Triathlon Training: Learning to Run

Running has been the bane of my existence since I was a kid.  I've already shared, I think, that the only sport I was picked for back then was tug-o-war, and only for the anchor spot.  Not a badge of honor for a teenage girl who just wanted to fit in.  Team sports terrified me, and PE was my personal nightmare.  Anything that involved running made me want to find a closet and hide in it until the world went away.

With my lifestyle change, however, came a new appreciation of what my body could do.  I grew strong and fit, and was able to see and do things that my previous self could not imagine.  I still didn't run, though.  I stair climbed, hiked, did aerobics, tried Pilates and yoga, boulder scrambled, did the elliptical, biked, did plyometrics, worked out with weights... but no running.

That is, until last year, when I did my first adventure race, the Muddy Buddy.  Luckily, the Muddy Buddy didn't require too much running.  In fact, it involved a team of two alternating between running and biking to a variety of obstacles.  THIS was fun.  THIS was running worth doing... because it was running in small spurts, and it wasn't about the running.  It was about the obstacles.

Last year, I also did the Warrior Dash in Colorado, which is where the pic accompanying this post was taken.  In this pic, I'm at the very end of the race.  The race was only about 3.5 miles.  But much of it was uphill, and the obstacles were challenging, particularly the two rows of fire we had to jump over right before we finished.  You can see the strain on my face.

When I became a founding member of the Girls on the Run council of Las Vegas, I knew I was going to have to face my running issue.  Girls on the Run is a non-profit youth development program that encourages pre-teen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running. I joined the council - and took a leadership role - because I wanted to help girls learn how great it is to be healthy and fit and feel good about themselves.  I wish I had learned it when I was a kid.  Instead, I've had to do a lot of extra work as an adult to teach myself those lessons now, and they're lessons I am still learning.

The 24-lesson Girls on the Run curriculum closes with a 5k running event.  Once I committed to the group, I knew I'd have to conquer my fear of running so that I could share the joy of the 5k with the girls.

So this year, I've been making myself run some 5ks on my own.  To make it more official, I signed up for a moonlight 5k trail run.  It's coming up in mid-May.  Then, when I learned that there were such things as "sprint" triathlons, where the run is only 5k, I had to sign up.  My first triathlon is coming up on April 30, and - in another first - I've been doing formal training for it through The Fitness Source.

You can't do a triathlon without straight-on, nothing-else-but running, and Stephanie at The Fitness Source makes sure we do plenty of it (in addition to biking and swimming).  The more you practice, the better you get, right?  Ironically enough, that really is right!  Besides the practice, I've learned that wearing a good bra and actual running shoes help a lot, too.  Positive self-talk, as corny as it sounds when I'm saying it to myself, carries me through as well.  When I feel like I'm going to have to walk, I tell myself: "you're light as air; you're gliding over the road."  It works!

I've dropped more than a minute off my per-mile time since starting training.  Even more important, though, I've started getting comfortable with running.  It doesn't feel great.  I don't get the runner's high or anything.  But, I don't dread running as much as I used to, and I feel more natural when I do it.

I have about four more weeks before my triathlon.  I'm hoping I'll be feeling even stronger in running by then.  Especially because the week after the tri, I'll be doing the Tough Mudder in Mount Snow, Vermont, which will be a 10-miles course.  Yowsa!  There'll be obstacles breaking things up, but that's still a lot of running.

Good thing I'm learning to run.