What did you get up to on Saturday night?

What did you get up to on Saturday night?

Posted In: ChiRunning | Running divider 2 Comments »

Sometimes I don’t know what I get myself into. I had said yes to help a buddy with a long run a while back. Then the night in question came and now I had to get up at 2:45am to run. I was so tempted to go back to sleep but I’m so glad I got up and helped a buddy out.

To put some perspective, Andy Coughlin is now a friend. I met him at one of my ChiRunning workshops a few years back. Him and his buddy Alex Fraser came to the workshop and it seemed it inspired them both. Alex is slated to do the Ironman in Tremblant next weekend…

So Andy has been planning this long run, The Unforgettable Double Trouble, a 84.4 KM run to raise awareness and funds to support the fight against Alzheimer’s, a cause that’s affected his family. He started at 7.28pm near the Supreme Court building and did loops of the “bridges” to rack up mileage and be close to his support team.

I saw him around 10pm on my home from dinner and he looked awesome. I came back at 3am to do a few laps with him since I knew he’d probably be lonely (and maybe tired) at that time. What an experience!

Like the great Ray Zahab says, long-distance is 90% mental and the rest is in your head. Well Andy figured that out for himself. What Andy was experiencing was very similar to what you go through an Ironman race: peaks and valleys. One minute you feel great and you’re so pumped, the next you feel like crap and you want to crawl somewhere and sleep it off.

When I got there, it was close to a shuffle as Andy was already over 60k and on hour eight. Ever run for hours in the dark? Pretty weird but pretty cool. What an amazing experience. It took a bit of getting outside of my bubble but it was so worth it.

And he did it. Andy took a bit of a break around 5:30am for a nap and some much needed nutrients. He came back to do a few final laps in the daylight and finish with a smile. Way to go bud, such an inspiration!

So what did you get up on Saturday night?

2 Responses to What did you get up to on Saturday night?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *