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Running for All Ages

Posted on by Denise — 2 Comments ↓

8k 4th place ribbonI was so stoked when I returned from the Victoria Marathon 8k event, having placed 4th in my age group in a field of 139 and very excited when I received my ribbon for this the other day in the mail. Along with the finisher medal I was pretty proud as I had worked hard to earn that.

When I was looking at the results online, I saw that there were many more age categories older than mine. There were women in their 60s, 70s and 80s listed. Why do they run in these races? They cannot possibly compete with the speedy 20 somethings. I can only assume that they do it for the love of running and competition within their age category. That is perfectly acceptable to me; that’s pretty much why I do it. However, I noticed that there was something called Age Graded Results.

I looked down the list of 1734 women who completed the 8k race and did not see my name in the expected time slot of 38 minutes. I shrugged and thought that they had forgotten me or something like that. Then I started to look at the list from the top and saw that the number 1 position was held by a women 75 years old and the number 2 position was a women 83 years old. The 3rd place women was 25, the 4th place was 62. What was this all about? I continued to look down the list and there I was in 26th place. With an adjusted time of 31:xx (the seconds do not show on my screen). That placed me 26 out 1734 amazing women runners. More than half of the runners in the top 30 were over 50 years old. I say WOW!

Now I really had to find out what Age Graded Results meant. From the Running for Fitness website:

Age grading is a way to adjust an athlete’s performance according to age and gender. The age-grading tables were developed by the World Association of Veteran Athletes, the world governing body for track and field, long distance running and race walking for veteran athletes. The tables were first published in 1989.

Apparently some races even award prizes according to Age Grading in addition to first across the line. I think it is a fabulous system and was obviously developed to encourage people to keep on running and competing as long as they can. Age is no longer a barrier to running success. I hope I have many more years of running and competing and I can still aim for the number 1 position, even if it takes me until I’m 75 years old.

Posted in Running

Running up the Distance

Posted on by Denise — No Comments ↓

I read about this obsessive habit a while ago (not sure where) and it made me laugh because I realized that I was not alone. Maybe you recognize yourself. This happens when you use an electronic GPS devise to track the distance that you run. You might use a running watch or the MapMyRun app on an iPhone or Android to record this critical piece of information.

Here’s what happens, you decide you are going to run a certain course, but the distance comes up short of the even kilometre mark, e.g. 9.65k. Do you run the additional .35k to round the number up to 10k? Um, yes, I would.

Here’s what occurred the other day on my run. I ran with a friend for 13.4k and then we went different ways. Since I still had energy, I decided to run up the distance to 14k. I was heading off by myself in one direction to try to achieve this mark, when I ran into friends running in the other direction. I though it would be fun to run and chat with them for a bit before veering off when I presumably reached my desired distance. After I left them and checked my distance, I realized that I had overshot my mark and was now at 14.3k.

Of course I could not finish the run on such a messy number, so I continued to run up the distance up to 15k. Amazingly, I managed to accomplish this precise mark right in front of my house, but by the time I pushed the stop button on MapMyRun, it showed 15.1k.

MapMyRun 15.1k

MapMyRun 15.1k

Argh! What to do? Much angst… Then… Ah, forget it. At this point, I figured that was enough messing with fractions of a kilometre and I should rationalize this by rounding down just like we do with the Canadian penny. So I headed inside for some water and a stretch. I guess one can get just a bit too obsessed with this overly precise technology.

Posted in Running Tagged with: ,

Running Paris

Posted on by Denise — 4 Comments ↓

I visited Paris for the first time this past April and immediately fell in love with this amazingly beautiful, cultured and totally accessible city! Whilst there, I put in a couple of runs as well as walked miles all over the city. One of my favourite runs was through the Louvre; not actually in the buildings, but through the grounds. I started at the east entrance and ran past the fountain in the Palais du Cour, through the entrance into the main courtyard, past the glass Pyramid, under the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (the mini Arc), through the Jardin des Tuleries to the Musée de l’Orangerie (which houses the beautiful Monet Water Lilies) and into the grand Place de la Concorde with the 23 metre high Egyptian Luxor Obelisk.

