Awesome idea

Every now and then I get a flash of genius while running.  Tuesday was one of those days.  Out of the blue I got the idea to create: Runner Bingo!

I've created the game card below for my game.  In the card I've put in things that I'm somewhat likely to see on a run at some point, but nothing so common that I'd fill up the card during a Tuesday morning track session.  The game starts on Saturday and I'll be playing until I fill up the card at which point I'll reward myself with some running related goody (new shorts? new shoes? new hat? who knows?!?).

My goal is to post an update every time I see one of these things while running--and therefore stamp it with my Bingo marker.

B	I	N	G	O
Double running stroller	Barefoot runner	Getting “chicked”	Headband	Slow running group, 3+ abreast
Running in the bike lane	Article of 80’s running gear	Shirt from a race I’ve run	Batman belt	Power walker
Wristband	Overdressed for the weather	FREE	Getting “geriatricked”	Running against traffic on track
Running after a race	Cyclist on running path	Long socks with shorts	Inappropriate foot wear	D-Tag on shoe (not during a race)
Non-iPod music device	Overly coordinated running outfit	Camel Pack	Bandana on head	Runner with multiple dogs

Race report: Marine Corp Historic Half

I’ll be honest: I’ve delayed this post a couple weeks because I am not proud of my performance at this race.  Folks, I did bad.  Especially for having just run a PR by seven minutes at my previous Half-Marathon, I did real bad.

Splits:

Mile 1: 8:16

Mile 2: 7:36

Mile 3: 8:00

Mile 4: 7:44

Mile 5: 8:21

Mile 6: 8:31

Mile 7: 8:24

Mile 8: 8:26

Mile 9: 8:33

Mile 10: 8:29

Mile 11: 11:07

Mile 12: 9:02

Mile 13.1: 9:16 (8:13 pace)

Final Stats:

Distance: 13.1

Net Time: 1:53:35

Watch Time: 1:51:45 (no potty break)

Pace: 8:40

Overall Place: 963/5697 (top 17%)

Gender Place: 774/2942 (top 26%)

Age Place: 110/335 (top 33%)

The Story:

The days leading up to this race I noticed that I just wasn’t feeling it.  I wasn’t excited for the race.  I couldn’t meet the paces on the training plan.  I wasn’t in any kind of groove.  I couldn’t really explain it.  I would wake up in the morning and just wanted to go back to sleep and I could barely fight back and pull myself out of bed.

My suspicions are threefold:

1.       I planned on running at a pace that was faster than my abilities.  So I was always tired and just couldn’t keep up with the training paces.  I’ve considered that I might have been overtraining, but I feel like I didn’t train enough to be overtrained.  I’ve run more in preparation for other races and have done just fine.

2.       This wasn’t the race I wanted to run in Virginia.  At some point I had told myself that I was going to run the Richmond Marathon as my Virginia race and got excited about that prospect, but then Fredericksburg came up and I did that.  I guess there is something significant to be said about the anxiousness that leads up to a race and your performance on race day.

3.       There were some major hurdles during training.  I had lots of travel (including a trip to Hong Kong) and lots of work—making it difficult to pay attention to my running.

So Wifey and I showed up in Fredericksburg and I was feeling iffy about the race.  I had already resigned that I was not going to make the 7:15 pace I had wanted—I could barely hold that for three miles on the treadmill, much less for 13 miles outside. 

The other bomb thrown my way was the day before the race we signed up for a walking tour of Fredericksburg.  Turns out it was over three hours and six miles.  Exactly what you should not do the day before a race, right?  However, I thought I was good to go come race eve after a hardy pasta dinner.

Race morning went off without a hitch: ate my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches washed down by Gatorade.  The drive to the starting area was less than 10 minutes.  And, for the first time ever, there were enough port-o-potties for the amount of people.  I’m still in a bit of shock about this one, but I realized that this event was staged like an event several times larger than it actually was—probably since these are the same people that put on the Marine Corps DC Marathon and they pour in the same amount of resources (although this only highlighted the disparity between my low level of excitement and the high level being pumped into the atmosphere).

I went for a warm up jog and ate half an apple before going into the starting corrals.  Well, what I thought was the starting corral—the staging area was really large for an event this size.  Eventually I wiggled my way into the correct area, but it was jammed with people, so I was stuck where I was (a good 25 meters behind the marker for the 1:40-1:35 finish group).

The starting musket was fired (I’m pretty sure it was a musket, they got all historical during the pre-race announcements) and the crowd surged forward.

Before the first mile marker I had already looked at my watch with the thought “ok, how long until this is over?”  That was a bad sign.  And despite getting down to goal pace in mile two, that was all the result of a long downhill stretch—when the course turned flat I was struggling to get under 8:00 minute miles.  And somewhere around Mile 5 I just gave up on pushing myself to any specific time goal—it just wasn’t in me that day.

This was all a horrible shame because this was such a well put together race and the town came out in full force to support the runners.  But worst of all, instead of hiring police officers to marshal the race, they used Marines, meaning that on every corner, at each intersection there was an active Marine in fatigues watching over us.  Let me just say I’ve never felt worse walking during a race as when I had to walk in front of Marines.

I finally gave into the demons in my head during Mile 8.  I saw a port-o-potty and just ducked in.  I had the need to go, but it wasn’t that bad of a need, nothing I haven’t convinced myself to run through in the past.  After about 90 seconds I bolted out, faintly hoping that the pit stop was what I need to fix the funk I was in. 

Then there was the set of hills in the back of the race.  If I wasn’t doing bad before, the 200ft climb that was all of Mile 10 wreaked me.  Apparently in town it’s known as hospital hill (because of the hospital on this hill) and it is a beast.  As the splits above show, that stretch leading up to marker 11 involved a lot of walking.

