Women's Wednesday

Joy here...I admitted in my last post that I've not been training full on like the athlete I thought I'd be when this summer finally decided to roll around (something that I'm still not convinced is going to happen), but I haven't been sitting back on my laurels entirely.

The home of winter's Women's Wednesdays!

Back in November I started running with Coach Woods and his stable of elite athletes, and I've continued with them.  Coach Woods puts together a 4-week running schedule for me, and then I meet up on Wednesdays and Saturdays with the rest of the athletes he trains.  Well, during the months of March, April, and May, my commitment to my programme was questionable and my attendance on Wednesdays and Saturdays was dependent on whether or not I was in the city (something that seemed to be less often than I would have liked).  All that said, when I was in town, I was there bright and early with the rest of the crew.

Now on Wednesdays, the "rest of the crew" refers to a group of girls.  Somehow that early pre-work start time for the guys on Wednesdays means that they were a no show, en masse.  We didn't mind.  We coined the phrase "Women's Wednesday" and made all sorts of jokes about getting "Woodsy's Women" T-shirts made.  We laughed as we ran around and around the indoor track at Carleton University and did our workouts.  We girl bonded and generally had fun, and I thank them for keeping me sane (mostly) through what has proven to be a never-ending winter that has really pulled me down.

The pathway at the bottom of the hill where I started my Tempo
run (but today the sky was too rainy for pictures...this one is from
another Women's Wednesday workout!)

The snow has melted, and now our practices are back outside.  Funnily enough, Women's Wednesdays are now not so gendered.  That is to say that the guys have started showing up.  So each Wednesday morning, like this morning, we met at one of the local parks (with a running track and a big hill) and went through our warm up run (around 15 mins) followed by our running drills and then our individual workouts.

Today my workout was to run up to the top of the hill, then down again, then straight into 10 minutes at Tempo Pace (which for me right now is a measly 5min/km), and then straight back up that hill one last time.  As I was finishing off some of my Tempo, at about minute 7, one of the other girls was on her run back, and so we joined up and she ran with me.  "Are you doing tempo?" She asked, looking cool as a cucumber after her hard workout.  "Yes," I huffed, "but my tempo isn't all that fast at the moment," I replied, feeling like I needed to justify myself.  "Well," she said, "you've got to start somewhere!"  And with that bit of common sense, I realized that Women's Wednesdays are a place where you can meet great friends who are encouraging and supportive, and with her words ringing encouragingly in my ears, I just pumped my legs as hard as I could up that hill, and even though they were burning as I made it to the top, I made it to the top!

I slowly walked back down the hill to meet up with The Man and another one of the guys who has taken over Women's Wednesdays (he just finished the Ottawa 1/2 Marathon in a personal best time of 1:25!).  They congratulated me on my completed workout, and we made our way to the cars and the start of our workdays.  We waved to our other friends and felt like all is right in the world.

So in addition to my warm up, hills, and drills, I did a little 2km run this morning.  And that's not the longest nor the fastest run I've ever done in my life, but YOU'VE GOT TO START SOMEWHERE!

Over and out,
Joy

Crawling out from under my rock...

Joy here...Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It's been 3 months since my last confession.  Um, wait a second, that's not quite right.  Take two:  Bless me, readers, for I have sinned. Its been 3 months since I last blogged.  Hmmm...not sure that's right either, but sometimes 6 years of Catholic school leaves deep imprints.

What I mean to say, is that I've finally crawled out from underneath the rock where I was hiding.

I wish that I had some really great excuses for my online absence.  I mean, wish I could sit here and say:  Man, I am so freakin' fit; I've been training so damn hard that I just didn't have time to sit down and blog.  Hell, why would I sit?  I've been too busy being an athlete.

Finally some green on the trees and my bike racked up
on the car and ready for the first outdoor ride of the season!

Well, sadly, that's not the case.  I could talk about how since January I've spent on average 18 days per month at home (and never all in a row, uninterrupted); I could talk about how I had a wee health scare that kept me off the bike for a while (biopsy, but YAY nothing to worry about); I could talk about our upcoming move to Malaysia and the million and one things I have to do to pretend to get ready for that; I could talk about growing my business and the demands of being a sole proprietor entrepreneur; I could probably talk about how I waffled between running and cycling, committing to neither and letting everything fall apart; and I could totally blame the weather since spring decided not to show up in Ottawa this year, and we were still getting snow in mid-April and frost in mid-May; but, really, do you want to read about all that?  My guess is a big, fat, NO.

Blue sky and steep hill...yep, I just have to keep running
up and down this and I'll get some fitness back!

So I won't explain to you how I grappled with my desires to be a cyclist, but the busy reality of my life that made that impossible, but that it took me a long time to accept that I had fallen off the cyclist wagon, so I was neither a cyclist nor a runner, just some girl who wanted to be a cyclist, but who really only went for a jog a couple of times a week.

Now that I'm out from underneath that rock, I've had to break up with my cycling coach ("it's not you, it's me..."), and recommit to running.  And, you know what?  I'm totally happy.

I'm happy to reconnect with running, to have those moments out there under the blue sky when I feel the ground beneath my feet and get to turn inwards in my head and meditate while I run.  I'm happy to feel like I can just throw a pair of shoes in my suitcase whenever I'm travelling (which I still seem to do too much of), and not be a failure for being off the bike.  And more than all that, I'm happy to gain a sense of much-needed perspective:  Sport will always be there for me and with me, in the long haul, for the rest of my life.  So whether I'm super fit right now or not (not as it happens), what is more important is that I don't lose perspective.

Life is busy.  Life is crazy.  Life is exciting.  And so if I don't end up being a super fit bike racer or a super fast runner, does that mean I'm a failure?  Hell no! 

The jokers at the bike shop where Coach Woods works
put this up.  I'm just worried that Coach Woods is
gonna be the one to break up with me one of these days!

Over the past nearly 3 months, I've slowly learned to allow myself the liberty of responding to what life throws at me rather than moaning and groaning that life isn't unfolding according to my ultimate plan.  I guess John Lennon knew what he's was talking about when he wrote:  "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

So what can I promise now...well, I can promise that I'll log on more regularly to blog about things that are going on in my head; I will write about my running, and if I get out there on my bike, I'll probably write about that; in 3 weeks I'll be relocating to Kuala Lumpur, so there'll probably be a whole lot about my new Southeast Asian life, where I will be reunited with Nomi, my friend, co-runner, and former co-blogger; and I can (almost) promise that I won't crawl back under that rock.

Life isn't a nice, neat narrative with a beginning-middle-end like a well-crafted story.  It's messy, full of unpredictable ups and downs, and in blogging, I may just capture some of that messiness, so long as I don't try too hard to narrativize my life and give myself some kinda happy ending!

Over and out,
Joy