What keeps me coming back to Team in Training

I’m finally back in the swing of things and have a routine that seems to be working for me. Lucky for me, I’m not training alone. The best thing about TNT is the team. Since I went back to the running team four weeks ago, I have consistently been the slowest of the full marathon group. I share “back of the pack” status with a couple of the new halfers, but when they turn back and the rest of us keep going, I become the only slow poke in the pack. So does that mean I run half the route by myself?  Hell no! There is always someone with me, whether it be a fellow alumni/TNT mentor or a coach. This Saturday, three people took turns running with me. Each of them asked me how my training was going, and helped me fight my negative self-talk.

And what do you suppose happened when I finally arrived at the centre with my coach? We were greeted by cheers and high-fives from our teammates, who were on the lawn stretching/resting/talking. On the way to the locker room, I was reminded of my progress by another alumna. She and I were on the walk team together, and at a GTS on May 3rd, she had planned to add a few run intervals, so I ran them with her. She reminded me on Saturday that I had been unsure at the time whether or not I’d be able to run/walk the whole event—let alone run it. I can always rely on my teammates for a dose of perspective.

I think the main thing that keeps me coming back to TNT is the feeling of belonging to a team. We are a team who were brought together by the way cancer has affected our lives. We share a need to push ourselves to achieve goals that require us to test the limits of our physical abilities. We also help each other find creative ways of raising funds to fight our common foe. We share our stories, our fears, our motivations, our hopes, and our trade secrets. When I run the marathon in September, there will be people in purple cheering me on, and people in green helping me through the difficult bits.

When I ran the half two years ago, three coaches helped me out: Brian calmed me down and gave me a banana when I felt like I was dying; JS accompanied me up Berri Street (the hill near the end); and Cathlyn took me the rest of the way to the corral before the finish line.

Fun with images

In case you missed my innumerable posts about Team in Training on Facebook, I made a bunch of handy visual aids to express how I feel about TNT and to draw attention to my fundraising campaign.  Here are a few examples for your entertainment.

Heroes of the Week

I’ve also made a series of images about my “Heroes of the Week”. Every time I receive a donation from an individual, I stencil their name on a ribbon, which I wear on the following Saturday morning to my group training session (GTS) with Team in Training. I also take a picture of the shirt and post it on Facebook. Here are a few images I made on the subject.

Should you care to join me in this adventure, there are still a few places left for the Montreal Marathon, as well as a few other choice events. Just contact the TNT office at 1-855-331-5318 or visit their website.

It’s official, I’m a runner once more!

In my last post, I mentioned that I was doing 5/5 run/walk intervals.  I have since graduated to 10/1 intervals, which is what I did when I trained for the half-marathons I did with Team in Training.  I am, in fact, in my fourth week of training with he run team.  You can follow my training on my RunKeeper page (registration required), should you so please.

If you do take a gander at my RunKeeper page, one thing you might notice is that I’ve got some catching up to do compared to the level I was at in 2012.  To give you an idea of what I mean, here are two versions of  my “Personal Records” summary from RunKeeper, one that covers 2011 to 2014 and another that covers the last three months.

Take a look at my best average pace.  Consider that the month of May of this year is when I was still doing run/walk intervals of 5 min/5 min without any hill training.  The average pace for this morning’s run was 8:30 min/km.  Is it my cardio that still hasn’t bounced back?  Is it the beta-blocker I’m taking to prevent migraines that’s making me slower?  Is it the heat?  All of the above?  All I know for sure is that I’ll keep hammering away at the pavement and see what I can achieve by race day.  

I’m back, Baby!

For about a week and a half now, I‘ve been running home doing 5/5 intervals (5 min walking/5 min running, repeat).  Last week, I ran/walked home twice with a walking day in between, and this week I’m going to try walk/running three times.  So far, I feel great.  The run intervals are challenging, but they don’t feel destructive.  I get home feeling zen, rather than destroyed, the way I thought I would feel.  I also thought my pace would be much slower, but it’s pretty close to what it was before I quit in 2012.  By the time the marathon rolls around, I definitely won’t be in the same corral as the fastest runners I know, but I won’t be in the last one either :).  Right now, I feel like a 5 hour marathon is an easily attainable goal, one that I might very well surpass. 