The good news was that after that crest I ran the rest of the course without stopping, charging up a second uphill second and picking up speed as the finish line approached.  I had enough fuel and emotional drive to charge the last 800m—although I may have been pushing a little too hard because I was going to faint before I finally crossed the finish line.

In looking at my stats, this was not a good race for me.  I did better when I ran the National Half-Marathon and I was a wreak for that race, having gotten into a car accident the day before and only getting four hours of sleep before the race.  But then I looked at my finishing percentages (i.e., I finished in the top X% of finishers) and this is actually my second best Half-Marathon—I’ve only done better at my PR race in Austin back in January.  And—mind-boggling as it is—it was the best I’ve ever placed in my age group for a long distance race (Half or Full Marathon).  WTF?  I’ll have to guess that everyone else found the course as bad as I did.

Say whaaaaaa?

The BAA just upped the qualifying times for the Marathon and instituted a rolling admissions process giving the advantage to faster runners?  Well, I'm f'd.  There goes me qualifying for Boston on my own.

The two people that live inside me

Sometimes I like to get all philosophical and deep about running.  How I use it as a metaphor for life, how I deal with it psychologically.  I've probably tried to write this post 50 times over the past couple years, but something clicked this morning after reading this post over The Laminator's blog and it all just came together.
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As a runner, there are two people that live inside of me: the fat kid and the fast runner.

The fat kid is a hydra: a multi-headed beast that is some ancient relic of my childhood.  Every time I think I've defeated him he reemerges, stronger for the defeat.  I hate the fat kid for two exact reasons: 1) his omnipresence and 2) his power to belittle.  Even acknowledging him here feels awkward, almost shameful.  Like I don't have the right to recognize having been fat as a kid and teenager.  The memory hurts.  And the repercussions that I have seen unfold from an obese childhood reinforce the hurt.

The fat kid is the one who says at the start of a run: "this is all a bad idea, let's wait until tomorrow to do it."

The fast runner wakes me up at 525a, five minutes before the alarm for the gym is supposed to go off even on days that I'm not going running.  The fast runner wants to qualify for Boston, run a sub-1:30 Half-Marathon, run seven days a week, crank the treadmill up to 12.0 just to make people at the gym stare.  The fast runner is the one who gets off on passing slower runners.  The fast runner loves to be active and sweating and prove himself.

The fast runner is the one who says after a run: "I just did that and I think next time I can do it even better."

The fat kid, I know, I will never outrun.  He weighs me down.  He points out flaws in the mirror.  He is self-aware and insecure.  He wants nothing good for me.  He is content being a sloth and watching life from a non-participatory vantage.  My relationship with him is marked by shortcomings.

The fast runner, I know, I will never outrun.  He is always pacing a bit faster than I am.  He never slouches.  His confidence is unshakable.  He likes to buy things that make me look good.  He loves the spotlight and at the same time he is my biggest cheerleader and will never, ever, lose faith in my ability to conquer anything.

Every run these two people check each other.  One wants to take it easy.  The other wants to go balls out.  It is a careful negotiation between the two, who gives, who takes.

During races they become caricatures.  The fat kid gets desperate, screams for an end, wants to find the finish line, be coddled, just to make it all stop and be safe.  Conversely, the fast runner is in his element, sticks out his chest, soars in with an infallible confidence; all things are under his control.

I would ultimately, one day, like to swash the fat kid.  Eradicate him from existence.  But I know he is a part of me forever.  I can't just forget where I have progressed from.  You cannot realize all the great mountains you have climbed if you forget the valley you started in.  It is necessary to have the fat kid villain to victory over, just like it is necessary to have the fast runner to be the hero.  You need a hero to push you, to build goals toward.  Accomplishing those goals feeds ambitions and the creation of higher goals.  Knowing that, it would be impossible to fulfill everyone of my running, and life, desires.  But that said, I would still ultimately, one day, like to be the fast runner.

The smells of running

I did a good chunk of yesterday's 18-miler in Central Park--about nine miles.  While I was running I noticed a smell all throughout the park.  It was vaguely of incense, and that could make sense if there was a street vendor selling incense nearby, but I was smelling this all over the park.   

The NYRR was having a Marathon training run, so maybe it had something to do with that?  Then I noticed some red powdery stuff on the cobblestones near Tavern on the Green where the smell was particularly strong--perhaps that was it?  It most definitely was not the horse poop smell that dominates the loop from the sixth avenue entrance to the grand army plaza exit.  I never figured it out, but I was relieved when I left the park and no longer had to smell it.

But this makes me think that smelling is a bigger part of running than you would initially imagine.  I mean the whole process of running really is an exercise in breathing right?  In through your nose, out through your mouth. So it makes sense that you end up smelling a lot while running.  And from all that, you start to identify certain smells with running.

There are two major smells that dominate my weekday runs in Astoria.  First, there is the stench from the power plant.  Or it might be a broken sewer pipe as someone posted on a photocopied flyer taped up throughout Astoria Park.  Either way, on a bad day the smell can invade the whole neighborhood and can be really upsetting to a run.  

The second smell, and forgive me for sounding creepy, is the smell of over-perfumed Astorians walking by in the morning.  I don't exactly know why, but my neighbors, both male and female, love perfume--or heavy scented soap.  Every time I pass someone I swear I can smell one of my dad's colognes or the smell of my first grade teacher.  It's eerie and comforting at the same time.

