Notes on a Running Life

Icy Trails and New Friends

2012-02-06T17:13:00.001-05:00

This past Saturday, my wife Monika and I headed south of Minneapolis to meet up with a few fellow trail runners at Lebanon Hills Regional Park. Since our arrival in the great north-upper-midwest (or whatever you want to call this location), I've been digging around the internet looking for a group or team or some folks who we might connect with around off-road running. Finally, on meetup.com, I found a local group who might fit the bill. Organized by John, they were offering an introductory run at this park of about 7 miles, staying off of the ski trails.

After working out some babysitting details so that we could both join in the fun, Monika and I found our way to the parking lot and met John, Joe, and John. Yes, it was a little confusing, but probably only to us. Nice guys, and primed to show off a park they loved to run. Admittedly, the unusually mild winter this year made this possible, as John #1 admitted that he'd much rather be on XC skis this time of year. Ah, well, to our advantage I guess.

After quick introductions and a bit of shivering in the brisk air, we headed downhill to the trails and immediately faced our first section of sheer ice. The light snow cover has been melting and re-freezing night after night for the past week or so, and back in the woods this made for some slippery going. It would be a theme all day, and we often ran along the very edges of the paths, seeking just a little traction in the remaining snow or even tip-toeing through the brambly underbrush on either side of the trail. I realize those who love to run on roads will never quite understand this, but there is a kind of primal joy in picking your way along a trail in this way. It's a combination of testing your agility, practicing careful balance, focusing your concentration, and just plain proving you are tough enough to do this that make the action more rewarding than yet another plodding slog around on cold asphalt. At least in my opinion. And well worth the little scratches on your ankles and the effort to pick the burrs off of your socks.

We must have hit just about every possible hiking-only trail in that park. Along the way, we heard about the Upper Midwest Trail Runners, enough to convince us to join soon. That group organizes three different Grand-Prix-style racing series, using area trail races. That's exactly the kind of connection we are looking for, and we hope to join them for as many races as we can over the coming months.

The run, despite the slipping and sliding and waiting for each other, seemed to go by very quickly. Before we knew it, we were back in the parking lot, being handed chocolate chip cookies and basking in the after-glow of running in the woods. To my knowledge, no one fell down, although I think we all came close repeatedly.

Unfortunately we had to bolt out of there to get back to our son and the babysitter, because it would have been fun to stay and chat. Maybe next time. I'll say this: nice guys, clearly loved the park we ran, full of facts and opinions about the place and area races, and obviously eager to have more of these kind of casual, let's-go-run-a-trail kind of mini-events. Count us in!

Patience is a virtue

2011-11-03T18:21:00.001-04:00

I have plenty of stories to tell about dozens of races in which I tore out from the start, hell bent for leather, only to crumble well before the finish line. One would hope to learn from such experiences, but I suppose mistakes are part of being human - including repeated ones. In fact, prior to last weekend my most-recent race was the Surly Trail-Loppet Half-marathon in Wirth Park here in Minneapolis. It was a hot September day, I over-estimated my fitness and started too fast. By the final three miles, the heat and exhaustion had overwhelmed me - I was walking about half of the time, and being passed left and right. Finished in 24th, after having been top ten early in the race. Went home really embarrassed and disappointed. Only found out later in that week that I'd actually won my age group. I guess getting older can have a few benefits, because I ran a terrible race and sort felt like I didn't deserve the age group win.

That might be an odd introductory paragraph for this post, because in this case - a trail race I completed last weekend - I was able to practice real patience and self-restraint, recognizing the distance and difficulty of the course and understanding that every step was included in the final result. And it paid off.

The race: It's called Surf the Murph, and it was actually three separate races rolled into one event: 50 miles, 50 kilometers, and 25 kilometers. The actual loop in Murphy-Hanrehan Park (Savage, MN) was 16.7 miles in length, so while three of those loops would hit 50 miles nearly exactly, you can do the math to see that the other races were more like 54 and 27 kilometers each. Well, that's trail racing. You want accuracy, go run on the roads or the track.

My current fitness ruled out the two longer races, so I entered the 27k. I arrived, after getting lost just once while driving in unfamiliar territory in the morning darkness, about an hour after the 50 mile racers had started, just in time to see the 54k racers take to the course. The 27k would be the final start, one hour later. It was brisk, about 30F with a clear sky but no real winds. Shivering in the bathroom line was a common denominator for all of us. Of course, if you know me you know I like to race in the cold, so this was good news for me.

Having never run in this park before, I didn't know quite what to expect. I'd been fore-warned by a couple of friends that there would be some sharp ups and downs, and the "Surf" in the title was an easy clue to the way the hills just kept coming, like ocean waves. I was determined NOT to repeat my fiasco at the Surly Trail-Loppet. No fast starts today.

As the starter sent us off, I tried to focus all of my attention on myself, how I felt, and ignore the runners around me - not always easy, this race taking place on Halloween weekend, and having several costumed competitors, including a sandal-wearing Neanderthal running just in front of me. Of course, it's still a race, so as we sloped down and around the first corner, I quickly tabulated thirteen bobbing heads on the trail ahead of me - putting me in 14th place.

The first 3 miles or so included some relentless ups and downs. None were more than maybe 100 feet, but they were steep and frequent. Running up is just guts, but running down is about form and efficiency. Downhills have never been my forte, but I stayed relaxed and tried to allow gravity to help.

Without trying at all, I slowly wove past three runners, and hit the first aid station just before 3 miles sitting in 11th place. I was happy with that, figuring that I was probably doing just fine in my age group, and knowing that I'd been holding back a lot - so hoping for a stronger run in the final miles of the race.

The second aid station was said to be at about 5.5 miles, and I'd moved to 9th place by then - again, not trying to run anyone down, just staying relaxed and doing my thing. I didn't have any more runners in sight ahead of me, so figured it was unlikely I'd catch anyone else on the day. At that point, I was averaging over 9 minutes per mile (I told you it was hilly - we did some walking on the uphills).

During the next 30 minutes, we began to catch the tail end of the 54k racers. This surprised me - they had a 1 hour head start, and I was about an hour into this loop. If I was running 9:00 miles, this meant that they had taken about 2 hours to "run" the first 7 miles of their race - something like 18:00 mile pace. Ouch. Those guys were in for a very long day. they still had 25 miles to go!

Things started getting more confusing after this. I was catching and passing people, but which race were they running? I tried to use logic: if I saw someone, then caught and passed them within a minute or less, I assumed they were in the 54k. If I saw someone, but had to run them down over a few minutes before going by, then they must be in my race. But what about the guy walking and stretching his hamstrings? And what about the three guys standing at the aid station at 12.4 miles - which race were they in? Hmm.

Making some assumptions (playing games in my head), I figured I could be anywhere from 5th place all the way up to 2nd, but there was no way to tell for sure. The final 4.3 miles to the finish flew by, and I had finally opened up the throttle and gone into full-on race mode, running as hard as I could to pass as many people as I could. I had to thrash through the underbrush a couple of times, as some 54kers - at least I THINK they were 54kers - refused to move to the side - sigh. To be honest, most of them were totally cool and polite and encouraging, it was just two dunderheads who refused to yield the trail to me, despite my asking politely more than once. Yeesh.

I pushed through to the finish, a very casual set up, with a table of friendly volunteers. No idea what place I'd garnered, I asked a volunteer, who said, "I don't know, second maybe? I think some guys are in already". All right, but what does that mean, and what if runners in the 54k had dropped out at the end of their first loop? Hard to tell.

I decided that it didn't really matter. I'd run a MUCH better race than last time, finished very strong, and felt like I could have gone another mile or two if I'd had to do so. I grabbed some snacks, made sure to thank the volunteers, congratulated the race director for a great event, then headed home.

Waited for several days for results to be posted, which was a bit frustrating. Finally, they were up, and I saw myself listed as 2nd place - okay, that was more-or-less what I expected. What I didn't expect was that the winner was a 58 year old from St. Paul. Fifty-eight?? Dude, I want to know what you have for breakfast! Beat me by 11 minutes too, stomped me. I was curious - this guy had to be an outstanding age-grouper around these parts - so I searched the internet for the name and race results. Nothing, except one of those Mud-Warrior events from last summer, showing a mid-pack finish. Wow, this 58 year old guy came out of nowhere and won a 27k trail race? Then I finally found some links to the name - and the right age - but it was related to some guy who lost almost 100 pounds using some special intense training regimen - didn't look like a runner. Hmm. Weird. Well, kudos to you buddy. Nice run.

The next day, just out of curiosity, I took another look at the results. Lo and behold, I was listed as first place! I guess it was a scoring error or something, but that other guy was now way down the standings, and there I was in first. Hey, I'm an old codger now, I don't WIN races! Or, do I? If I'm patient enough, run to my strengths, build momentum and come flying home in the last miles ... maybe I do!

I last won a race back in 2008, and I was convinced it would be the very last race I would ever win. I was wrong. To say I'm on cloud nine right now would probably be an understatement. Let me bask in this one just a little while, I'm sure I'll be shot back down to earth the next time I toe the line. But I'll enjoy this feeling while it lasts.

Do cats always land on their feet?

2011-10-21T10:26:00.002-04:00

It's been MONTHS since I posted. And a busy-stressful-intense-changing few months at that.

In late June, a rug was pulled from beneath my feet, and my 14 year career came to an abrupt point of change. Like so many others in this stumbling economy, I was looking for work. Not an easy prospect.

In these situations, one can tumble headfirst and go splat, or one can be the proverbial cat, and land on one's feet. I suppose ultimately the choice is up to each of us. I'm not claiming any special powers or dexterity, just a doggedness. Can I claim that this attitude was developed over 30+ years of running, or is it a chicken-and-egg problem ... did my determination make me become and sustain myself as a runner? It's likely I'll never really know.

The deepest truth is that I have a supportive and helpful network of friends and colleagues who jumped into action at my call for assistance. If I was trying to be the cat - land on my feet - then I was a cat with many helping hands on my way down to the ground.

Those who helped - and I mean helped in so many different ways, from job leads to compassionate words and everything in between - have my eternal gratitude.

The end result? Well, I'll just say that I'm in a new city in a new time zone, and this morning I was running in the dark frosty pre-dawn, considering how lucky I am. New job (best one I've ever had, and for the best boss I've ever had), new house, new friends, new start, loving wife, great sons. I think it's safe to say I've landed on my feet.

Now I just need my feet to keep me running along. I've ambled past my 50th birthday, and now take aim at a new age group. Hmm, better get in shape again.

I will do my best to get back to posting more regularly. Have a 16.7 mile trail race coming up in just over a week, that should provide some grist for the mill. Good running to all.

700+ Races

2011-06-24T15:17:00.004-04:00

I promised some time ago to blog something about my long racing history. I've hesitated, because really it's just a long list of statistics. Maybe I should just share the master file as a google doc or something. We'll see.

In the meantime, skip the rest of this post if you really don't care. I won't mind, really. There is no way for me to summarize over 700 races in one blog post. Nearly every one of them has some kind of memory attached to it, the best and the worst and all in-between. I really do love running races. I love the challenge, the camaraderie, I even love the early mornings and the pre-race jitters. I suppose you already surmised that, because 700+ races is, well, a lot.

