BASE! (How low can you go?)

Ah, Public Enemy. Always so very quotable (apart from the anti-Semitic stuff). Yes indeed, according to marathon coach, I am 30% through my program and have completed the base (BASE!) section of my program. 

As you might be able to guess from me quoting Chuck D, I am feeling a bit better about the whole thing compared to Tuesday. In marathon training, as in politics, a lot can happen in a week. Here's the stats rundown:

30% completed

Total distance: 226.66km (though a few of those are cross-training k's from cycling round Scottish islands)

Weight: 84kg

93 days to go

So, what's happened? I woke up on Wednesday morning (in my current role I start later on Wednesdays) still feeling rotten about the notion of running but determined to push through. This, I decided, is the difference between people who line up at the start on marathon day and those who don't. I laced up my new shoes (still getting some arch bruising on my left foot but I'm waiting to see if it sorts itself out as I break the shoes in), queued up some tunes and set out on my Wednesday pace run. Thirty minutes easy warm up, then 5x 2min at half marathon pace with 1min recoveries, then a 16 minute slow jog cool down to round off the hour. Due to heavy rain over the previous few days the humidity was surprisingly high given the early hour, but what a luxury to run in daylight!

XTERRA give you a free official photo.
That's my "fuck you, hill" face.

And you know what? I hated every bloody minute of it. By the time I reached 30 minutes I felt ready to throw in the towel. My "fast" intervals felt like I was wading through molasses. My slow run recoveries were a fast walk. But I bloody did it, the whole frickin' hour. It felt like a huge victory, like I'd taken a step towards getting through this rough patch (the alternative title of this post was going to be "Tramping the Hump" after a glorious strapline in Wilderness magazine. Totally unrelated to running but it summed up my feelings). Plugging in my measly distance into the iPod was incredibly satisfying. 

Yesterday evening I also discovered a secret (OK, not that secret) weapon in the War on 42.2. Yoga. I've mentioned yoga a few times on here, but I confess to falling out a regular practice in the last year or so (no time, or so went the excuse). However, on the urging and recommendation of a good friend I turned up at The Loft in the city and I can say they were not wrong! The Wednesday night class is a fun, physical class with lots of balance poses and deep forward and back bends that did a great job of stretching out and loosening those muscles that felt so miserable in recent weeks. In addition, they throw in a delicious cruelty-free vegetarian meal (with pudding) afterwards for free! It's a really nice, relaxing space and I can recommend checking out the class if you're in the area. 

In addition to yesterday's successes, my running Obi-Wan Jane sent me an email after my last post, saying she knew someone who was about the same speed as me and that we should get together for runs. This evening we met up and went for a leisurely spin round the local park. It was ace! Both our training programs had an "easy" run, and it was really refreshing to have exactly that. No busting my arse trying to keep up, just a genuine easy run with someone new to talk to. We're going to run again next week and see about making our easy runs a joint effort, which would be great for my motivation and also to stop seeing every run as an exercise in pain. 

The other day I put down over $100 on two Shock Absorber bras from Wiggle. Why, you ask? Er, because of this:

And that is literally half the story.

This is what happens when you train for hours a week in a bra that might fit great and support you, but isn't actually designed for running. The Shock Absorber Run bras have won awards so I'm betting my boobs on them making running a less painful experience. If they don't get here by Saturday I'll be running the Glen Eden Ten Miler with big sticky plasters and a pained expression....

As a final note, I have stopped listening to music on every run but find it useful on the big ones and the speedwork. This mix by Freq Nasty has a remix of Bring the Noise about halfway through that led to the title of this post. My mate Magneze has put together some ace techno mixes that are great for running too, this is his latest one. (link to download further down page)