The are some random other smells I associate with running.  For about two weeks in June/July every year the Jasmine trees in Astoria park bloom and the smell pervades the track--this marks the beginning of fall Marathon training season.  There is the car exhaust smell from doing hill repeats on the Queensboro Bridge--absolutely choking if the wind is not in your favor.  There's also my own scent, the one that I swear sometimes smells like chardonnay and the reason I try to find a seat in the corner when I take the subway home after a long run.

More runner's speak

I'm adding a new term to my runner lexicon: suicide repeats. 

Yesterday, I was at an off-site meeting for the afternoon which ended at 4:30, meaning that I got to go home early and that I was comfy on the couch by 5:15.  Having all this free time on my hands and knowing that Wifey wouldn't be home for a while, I headed over to the park to do something that kinda resembled cross-training.  Really, I did push ups and a bunch of crunches--I would have done pull ups too, but there were some punky kids hanging around the pull up bars and I just wasn't down for that.

I had full intentions to make it a 100% non-running workout.  But when I saw the track full of people--some of which were much faster than my morning crowd--I couldn't resist turning onto the track after getting off the sit-up bench.

That morning I had done a so-so effort at a Tempo run and I knew the following morning (today) I would have 1600m repeats, so I didn't want to do anything too crazy or anything that I would normally do.  I did a warm up lap and followed that with 100m strides to help me get my form in shape.  After each 100m of strides I would recover with 300m and then repeat.  It was amazing to see my form get increasingly efficient as I went through four 100m strides--by the end I was going faster than I started but spent much less energy. 

After the fourth recovery lap I decided to finish with something fun: run all out, holding form as best possible, for 100m, take a 100m recovery around the curve and then go straight into the same all out effort.  In the middle of that craziness I thought that this was suicidal because these repeats were killing everything I had left on the table.  I quickly put that together into a compact, marketable, jargony phrase: suicide repeats.

Later that night I received confirmation that I had coined the phrase appropriately.  When I told Wifey what I did at the track, she responded with "oh, that's dangerous!"  Double point score!  One point for sounding badass, another for impressing the ladies......um...impressing the lady...um...the only lady...in my eyes (triple score for kissing up!).

More pictures in my heads

Before getting into the "grappling hook" I'd like to thank everyone for their kind comments from the DC race report. That was one hard race to run--it's great to know there's a whole group of strangers (all three of you since I've been half-assing the blog scene lately) cheering me on. Thanks guys and gals.
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Yes indeed, that is a grappling gun. (You know I'll make this relevant to running, just hold on for the ride.) This device is usually reserved for the ranks of James Bond, Jason Bourne, and ninja assassins. They typically use it when they need to scale an enemy building, climb over the wall of a fortress, or boost the cool gadget factor of a movie (I refer you to the scene in the original Batman movie where Batman asks Vicki how much she weighs).

While I don't own a grappling hook--although that would have it's conveniences--I have found myself using one while running.

Mostly, I find myself using the grappling hook on the track. Now that the weather has warmed up and the sun is rising earlier I all of a sudden have company on the track at Astoria Park. It's awesome to finally be running in sunlight again and even better to have other people at the track. The latter not necessarily for the company, but more for use in grappling hook target practice.

It didn't start off as something intentional, but I've realized that when I lock on someone while running I'll start pacing myself to overtake them. Even in a largeish pack I can pick out someone that's going my pace or slightly slower, peg them, and eventually overtake them. Once again, it's not something I did on purpose, it kinda just happened. After while I started to realize when I did this and noticed that the sensation felt like I had hooked onto the person in front of me and was pulling them closer (via an invisible rope). Eventually I started to throw the term "grappling hook" around my head, as in I would lock in on a target, launch a grappling hook that would grab on to them, and then slowly--although sometimes quickly--overtake them.

For many reasons I use the grappling hook most often on the track. First, I do speed work on the track, so I'm usually going my very fastest. Second, there are a lot of people clustered together at the track, therefore, many targets. Third, most other people on the track are not doing speed work; they're either walking or simply running slower than me at the time. Fourth, it's a big circle; there are no places for the people in front of you to turn off the course or change routes (ala Central Park), so it's easy to chase people down.

During my Yasso repeats on Thursday I actually got to the point where I made a gun shape with my hand and would "launch" the grappling hook onto the people I was going to overtake. I tried to keep it subtle. However, during yesterday's long run (20 miles) I was much less subtle. Now, understand I was in the last two miles of the run and I was kicking ass (8:54 pace--unheard of for me at the 20 mile training range). Since I only had two miles left I wasn't worried about running out of steam, so I starting whipping out the grappling hook--which would otherwise backfire on a long run. By the end of the run I was audibly saying "boom" every time I "launched" the grappling hook--which was pretty often because I was in Central Park and it was the middle of a beautiful day. Anyone with a keen eye would noticed me running, full-tilt, shooting an imagery gun and whispering "boom" through a park crowded with runners. In retrospect I'm surprised I wasn't arrested.

Turns out we were right

We all know that running not only makes you healthy, but also makes you happier. Apparently there is now scientific proof that there is a physical component. Researchers at Princeton found that when rats were given a running regimen they were neurologically less stressed than rats who were not. It's a pretty cool story that you can read here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/phys-ed-why-exercise-makes-you-less-anxious/.

Cute--painful--but cute

Did you guys hear about the marriage proposal during last weekend's Chicago Marathon? I just read the story here: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/chicago-marathon-proposal-64016052.html?yhp=1.

As a runner, that's absolutely how I would have proposed--if Wifey ran Marathons too. But really, right before the finish line? You can't jeopardize a BQ like that!

