First steps

The writing is a springboard.

An aeroplane takes off. At the start it's anxious and there is a lot of emotion. A huge effort and then that charge down the runway. Single-mindedness takes over. Don't look left or right because there's nothing to look at over there.

There's absolutely nothing to see.

The aeroplane, it pitches forward, roaring loudly, racing its engines, gunning, its wings strained. And when its wheels can bear no more, it closes its virtual eyes, curling its toes down as though pushing into the ground, straining its neck, arching its back and bending its wings to collect air from under it. And it overpowers gravity. Pulls up into the sky. Doesn't look down but stares right up into the sky. And it keep staring and staring upwards as though, by looking down it might lose its momentum. Its afraid that perhaps it isn't moving up as far and as fast as it should be. But it feels satisfied because soon its enveloped by the clouds. and it relaxes a bit and draws into the comfort of the puffy cumulus.

And it is now confident, that the hardest part of the journey has been completed.

Staring at the blank page the writer not knowing what word to put down, perhaps just a cough to get started.

The artist too stares at the blank page, her brushes neatly arranged beside her, her paints awaiting her command.

The teacher, the mentor, the parent, the coach having the knowledge, yet not knowing what words to start the conversation that the journey may begin. That the knowledge may be imparted, layer by layer, each successive piece fitting perfectly like a Lego block, or a piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

Run slow...

Run slowly to get faster.

I've been enjoying my running lately. Really, really enjoying it. More than I've ever enjoyed it before. I can't remember a time when I enjoyed it this much and so I'm wondering what I'm doing differently. Why can I go on, and on, and on and on and not get fatigued. Actually forget time and bounce so easily and comfortably along?

What's changed?

I went back to Kenya this Christmas, 2012. Running had been difficult all year and in fact, for most of October, I was out of commission. Normally getting up in the morning to go for my 5:00 AM run, the mornings were tough. Getting up wasn't fun. I took it like I was taking medicine. Buckley's. It wasn't the cold either. I actually love running in the fall and into the Winter. But something changed in 2012 and I began to lose the love of the sport.

When I got to Kenya the weather wasn't all that great either. It was torrential rainfall which made running impossible because the suburb of Karen has no side-walks and the area is really clayey. Red soil which doesn't drain very well. So running for the first week was really out of the question.

But towards Christmas day, it started drying out, somewhat. I've blogged about my running route here: http://mwaisplace.blogspot.ca/2013/02/running-in-kenya.html. It's a nice area to run in, very quiet once you're out of the main road, Langata road. However when I first got out for that first run, I was very stiff.

Extremely stiff. At least that's what I thought I was. Running out of the main gate of the compound, onto the main street, I felt like I was dragging along an alien body. Every movement was hard. In a few short steps, I was already breathing heavily. Panting, even though I was trying to look cool. There were people working on the side of the street. Women clearing the lawn of debris. Men cutting grass and sweeping dirt from the road and the short sidewalk on Fairacres road. My knees were also sore. I'd anticipated this and took a couple of Ibuprofen gels. But still I couldn't push myself forward.

So I set into a, what I thought, was a slow, managed pace. Tap, tap, tap. Like that, in threes. Trying very hard to settle my breathing. But it looked like I would be running too slowly if I were to settle my breathing. To get my breathing under control, I would literally have to slow down to a running-on-the-spot pace. Hardly moving forward at all.

My planned running route is about 11k. I managed to run about four before I had to stop. The first 4k are not easy and there are some hills to be negotiated, but it was my breathing and the seemingly heavy body (I think I was about 155 lbs) I was carrying. My legs felt like lead and lifting them up was a task in itself. I didn't feel light at all. I felt quite heavy. Exceedingly heavy and I was breathing too hard.

So I stopped. I had no choice I needed to figure out how come I'd lost so much fitness in just a couple of weeks. I'd run in Canada right up to the day before, but I hadn't run for a few days on getting into Nairobi. Is that how it is? You miss a week and its like going back two weeks? That wasn't good.

But I finished that run, actually a walk run since I walked quite a bit after stopping that first time. And I walked the last kilometer so even saying that I ran 11k is a bit of a stretch. I ran/walked 11k is better.

But I'm quite a determined guy, and so I went out the next day. Same results. So now I really have to compare my running in Canada to Nairobi. What's the difference? How come I can get out and warm up quickly in Etobicoke, relax and enjoy parts of the run, but in Nairobi it seems to be a struggle all the way. From the door of the house all the way till my first stop!

I believe that it took me almost an entire week of running to complete a full 11k without walking once. It was excruciating. This is something that I do without thinking in Canada and in Nairobi was causing me no end of stress.

What was the difference?

In my second week of running I made a conscious decision to walk the last kilometre  I've since read Jeff Galloway's tips on the Run-Walk-Run method. Something that I've always eschewed. Why walk? In fact, I've come to believe that walking ruins the run. It's tough to start up again. On the other hand, it can allow you to catch your breath and stabilise your heartbeat. In fact, by running out of the house, that wasn't really helping.

But Run-Walk-Run wasn't really the problem, though it was a possible solution to the problem of not being able to breathe.

I finally figured it out. It was the altitude. That was the only difference (other than the fact that I was running on dirt not asphalt) between running in Canada and Nairobi. Nairobi is close to 6,000 feet above sea level while Toronto is closer to 300 feet. What a huge difference. The air in Toronto is denser, thicker, more oxygenated while the air in Nairobi is thinner. At that altitude it felt like I was lugging around the body of an elephant!

What to do?

Well, Jeff Galloway's method of Run-Walk-Run was being applied unwillingly. I wanted to run and not have to walk even though the walk breaks were great relief. They helped me get my breath back for at least another kilometre or so. And that ultimately ended up being the trick. The thin air taught me a lesson. The inability to move fast taught me a lesson. I had been so concerned with moving along, trying to get to the finish, but I was now forced to contend with being in the moment. I had no choice but to relax.

I had no choice but to relax.

And so my last few runs in Nairobi were purposely slow. One slow step at a time. When I felt completely overwhelmed, felt like I couldn't take another step, I slowed down to a jog. A slow purposeful jog.

Slowing down

Initially, the hardest part of the run was my inability to slow down. It seemed that every time I got out to run, I wanted to push. I wanted to move and feel like I was moving forward. In order to slow down, I had to pretend that I wasn't going anywhere. Pretend that I was only jogging on the spot that I didn't have to run. It's a mental game more than anything else.

Bounce lightly from one foot to the other, think not of moving forward, but of bouncing up and down. Bounce and feel yourself lightly move from one leg to the other. Avoid looking down the street, to the end of the block into the distance, but focus a few metres ahead, and on your body jumping up and down. Hopping lightly from one foot to the other.

You'll inadvertently speed up, unconsciously. Without your willing yourself to do so. When you feel yourself moving faster, go with it for a while, enjoy the spontaneous shifting of gears. But don't stay that way for long. Even though you're enjoying the feel of moving fast, stop moving and slow yourself down. Especially if you're going down a hill.

Do this often, the slow runs and your body will adjust because you were built for these long slow runs. Your breathing should not be laboured, but should be slow and steady. In his book "Born to Run" Christopher McDougall quotes a runner by the name of Micah who lives with the Tarahumara, these super athlete runners, who describes how to run ultra distances. Easy, light, smooth and fast, in that order.

“Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast. You start with easy, because if that’s all you get, that’s not so bad. Then work on light. Make it effortless, like you don’t give a shit how high that hill is or how far you've got to go. When you've practice that for so long that you forget you’re practicing, you work on making it smoooooth. You won’t have to worry about the last one – you get those three, and you’ll be fast.”

Thinking back, that was probably what I was doing in Kenya, without consciously realising it. The effort forced me to slow down and find an easy pace. After reading Christopher McDougall's book, I focussed next on light. There's a whole debate around barefoot running, or minimalist shoes. How would you run if you didn't have shoes on? Try jogging in the house without shoes and you'll see that you actually land very differently, on the balls of your feet, not your mid or heel, and you land very lightly. This is how you should run. But even with shoes, finding that easy stride and then making it light by consciously observing how you're running is very important. Combining easy and light to make it smooth is the next and possibly the last step. You're not concentrating on moving fast. You're just practising form.

You're just practising form.

You're just practising form.

You're just practising form.

That should be your mantra. And the speed will eventually come. The speed will come all by itself.

So in a nutshell, don't think of running as speedwork. There are some people who concentrate on pushing time, they run with watches and other GPS gadgets. I never do. I don't carry a watch and don't watch the clock. It's not about how fast I'm going to get back home. It's about enjoying the outdoors and landing lightly on my feet.