The truth is that I've run even more races than that, but I only started recording them in 1978. Before that, I'd run at least couple dozen races in track competitions while in Junior High School. I have no record of them, but it's fair to say that I was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to running. What I can recall from those halcyon days was getting my tail kicked by other kids of the same age who developed - physically - faster than I did. They all seemed so big and strong, and I was just a little tadpole next to them. It really wasn't until I was about 17 that I started to catch up physically (and actually had to start shaving, but that's another story).

My first recorded race was a 10k road race in Reedsburg, Wisconsin called The Butterfest Run. It had a popular reputation locally at the time, and many of the area's high school runners used it as a sword-crossing event mid-summer. I managed to record a time of 39:28 and finished in 37th place out of 104 runners - resplendent in my white cotton t-shirt and shorty-shorts.

The first race I ever won was in September 13, 1979, when I crossed the line first in a high school cross country meet run on my home course in Baraboo, Wisconsin. That course, now completely gone and made into suburban tract homes, was a bear, with two killer hills and one really steep downhill. I ran 17:51 for three miles, and beat the other 27 guys for my first-ever win. I think I sort of roared as I crossed the finish line, somehow at that young age it had seemed a long time coming. But it was also validation and redemption for that little boy who had been left in the dust only a few years earlier. Hard work had paid off. I could do this, and I could do it well. For an awkward teenager, that moment was enlightening and I guess I could say reassuring. You're gonna be all right, kid.

Since those early days, I have now managed to run at total of 706 races, at just about every distance from the half-mile up to 50 kilometers - for a grand total of 4493 miles of racing. I've raced on roads, tracks, trails, golf courses, and even in deep sand. I've raced at all hours of the day and night, and in every kind of weather you can imagine. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I've had some success, and of course I've had abysmal failures. I've crashed and burned out of marathons on more than one occasion, and simply had to admit that 26.2 miles wasn't going to be my forte. I've taken wrong turns and gone off-course. I've had races cancelled mid-way by horrendous thunderstorms, and I've had races in which I fell down more than once and still did well. In the end, at least to date, I've had my share of top finishes:

Together, that adds up to a top-five finish in 44% of my 706 races. I admit, most of those successful races happened years ago, and these days it only happens in low-key trail races.

My best times are also from years ago. Here's a summary chart of my personal records:

You can see that my glory years were in the mid-80s, and I've never quite been able to match those performances. Of course, matching those times can no longer be the goal as I approach age 50.

I can say that I still run races with the same combination of joy and determination that I had back in the 80s. I'm older, I'm slower, and I'm not trained as intensively ... but put me on a starting line and tell me to go, and I'll be off with all the effort I can muster on that day. I probably won't win, but I'll do my best.

If you don't write down your races, I suggest you start. It's a fun way to look back over the years, and to re-kindle some fond memories.

Do you think I can make it to 1,000 races some day? I can promise you this: if I fall short of 1000, it won't be for lack of trying.

That's a little better, at least

2011-06-20T22:53:00.004-04:00

Following Wednesday night's debacle of a run, I toed the starting line for the NYRR Portugal Day 5 mile road race last Sunday with more than a bit of trepidation. If the 6:10 pace I managed to struggle through for 1.5 miles on Wednesday was all I had in the tank, then 5 miles on the roads of Central Park were quite likely to be rather embarrassing.

Jogging to the starting area, I felt awful. This actually encouraged me. Let me explain.

For decades I've had this experience over and over again: how I feel while warming up for a race is almost always in total inverse proportion to my race performance.

I have no explanation or even theory about this odd phenomenon. Seems rather unlikely, and definitely counter-intuitive ... but if I feel like crud during a warm up jog, I seem to race better than average. Go figure. But maybe you too can use this stranger-than-fiction to keep your mental attitude positive even when the first couple miles of a workout, warmup, or race feel horrible: It could actually be a good sign!

Back to the race. The crowded corrals at the start - a now-ubiquitous experience with NYRR races - actually didn't help at all (no surprise there). I find it just plain difficult to be forced to line up almost 20 minutes pre-start for a short road race. Standing in a crowd, literally feeling my diligent warmup and stretching routines fade away, is really frustrating. I can cope with this when it's a long race like a marathon, but for a five mile road race - where you need to get moving at the gun - that's close-to-impossible after standing still for so long.

Be that as it may, I did what I could.

First mile: Slow start as usual, and I saw many of my teammates up ahead as I managed a 6:09 for the first mile. Good enough. I figured I'd fade from there.

Second mile - 5:56. Oops! Too fast, darn. But not feeling awful. And I was passing people. Hmm.

Third mile - Back to 6:09. The legs don't lie. Again, I figured I'd start fading at this point.

Fourth mile - no idea. Where did they hide that mile marker? I recall that there was a hose spraying mist onto the road, and several tables with water cups, and as I navigated the crowds around that point, I glanced at my watch wondering where on earth the 4 mile mark could be. My split time read 5:59, and in retrospect I must have been past the mark already. Never saw it.

Final mile: did my best to run hard, but started feeling really HOT and my legs starting to seize up a little. I covered the last two miles in 11:59, so I'm figuring about 5:57 for mile 4 and 6:02 for the fifth mile, but those are just guesses.

Finished in 30:12, which was actually kind of satisfying. Searchable Results here.

The fact that I am currently doing zero speedwork shows in obvious ways (I'm a tortoise!), but I did not suffer a repeat of Wednesday night, when even one mile at 6:10 pace felt really difficult.

I'll take it, and I'll see if I can build on it.

You Get What You Train For

2011-06-16T13:32:00.004-04:00

Ran the JPMorganChase Corporate Challenge 3.5 mile road race in Central Park last night (with over 15,000 of my "best friends"). I've run this darned race 24 times, dating back to the early 90s. I used to like it, but it has grown to such an enormous size that's it's become difficult to enjoy.

This year, I had a plan. First, I would be honest about my potential time. That was mistake number one. They seeded runners into corrals, and I received a green bib number, putting me in the 2nd corral. Watching the dozens of people who clearly are much slower than me pile into the red corral in front me was rather frustrating. My favorite: some dude, about 195 pounds, basketball sneakers, chewing a wad of gum and talking into his cell phone as they started the race - yeah, he was at least 10 rows in front of me. What do you think, did he break 8:00 pace for the race? 9:00 pace? I doubt it. He probably walked most of the way. Yeesh.

Back to the plan: regardless of how crowded and frustrating, I was going to run slightly slower than tempo pace for the first two miles, and if I felt okay I would open up and run the final 1.5 miles harder. Aiming for 6:45, I ran the first mile in 6:37; for the second mile, I was aiming for 6:35 and ran it in 6:34. Okay, not bad. However, as I tried to increase the pace, I found I was really laboring. At the three mile mark, having run a 6:10 mile that felt much harder than I expected, it dawned on me: YOU GET WHAT YOU TRAIN FOR.

This year, in an effort to avoid injury and get back to running consistently, I have forgone almost all types of fast workouts. Oh, I do a little tempo running now and then, but mostly I do good old LSD. The result: I'm fairly strong and I can run 6:35 pace and be able to chat with those around me a bit. But drop the pace just that little tiny bit (25 seconds per mile, that's only about a 6.5% change), and I'm wheezing like an asthmatic and feeling weak in the knees. I am simply not adapted to running that pace right now. I'm not trained for it, and it shows immediately.

I wobbled the final half mile in 3:04, and finished something like 250th on the night, with my second-worst time ever for this event. Sigh.

I'm not going to complain, or at least not too much. With me leaving my current employer at the end of this month, where I've been the Corporate Challenge team captain for the past 13 years, it means that I may never have to run this race again - and frankly I welcome that. I'm not so fast anymore, but I am still aware of proper race behavior - and this race is the worst example of race behavior you will ever see. In a field dominated by hacks, wannabes, and has-beens (guys who might have been decent jocks in high school but are overweight and untrained now), what you get is a mess. I was pushed, cut off, kicked, tripped, jammed, boxed, and just about any other bad descriptive racing term you can come up with. Running with a bunch of inexperienced and overly-macho guys is a nightmare. Of course, they push and shove and zig zag all over the course in the first mile to get way ahead of me, then I have to weave back through all of them during the next mile when they seize up and slow way down. And what's really great: they are aggressively pissed at me when I pass them, often giving me a little shove and some "words of encouragement" usually referring to me in colorful-if-not-totally-original terms. Morons. Dangerous morons.

So, I bid adieu to the Corporate Challenge. Used to be fun, now it's just frustrating. When can I get back to the trails?

When the Walls Come Tumbling Down

2011-06-15T11:06:00.004-04:00

Okay, I know it's been awhile since my last post. Apologies for that.

My "running life" is going fine. I ran a nice 10 mile trail race, the final race in the NJ Trail Series Spring line up. Results. What the results don't show: the early pace was fast, and I sat in 7th place for the first couple of miles. Then, we hit a very technical downhill section followed by a very rocky stream-side trail. I picked up the pace, and moved all the way up to 4th overall. There was also a 10k on the day, and during the final 3 miles of my race we were weaving our way through the 10k field (including my sister, who enjoyed the race despite getting lost and adding a mile or two). Before I realized it, I had run up to and passed the three runners in the front. Moving into first overall, I heard one of them shout, "He's in the 10 mile", and immediately I had two of the three right on my heels. I pushed it as best I could, but couldn't shake those young legs. With 500 meters remaining, they shifted gears and left me in their dust. Still, 3rd overall and actually leading the race in the final miles was pretty satisfying. Next up: silly Corporate Challenge tonight (which I will run as a workout), then a 5 mile road race on Sunday (my first road race in a long time - I wonder just how painfully slow I will actually be).

But enough about running. The tumbling walls I refer to in the title of this post are the walls of my career. After 14 years at The Metropolitan Museum of Art here in NYC, I will be leaving at the end of this month to seek my next venture. In essence, the department in which I am currently working is going through a restructuring, and that plan does not include a position suitable for me. Ouch. I've become another statistic of this nutty economy. Ugh.

So, I now enter the job market for the first time in a very long while. I'm rather rusty. I'll be trying to add some shine to my resume, and keeping an open mind about what to do next. I had never planned to work in an art museum, and I have to say it's been a great 14 year ride. I've learned so much, met so many incredible people, and been a part of many, many interesting projects. This is just "one of those things" in life - a forced change, but frankly not a total shock. I could see that my role was a bit unclear looking to the future, so the time had simply come.

Wish me luck. With the support of my loving wife, great friends, helpful colleagues, and of course my old pal Running, I believe I will see this through and find something soon - maybe even something really exciting and satisfying. At least I hope so.

Chin up, as they say. Or "Keep Calm and Carry On".

And, hey, if you are an employer, I'm all ears!

Beers and Bloggers

2011-05-20T21:47:00.003-04:00

I agree that "Beers and Bloggers" sounds both typical and potentially embarrassing (for all involved), but in this case neither element reared its ugly head.

I was invited to attend an event last night, hosted by NYC Runs and JackRabbit Sports. The invite stated, "Join fellow NYC Running bloggers for a short run followed by beer and pizza ... We'll talk about our blogs, and for many of us have the rare chance to meet face to face".

Cool.