Sense of place

One of my favorite things about running is the sense of place it gives you. I love using a long run to explore a part of town that I've never been to before. Or when I'm away from home, running gives me a chance to discover the local character and off-the-path places. By running around my neighborhood I'm up-to-date on new apartment buildings, closed restaurants, and the brand new doggie day care that opened. (Sigh. If only I had a dog.)

When we visit family in Philadelphia I love running around the city. I get to see all the historic sites, pass by the Art Museum (and the accompanying 13-foot Rocky statue), traverse UPenn, pass by the boat houses. I always try to run a slightly different route so that I get to experience a new part of town.

Running in my parents' neighborhood is always nostalgic. When we were there last I intentionally ran around my elementary school. Turns out it has been transformed into an "ele-middle," which is a school with grades K-8. The field where I ran my first mile ever and watched the SWAT team do demonstrations on Career Days was gone, replaced by a set of three-storey buildings most likely housing grades 6-8.

Here in New York I've explored all sorts of neighborhoods and seen all kinds of things while running: a turkey, llama, donkey, and emu; a head-on runner collision; and a man running shorts in single-digit weather. During yesterday's 13-mile run I had another unique New York sighting.

I had run uptown through Harlem from 125th Street to 207th Street and crossed over to the Hudson River to run down to Central Park. About a mile after crossing under the George Washington Bridge I saw two guys fishing. This was not unusual. During good weather you can usually find someone fishing this part of the Hudson--I don't know why you would fish here, but people do.

What was unusual about this pair was that they had caught a fish. I didn't get to see if it had a third eye, ala Blinky from the Simpsons:



However, it was a sizable fish, about 12-15 inches long; sizable enough to eat...which is what they were getting ready to do. That's right folks. I saw someone fish out a fish (doh! stupid verb and noun being the same word) on roughly 140th and the Hudson river and gut it for lunch. Delish.

But to understand the full grossness of this let's examine the geography of this area of Manhattan. Essentially there are three landmarks on the Hudson from the northern tip of Manhattan south to 59th Street. Toward the northern end is the George Washington Bridge. Toward the southern end is the 79th Street Boat Basin. Right smack in the middle is the third: Riverbank State Park.

What's so special about Riverbank State Park? Well, it just so happens to be built on top of the North River Water Treatment Plant, which processes 125+ million gallons of waste water--a day. How far were these guys from this plant? About 2,000 feet.

That's right. Ew.

Runners' speak

Like most sports, running is loaded with jargon. Tempo, repeats, rabbit, splits, kick, bonk, chub rub, and the list goes on. It's part of the mystique of the sport: a lexicon full of sometimes funny words (fartlek) that usually don't clearly describe what they are meant to describe until you learn the meanings from the running community. Essentially, it's a bit of the initiation--kinda like runner's trots.

Conversely, you have to be well-versed in running to start adding to the lexicon. For example, Nitmos introduced limbo runs and Vanilla introduced chicked. Although I'm pretty sure the latter has existed for a while, Vanilla was just the one who brought it to running.

I've had my own modest addition to runners' speak. Playing off chicked, I coined the far more embarassing geriatricked, meaning to be passed by someone roughly the age of your grandparents while running. It hasn't caught on, which I'm assuming is because being geriatricked is a rare occurance rather than people shunning my creative word play skills.

Anywho, there is another running term that I've coined using my crazy good word play skills: unearned downhill. I came up with this term while I was running the Great Bay Half-Marathon last April--why it look me so long to share I really don't know. In the second mile of the race there was a steep 40-foot downhill drop in the course--however, the course hadn't gone over any hills yet. Technically, I was running a downhill section that was very easy without having to run a tough uphill section first. I hadn't "earned" the easy downhill because I hadn't put in the climb first.

At the moment I found it really annoying because it put a big acceleration ramp before the mile two marker--and you just shouldn't have that on a Half-Marathon course. It either forces you to start burning through your brakes early, or, if you're less experienced, creates a false speed impulse, which is not a good strategy so early in a race.

The other thing that bothered me about this unearned downhill was that I would have to earn it later in the course. I knew the race passed through that very same street on the way back to the finish--immediately after the mile 12 marker. Sure enough, it was killer passing through there so close to the end. And this would be the case with most unearned downhills: you have to earn it later and it's going to suck because you'll always be more fatiqued.

There you have it: unearned downhills. Use it. Love it. Credit my mad word skills for it. Just don't get caught running one.

Unemployment: Day Eighteen

I guess nobody wondered why my last post was titled "Bloody Sunday." I was going to write about my long run last Sunday, but didn't have enough time. While I did delete what I started writing in the body, I completely forgot to change the title.

So now here is what happened on this past "Bloody Sunday."

I headed out for my 15 mile long run on a familiar course: cross the Queensboro Bridge and then do 12 miles in Central Park. Seeing that it was a humid day I made sure to use Body Glide on my man parts to avoid the painful chaffing that normally occurs in such weather. However, a mile into the run, with the wind kicking and the sweat already rolling down my chest I realized I forgot to put Body Glide or bandages or anything on my nipples. I could already feel them rubbing against my t-shirt so I panicked, but I also remembered the numerous times I've been out without nipple protection and have returned home fine. Knowing that I really couldn't stop and buy bandages I kept on trucking.

Miles one through seven went pretty well. There was no significant increase in pain in the nipple region. I glanced down once during mile four and didn't see any sign of bleeding. So I cruised along as if the worst was behind me.

After mile seven I noticed a change not in any physical sense but in that ever runner I crossed looked at me. I've always described New York City runners as stoic, blind to the world, etc.. Essentially the only two things that will grab a runner's attention is a cyclist cutting him off or a maimed and bloody body. I looked down at my t-shirt since I knew for sure I wasn't the former.

