This week was my first week back here at base and I didn't know quite what to expect. Looking back the week was magic and I worked my tail off.
If you read the last post, you know I had to tackle hills for the second time this week on Friday. With most of them being 300m long, and one being a 500m hill! Which I have never done.
Friday morning all I could think about was that 500m hill. My training partner doesn't start until next week, so I had to go at it alone. But I brought mental toughness to the session and summoned my inner Paula Radcliffe.
"W.W.P.D ...What would Paula do?”
"H.W.P.B.I...How Would Paul Bring it?”
Were my thoughts as I stood at the base of the hill, as Coach 'Gdub moved pine cones and branches out of my path and reminded me of the route.
My fast twitch muscle fibers were screaming: "We don't have to do this".
I took off, with a steady, confident pace. Remembering what BF said on the phone the night before. Something silly like he always says 'You break that hill, it don't break you!'. It had me chuckling on the line then, but oddly I wasn't grinning teeth now.
I checked my breathing at 150m, and liked the steadiness of it. At 200m it was all good. In fact I felt like a really sexy cross country runner with thick thighs, who happens to hurdle fast on the side.
At 250m I took a right, down the slope and past the maple trees, wishing someone had a video camera, all this elk like gracefulness I was exhibiting, going undocumented.
Waste.
At 300m I contemplated switching from the 100m hurdles to the 3000m steeple chase. Stride so flawless, poetry in motion.
Really, "Had I been in the wrong event all this time? Had I only at 28 now found my calling, my best track event?"
At 399m I got my answer.
It came in the form of a sudden surge of heaviness in my buttocks. Fire invading my lungs, and cold teeth from a mouth gone ajar and sucking air.
“Ahh Dayum”.
I heard Gdub yell out my 400m split. After nearly a decade together, I knew the tone of his voice meant he was OK with this split.
At 415m with only incline left, my mind was flooded with incoherent thoughts: "What is this bring, the hill is breaking me, “P.I.N.T”: Paula I need thee!".
Gdub noticed my abrupt change of pace, the antithesis of runner’s high: spontaneous lactic acid dementia.
He snapped me out of it with a sympathetic shout: “Perdi use your arms, let your arms carry you up the hill!”
I swear an hour later I made it to the top. That final 90m took so long, that I heard nothing from Gdub during it. To encourage me or shout instructions at that point would have been a mockery.
Can't wait to do it all over again next Friday.
Go me!
Perdita
