trail running | super generic girl

Oh hi, still there? Awesome. How’s it going? Done anything stupid lately?

Me? Oh, where to start?

Well, a couple of weeks ago, my friend P. told me he had a ticket to the Whenuapai half marathon for April 1. At first I read the email and thought “nope, not doing a half marathon in two weeks’ time without any training”. Then I thought about it some more. When I think too much, stupid stuff happens. So now I’m one sleep away from running my fourth half marathon in less than 12 months, this time with almost zero training (my longest run since the February half marathon was 10km long).

Then, last Monday, while I was at work not even pretending to cope well with last minute deadline-y stuff, an email came through from S. suggesting a 35km run in the forest taking place in exactly two months time. I read her email a good two or three times (ok, maybe ten) to make sure I wasn’t in some sort of work deadline-induced hallucination stage. It still sounded like she wanted to do a 35km trail run. So I called her to make sure she wasn’t the one who was high on something. She hasn’t admitted to it but she has to be doing drugs because I called and she confirmed that I’d read the email right.

Somehow, within two minutes of that phone conversation, I had registered and paid for this insanity too. And then proceeded to feel light-headed and panicky for the following, oh I don’t know, 76 hours.

Now that I’ve had time to sleep on it, well, nothing much has changed really. I continue to think this is, by far, the stupidest idea ever (and I’ve had some really stupid ideas so that’s saying something) and I continue to have no clue about how I’m going to survive that.

I mean, COME ON! My longest distance so far is 21.1km. On road. An even surface. And you might still remember the time I ran a 9km trail run and wanted to die afterwards. I don’t run uphills ~~very well~~ at all. This 35km run has a number of them, including a peak of 700m before we even reach the 5km mark. It calls for mandatory gear like a first aid kit and an emergency blanket. First aid kits are for when you get hurt. Emergency blankets are for when you’re lost and cold in the bush. If anyone is going to need those, it’s probably going to be me.

I know I have to get serious about this. I know. I’ve been reading about trail running in the past day or so – it’s a start. But giggling about about finding out that speed work on trails is called fartlek is not going to help me with this. (but, seriously, fartlek.)

Work at the moment is busier than ever and I’ve got a bunch of commitments coming up that I can’t (and don’t want to) get out of. So I’ve got to get organised. With that in mind, I’ve singled out three key things to focus on in the next couple of months:

Running

Not only do I seriously need to up my training, I need to shift from the road to the trails. Waitaks, we’re coming for you!

Sleep

I’ve been sleeping an average of five hours a night over the past few months and that’s just not going to cut it. I know I can’t realistically expect to start sleeping like a normal person from one night to the next but I think a goal of averaging seven hours each night is not too far-fetched. Maybe. Hopefully.

Food

Goodbye, processed crap! Well, on most days, anyway. Goodbye, 7th cup of coffee of the day. I miss you already! No, seriously, I do. I haven’t had any processed sugar (chocolate bars, cookies, lollies, anything!) for a solid five days now. A couple of days ago, I walked past a lady eating a chocolate and caramel slice and I nearly shed a tear. I’ve also been limiting my coffee intake to two a day (HOLY CRAP!) and replacing the afternoon cups with tea. I don’t know how much longer I can keep pretending that my grapes are M&Ms and, let me tell you right now, celery sticks definitely do not resemble Doritos. I’m going to allow myself a couple of cheat days here and there but, overall, this is it. And it sucks. At least for now. I want a donut. I want ten donuts. Damn it.

Yesterday after work, S. and I met up at the bottom of Mt Eden to try and do some hill training (something we have been avoiding like the plague for months). The plan was to do it on the road because we were really just going to focus on the climb but we ended up finding our way through a few offroad tracks up and down the mount and, I’ll even put it in writing, it was pretty damn fun. It was only a little over 5km in total so not enough to tell me anything about how that 35km one on the trail is going to go. I’m nowhere near ready for it. But what fun would it be if I was anyway, right?

Before we started, when our shoes were still nice and clean

Judging by the title of this post alone, you could assume this is going to be about how much my friends and family in Portugal and other parts of the world rock (hello, all!). Could be but no, it’s yet another post about running.

In case mentioning it every chance I can isn’t mentioning it often enough, I ran my first ever half-marathon in August and was damn proud of myself for it. Up until then, and after entering a few runs, the half-marathon had been the hardest run I’d ever had.

That was until I signed up for my first trail run, thinking it would be, you know, sort of like on road running. Yeah, there’s a lot into that “sort of”. It is *nothing* like running on the road.

S. and I had initially signed up for the long 15km course but, after taking a long break from proper training, we thought we’d be better off emailing the organisers and enter in the 9km category instead. Best. Decision. Ever.

Yesterday morning, we got to the place where the run was taking place and our first reaction, as soon as we arrived, was “oh shit, look at those hills!”. The scenery was amazing but there was no enjoying the views on that racing course. Running on steep terrain is tiring enough in itself but running through paddocks, forest and 4wd tracks is even more exhausting, not just because of the extra physical effort required but also because we have to pay attention to each step we take, to avoid putting our foot down wrong. I rolled my right ankle three times and my left ankle once. Fun, right? Luckily, it was never serious enough to make me give up halfway. What was making me want to give up halfway was seeing the steep hills in front of us, climbing up for what seemed like a million years and reaching the top only to find the track turned and kept on going up.

We both wanted to give up a few times during it. It was cold, our legs were giving up on us, our feet hurt from so many little mistakes… but we were both glad to cross the finish line and celebrate with the fattiest greasiest food we could find (not pictured: the chocolate brownie I devoured after the sausage).

post-run sausage on bread and hash brown

That said, there were a couple of good moments. Like the “Baywatch – farming edition” moment when the glorious S. took off her running shoes and jumped into a creek to save a scared lamb that had fallen in it and was desperately trying to climb up. She had to run the rest of the course with cold and wet feet but it wasn’t too bad because she was soon going to have her shoes filled with mud anyway.

S. saves a life while running because that's just how cool she is

Some people are really passionate about trail running but I really can’t see myself getting into it. If the hard terrain wasn’t bad enough, the kilos of mud I brought home in my shoes (and socks!) would be enough to put me off. But it was a good experiencing, in retrospect. The whole way, I kept thinking about how hard the whole thing and how much easier the 21.1km of the half-marathon had been, even with the wind and hail, compared to these 9km. Distance really is just one of many factors when you go out for a run. And it’s not even the most important one.