Sure enough two dark red circles the size of oblong silver dollars had formed on my t-shirt right over my nipples. I knew I needed to stop but the nearest bathroom was over a mile away, so I stopped at the benches at the runner's gate (which were less than half a mile away).

At the benches I lifted up my t-shirt and saw a horrible sight. My t-shirt had completely rubbed away the top layer of skin from my nipples and deep red drops of blood were coming out of each nipple.

After the initial freak-out I wiped away the blood with my hands. The drops came back. I took off my t-shirt and held it up to my chest to absorb the blood, which seemed to stop the bleeding.

Now I had a problem. I wasn't far along enough to scrap the run. I also couldn't finish the run with the t-shirt on: the bleeding had stopped but would start again--or get worse-- if I put it on. Running topless (as any other recovering fat kid will tell you) had never ever crossed my mind, particularly in Central Park where only the cockiest and fittest guys run without a shirt, but it quickly became the only option.

I bundled up my t-shirt in my hand, grabbed my water bottle in the other hand, looked down the long stretch of East Park Drive, and started running...shirtless.

At first it was awkward. Things were jiggling and gyrating all over the place--the inner workings I don't normally care about because it's all sheathed by a t-shirt. I corrected my posture and lengthened my stride because if I was going to make a fool of myself I was at least going to do it in good form.

Oddly enough, parents did not shield their children's eyes and dogs did not start barking. Actually, you would never know anything was unusual. After a few minutes I completely forgot that I was sans t-shirt.

The rest of the run went beautifully: I finished 17 seconds under my goal pace and any trace of blood had dried up. When I unrolled the t-shirt at the end of the run the blodd stains had gone, most likely washed away by the sweat. I slipped on the t-shirt (ouch!) and hopped on the subway to go home.

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On the unemployment front there have been developments. But that'll be for another post this weekend.

I see runners

I spent today in my client's offices in Connecticut. Usually on Boston Marathon Monday I can play the race in the background of my computer while I'm working, but looks like this year I'd have to miss it. I spent the whole day today talking to my co-workers and bosses about the Marathon and my own upcoming race in less than two weeks (!!!).

When we wrapped up our meetings we hopped on the Amtrak to head back to the city. We grabbed seats on the cafe car so that we could all sit facing each other. Now, this was five in the afternoon and this train probably left Boston around 3PM (to get into NYC at 7:15).

While we're sitting there a guy walks by with a 2009 Boston Marathon t-shirt on--and I do a double take. For him to be on this train means that: 1) he had to be in the first wave, 2) finished in less than three hours, 3) had time to shower, and 4) had time to get to a train station (which is pretty difficult on Marathon Monday). Never mind that the guy had children with him, which i assumes only slows down the process.

Wow. You could not get me on a train and heading home so quickly after a race. Hell, for The Flying Pig I'm staying in town for 28 hours after the race. Maybe these Boston runners are superhuman.

Running makes you manly

This winter I've been doing all weekday runs on the treadmill because it is too freaking cold outside (WTF, it was snowing yesterday--the first day of spring) and I really only enough cold weather gear to do the weekend long run.

One of the side effects of all this treadmill running is that I spend hours a week staring at myself in the TV on the treadmill. I don't like to watch the TV attached to the treadmill because I feel it will mess up my form, so I turn it off and watch the overhead TVs, forcing myself to lift my head while I run. Also, I don't like listening to the TV while running because it throws off my cadence--or rather doesn't help with my cadence, unlike music.

And what I have learned from this? That running makes you more manly.

Not manly in the sense that I have more chest hair or that I have an increasing urge to fell timber. More in the sense that running makes you real comfortable with your body and you learn to not really care where you are or who is around you when you do something gross.

For example, when I first started running I hated spitting--I thought it was absolutely gross to do in public. I would actually wait until there was no one around--no cars, no people--and hock a loogie politely into the bushes where no one would see it or be able to attribute it to me.

Now, five years later, I don't give a rat's ass about it. I've learned from hundreds of runs that if you don't spit it out it only accumulates and gets worse. It's really not worth holding in. I still avoid spitting directly onto the street or sidewalk--I usually aim for a grassy patch or a storm drain--but really I have no hesitation, to the point that a jogger passed me and yelled "disgusting" when I spat on the storm drain she was about to run over.

Running also makes you real intimate with your bowels--just like the man stereotype in my head. Think about it. When did it become acceptable to use the port-o-potty? As a child I had a immense feeling of dread and despair if I had to use a port-o-potty and avoided it like the plague.

Now? Ha! Port-o-potties are a luxury compared to some of the bathrooms in NYC Parks. You build up some kind of biological mechanism to dilute the smell and you craft some nonsensical scientificesque explanation that it's actually not that dirty.

And never mind the people who do their business in the bushes. That is manly--and brave. I haven't done that yet, but if I was ever in that situation I'd do it--no doubt.

Perhaps the maniest aspect if it all is the boasting. For me it's been subtle. I don't walk around the office telling everyone: "Hey! I ran eight miles before you even woke up this morning! BOo YAHHHHH! Beat that sucka!" (Although it would be hilarious to do so.) But I do find myself sneaking in the "geez I'm tried because I did seven hard miles this morning" into conversations with people who could care less about my running hobby and much less about my current physical state.

Then this week I've found myself pushing onto my coworkers the excitement of my upcoming races: "I just booked the car to go to New Hampshire for my race," "Did you know there is a way to frequent flyer miles so that you can get a discounted ticket (like I did for Cincinnati)?" "I just got a huge deal on my hotel for The Flying Pig Marathon." Part of it is excitement, but there is that little voice that says "these people don't care." Which, in truth, they don't: I'm an oddity in my office--there's only one other runner and she only runs about one race a year.

