a caption you have to be walking (or stopped completely). The second problem (which compounds the first) is the iPhone’s spell correction doesn’t seem to work on the status updates. So while I think it’s really neat functionality, it’s hard to actually use it when you want to be using it.

That said, it’s still super cool to see your photos along the route. Did you see that last one of me? I’d just done six speed intervals and I was pretty wrecked. I’m really looking forward to Sunday…