I can't say that I spend an inordinate amount of time blogging, or reading every blog I can find. In fact, I've always felt a little bit that most bloggers - including me - are at least somewhat infected with an inflated sense of self-importance. I mean, ultimately, who really cares about my barely-top-20 finish in some obscure trail race?

That being said, I do think that there are really smart folks out there who blog in very clever ways - and I met some of them last night. I'm not saying any of us are literary geniuses, but I do come across posts that make me think, or laugh, or both - with a fair bit of frequency. And my own posts, which I know can vary rather significantly in terms of quality and level of interest, might occasionally engender some intriguing comments or emails.

In the end, perhaps it is worth something to put your thoughts and experiences out there for the world to see. You just might inspire, entertain, and/or make a small difference for a reader or two - and that alone seems worth the time. When I was in graduate school studying psychology, I remember one professor saying something like, "If your ambition is to change the world, good luck with that one. But if your goal is to HELP change the world by doing something good for ONE person TODAY, well now that's something you can accomplish."

I don't mean to imply that anything I've ever posted here is actually accomplishing something special. In fact, I often think that most of what I write is rather dull and potentially sleep-inducing. But I do think that all of the bloggers that met last night - combined - have a shot at doing a few good deeds now and then.

I think I have digressed a bit here. Back to the event last night.

We met at the new Jack Rabbit Sports store on West 72nd on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Nice new store, friendly staff. About a dozen of us in attendance, and Steve Lastoe of the afore-mentioned NYC Runs serving as emcee. We headed over to Riverside Park for a short run, and of course ended up breaking up into pairs and trios pretty quickly - our connection is because we are bloggers in the NYC area with a running focus, not our common running pace. I was able to run and chat with a couple of folks I'd never met before, and they were great. I've added their blogs to my list on the right (you may need to scroll down).

After the run, we retired to the basement of the store to a nice new common room for beer and pizza slices. No formal presentations or announcements, just chatting and connecting. All in all, the event was a nice grass-roots-community-low-key-get-together kind of thing. The time passed too quickly, and soon we were saying our good nights and disappearing into the night.

I hope that we can do it again sometime soon. It was great to meet face-to-face, and now those blog posts will carry a deeper personal significance for me. I hope that statement applies to all.

Race Report: Soapstone Mountain Trail 24k

2011-05-16T09:09:00.011-04:00

After reading my friend Steve Wolfe's description of this race last year, I knew I wanted to run the Soapstone Mountain 24k trail race someday. Luckily, someday arrived this past weekend - thanks to my wife's kindness and generosity, because it's a long drive from NYC to Northeast Connecticut and she knew I'd be away for most of the day.

I recruited my sister and her son to join me and my 10 year old son for the day's fun. We expected some rain, and it poured on us for the first half of the drive. Not a great sign, because the weather generally flows from the SW to the NE, so we were getting a preview of what would likely be arriving at the race site later in the morning.

Arriving about an hour before the scheduled start time, we parked in a wet field and headed for race day registration. They weren't quite in the groove yet, and there was a funny little exchange when I tried to sign up for the 24k but they got confused about which bib numbers were for which race (they also have a 6k "sampler" race that my sister was running, with handicapped start times). Eventually we got it sorted out, although I felt I had to keep apologizing because I had to ask two or three times if they were signing me up for the right race, and only on the last query did they realize their mistake. No big deal. In fact, I like these sort of mix ups in a funny way, because it shows that the race is a local, grass-roots event and not some big corporate undertaking. I'm not bashing those big sponsored races, I'm just saying I prefer the opposite.

The rain was holding off as we lined up for the start. There were about two dozen serious-looking dudes up front, then a little gap back to the rest of us. It's funny how different people handle those moments just before the gun. Some are dead serious, game-face on, focusing and ignoring everyone else. Others are non-stop chatterboxes, blathering on and on about something or other (shoes, amount of sleep, running this race several years ago when there were only a few guys showing up, etc.). Others are prancers: they dance and jump around, endlessly repeat their wind sprints, turn into infinite motion machines. I try to absorb it all, and take a moment to remember that I'm lucky just to be able to be there and take part. Well, that and swat at the mosquitoes.

We started a bit late, something about timers and laptops, again no big deal, and no one complained about it - cool. When the "Ready-Set-Go" was finally uttered, I settled into my usual start: falling behind immediately. Sigh.

Actually, I was a bit stunned at how fast these guys were hammering at the beginning of a 14.5 mile race. Granted, the gravel road was wide and trending down hill, but I couldn't help but believe they would pay later. I tried to count the runners in front of me, but there were too many - more than 30, maybe even more than 40. I jockeyed around a little with a couple of guys, but eventually we hit the first steep climb and formed the single file line for the day.

I actually passed two guys scrambling up that first steep hill. Not on-purpose, but because they wanted and asked me to pass them. I guess my being right on their heels made them push too hard, or maybe annoyed them - though I hope not, I think that I'm a pleasant fellow to climb muddy hills with. Oh, well.

The rain started to come down lightly about 30 minutes into the race, for me that was around the first aid station, which I exited at 32:10 after grabbing some water. I was trying to hold back my effort and save something for the second half of this race - partly because I know I'm not quite fit enough to push a 14.5 mile race right now, regardless of how technical the course might be. Adding in hills and rocks and mud, that only makes the effort that much harder.

I was running just behind two others at this point and had been for 2-3 miles. Unfortunately I don't have any names, but they were strong and consistent, and seemed to know the course. I was being patient, waiting, breathing, relaxing. I was catching them on the uphills, they were descending faster than me.

As we neared the second aid station at about the halfway mark, the skies turned dark and the rain picked up. I took one quick sip of water to wash down a gel, and exited at 1:01:18. That time seemed slow to me, but I was trying to be patient and run within my current abilities. Within a couple of minutes, it was absolutely pouring rain, and that would continue nearly without interruption through the rest of my race.

The fact is that I like running in the rain, and I like mud and water on my trail runs. Partly because I know I'm better at running in that stuff than most people, and partly because of the sheer childish joy of splashing around in mud puddles (without getting yelled at by my mother). But this was tough. The course became a combination of wet rocks and deep muddy puddles - not only tough to run in, but frankly a bit dangerous - the rocks were slippery, and the puddles were hiding both their actual depth and any obstacles within (rocks, sticks, mud). We had to run with more control and less abandon than we otherwise would, which probably slowed the overall times.

I started to pick runners off, one by one. First, my two companions. Then, slowly but surely, I started reeling in the fast starters in front of me. By the third aid station, which I hit in 1:41:33, I thought that perhaps I'd passed about 6 - 10 other runners (I wasn't counting, it was definitely more important to concentrate on the course than on the other runners). with about 3 miles to go - I think - it was now or never. I did my best, given conditions, to open up my pace and finish strong. I was passing runners every 2-3 minutes. I'm not sure how many I finally managed to pass, but I ended up 19th overall with a time just under 2 hours and 4 minutes. Not great, but not awful. My quads were beginning to cramp slightly during the final 10 minutes, so I think I probably ran as hard I as I could on the day.

After changing into dry clothes and grabbing a cup of hot chili (man, that was really good chili), I saw a print out of the preliminary results. The winner (Jim Johnson, I think) had run 1:36, which I understand may be a course record. (Update: Found results on CoolRunning). Impressive, especially under those conditions. In 19th place overall, I was only 7th place among the over-40 crowd: those guys are tough. My only consolation prize: Everyone who ran faster than me was also younger than me. Good enough at this stage in my career, I'll take it. If I can get back to this race next year after I turn 50 years old, I can aim for a higher age-group place. Time will tell.

My sister enjoyed the sampler, and my son and his cousin enjoyed getting wet and muddy while playing around in the woods for a few hours. We all devoured veggie burgers post-race and then trekked the 3 hours back to NYC, driving through even more torrential rain. Nasty weather, but a great race. I wish it was a little closer to home!

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-09T09:05:00.003-04:00

I'm certain that I'm one of the very few husbands in the world whose wife requests this for her Mother's Day gift: Let's go to a trail race and run together!

I'm one lucky guy.

So, we hired a babysitter, piled into the car, and drove out to Lewis Morris Park in New Jersey on Saturday morning to run the NJ Trail Series Spring Race #3 - half-marathon. It was a gorgeous morning, sunny with no real wind, birds singing, a great day for a fun race.

Footnote to other parents out there: the little guy didn't get car sick this time - thank goodness. And he had a ball with the babysitter, throwing rocks into a stream, and even seeing a snake, which he reacted to with both sheer joy and utter terror. Funny.

Back to the event: I've sung the praises of Jennifer and Rick McNulty on this blog before, so I won't repeat myself too much. Why do I like their races so much? Because they are just-challenging-enough, low-key, friendly, attract a small but strong field, welcome experts and beginners with the same enthusiasm, and - of course - there's a cold one waiting at the finish line.

This was my wife's first race in this series, and she just wanted to "run, not race". We were definitely going to stay together throughout the 13.1 miles, and enjoy the chance to run with each other, something that's been rather hard to do since our son was born 2.5 years ago - especially on trails where the jogging stroller just would not be appropriate. When we were on our honeymoon in 2007, we spend the penultimate day running together in a trail race on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay. It was a beautiful day, and we were just in it for the fun and the spectacular views. Of course, by the halfway point we realized that the top two women were mere seconds in front of us, and I asked Monika if she wanted to catch them. She said, "Go!", and a few miles (and one screaming descent) later she had won the race.

Deja vu? Pretty much. As the race started and the small field did a short 0.7 mile lap before heading into the single track for two 10k loops, we could see the lead woman (Jessi) just a bit ahead. For the first 2 or 3 miles, we were just running along. I think maybe I was talking too much, but I was excited to be with Monika in the woods, and the pace felt perfect for me. I'm not all that fast right now, but I'm feeling fairly strong. I noticed that we were typically making up ground on Jessi during the uphills, then losing time on the descents. She was a smooth and fast downhill runner.

Around the 5k mark, the single track opens up onto a fire road for maybe 800 meters. The road slowly rises, and this time we caught lead woman. I could sense that Monika wanted to push a little - despite our plan to "just run", she can't help but be a little competitive, she is a runner after all. Because she generally wants me to lead on single track - calling out obstacles and doing the navigation while she can just concentrate on running - I picked up the pace just a little. We still had nearly 15km to go, so no need to get anxious yet.

Finishing the first lap, we stopped for water briefly at the start/finish. Couldn't spot the babysitter and the boy, they were hiking around the lake somewhere. As we started running again I could see Jessi maybe 15 seconds behind us. This could be a race after all.

On the second lap, I kept asking Monika if the pace was all right. She kept wanting me to turn it up a little, and in fact on one descent she actually passed me and opened up a small gap! I was occasionally glancing back, and I could no longer see anyone behind us.

As we neared the finish, I wanted her to finish ahead of me, she said the opposite - a good couple, right? In the final 50 meters I slowed to let her pass. We were celebrating Mother's Day after all. She earned a strong first place as part of that celebration, and we came in 6th and 7th overall. Results. We ran the second lap a bit harder in terms of effort, but in fact the split for the second 10k was a bit slower than the first (the lap one split time includes the 0.7 mile loop, so split one is for 6.9 miles - 8:00 pace - and split two is for 6.2 miles - 8:20 pace).