What was my motivation?

As I mentioned last time, I’ve been leading the TNT walk team this season for a small group training for the San Diego Half Marathon on the 1st of June.  A week after my last post, at the next GTS,  there were only two of us in attendance.  The other walker is actually (for medical reasons) a walker in the winter and a run/walker in the summer.  As we were leaving, she let me know that she would be doing run/walk intervals that day, as prescribed by her doctor.  So, since there we no other walkers, and since I was planning on integrating run/walk intervals into my training anyway, I decided to run with her.  Our goal, according to our training schedule, was to walk from the NDG Sports Complex to the Lachine canal and back, and her personal goal was nine 5/1 intervals (5 min running/1 min walking).  So we started with the intervals, which basically got us half the distance, and then we walked back.  And how did it feel?  It felt great!  We even got some cheers and thumbs up when some TNT runners spotted us running along the canal  :)

Should you care to inject a little jet fuel into my training, you could visit my TNT fundraising page.  Any donation, however small, helps us fight the good fight and kick cancer’s ass!

What has been, what is and what will be happening

When last I posted on this here piece of blogitude, I was having health problems that led to me take a break from running.  The "tumour" my neurologist had seen on my first MRI turned out to be a disc bulging out one side of my neck, and not a tumour at all.  I did, however, have to forgo training for a new reason.  After trying multiple daily medications to prevent migraines, which all left me foggy-brained and unable to do my PhD work, I had no choice but to try a drug that would affect my ability to train.  The result is that my migraines have decreased in frequency and intensity, which is the most important thing to me right now.  It is the only reason I am now able to function like a normal person.  Like most migraine medication, my new drug is actually intended to treat a different ailment and just happens to work on migraines.  This drug is for hypertension, and so it affects my blood pressure and my heart rate.  This makes training rather difficult.  In fact, the doctor told me I would no longer be able to run half-marathons.

And so a year went by with no TNT for me, which made me sad.  I followed my friends' progress of Facebook and wished I could be with them.  And then I remembered that there was a way I could be a part of Team in Training without running.  There is also a walking team.  So I went to see Corinne at the Team in Training office downtown and told her I wanted to join the walking team.  As it turned out, she had been searching for someone to lead the walking team, as the usual walk coaches were taking a much needed break.  Soooooooo, I became a sort of assistant coach for the walkers, as well as a mentor for participants (who turned out not to need much mentoring at all).  

Training with the walkers has shown me that I can actually train for speed over long distances.  In fact, last week I walked 8.65 km at an average pace of 8:33 min/km, which is faster than the average pace of my last half-marathon, which I ran.  So what does this mean?  Does it mean that my doctor was wrong, or does this just mean walking is a better choice for me?  This is what I intend to find out.  I have just registered to do the Montreal Marathon with Team in Training, but I don't yet know if I will walk, walk/run or run.  Apparently, if I choose to walk, I will have to do the half rather than the full.  Some TNT friends were telling me today that the Montreal marathon is not walk friendly.  They put all the walkers in the last corral, sweep the race course early and don't offer an early start (like some other races do).  I'm going to start by training walk/run and see how it goes.  I would really like to do the full marathon, so I hope it will work out.  

Stay tuned...

The Current State of Affairs

As those who pay attention to my Facebook page are aware, my migraines have become more frequent over the past year.  This led to several doctors trying several medications on me until I finally saw a neurologist. He sent me to have an MRI in November, which revealed that my brain was fine, but found something in my neck.  This is the way it was described to me by my doctor: vertebrae in my cervical spine are pinching a nerve, causing it to bulge and that bulge has developed into a benign tumour.  I had to have another MRI with higher resolution and contrast agent to see what's going on with the soft tissue surrounding the tumour and pinching of the nerve.  I will have the results of this last MRI on May 7th.

When I found out about the pinched nerve in my neck, I decided to take a break from running until I have a clearer picture of what's going on or the problem is fixed.  From what I've read, high impact exercise and pinched nerves do not go well together.  