Let's hope that the further I get into my running career the manliness doesn't progress into d-bagery, because then we would have a problem on our hands.

When I can't do this anymore

You know when you're running in a group or in a pack during a race and you're halfway through the distance? There is that point where the excitement has worn off and the conversation has faded. You're stopped taking in the scenery and already discussed the immediate topics (race calendars, training plans, etc.). Your thoughts and efforts turn inward as your running demons slowly rumble from their sleep.

Suddenly, everyone in the group in the same place. Not just physically on the same road heading to the same finish line, but mentally combating whatever dull pain or nagging thought is telling you to stop. At this point, you feel closer to the other runners because you are bonded over your shared struggle. You are all fighting the fight together and you are all going win the fight together. You forget the world around you because you have a group to go through it with.

Then, someone breaks off from the group either to tie their shoe or get water or speed off. You're jolted out of sync and feel a bit alien, as if you had just been dropped back onto planet Earth.

That is how I feel today. While in the middle of this blogging run (coming up on two years now), two of my favorite blogs have separated from the pack for a walking break and I'm not sure if they'll be rejoining the group. I'm about a week or two behind on my posts, but I just read that Feet Meet Street is going dark for a while and that the injuries at Notes of a Non-Runner have taken a turn for the worst.

Reading a (potentially) last post on a blog is depressing. It's like talking to someone with stage four cancer: you're holding out for them, but still make sure to hug them goodbye.

Aside from sending my best wishes to Nancy and hoping that Nitmos's boss institutes a daily blog break, I started thinking about how things would go down here if I couldn't run or blog anymore.

Of course, I would want my last post to be a clever, epic, insightful, thought-provoking, tear-producing, monolithic testament to my running labors--you know, just how you want every post to be but you're never able to invest enough time in writing so you just crank out your immediate thoughts and hope no one noticed the typo in paragraph three before you got a chance to fix it. (Don't bother checking, I already fized it.) But if it just made people snicker, sniffle, and shoe-up (yes, I did reach for the third "S") I would be happy.

Fortunately for me--who takes days to formulate and write a post--the second I read Nitmos's and Nancy's posts I knew exactly what my last post would be. Not only that, but I already know the opening sentence, last sentence, and the frame for pretty much everything in between. So what would the post be about? Let's just say it would be very appropriate for me and this blog and that a snicker and a sniffle would probably be produced--most likely at the same time. And that's all I'm saying about it!

And what about the rest of you? Do you all know what you'll say when you can't do this any more? Would it be sad? Uplifting? A hilarious riot? Would it be the greatest story ever told or would it be a humble bow? I think it would be cool to know.


PS - to Nitmos and Nancy, keep on running in your own ways. You'll be in my thoughts when I'm out there trying to bash away my running demons.

10 in sub-10

I need a medal after Saturday’s run. Not only was it the first double digit run of the year, but it was also under 10 degrees during the whole run. Officially, it is the coldest I’ve ever run in, and doesn’t that count for a CPR (Coldest Personal Record)?

In the past I would have just done the run on the treadmill, but my weekday runs have all been on the treadmill and the weekend long run is my only chance to break out of the gym’s confines. Also, part of it was masochistic: I wanted to experience what running in sub 10-degree weather felt like.

I bundled up wearing: a long-sleeve base layer, cotton t-shirt (just for insulation), technical sweater, a running jacket, running pants, long socks, gloves, skully, and neck warmer. The only skin that peeked out from the all black garb was my nose and the tops of my cheeks—so I basically looked like a running ninja.

I rode the subway into Central Park instead of running the neighborhood (it’s difficult to run anything more than 5 miles in my hood). I guess sitting on the subway for 15-20 minutes will do a lot to lower your body temp because when I got out at Central Park it felt like the friggin Arctic. I quickly rushed through stretches and entered the park, but in the time it took me to stretch and walk to my normal starting place my hands and feet had lost any semblance of warmth they had.

The first two miles were rough. The neck warmer was actually a big help and kept my face warm so that I could use my exhales to warm up my hands. My feet, however, were not so lucky. Within a few minutes they were completely numb—damn these shoes built for warm weather! I tried pounding the floor harder, that didn’t do anything. So I tried scrunching up my toes every time I kicked up my feet, it order to rub some warmth into the shoes. I just needed something to warm up my feet until my internal furnace started cranking.

By Mile three I was good. All my extremities were warm and non-frost bitten and I was finally getting into a decent long run pace (~9:00 min/mile).

There was one funny thing about NYC runners that I learned on this run: no matter how cold it is, someone will be wearing shorts. I didn’t think it was even possible to run in the weather in shorts, but half way through Saturday’s run I saw the lone runner in shorts. His legs were bright red and it just looked painful. I was too flabbergasted to even throw some witty comment his way.

Toward the end of the run I passed by the CNN LED screen that you can see from Tavern on the Green. It was 10:33am and a desolate nine degrees. When I passed by again two miles later it was still nine degrees. So. Freaking. Cold.

Actually, it was so cold that icicles formed on my head! Yes, icicles--as in the plural. At first it was just a little chunk of ice that I thought fell from a tree and melted onto my hat. But when it grew back I realized that sweat was dripping down from my hat onto my glasses and the icicles would form in the little space between my glasses and my face. I thought that there was just the one icicle that I could see out of the corner of my eye. But when I snapped a picture later, apparently I had a whole colony of icicles hanging out on my head, plus a clump of ice covering my headphone. This must have been why that woman was staring at me so oddly at the end of my run:

Rants and raves

RAVE: Yesterday was a beautiful day for a run. A little warm (high 70s) but I stayed in the shade most of the time so it felt cooler.