It was a great day, and my wife was all smiles. Happy Mother's Day my love.

And Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there.

Race Report: Leatherman's Loop 2011

2011-05-02T08:54:00.015-04:00

In my previous post, I mentioned that there is always a bit of adventure in the Leatherman's Loop race. This year was no exception.

Little did I know that my adventure would start pre-race. I'll spare you all of the disgusting details, just suffice it to say that my youngest son got rather intensely car sick on the way to the race. Ugh. Had to pull over a couple of times to try to clean him up and help him settle down. It was stressful, and made us arrive late to the race site.

That's a bad choice with the Loop, because it's a crowded race and there is a narrow entrance road, with a slow process of parking your car. Needless to say, it made the pre-race hour a blur of action - cleaning the car, getting bib numbers, establishing meeting points for the babysitter, trying to find a port-a-john, running around in circles ... you get the picture. And all of this on a day that turned out sunnier and warmer than expected. In retrospect, I was perfectly set up to have a disastrous race.

With each passing year, and as I continue to get slower and slower (see bottom of this post), I come to the crowded start of this race, look around, and have this immediate thought, "I will never be able to compete with all of these young, fit, talented athletes!" Mind you, that's not me being humble, it's me looking around and seeing a lot of guys who look like they will simply run away from me at the start, never to be seen again.

Two friends and teammates were on hand to try their first Loop. Matt Rosetti, hoping to be with the leaders, and Morgan Thompson, who downplayed his plans (but had that competitive twinkle in his eye). I found my wife in the crowd for a good-luck kiss (she was not planning on racing, she just wanted to have a nice run in the trails), and I could tell she was still stressed about our little one's problems in the car.

The Start.

After the customary race greetings and blessings, there was a rather confusing start, with Tony Godina saying something like, "Okay, let's get going" and then having to repeat himself and wave his arms before the hesitant and confused field finally charged across the damp prairie. I didn't get a bad start, considering. In fact, at about 150 meters I think I was holding around 20th place, but as we began the sweeping left hand turn to head into the trails, another dozen or more guys went right past me. I could tell that I was on the anaerobic edge at that moment, and just had to let them go. Hmm, not so good.

As we tip-toed through the first little stream and ensuing mud, a familiar voice said, "Hey, Douglas, you're supposed to be at the front!" It was Eric Scheffler, long-time friend and powerful ultra-runner, right on my shoulder. I couldn't think of anything witty to say, and blurted out, "This IS the front!" or something like that. Maybe I was actually trying to convince myself.

As is my custom, I set about the task of trying to weave through the pack over the next few miles. Post-race, Eric thought we'd been around 50th place, but I think it was more like 30-35th. Anyway, it was clear that it was going to be hard work.

It's also common in my experience at this race to have that one guy who is absolutely killing himself to stay ahead of me in the first couple of miles. This year it was some guy in a yellow shirt, who I kept passing every time the trail got technical or downhill, but who charged up every hill or flat spot to pass me back. His breathing was really labored, and I tried to ignore his tendency to bump into me every time he went by - maybe it was unintentional. This went on for nearly a mile, including the first water crossing (a fast-running stream, not quite waist-deep), which was rather slimy underfoot and not easy to clamber out of on the opposite bank.

Eventually, I managed to get by him and stay there, so that I could focus on my own race and what lay ahead. Looking forward, there was literally a line of 8 runners who I was pulling back slowly. I had no idea what place I was in at that point, I was thinking just inside the top 20, which matched my pre-race expectation. Hey, not so bad after all.

The next couple of miles included the "new" water crossing, which was the deepest of the day. I had pulled up onto the heels of the pack of eight, and we all hit the water rather clumsily within seconds of each other. George Buchanan, just in front of me, tried taking a dive and swimming across. Looked good to me, plus I was feeling rather hot and could use the cool dunk in the water. I executed a perfectly terrible dive, and thrashed away for a few strokes. I'm no competitive swimmer, that's for sure. Then again, none of us were. We must have looked laughable, really. A bunch of skinny guys flailing away, making a lot of noise and splashing like madmen, but barely moving forward. Comical.

Half way across, I was putting my feet down looking for rocks to push me along, and found that I could barely touch the bottom! Gulp. But through a combination of thrashing arms and hopping on my toes, I somehow managed to scramble out of there and pass three guys in the process. As I cut across the road and back into the mud, I thought, "My wife is going to kill me over that water crossing". She is a talented trail runner, but she likes RUNNING, not wading, and certainly not swimming, and if that water was up to my chin, she was going to be in over her head.

I managed to get past two more guys in the next half mile or so, leading up to the notorious sand "wall". This is impossible to run, you just have to hike it, and maybe use your hands to help you along. I do have a technique for this: use short, quick steps, and place your feet carefully. Most guys tend to lean too far forward, over-stride, and as a result lose traction at the moment of push-off. I was doing well until just near the top, when my right foot slipped on a push-off and I came to a dead stop. Argh.

Once over that hill, there was a bit of technical stuff remaining, then mostly fire roads until the third and final water crossing just before the finish line. I tried to push myself on the single-track, knowing that each guy I passed was probably capable of running me down on less-technical trails.

Pride cometh before the fall.

With about 1.5 miles to go, I made a typically human and stupid mistake. I started feeling good about myself. I thought, "Hey, I'm having a pretty good race!" and I stopped concentrating for just a few seconds (on a non-technical, double-track fire road). The next thing I knew, I was face down in the gravel. I must have clipped a small rock at just the wrong moment. Nearly knocked the wind out of me, but I'd managed to catch myself with palms, elbows, and right hip, so I hadn't smacked my knees or ribs. I hopped up, did a quick check, no major bleeding, no protruding bones ... okay then - run! Yeesh.

Shortly after that, old George came flying past me. He must have been saving something for the last mile. I did all I could, but I just could not match his pace. We have dueled on these short trail races for years, he usually gets the best of me, and he did that again on this day.

Photo credit Dawn Moore Photography

Approaching the final river crossing, I tried to muster a kick, but with no real speed training it was probably not noticeable to anyone who was watching. Pushing across the river and struggling uphill into the sun, I somehow managed to grab 9th place overall. Results.

In front of me, Matt had garnered 3rd place, and Morgan 4th. If it had been a team competition, we'd have done all right. Matt talked about how much he'd been in oxygen debt throughout the race, even on the downhills. I talked to him briefly about the trail runner's need to detach breathing rhythm from running rhythm, not an easy task but one that can separate champions from pretenders.

Jogging back to the river crossing, I watched for my wife to finish. Along came our friend Cassandra (5th woman, first in her age group) and Heidi Schaller (6th woman, doing her first trail race, "fell down only a couple of times"), and then Monika. She splashed across with our friend James Redmond, then headed uphill. I could tell she wasn't in the mood to kick it in. Still, she finished as the 7th woman overall, not bad for "not racing" the event!

By a stroke of luck, I somehow managed to win my age group (and the story is nearly identical to this race two years ago). The overall winner Tommy Nohilly is in his 40s, and of course actually "won" the 40-49 age group, but they eliminated the winner from the age-group awards (which is appropriate). George Buchanan is a old guy like me, but he's in his 50s, so his 8th place overall gave him first in his age group, leaving the 40s to me (the last time that will happen in this race, I'll be 50 years old this fall). My prize: a delicious fresh blueberry pie. Perfect.

Post-race, tracking down my family and chatting with friends, the warm sun shining ... a pretty good day. And Monika didn't seem too angry with me about crossing three rivers, partly because the people around her had been helping each other through the obstacles (trail runners rule!). I suppose I really should not complain. But I'm a runner, so I will, just a little. My left foot is sore and slightly swollen. I hope I just twisted it a bit and will recover this week. Think I'll do some cycling for a couple of days to let it rest.

The best news of the day? The little guy didn't get sick in the car on the way home. Whew!

My history at the Loop:

Year Time (Place) Notes

2000 40:22 (2nd) My first loop at age 38, much too late. I should have run this race earlier.

2002 40:51 (6th) Very competitive year.

2003 41:54 (4th) Getting older, getting slower.

2005 43:45 (6th) 1.5 years after reconstructive surgery on my Achilles.

2006 44:23 (3rd) Year of the raging river detour, and my now-wife Monika won the women's race.

2007 49:39 (30th) After only 2 weeks of training following months off with hip injury.

2009 44:47 (7th) Hot day melted my brain (click to read my post).

2011 45:05 (9th) With the added water crossing, I think the time compares well to 2009.

Found an awesome gallery of photos online here:

http://dawnmoorephotography.zenfolio.com/leathermans2011

Next Up: Leatherman's Loop

2011-04-27T15:57:00.003-04:00

My next race is one of my favorites in the area: the Leatherman's Loop. Taking place in Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Westchester County, this event is a 25-year tradition. It's a 10k trail race featuring two water-crossings, some sections of nice thick mud, an impossible uphill sand climb, and usually a few downed trees/ brambles/ eroded spots that add to the fun.

Of course, I prefer longer courses, especially at this stage in my career. The Loop begins much like a college cross country invitational: everyone seems to think that they deserve the holeshot, so they sprint the first 600 meters trying to get to the trails first ... then most of them slow way down to try to recover from the oxygen debt they've just created. This means that the, ahem, more-reasonably paced starters have to weave in and around those eager beavers for the next couple of miles. That's fine on a cross country course, where there is usually ample room to pass - but back in the single track trails of the Rez, it's not. One of my personal challenges on Sunday is to try to get out faster than the last time I ran this race, and then practice patience while getting past what I assume will be at least a couple dozen guys who've pushed the first half-mile too hard.

Besides, let's be honest: it's not like I have a chance to be up with the leaders anymore, so losing 20-30 seconds because of difficulty passing a few runners isn't going to be as significant as it once might have been for me.

The Loop sells out quickly these days, with many more hopefuls than the 1,000 runner limit that is rightfully imposed on the field. Both my wife and I are going to be running (she actually won the race once in the past, the best I ever did was 2nd place). Neither of us are at the top of our respective games these days, but I think we'll both do all right. I'm hoping to sneak into the top 20 overall, and I think she'll be top 5 among the women. We'll see, won't we?

Forecast calls for pretty nice weather, which is actually a disadvantage for me. Ah, well, it is what it is. Good luck to everyone else out there. Check back next week for a race report, there is usually some element of adventure to the Loop.

Epilogue: NYC Running Show

2011-04-24T13:34:00.007-04:00

Had a blast yesterday afternoon hanging out at the NYC Running Show and expo. Many top vendors, most with spacious booths, talking about their latest gear. Nice crowd of runners and triathletes on a rainy afternoon, milling about and chatting. I hope that they are able to make this an annual event.

Near the end of the day, I participated on a panel up on the main stage, with Steve Lastoe, Matt Lebow, Joe Garland, and Karla Bruning, who served as our moderator. We did our best to get the seated audience involved, by asking about their experiences and interests. Then we'd take that ball and run with it a bit on the panel. Not only was it good fun, but I'd like to think that we informed and inspired the attendees a bit, and frankly I learned a few things myself.

I wasn't surprised that there was quite a bit of interest in discussing trail running. The first question from the audience was about running trails in NYC. Each of had a slightly different take on this, from me discussing some of the great technical single track available in and around the city, to Matt extolling the virtues of the dozens of miles of trails on Staten Island, to Joe sharing his passion for the great carriage trails in Rockefeller Park.

I won't try to summarize the rest of the hour here, it would take far too many words and it's not like I was taking notes anyway. For those in attendance, I promised that I'd post a list of links to many of the things we were discussing. I'll try to group them in some semblance of order below. It's my hope that you might find something interesting or engaging by clicking through one or more of these links. Enjoy.

Trail Racing (Series, or sites where you can find great races put on by great people):

Western Mass Athletic Club (check out the Grand Tree race series)

NJ Trail Series (I've been enjoying these races lately, really great atmosphere)

Pretzel City Sports (For great trail races in Eastern PA)

Finger Lakes Road Runners (Upstate New York)

Trail Runner Magazine (large race calendar)

New York Adventure Racing Association (for those looking to add some variety beyond "just running")

Races (A few gems - some of the links are to the organizing clubs, check there for race entry info):

Mudders and Grunters (Westchester) March

Urban Environmental Challenge (Van Cortlandt Park) April

Long Island Greenbelt Trail Ultras (Long Island) May

VCTC Summer Series (Van Cortlandt Park) all summer long

Mt. Toby 14 mile trail race (Sunderland, MA) link is to Grand Tree Series, check back later for race site

Conestoga 10 mile Trail Run (Pennsylvania) September

Paine to Pain 13.1 mile Trail Race (Westchester) October

After the Leaves Have Fallen 20k (Minnewaska Park) November

Staten Island Greenbelt 25k & 50k (Staten Island) December

Pete McArdle 15k (Van Cortlandt Park) December

Relays (Not a comprehensive list, but some great races at a variety of distances, many mentioned yesterday):

Green Mountain Relay (Vermont) June

River to Sea (New Jersey) July

Catskill Mountain Relay (New York) August

Ocean to Sound (Long Island) September

Reach the Beach (New Hampshire) September

Ragnar (several races in many states & many months of the year)

Parks (with technical singletrack trails - not for beginners):

Fahnestock State Park

Harriman State Park

Highbridge Park (in northern Manhattan - go to this one as a group)

Get these maps (they cover many of the major trails in the immediate area):

NY NJ Trail Conference

Meet other trail runners here:

meetup.com NY Trail & Ultra Running

Blog posts about our panel (from the Panelists themselves):

Joe Garland

If I can think of other useful links, I'll add them to this list soon. Hope that this helps of few of you get out there and enjoy the woods. Remember: ease into trail running by starting with the less-technical stuff, then gradually upping the difficulty.

One last little tip that we forgot to mention yesterday: tick repellent. There are plenty of deer ticks in the woods of the northeast, and you just simply do not want Lyme disease. Use the stuff liberally, and check for ticks immediately after every venture into the woods.

Remember: If it can be hiked, it can be run.

Running Clubs: The Dark Side

2011-04-22T08:34:00.005-04:00

As I've been cogitating on the upcoming NYC Running Show panel discussion (4pm this Saturday April 23), I've also been mulling over an old post of mine about the benefits of joining a running club. I boiled it down to four major factors:

1. Connecting - with others, across many walks of life

2. Learning - from experienced runners, coaches, leaders

3. Improving - by training with a group, perhaps following a plan

4. Supporting - club members are there for each other, through thick and thin

As I wrote that post, I made an unstated assumption: the club you would belong to is essentially a good organization, led by good people. This basic rubric would describe the vast majority of running clubs that I've known or been a member of over the years. However, I have seen exceptions to that rule, and I thought I'd throw a few "beware of" factors out there for anyone who is considering joining a team, or who is feeling a bit uncomfortable with their current team.

1. The "We Rock, You Suck!" Syndrome. Beware of any team or club that revels in itself too much. It's only natural for folks to feel like the club they joined is definitely the best club out there, but watch out for clubs that take this a little too far. A strong, confident team with the right attitude should have more of a "We Rock, and You Aren't So Bad Either" approach to others. In other words, just because your club is great, that does not mean that all others are terrible.

2. The Animal House Complex. Some clubs get a little too gung-ho about their partying (and possibly their initiation rituals). Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of good parties. But I'm less in favor of drunken slobberfests and the proverbial lampshade-on-the-head antics (or worse, but let's not go there). Having fun is great, being an embarrassment is not.

3. The Crossing Swords Problem. In my earlier post, I wrote that you are more likely to get the full benefit of a hard workout if you run with a group. While that is true, it's also important not to train with a group that tends to turn every single run into a race. Workouts are for improving your fitness, not competing. Save the competition for the race course. If you are part of a group in which everyone's ego is on the line each time you get together, your risk of crashing and burning is very high.

4. The Isolationist Manifesto. One risk of any group is its tendency, over time, to be increasingly inward-focused. Beware of a club that spends all of its energy and capital only on itself. Each club should recognize that it is part of a larger community; as such it should be both a participant and contributor to that community. If you find yourself on a club that has no interest in anything but itself, then know that all the others in the community probably refer to your team as "those jerks".

5. The Autocracy Model. Beware of clubs that concentrate all power in one individual (or a small set of "royalty"). As a member of a club, you should be entitled both to some transparency into how club leadership is making decisions, as well as some say in those very decisions. In addition, any coach worth more than a penny should be happy to answer the "why this workout today?" question. Coaches who start with "because I said so" are, well, lousy coaches. A good training plan stands on its merits, and a good coach can tell you exactly how and why each workout fits into that plan.

Before closing, I want to reiterate a few main points:

- Nearly all running clubs are led by great people and offer many positive benefits to members. I encourage runners to join clubs, but I also encourage them to evaluate a club before making a commitment.

- The list of potential pitfalls (above) can help you sort out the wheat from the chaff as you evaluate the team you will join.

- Finally, if your current club is headed in the wrong direction, speak up and see if you can help get it back on course. And no running clubs that I know of require you to sign lifetime contracts, so if you find that your club is not what you want/need/expected, you have every right to jump ship.

Grete: The Greatest

2011-04-19T11:32:00.006-04:00

Dear Grete,
We miss you, already. You were, and always will be, the epitome of grace, power, humility, focus, and gentle friendliness - the ideal runner. You represent what we all should strive to be as runners, and as human beings.

With Love,

From everyone who has ever run, will ever run, or has even hoped to run.

Anecdotes:

I "ran into" Grete Waitz three times in my life. Each time it was during an early morning run in Central Park, usually near the lower loop, and on the Bridle Path. Let's be honest: I'm a nobody, and Grete Waitz is arguably greatest runner of all time, male or female. Thus, she would have no reason to notice me, give me the time of day, or (honestly) to treat me as anything but an annoyance - some rabid fan, or worse yet some creepy stalker. Nonetheless, each time she smiled widely and said, "Good morning". We were just fellow runners, simple as that. I wonder how many others got the same friendly greeting. My guess: everyone she saw.

The time I remember most was after she had run the NYC Marathon alongside Fred Lebow, who was in the final stages of his own heroic battle with cancer. Fred finally got to run his beloved race, but every mile was painfully slow. Grete stayed by his side for every step, offering encouragement, smiling. I saw her in the park shortly after, running easily. I caught up to her, and we exchanged hellos. I'm sure she had no memory of me from other times. I asked her about the marathon, she said that she had never been in so much discomfort during a run - after over 5 hours of slow jogging, her legs were cramping up and she was struggling to finish herself (by the way, look at any photograph or video of that race, and you can't tell that she was in pain). She said all of this with a chuckle, and then said that she had new-found respect for the people who were not winning marathons, but were out there for 2 or 3 more hours, just getting one foot in front of the other, just keeping at it until they finished. She said that those people were the real heroes, not her. Amazing. She started asking me about my running - but really what could I talk about - my latest set of tempo intervals? Would have been far too egotistical. I just told her that I loved running, whatever my speed or fitness, and hoped I could continue forever, or at least as long as I could. She laughed and nodded. We ran together in silence for about a minute, then I told her that I had to turn back home. She actually thanked me for running with her, which was absurd of course because it was I who had the privilege and the honor of running with her ... but just tells you what a fantastic person she really was.

In more-recent years, I'd see her from afar. Perhaps at the start/finish of her namesake race put on by NYRR. Sometimes at the Corporate Challenge. Even though she was clearly weakened by her private battle with cancer, she never stopped smiling or praising others - and most notably I never heard her utter one word of complaint about herself or her condition.

I will always respect and admire her.

Rest in peace Grete. Or maybe I should say: if there is a heaven up there somewhere, Grete is out for a run in its cool mountain forest, probably encouraging others along the route, always giving back, making everyone else feel special.

NYC Running Show, April 22/23

2011-04-13T10:21:00.007-04:00

I will be attending the NYC Running Show coming up on April 22 & 23 here in NYC. At the event, I will be joining a Panel Discussion (4:00pm on Saturday). The Panel is titled "NYC Running Scene with NYCRuns.com", and I've been informed that our goal is to provide a broader picture of New York area running than one might get otherwise, especially those NYC runners who tend to get a bit focused only on the NYRR. We will discuss area clubs, why you might consider joining one, and what you might gain from doing that. I actually blogged on this topic about two years ago, and I think that post still remains relevant.

In addition, we will be talking about our favorite races throughout the "area", which I take to mean essentially any place you can reasonably get to during the morning hours pre-race (at least that's my definition, anyway). The Panel will include:

Karla Bruning - Moderator, Harrier, Running Blogger. Self-described Running Nerd. Serious Journalist.

Joe Garland - Runner and racer in NY for over 40 years, every distance on tracks, roads, and cross country courses. Warren Streeter. His website describes trails in southern Westchester Co.

Douglas Hegley - Competitive runner since 1978 (700 races and counting), trail running nut, Athletic Director/Coach of the New York Harriers - and former team President. Blogger.

Steve Lastoe - Owns a website that supports area runners and races (NYCRuns.com). Hasher. Hudson Duster. PPTC.

Matt Lebow - Active member of NYARA. Owner of Bad Ass Academy. Big-time Staten Island runner.

I hope that those of you in the area will join us and participate in the discussion. In fact, check out the two-day schedule of events, and I think you will definitely want to be there.

Race Report: Urban Environmental Challenge, April 3, 2011

2011-04-04T09:52:00.014-04:00

Yesterday, I took the subway north to Van Cortlandt Park, and raced the 10k Urban Environmental Challenge trail race, organized by the Van Cortlandt Track Club (VCTC). The day dawned bright and sunny, if a bit windy. Conditions for the race were dry - frankly, not my cup of tea! I've done this race before, and it's selling point is that it takes you off the "regular" trails in Van Cortlandt and into the urban woods, seeking some mud and brambles for your trail running pleasure. Unfortunately and despite some mid-week rain, this year's course featured almost no water or mud whatsoever. Sigh. At least there were a few downed trees, a couple of which required some hands-on scrambling to get over.

I ran a couple miles of the course while warming up, and knew that the day would result in some faster-than-usual trail racing times. I've posted here recently that I'm not really trained for that kind of racing right now. My main goal for the year is to stay injury-free, so I'm being very cautious about doing any kind of harder workouts. I'm not going to push myself too hard right now in training. The end result: I've got no leg speed!

As usual, the start was too fast for my old legs. I convinced myself to get out faster today, if nothing else it would be good training for the upcoming Leatherman's Loop race, at which a fast start is rather vital (with 1000 other runners all thinking the same thing). Despite my best efforts yesterday (and my immediate heavy breathing), I counted 16 runners in front of me as we made the sharp left turn and headed for the first short section of single-track (a rocky uphill). For the remainder of the race, I'd be the guy trying to charge from behind. Like I said, as usual.

The race mixes some technical single-track with some wider, crushed-gravel trails. This makes for very uneven pacing, which can wear some runners down. Knowing that I'm better on the technical stuff, I approach a race like this in an unusual way: I actually hammer the single-track, and when we hit the gravel paths I slow just a tad to catch my breath. That led to some back-and-forth with two guys between miles 1 and 3, with me leaping past them in the woods, and them coming back around in the clearings. Eventually, as we completed the first loop and had to cross a couple of muddy sections (the only mud of the day), I left them behind and moved into the top 10.

Rather than repeat the first loop, the second time around moves runners onto a long, gradual downhill section that is clearly rarely-used. By this point, I'd gotten past a couple more runners, and had my sights set on a guy at least a minute ahead of me, wearing a bright orange t-shirt (an old Mudders and Grunters shirt, actually). That orange shirt became my target, and I knew that we had to climb back up eventually, and that's when my non-fast but somewhat-strong legs were going to help me reel him back in. The plan worked, and I got past him just as we crested the hill.

From there, it was a mad dash through about a mile of technical stuff, until the final 800 meters on an easy gravel path. I knew I'd have to put time on those who were chasing me, because once on the flats they were likely to out-run me during the final kick. I did what I could back in the woods, and hit the flats with enough of a lead to hold onto 6th overall (out of 326 finishers) in 41:50 (my slowest-ever time for this race - ah, well). Here's a photo near the finish line, you can see that long, flat stretch at the end - not my favorite part of the race.

As they posted results after the race, I was delighted to have won my age group, because there are no trophies for this race: instead, you win a carrot cake from Lloyd's. At first glance, that may not cause you any pause, but it should. In my humble opinion, Lloyd's makes the best carrot cake on planet Earth.

The stuff is pure heaven, really. The bakery is located right across the street from the finish line at Van Cortlandt, and after the race there was a line of runners stretching out the door and up the sidewalk - and not one of them minded the wait. I don't know what Lloyd's secret might be (although I understand that they work by hand and invite you to watch them), but those carrot cakes are just incredible. Winning my age group garnered me a pastry box containing one entire cake. All I wanted to do was to tear it open and devour the thing in a few bites, but I wanted to share it with my wife, so I made a bee-line back to the subway and toted it home.

Here is a photo of me right after receiving my carrot cake - you can see me carefully cradling the priceless contents in the elegant box. I seem to be whispering softly to it as I caress the container:

Kudos to the VCTC for another great race. I must say that the VCTC folks are truly friendly and welcoming. They manage to get a lot of volunteers out to support their racing schedule, which seems to me to be growing every year. Their races have an old-school, down-home feeling - reminds me of why I fell in love with racing so many years ago.

Speaking of racing and so many years, this little trail race yesterday was the 700th race of my running career. I celebrated it by sharing carrot cake with my lovely wife when I got home. I'll look back on those 700 races in another post soon.

Dances with Mud

2011-03-30T14:15:00.006-04:00

The 2011 edition of the Mudders and Grunters five mile trail race is in the books. Organized by the Taconic Road Runners Club, this fun little race has been on my calendar for ten years. It has grown from a tiny club event into quite a competitive race with nearly 500 runners, some travelling hours to get there. For a taste of the race, here are some photos I culled from the internet:

I also found a short home-made video someone posted:

My race ended up being about exactly what I expected: I did not get a great start, because the young bucks just move too fast for me. However, as soon as we hit any technical stuff, I can reel them back in. I was about 30th at around the half-mile mark, closer to the top 20 by about 2 miles, and passed a few more during the remaining 3 miles to finish a fairly respectable 17th on the day, out of 423 runners. That is actually my worst-ever placing in this race, not surprising given my current state of fitness and my age. However, ironically it wasn't my slowest time ever on this course - I ran almost a minute slower way back in 2001. So I haven't lost it completely!

There were more downed trees on the course this year than I remember from years past. In fact, we twice had to sort of wriggle our way through a tangle of branches laying across the course. That meant coming to a near-stop twice and crawling/scrambling/pulling ourselves over/around/through the limbs. Fun, but definitely not helping with overall elapsed time. Ditto for some of the muddy sections, which were appropriately goopy and stinky, as only swamp mud can be.

The water crossing was about average in depth, but rather darned cold this year - or is that I don't manage to remember how darned cold that thing is every year? I do think that I am not aggressive enough leaping into that stream - check out Ben's aerial hi-jinks in the slideshow above. There is another funny aspect to that water crossing: somehow it doesn't feel all that cold when you're IN the water, but a few seconds after you get out, it kind of hits you ... and hard. My toes curl up, I start breathing in shallow gasps, and I almost want to rip off the cold, wet clothes I'm wearing - only that sounds cold too! It takes me about 30 seconds to get re-focused on the simple of act of running the final half-mile to the finish, on my cold-numbed and thus wobbly legs.

I wanted to send kudos to a couple of old friends who ran great in this race. Kevin Shelton-Smith, who at age 51 has been running lifetime personal bests on the road, finished 12 overall and first in the 50-59 age group. Nice work. Not far behind, George Buchanan was 14th overall and second in that division. At 17th overall, I am actually lucky to be still age 49, because I'd have been 3rd in their division, but managed second in my YOUNGER age group. Those two guys are really strong trail runners - and lest I forget to say so, Kevin had actually raced a 30k trail race on the day before, and had come in second overall in that event. I can only envy that kind of fitness right now, because my only real goal for 2011 is to avoid the injury bug. That requires me to take more easy days, and not to push my hard workouts too hard. I'm not willing to take the risk of hurting myself in order to maximize my fitness, at least not yet. Maybe later this year, maybe next year, but not right now. I'll keep at it and do what I can, but I'm not pushing myself back to the sidelines again if I can help it.

A final note on this race: my 17 year old son Max came along and gave it a shot. I was slightly worried that he'd lack the fitness to make it the entire way, but he seemed enthused. I lent him some gloves, a hat, some trail shoes, and he stomped through the swamp like the rest of us. By the end of the day, he finished in 157th place out of 423 runners, on literally no training whatsoever since last October. I'm proud of him for that, and as we stripped the muddy clothes off of our shivering selves back at the car, it really made me happy to hear him already plotting to come back next year and bring friends. Now that would be really, truly great.

Update: I found another video of the race, featuring the Race Director and some of the craziness. Enjoy:

Bring on the Mud

2011-03-21T10:41:00.003-04:00

Next up: Mudders and Grunters 5 mile trail race in FDR Park on Sunday, March 27, 2011.

Yes, I prefer longer races (can't keep up with the speedsters anymore - I have no speed at my age), but I've had so much fun at this race over the years that I just have to go back. It's raining today, and more rain is predicted during the week, so I'm hoping for a real slop-fest on Sunday morning. Mud, mud, glorious mud, nothing quick like it for cooling the blood.

As an added treat, my 17 year old son has decided to leap into the mire this year. I don't think he's race-fit, but I do think he can manage to have a blast wallowing around in the mud with everyone next weekend.

People ask me about running these kind of races, particularly about special gear, techniques or other tricks. Actually, I think it's pretty darn simple:

1. You need shoes with some traction, preferably lightweight ones because they're going to get wet and muddy. Trail shoes aren't that expensive, get some.

2. You shouldn't wear extra layers of clothes, even if it's pretty cold out there. Once those extra clothes get wet and muddy, they just become heavy and cold. Keep it light & tight, move fast.

3. You need to tie your shoes tightly. You don't need to duct-tape them to your ankles, or any other crazy technique. Just tie them tightly and attentively. And skip the socks, they just get wet and heavy. A quick slathering of petroleum jelly on your feet will do.

4. Run with quick & light feet. In muddy conditions, you need to get up on the balls of your feet, chop your steps a little, and just keep churning along. Drop your heel into that quagmire, and it can bring you to a near-stop, and possibly suck the shoe right off of your foot.

5. Turn corners with your feet, not your torso. That probably sounds funny, but it's important on slick surfaces to keep your center of gravity over your feet, and run around the corner, as opposed to leaning hard and just having your feet come along for the ride (like you can on a track).

It's spring time, so that means time for some muddy, messy trail running. Enjoy.

Slip Sliding Away

2011-03-01T08:52:00.006-05:00

This song was stuck in my head throughout this race - read on to learn why.

Last Saturday February 26, I headed back out to New Jersey for the fourth and final race in the NJ Trail Series Winter Races - this time at the half-marathon distance. I've mentioned before that I really needed a low-key, uncrowded set of trail races this winter to help me transition back into running hard after so many months being injured and unable to run at all. At the risk of being a bit effusive, this series of races could not have been any better in that regard. Friendly people, well-organized races, just-long-enough distances, and fairly challenging trails. Nice.

Back to the race: the weather during the week leading up to the race had turned warmer, melting the snow on the trails and then adding a bit of rain on top of that. However, overnight on Friday night the temperatures dropped back down under freezing, and all of that wet stuff froze solid. At about 8:15pm that night, the Race Director sent us all an email warning of icy conditions and imploring everyone to wear some kind of cleats for the race. He wasn't kidding.

I actually pulled out my trail "screw shoes" and added a few more short sheet metal screws across the area under the ball of my foot, bringing the total screws up to 12 in each shoe. It was a wiser move than I knew at the time.

I arrived a bit early for the start, and headed out on the trails just to see how bad they could be. The answer: pretty bad. Obviously, they had been run/hiked when melted, so the re-frozen trails were covered with uneven ice pocked by footprints. Even the few snowy patches were frozen fairly hard, so I was running on top of slippery stuff with each step, not really penetrating it to find any traction. Definitely a need for screw shoes. I jogged back to the pre-race traditional port-a-potty line and nervous discussion forum. Most everyone was fretting about footwear. I was a little worried for those who planned to run in just their shoes - some were wearing road shoes even. They would be in for a frustrating run.

The event included a 5k, 10k, and half-marathon. To spread the field, the three races would start at different times, but we'd all be out on the same trails. The half-marathon consisted of one flat "lap around the lake" - about 0.7 miles on flat gravel roads with no real ice - then two laps of the 10k course, which was about 80% single track and 20% fire roads. As usual, my plan was to start conservatively, and try to run negative splits. On icy trails, the second time around was likely to offer a bit better traction, especially because the sun was out and temperatures should be rising by the hour.

At the start, we received ample warnings that the trails were marked with orange flagging, and that we should be careful not to follow the orange paint still out there from previous races. That's the kind of thing you need to listen to carefully, folks.

The gun went off and familiarity reigned. Seven runners blasted away and flew around the lake. I felt like I was going about as fast as I could, and I was simply losing ground with every step. As those 7 entered the single track as a single-file unit, I was sitting isolated in 8th place but almost a minute behind already after only 0.7 miles! The first thought that went through my mind: oh, well, 8th isn't so bad. Then I tried to reassure myself that they'd come back, this wasn't a race that would be decided in the first mile, and after all I am a Harrier, bred to track down those rascally rabbits, with patience, guile, and determination.

About a mile later, the first pair of those rabbits came into view. We were climbing up and down a series of short hills on a very icy single track trail, and neither of them were wearing any kind of ice cleats. The poor fellows were slaloming back and forth between the outside edges of the trail, desperately seeking some kind of traction, arms flailing and legs slipping out at all kinds of odd angles. They were struggling along in tandem, which made it a bit hard to pass them - not to mention I was afraid one of them would knock all three of us down in the process ... but soon enough there was an uphill stretch of ice, and I just chugged on by with my screws clinging to the surface. As I passed, I heard one say to the other, "This isn't worth it, we're both going to get hurt". He was probably right. I felt bad for them, and hope they found a way to finish safely. I was now in 6th place, and could see the leaders up ahead. They still had some time on me, but maybe less than a minute now. My mantra: Here comes the tractor (me).

Over the next two miles I reeled in 5th place (a young and clearly faster-then-me dude who was running very hard but slipping all over the place - I said, "Hang in there" as I passed him and I think I heard him chuckle in response). Then came 4th place - along the first stretch of fire road, which was basically a sheet of ice. As I passed him, and I think it was Jim Sonneborn, we shared a laugh about the inanity of trying to run uphill on an ice rink. Let's just say we were making progress, but rather slowly. Slip Sliding Away ...

I could see John Montgomery up ahead, he looked to be running strong and had settled into 2nd place (or so I thought, read on). I'd chatted with him pre-race, and I knew he had added some screws to his shoes as well, so I would not be able to rely on beating him due to simple traction. The race was on. I was closing the gap, but then I saw him come to a complete stop up the trail. I first thought he'd stopped to drain the radiator, but as I came around to catch him he asked "Which way?" with arms extended and palms up. The trail had two options, one marked clearly with orange painted arrows and the other with orange flagging. "Follow the flags!" I shouted, and we were off again (remember those instructions?). Maybe it was the adrenaline of stopping-then-starting, but he shot up the trail and put a minute on me again, as we came around to the end of the first 10k lap. We were both flying by some of the back-of-the-packers from the 5k race at that point, most were nice enough to make room for us. I stopped briefly for a sip of water, while John charged ahead. Going into the single track for the second loop, I figured I'd settle for third on the day, and I was happy with that. Still, I continued to push myself, it was a race after all.

The next 4 miles were relatively uneventful. The trail was slightly roughed up from the other runners, adding just a tiny bit of traction. We did pass a few runners who were clearly lost out there - probably from the 10k race, some even going the wrong direction! People: you need to listen to instructions!

With about 2 miles to go, John almost missed a sharp right hand turn (I shouted to him from behind) and that allowed me to catch him. He said, "Let me know when you want to pass" and I thought to myself "Yeah, well, only if you slow down a bit". Truth was: I was running at my limit. In fact, in retrospect, my biggest mistake of the day was running a bit too hard on the first lap. I fell so far behind so early, that I'd gotten anxious, pushed it the pace a little too hard, and caught too many runners in the first 4-5 miles of a 13 mile race. I think if I'd held back a little over those miles, I could have pushed the second lap harder and maybe overtaken John. But, we'll never know for sure.

The hard-packed snow on the trails was melting at this point, and we were starting to sink into some wet stuff. That made the last mile and a half a bit of a slog. There as one last section of icy road, and I used that to make one last run at John. I got within about two meters of him - and now we were dodging in and out of the tail end of the 10k pack, but he was clearly the better runner on that day, because he just pulled away in the last half-mile and beat me by nine seconds at the finish line.

At that point, I heard someone say that I had finished second overall. Huh? Where was the guy who had the overall lead on the first lap? I was puzzled, and simply chalked it up to a mistake on their part. But when the results were published a day later, there I was in second place. Cool.

I've finished 2nd plenty of times in my racing career (in fact, something like 75 times out of nearly 700 races). On some level, it's frustrating to be so close and fall short. On the other hand, on most days the truth is that I did my best and just got beat by one runner who was better. Period. Of this race, I could try to say something like, "If I'd known we were racing for first overall instead of for 2nd overall, I'd have gone harder" but I'd be lying. Even now, three days later, my legs are still sore which is probably proof enough that I was doing the best I could. After the race, sharing a cold one with John, he said, "I had plenty of energy left at the end, and when I heard you behind me I just had to take off" - which is the final fact here: he had energy left, while by comparison I was doing all I could just to stay close to him. He won. I kept him honest. Good race.

For our efforts, we walked away with commemorative pint glasses, much better than another trophy or cotton t-shirt. Over the course of the series, I managed to bring home an ear band, a technical shirt, gloves, a blanket, a pair of socks, a sweatshirt, and three pint glasses - plus my placings allowed me to have discounted entry into the latter races of the series. I couldn't be more pleased with the entire experience. A big thank you to Jennifer and Rick McNulty, who put on a great series in cold conditions with constant smiles - even when complained to by people who went off course because (I'll write it again) they can't follow directions! I told Rick after the race: look, if the lead runners, who are going as fast as they can and are thus the most-likely to go off course, can navigate the race properly, then anyone else who gets lost has only themselves to blame. Besides, this is trail running, it happens. I've been off-course plenty of times in trail races, you just have to suck it up and get yourself back on course. So you ran an extra mile, it was probably good for you!

With spring on the horizon I'll be plotting out a few more trail races in the near future, and looking forward to some deep sticky mud instead of ice and snow. But, next weekend I'll be the babysitter for our son and enthusiastic spectator as my wife races the first NYRR points race of 2011. Go Monika!

Blood on the Snow

2011-02-07T13:07:00.007-05:00

My wife thinks I’m out of my mind, and she’s probably right. Well, let’s just admit that she is right. She’s always right. I ran a race this past weekend in conditions that she believes call for nothing more than rolling over in bed and sleeping a few more hours. Like I said, she's always right.

But sometimes I just have so much fun being out of my mind. I raced the third of the four-race NJ Trail Series Winter races this past Saturday. Just getting to the starting line was already a challenge. Not only was I sick at home from work on Friday with some kind of stomach bug, but Saturday dawned with light snow, changing to freezing rain. I gave myself a bit of extra time to get to Lewis Morris Park, but was happy to find the roads in excellent condition – just wet, no ice.

Not so for the venue. After I parked the car, I basically skated downhill to the available port-a-john. It was drizzling, and the ambient temperature was maybe 28F. The moisture was adding another thin layer of ice to the already-crunchy crust on top of about a foot of snow in the area. I also noticed that the very first turn of the race, which was a 90 degree left from a recently-plowed gravel path, was basically a sheet of ice. Back at the car, I changed to my screw shoes – an old pair of Nike Trail S+ with 11 hex-head sheet metal screws in each. I jogged down to test that first turn and made it through easily. Amazing how this setup works on ice, and I think it cost me all of $1.79 for the screws. A bit cheaper (and lighter weight) than a pair of Yak Trax or other similar ice cleats (of course, those can be taken on and off according to conditions, and once you put the screws in your shoes that's what you're wearing the whole way).

Just before the start, I peeled off my warm-up layers and decided to go with shorts – I always prefer racing with bare legs, because of the freedom of movement. It was a mistake on this day, and you can probably already guess why. The formula would be something like:

(10 miles) * (single track trails) + (a layer of ice on top of one foot of snow)* (not knowing with each step when one’s foot will break through the icy crust) + (one runner of questionable judgment) = blood on the snow. But we’ll get to that. Let’s just say that my choice of red shoes, while not planned as such, was nonetheless wise.

The start of the race was surprisingly slow. Really surprisingly slow. I actually took the lead 50 meters into it. I am a notoriously slow-starter. I’m always running from behind. I don’t think I’ve led the first 50 meters of any race since the early 1980s. But in this case I believe it was a combination of the icy trails, the effectiveness and relative lightweight of my screw shoes, and a hesitant field that allowed me this very brief “lead”. However, once the group discovered that they weren’t going to fall down immediately, the next 100 meters saw 8 guys rocket past me on both sides, so we reached that first left hand turn with some semblance of order restored.

I’ve written many times that bad conditions suit me. In fact, the tougher, the better. Throughout my 30+ years as a competitive runner, I have been able to beat some runners only when the conditions get bad. Why? I think it’s simple, really. They are more talented that I am. They are faster than I am. Put us on a track on a dry day with no wind and comfortable temperatures, and they will simply run away from me – I can’t keep up, no matter how hard I try. However, add some obstacles – say some cold wind, rain, mud, snow, streams, hills, rocks, roots – and suddenly I’m catching them. Toss in some more difficulties - like navigation challenges, swamps, treacherous footing, bleeding – and I’m out ahead of them. I could chalk this up to mental toughness or something like that, which is probably part of it. But it’s also my grind-it-out running style and my patience & experience with running through (over, around, under) obstacles. Anyway, a man needs to know his strengths, and on this day the course really suited me.

Then again, a man’s got to know his limitations. Thus, lessons can be learned from every race. On this day, these were mine:

1. Frustration is really only another hill to run up. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s hard to run a race when you are slipping and sliding around, and when every step can result in a surprise (sudden traction, or punching through the ice into deep snow, or slipping in any possible direction – you get the picture). If you let this experience get to you mentally, it’s totally exhausting. If you just go with it – in fact, I laughed out loud once at the absurdity of it all when I ended up running sideways for two steps – it simply becomes another part of the challenge.

2. Pain is to be embraced. That punching through the snow thing was bad enough, but with ice on the top each punch resulted in a shin-deep hole that was rimmed with hundreds of little knife edges. Not only did my bare legs get scratched and cut on the way down into each hole, but also ripped up on the way out. In addition, the momentum of running caused my legs to bang into the ice hard enough to create immediate bruises up and down my shins and ankles, which continue to change colors even now two days later. In other words, some steps just plain hurt, and that pain got worse during the almost-90 minutes I was out there. I chose to embrace that pain – bring it on! – because I knew my competitors were not doing so (shouts of “ouch” and “sh*t” surrounded me).

3. A frozen shirt feels funny when it bounces. With the fine mist in the air and the cold temps, my singlet became slowly frozen solid. This left me running with something akin to a tailor-fitted sandwich board for the final five miles of the race. I also had some icicles hanging from my watch and my hat. Wish I’d had a camera.

4. Bleeding is not scary, unless you decide so. See number 2 above. After two miles of this torture, I glanced down at my shins to see both of them bright red with blood. By the midway point, I’d also ripped most of the skin off of my right knee, so that entire leg was covered in blood. I decided it was just a flesh wound, and ignored it. I’ve certainly had worse, I told myself.

