Tag Archives: Marathon

My Body on Marathon


Posted by Patrick Okens

The needle on the scale shudders, then settles on 145lbs. I stare down. I’m surprised to be this light, but I shouldn’t be.

This post is about losing. Not in the competitive sense, but in the physical. For me, running has meant dropping a few pounds and a few toenails. How I deal with both in the coming weeks will affect my performance as I prepare for the big race in early May.

You don’t have to be a genius to know that if you expend more calories than you consume, your weight will drop. I’m in the middle of the biggest run training weeks of my life – over 90k. I’m also down about 5-10lbs from my usual weight. Although I’ve trained hard at other sports (triathlon and rowing), I haven’t shed the weight as easily as I am now. I suspect this has to do with the comparatively few muscles needed for running.

So pick an adjective: lean, wiry, slim, skinny, scrawny. Sure I feel bonier – especially around the knees – but I also feel quick and efficient at running, which is the point of training.  It’s not exactly a beach body, but I’ll do the Baywatch look some other time. That said, I’m not keen to drop more weight – I have had a tendency to get sick more easily when underweight. So extra helpings are now in vogue.

At ground level, it’s uglier. My “index” toenails have turned back, and the dead nails on my big toes are awaiting their replacements growing underneath. Long runs are to blame. Slam your foot into asphalt or concrete 15,000+ times over three hours and the capillaries in your toes will start to burst. Fluid will accumulate under the nail and the gruesome “liftoff” process begins. It hurts, and I have been relieving the fluid pressure with a flame-sterilized needle slid under the dead nail (revolting but not painful). The biggest danger with nail damage is that it is causing me to change my stride which could lead to other injuries. I have a bit of that right now and so I’m backing off on distance and am cross-training with a bike.

So keeping the weight loss reasonable and preventing injury is the battle plan two months out. I’ll save the martyrdom for race day.

 


Run Long, Bonk Hard


Posted by Patrick Okens

“Where is the blender? WHERE. IS. THE. FRICKING. BLENDER?!”

I’m bumbling around in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinet doors as if my life depends on it. I finally locate the blender under the counter, where it always is. I’m in a quiet rage, ravenous, clumsy and mentally deficient. I am well into a food emergency caused by too much running and not enough fuel – a bonk.

This post was going to be about point-to-point running. Today’s long run was a 31km one-way trip west from Mississauga to Burlington along Lake Ontario. It’s rare to just run out the door without intending to return where you started. But it’s more adventurous to cover new ground. After crisscrossing the same suburban crescents and cul-de-sacs all winter, I needed a change of scenery.

After coaching at the rowing club, I left the car keys with my dad and headed out into sunlight-deprived, slightly icy Saturday morning. Not much looks good on a day like this – certainly not the Suncor refinery, or the dark mansions and bare trees that line Lakeshore Road in wealthy Oakville. But my pace was steady and I felt good, right up to 100 minutes in, slightly more than half way. Then it became clear that this blog post would be about something both uglier and more interesting than my route.

I’ve hit the wall before, skiing, cycling, and running. It usually happens early in the season, when I’m cavalier about my abilities and haven’t gone really long in a while. So half a banana, plus a few spoonfuls of yogurt, plus just one gel, plus no water, plus lots of running led to a grand flameout once I crossed the Bronte Creek bridge with still an hour to go.

Bonking affects both the body and the brain. Physically, it’s as if a battery is dying. My pace slowed and I weaved a little on the sidewalk. Like a computer dimming the screen to save energy, my eyelids started to shut. I shifted to walking one minute in ten.

Your brains also get scrambled by a bonk, affecting your judgement, mood, and motivation. It didn’t occur to me that I should stop or get some sustenance at a corner store until I reached my prescribed 2h40 of running. At least I didn’t hallucinate like that one time while riding where I saw an orange Mustang convertible made out of Reese’s pieces. But I was done. At my time limit I called for a pickup even though I was less than kilometre from home. I slumped into the car seat, mumbled thanks, and didn’t bother clipping in the seat belt.

Back in the kitchen I blended a promiscuous melange of fruit, milk, yogurt, protein and carb powder, two types of jams and chia seeds. But before gulping that down, I stared deep into a jar of Bick’s Mini Crunch’ems Garlic Pickles, fishing out a dozen with my fingers. I clearly craved salt too. The eating and sleeping continued through the rest of the day.

So lesson re-learned – fill the tank beforehand, and top up as you go. The good thing about the early and emphatic crash is I get three other 30k+ runs to figure out how best to do this before tackling the marathon.