RANT: Where the hell is runner etiquette in New York? On the Brooklyn Bridge my running brethren forced into the biking lane several times. WTF? Protect your own NYC runners, protect your own.

RANT/RAVE: Yesterday was the last day of Summer Streets. I hope it comes back next summer.

RAVE: Finally found the water station set up for Summer Streets at 23rdish Street and Park Ave--I was really counting on it yesterday.

RAVE: I purposely made yesterday's run hilly to prepare for my next races--both of which will be very hilly, why do I always do the hilly races? I went over the Queensboro Bridge (130 foot climb), the Brooklyn Bridge (135 foot climb), and Harlem Hill (130ish foot climb). I ran through all of them and felt great except for my knees who weren't happy with all that climbing.

RANT: My knees, still in pain from the 400 feet of climing, coordinated with my stomach to stop the run. On the easiest part of the run--the pancake flat loop around the Central Park Resevior--I got a rumble in my stomach that went straight, um, south. It stopped me dead in my tracks, caused me to make a half-mile walk to the nearest bathroom, and generally f'd up my run. After the bathroom break I tried to get back on track to finish the run, but then I got hungry (huh? again?) and started to get stitches. Ended up doing 18.7 miles. Sheesh.

RAVE: Yesterday was the two week mark until the Maple Leaf Half-Marathon. What does that mean? At this point all my running neuroses heighten and I start my slow decent into obsession about the race. I check the race's website for updates everyday. I print out a small forest's worth of car reservations, race confirmations, and directions. I create my playlist (you know how long a process that is). Usually about a week before the race I separate out all my race day clothing to make sure I don't use them that week. As wifey can attest, by race morning I am a different person: I don't talk, I just eat and get out the door and expect anyone that's going to the starting line with me is following. It's the type of craziness that I thrive in.

A rare 1983 vintage

I went for a 70-minute run this morning. I don't know if it was the hill work or ceiling fans that weren't on, but I was sweating like a fat man in a cake shop. I mean this was a ridiculous amount of sweat. The pooled up sweat from my shorts was splashing onto my calves and the rivers of sweat coming off my elbows were showering the treadmill. I actually started to wonder if I was splashing the people around me.

But then I got a whiff of something. It was subtle at first, but over the course of the run it grew stronger and more fragrant. Now, I know where your mind is going with all the fart and poo talk that I like to throw around, but this wasn't FOM or a sign for me to visit Miguel. I smelled, of all things, wine--white wine to be exact, perhaps a chardonnay.

I looked around at the handul of other runners, they were too far for me to smell them, so it had to be me. I smelled like chardonnay? No, correction: my sweat smelled like chardonnay? What dark magic was this?

I went through the rest of my run convinced I was sweating wine--although I've haven't drank the stuff in a week. When I got home I eagerly woke up wifey and told her to smell me. She gave me one of those "I am waking up just now and you're asking me to do what?" kind of stares that she has perfected over the past few years. I explained to her that my sweat smells like chardonnay. She continues her half-eyed look of death, but braves a sniff. She confirms that I indeed smell: it is funky and rank and I need to shower that stink off.

Huh? But when I was on the treadmill I swore I was an oak barrel and there were several gallons of fermenting grape juice inside of me. What the hell? I take a whiff and sure enough, I now stink. I guess the wine smell is only when I'm actually running. Good thing I'm not an alcoholic because this would have posed a really big issue otherwise.

Ultimate pain weekend

People, it hurts. It all hurts.

• I got sunburned. Saturday we went to the beach with a couple of friends. My sunburn from Independence Day weekend had soothed away and most of the peeling had subsided--which I took as a clear sign that I could go back to the beach and be fine. Wrong. Even though I applied generous amounts of sunblock before even going outside I still managed to not only get sunburned on my shoulders and stomach again, but it appears that since my skin hasn't fully recovered it has turned an alarming shade of red in those areas.

• I got stung by a jellyfish. While at the beach getting said sunburn, we went in the water. And what was in the water? Jellyfish. But I didn't need to go in the water to see that: the carcasses of dead jellyfish lined the entire beach, and momma always said "when there's dead jellyfish on the sand, there's live jellyfish in the water." Ok, momma didn't always say that--but I'm sure she thought it once or twice and meant to tell me. But amazingly the water was also full of people, so I thought that maybe they were the non-stinging variety. Also wrong. Every time I came out of the water some part of my body would sting for a couple minutes before gradually fading away.

• I ate really hot Thai food. The menu said that drunken chicken was only two stars. One star = mild spicy. Two stars = medium spicy. Three stars = hot spicy. Oh Jesus, medium spicy is not medium. Medium spicy is opening the front door to hell hot. I was sweating out of every gland on my body. I went through two napkins just in padding down the sweat from my face. So good, but so spicy.

• I saw "Be Kind, Rewind." Why do I keep on watching Jack Black movies?

• I was running afire. Running in July is just asking for pain. It's hot, it's humid, and there isn't a cloud to be found. Now compound this with the sunburn from above and you have a catch-22. While I was running, the wind blew my body's heat away from my sunburned (and super-senisitive to heat) skin. However, I was getting fatigued faster because of the high temps and high humidity. But if I did stop, the heat emitting from my body wasn't being away and would set my skin on fire. So I didn't want to keep on running, but I couldn't stop.