I did this run, with variations, i.e. along the Seine River and into the adjoining neighbourhoods, twice. These were not fast runs with so much to see, but what sites they were(!!!): statues, fountains, architecture, storefronts, sidewalk cafés, people…

Once home, I vowed to return to Paris! And to “run Paris” again – with a group next time. I’ve been ruminating on how to do this and what sorts of tours could be done, other than the aforementioned Louvre run, when I came across the perfect book this past weekend at the cutest little independent bookstore in Langley on Whidbey Island: Moonraker Books.

Upstairs interior of Moonraker Books in Langley, WA

Upstairs interior of Moonraker Books in Langley, WA

The book, entitled Forever Paris: 25 Walks in the footsteps of Chanel, Hemmingway, Picasso, and More, by Christina Henry de Tessan, was loaded with facts, stories and maps with marked touring routes.

Forever Paris

Forever Paris

Here’s the tour map for Coco Chanel. How fun would that be?

Chanel's Paris map

Chanel’s Paris map

Was this a message to me or what? These would be great running tours which could be first run and then explored at a more leisurely pace later in the day, when one could partake in the shopping and dining experiences.

Let the planning begin!

Posted in Books, Running, Touring Tagged with: ,

No Running… You’re kidding me!

Posted on by Denise — No Comments ↓

I try to run and explore wherever I travel. This weekend is no exception. I’m at Fort Casey on Whidbey Island with my husband, who is at a meeting. It is very foggy, but that is NO excuse. On goes the running gear, grab a map,

Map of Fort Casey Grounds

Map of Fort Casey Grounds

…try to figure out which direction to run and away I go. Here are some photos along the trail:

Fort Casey barracks and meeting rooms across the parade grounds

Fort Casey barracks and meeting rooms across the parade grounds

Foggy beach view

Foggy beach view

Woodpecker tree beside an ant hill

Woodpecker tree beside an ant hill

Shaggy mane mushroom(?) in the grass

Shaggy mane mushroom(?) in the grass

Mushrooms in the grass

Mushrooms in the grass

Mushrooms in the woods

Mushrooms in the woods

Inviting trail next to rustic fence

Inviting trail next to rustic fence

So I’m running along this beautiful trail, sometimes in the woods, sometimes on grass, sometimes with an ocean view, and there is a sign:

No Running

No Running… Click on image to see movie.

The moral (or morel, if I’d seen one – mushroom humour), is to take inviting trails no matter what the sign says!

Posted in Running Tagged with:

Cross training

Posted on by Denise — No Comments ↓

Fall leaves with hula hoopOn days that I don’t get out for a run or attend a yoga class, I do cross training (sometimes I do both!). Although you may think that some of these activities should not actually be called x-training, I think they qualify. For me these are any activity that gets my heart rate up or I break into a sweat, plus they involve lots of body movement.

This past summer my x-training took the form of lots of gardening – almost daily because of the awesome weather we had. Moving, sifting or spreading dirt or compost around my yard not only got me hot, sweaty and dirty, it also really worked lots of non-running muscles.

Now that the fall is here, the perfect physical activity is leaf raking. Where I live, under a canopy of several large big leaf maple trees, this means a daily dose of this. If you live in an apartment or don’t have any leaves to rake (lucky you), you might want to volunteer to do this for an elderly or disabled neighbour; I’m sure they would appreciate it and you will be doing yourself a favour too. And don’t forget to compost those leaves so you can spread them around the garden in the spring. (Yes, yard work is a vicious circle, but oh so good for you!)

The other day after I finished raking leaves from my newly seeded patch of lawn (that was what all the summer dirt moving, etc. was all about) and clearing them from the pathways and the deck, I celebrated with a little dance on the deck and a few minutes of hula hooping. All in aid of cross training to keep the body moving and healthy.

If you want to check on calorie counts of various activities, look here. I noticed that 3 hours of gardening burned 762 calories for my weight. Now there is a good reason to celebrate!

What are your favourite cross training activity, other than swimming, yoga, or cycling (the traditional ones)?

Posted in Cross training, Yoga Tagged with: , ,