But what about the fundraising?

Running may be best avoided at the moment, but I can still walk.  I have therefore decided to join Light the Night, which is a walk organized by the same group responsible for Team in Training, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada.  The family of my friend and honouree, Emru Townsend, already participate in Light the Night every year, so I won't have trouble finding friends to walk with.  

So if supporting blood cancer research is something that you enjoy doing, please visit my Light the Night page and help me reach my fundraising goal.

Thank you very much for your support and encouragement.

The State of My Toes

Running improves your appearance, doesn't it?

That's what I thought.  It is partly true.  It makes you stronger and improves your cardio, while giving you shapely legs.  It does, however, do some less enjoyable things to your feet.

This is what my toes look like when viewed from above:

The shiny, red polish is not just there for the pretty colour; it is there to hide the horror beneath.

The most recent bit of damage appeared after this morning's run.  At first sight, it looks like a hangnail, but it is in fact a sliver of nail that has broken off and been ripped upwards... the red underneath is not polish, but a little section of naked flesh.

This is slightly gross, but perhaps not so impressive.

Something slightly more revolting can be found by looking under my littlest toes.  The right pinky toenail looks as though it is made of three nails stuck one on top of the other.

The littlest left toenail is sort of squished and sticks up in the air.   I'm not sure what the brown stuff is, but it's as hard as the nail itself.

But, Rebecca, those kind of look like my toenails...

The toenail that I find the most impressive is on the middle toe of my right foot.  If you look back at the first picture, you may notice a bruise along the bottom edge of the middle toenail.  That is in fact the last point at which the nail is in contact with my toe; it moves up and down freely as if on a hinge.

Care to place bets as to whether it will fall off sometime during the race next weekend?

Next weekend???

Yes, indeed!  The Nike Women's Marathon is next weekend!  I will be running the half marathon along with a nice big group of purple clad friends.  There will, in fact, be purple people from every TNT chapter in North America,  It is going to be crazy!  I'm going to love every minute of it!

If you'd like your name to appear on my shirt by race day, now is the time to let me know.  Save your spot at http://bit.ly/SponsorReb.

Preparations, Gifts and Awards

The Pre-Race Potluck

Last night we had our pre-race potluck dinner for the San Francisco and Dublin teams.  We got together with our teammates at the LLSC office in downtown Montreal to go over the details of Race Weekend.  We also got some last minute advice from our beloved coaches and staff, and we (the mentors) even got to put in our two cents worth.  We also received our race shirts, and some people received fundraising prizes.  Yesterday I received three things.

My new race shirt

My brand new piece of purple attire is in my hands and ready to be decorated.  This is how it looks now:

And this is how it might look on race day, unless I receive more donations...

The names on the front represent all the people who have made donations this year; the ones in red have donated $100 or more.  The names on the back are my honourees.  I am running in memory of my friend Emru, who passed away from AML in 2008.  I am also running in tribute to Cyane, who is a five-year-old survivor of ALL.

My Extra-Special Shirt

When the prizes were awarded, I received the ever-coveted Superstar t-shirt!

This shirt is awarded to TNT participants once they reach a lifetime total of $10,000 in donations.  So that means that I get to wear this badge of honour thanks to you!  And that also means that you are responsible for all my Mary Katherine Gallagher impressions  ;).

A Special Gift

The third thing I received yesterday was a very special gift.  William Brock—cancer survivor and San Francisco teammate—is the author of a very special book about surviving cancer.  His book uses photography to tell stories of survival, and to illustrate what survival looks like.  It is meant to give hope to those who are still fighting cancer.  His beautiful book is available online (in both English and French) at www.portraitsofhope.ca, and the proceeds go to cancer research.  Cancer patients and survivors can contact him via the website.

Many thanks to those of you who have made donations to Team in Training!  It means such a great deal to so many people.  Thanks to you the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has been able to invest over 1.8 billion dollars in 2011 into various cancer related avenues, such as scientific research and patient support services.

If you have yet to donate, and wish to do so, you can find my TNT page here: http://bit.ly/SponsorReb.

Thanks again!

Rebecca