• I chafed my man-parts. Oh yes, I did--even sRod Jr. got caught up in the painfest. I was wearing new shorts and I noticed they were a bit snug when I put them on before the run. Nothing was uncomfortable, just not as loose as usual. Since I had never worn this brand before (Insport) and they were my usual size, I just figured that was how they were supposed to fit. I mean who's ever heard of shorts running small? Anywho, I proceed to stuff the shorts pocket with my phone (in it's plastic baggie) and a bag of Clif Bloks--which only serves to make the shorts feel more snug. I don't notice anything unusual until I hit the shower after the run. At which point I let out a scream like a Catholic school girl and shouted some words that a Catholic school girl should not know. It felt the same way that my nipples feel when I forget to put Body Glide on--ouch! Could you imagine if I was running for more than 12 miles? What if this was a 20 miler? Oh Jesus. Let's not think about that.

I think I'm done. This is enough pain to merit the hair on my chest. Now to go lube up in aloe vera.

Independence Day Weekend, Part One

I'll be taking two looks at this past holiday weekend. Part One will be a recap of the eventful runs of the weekend. Part Two will be meandering on subjects non-running related.
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A few days before heading down to South Florida to visit the family for a sun drenched holiday weekend Jess convinced me to run the Weston Independence Day 5K with her and Viv. A nice little blogging friends meet and race (vs. a meet and greet). Little did I know that Weston is the land of PRs! It's true: they were giving them away like water! I PR'd by default since it was my first 5K (yes, my first), but Jess managed to shave 20 seconds off her 5K best and Viv did some trimming around the ol' 5K hedge too.

I was actually sitting next to Jess and Viv for about 10 minutes before I realized it was them. Once we finally found each other we all chatted for a bit before heading over to the starting line.

I mentioned to Jess and Viv that I was discovering all the peculiarities of 5Ks this morning, but I had three major ones. First off, there are so many kids. The place was just crawling with them. Jess informed me that they are also called "hurdles" and that I should be careful around them because they are know to stop without warning in the middle of the road.

Second, the race felt so casual. The mood in the air was one of "good morning, it's turning out to be a splendid day, let's have 5K." By comparison, a marathon starting line feels like a funeral.

Third, there are a lot of casual runners in a 5K. Once again, I'm used to the months of preparation that Marathoners and Half-Marathoners have under their belt. I'm used to three miles being a warm-up. I'm not used to seeing people throw up before the one mile mark or walking before the three mile mark--yet I saw both during this race.

I crossed the finish line in a palindromic 23:32, a pace of 7:40 per mile. Whoa, not too shabby for someone who’s used to racing at an 8:30+ pace. I'm sure I left something on the table for my next 5K because by the time the race sarted the sun was high and beating down hard. If it was any longer it would have been torture.

Jess finished a few minutes after me and Viv and Shane showed up a few minutes after her. However, Viv and Shane managed to find the free food tent before meeting back at Starbucks and were holding the food of the gods: cranberry bagels. I think any bagel would have been tasty after the race, but there is something particularly delicious about cranberries baked into a circle of doughy goodness.

My other Independence Day weekend run was the very next morning. It was my first long run in preparation for my autumn double header: The Maple Leaf Half-Marathon and The Breakers Marathon. I woke up at 6:10 in order to start running before the sun got too intense. I was on the Hollywood beach boardwalk by 6:30, just in time to see the blood orange sun crawl out of the ocean. Fortunately, there were lots of clouds to keep me covered—but I knew in no time the mercury would hit 90 and the faint sea breezes would provide very little relief.

I headed south along the boardwalk. All the restaurants and bars that were exploding onto the boardwalk the night before were empty and closed. The stark contrast made the scene feel a little post-apocalyptic.

I crossed over the Intercoastal waterway onto Hollywood Boulevard and went to Young Circle and back to A1A (for those of you familiar with Hollywood). On the way back I started getting a rumble in my stomach...and not the good kind. I made it over the bridge back to the beach and knew that I couldn’t go much further without a bathroom break. I started thinking of what bathroom I could possibly use at 7:15 in the morning: there wasn’t a Starbucks for miles, all the restaurants were closed, and I would get lost in a hotel before I could find the public bathroom. I finally had to stop and walk the rest of the way to the amphitheatre (about mile 5.5). It was a bit further than I wanted to walk, but I knew there was an open bathroom there because I passed it on the way down the boardwalk.

I did my business and got back on with the run—which was much easier to do than I anticipated. I went up A1A to Sheridan Boulevard, hung a left, and did a repeat of two bridges as the sun emerged from the clouds and cranked up the heat from “uncomfortable” to “fry cooker." My shorts were soaking wet and sticking to my legs. My shirt felt like a mop. Then my remaining good earphone gave out. Kaput. Dead. I had sweated them to death. They served me well, but daaaaaamn they didn’t even last five months.

I finished the run staying just under a 9:00 pace--which is exactly what I wanted. And then I topped it all off with a dip in the ocean right afterward. The water was cool and calm (both rare for July in Miami) and I was able to just float for about 10 minutes. Every workout should end like this!

Then the bad news. I got out of the water, collected my shoes, shirt, iPod, and rather moist phone, and went to the shower to get the sand off me before going inside the hotel. After rinsing off I noticed that even the inserts in my shoes were sweaty--and that never happens. So I decided to check on my phone. I had been on several sweaty runs with my phone before so I wasn't concerned about carrying it in my pocket for the whole run.

What a mistake. What a BIG mistake.

Turns out that I sweated my phone to death. I turned it on and it started dialing all these crazy numbers. The screen turned black and I could see the drops of dew that had formed behind the screen. It was a goner. Monday morning I had to go to the Sprint store to buy a new one (yea for the new toy, boo for having to pay for it).