5. Patience pays off. After those 8 guys sailed by me, we settled into the singletrack. The leaders roared off in tight formation, single-file and charging every hill. I sat in 9th place, maybe 50 meters back, with one guy on my heels. But he was already gasping for air only 800 meters in, so I didn’t pay him much notice. I just ran my pace, and waited to see what would happen up ahead. At first, they all pulled away. About two miles in, the overall leader stopped! he just pulled off the course, stood in the snow wheezing, and I think he was stretching his calf muscles. Half a mile later, the runner in 4th place also pulled off the course, and started fiddling with his ice cleats. At the same time, the entire lead pack slowed down, so that I ran right up on the heels of 6th place. Unfortunately, the dude in 5th was basically dying, and the 4 in front of him were running away. Despite having two of us on his heels, he refused to give way and allow a pass. The runner in 6th, Jim Sonneborn I believe, kept trying to get around the guy, but to no avail. I waited, slowed my breathing, relaxed, reassured myself that we still had at least an hour to go. Finally, Jim got around, but now I was stuck. Argh. It was at least half a mile until I could finally dive around the guy on a downhill corner. Yeesh. I’d lost a lot of ground, but soon I was coming up fast on Jim and the 4th place runner. Over the final mile of the first lap, Jim got around and pulled away, and I overtook the guy too, so I was sitting in 4th. Not bad, I thought, and as I watched Jim and the 2nd place runner John Montgomery scamper away I figured I’d be running alone for the 2nd lap, holding onto my 4th place.

However, these technical courses can really take their toll on people. Truth is that I had been holding back just a hair on lap one, planning to run negative splits. It became clear to me that John and Jim were pushing it the entire way, racing. I saw Jim pass John before that icy turn, and I caught John about 500 meters later, just after I saw him slip and nearly fall as we re-entered the single track. I could tell that I was also starting to pull Jim back, and then I saw him slow perceptibly on a series of uphills. When I caught him, he politely moved left and motioned me past. Nice guy. I gasped out a "thank you" and a "keep it going" to him. Incredibly, I was in 2nd place, bloody shins and all!

I caught glimpses of the guy in first a few times, but he was just too far ahead for me to mount a serious challenge. I would wager that I ran lap two faster than he did, but not by much and he wasn’t pushed, so maybe he could have gone faster if he'd needed to.

As I thundered down the final hill, leaving a trail of red drops, I could feel the satisfaction of having worked as hard as I could and persevered despite ridiculous conditions. Pretty cool. I ended up 2nd overall, far better than I would have predicted. That made the cold beer and hot noodles at the finish that much tastier (man, those steaming noodles really hit the spot – thanks to the volunteers who prepped them for us).

I once more have nothing but praise for the race organizers. In those kind of deplorable conditions, they were efficient, accurate, friendly, and supportive. Great job all.

There is one more race in this series, and I hope to be able to run it, and at this point I’m just so pleased with how it’s gone that I won’t even care how I place in the final race. After many months of not even being able to run a step, this series has given a renewed focus to my training and helped bring me back to feeling like a runner again. I could not ask for more.

Fine Line between Adventure and Stupidity

2011-02-02T12:43:00.004-05:00

I am planning to venture out to NJ again this weekend for the third race in this winter trail race series.

We've had more snow since the last race in January, and last night the area received almost two inches of freezing rain. In fact, this morning I basically skated in my shoes along the sidewalks to get to work. If it wasn't rather dangerous, it would be funny. It did warm my heart to see many people offering a helping hand to each other, just to get across the street. And you thought New Yorkers were a cold, hard bunch! Not when we face adversity together, baby.

So, of course I'm going to run this trail race on snowy, icy, potentially dangerous single track. It will be an adventure. Or, it could be one of those "it's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt" kind of things. That's the fine line between challenging yourself at something difficult versus putting yourself in the path of stupid risk. I've tried to dance along that line a few times in my life, and I have the scars to prove it. Hopefully, this race will be on the right side of that edge.

To be prepared, I've loaded up a pair of trail shoes with sheet metal screws, just in case the surface is an impenetrable ice sheet. Without some kind of cleats, that kind of icy stuff leaves you spinning and flopping like an excited puppy on a waxed linoleum floor.

So far, I can't find anyone brave enough (or dumb enough) to come along with me. We'll see, sometimes they come running at the last minute begging for a ride.

Dashing Through the Snow

2011-01-18T12:20:00.003-05:00

The Winter Trail Race Series Race 2 that took place last Saturday was quite an adventure. Running 10 miles on single-track trails that were covered with several inches of loose snow was one of the most physically-challenging things I've done in many years. Even today, three days later, my legs remain sore (especially calf muscles, hips, and the arches of my feet). Despite all of that, there is a certain level of satisfaction at having completed the race, and at having done much better than I expected. Ironically, my very slow-looking pace of just under 9:00 minutes per mile actually represents the hardest effort that I've put into a run in a very long time, in fact it has been nearly two years since I got after it with such intensity. I wonder what my pace would have been if there had actually been some traction out there.

It was a cold morning, about 15 degrees F I think. I somehow managed to convince Xiao Wang and Diane Kenna to come along with me. Of course, Xiao needed to exact some revenge for going off-course at the December race, but for Diane this would be one of her first real trail races. I knew it would be hard, but I also know that she is a very tough runner.

On my brief warmup jog, I tried out the first half-mile or so of the course. The snow was deep enough to present problems, plus it was that sort of gritty, loose snow (not the nice packable snow) that makes you feel like you are running in dry sand (except for the obvious temperature difference). From my perspective, it wasn't going to make much difference what shoes you wore, or if you opted for ice cleats or spikes - this stuff was just too deep, and it wasn't going to offer up much traction, period.

The field was a bit smaller than the December race, but no less enthused. I was one of only 3 to be wearing shorts (hey, it's a "race", right?). We started just about on time at 9am, and headed across the parking lot to the trails. There was a bit of jockeying for position in the first 1000 meters. The race combined those running one lap for five miles and those running two laps for 10 miles, with no real way to know the difference. In addition, you had the option of stopping at the five mile finish and calling it a day, even if you'd signed on for 10. I wouldn't call it chaotic, but I was surprised to have a couple of guys literally sprint around me just to get to the singletrack more quickly. Truth is, I passed all of those folks back eventually, except for one guy (who I believe finished 3rd in the five mile, and must have simply gotten a slow start before cranking it up). I have no qualms about people running this way, unless they downshift markedly when the single track starts, which thankfully no one did on this day.

I was sitting in about 12th place overall at the 10 minute mark, a bit better than I expected. The young horses were already off the front, and I could see that Xiao was among the top 3 - good for him. He had opted for lightweight racing flats, and I wondered if he was getting any traction at all. I had my Inov8 Flyroc 310s on, and except for the gritty snow I was doing okay.

Around the first lap we went. I was yo-yoing a bit with two runners in front of me. They were clearly faster on the downhills, but I was reeling them in on the uphills. I've often referred to myself as a tractor among sports cars when it comes to racing, I think that's why trail races suit me better. Seemed to be ringing true in this race.

After a brief respite on a gravel road with hard-packed snow (about a mile, from 2.6 to 3.5 miles of the loop I estimate), we were about to re-enter the single-track when two of the young guys completely missed the turn in front of me and one other runner who looked familiar from the December race (I think it was Jim Sonneborn). We shouted out to them, and they sprinted back, offering thanks ... only to fade back quickly - I never saw or heard them again. For the next 3 miles, Jim and I kept up the same rhythm: he'd pull away on the downhills, I'd catch up to him on the uphills. After about 1.5 miles of the second lap, I decided to pass him - surprisingly on a downhill section. I'd been running on his heels for the previous three hills, and I think he was tiring a bit. I surged by, and then tried to put some distance on him (because I can't outkick anyone anymore, and also the last half-mile was mostly downhill where he was clearly better than me). I thought I had him gapped, when I heard someone moving up behind me along that gravel road again. Entering the single-track, I glanced back to see that it was someone new (I think Jon Sellers). He must have been running the second loop much faster than the first. In fact, the results showed that he ran the second loop more than six minutes faster than the first. Either he was holding back, or he missed the start!

The second loop was just a bit more runnable, because more than 150 pairs of feet had mashed the snow down a bit, and stirred up just a few leaves and flecks of dirt. Anything for a little more traction!

As I hit the final downhill, with its switchback trail, I saw Xiao only about a minute ahead of me. Too tired to cheer him on, I just kept plugging away. At this point we were passing the back of the five mile pack, and most of them were incredibly generous to step off the trail and cheer us on as we went by. I love trail runners for this kind of thing. In a road race, lapped runners throw elbows and crowd the aid stations - but in a trail race they actually stop and let you go by. Amazing. Thank you.

In the final 600 meters there is a trail that runs along the edge of ravine, which forces you to deal with a sideways angle. In the slippery snow, this was almost funny. On the first lap, I'd slipped badly a couple of times, but I had not fallen. Now, on the final stretch, I was a bit more weary, and I finally fell for the first time all day - not spectacularly - just a slip on an off-camber trail that made me stick a hand into the snow to right myself. Cold!

I continued on to the finish line, managing garner 5th overall out of 64 hardy souls. I ran negative splits, but I think most everyone did because the trails improved slightly with traffic. Still, on a course that by all rights should have been used for a snowshoe race, I have to be pretty happy.

Grabbing a cold beer (brrr) post-race, I had a nice chat with second-place finisher John Montgomery, who's an old dude like me (maybe not quite as old, but we are from the same era). He's a talented runner, obviously, I'll have to see if I can get in good enough shape to give him a run for the money someday soon.

Xiao grabbed third overall, and Diane ... well, I think she found the day adventurous and kind of peaceful. I was afraid she'd cross the finish line and slap me dead in the face for dragging her out there. But she finished with a smile, grabbed a beer and a pretzel, and told us of having run alone for most of the day, fearing she was in last place! Not so, my friend, you ran strong. And I promise that most trail races aren't quite that hard!

Now I'm motivated to run the remaining two races in this series. These races have provided the perfect way for me to ease back into competitive running after so many months away. Friendly people, single track trails, physical challenges, bad conditions - the kind of stuff I love to run in.

Back to Lewis Morris Park on Saturday

2011-01-11T09:46:00.004-05:00

I'm planning to head back to Lewis Morris Park in New Jersey on Saturday to have a go at the 2nd race in the 4 race series put on by the NJ Trail Series folks. This time, the distance is 10 miles and there is a strong likelihood of messy snow on the trails. Sounds like fun. I expect the field to be smaller than last time, but we'll see.

By the end of this week, I'll have 14 consecutive weeks of fairly consistent running in the bank. Finally starting to feel like myself again. Well, at least my nearly-50-year-old self. As I approach a new age group, time to re-set all the personal records again and start over. That's fine, I know I'll never be as fast as I once was (although I can dream, can't I?). When I really think about it, 30 years ago I'd run a 5 mile road race and be aiming to break 5:00 per mile pace, while now I'd like to think I can manage the same distance at just a hair under 6:00 pace by this summer. That's only one minute per mile slower after 30 years, not so bad right?

Apparently, as we men age we are supposed to gain about 5 pounds per decade, and our race times go down by about 6% per decade. If I apply these rules to my sample set of one (me), I come in right about where I should:

I weighed about 145 lbs in college, and I'm around 156 lbs now (the formula says I should be 160 lbs, so I guess I'm slightly ahead of the curve a bit on that one).
I ran 5 miles at 5:00 pace in college, and I'm hoping to run just under 6:00 pace now (the formula says I should be able to run 5:57 pace). Okay, there's a goal.

I know that there are some runners who just seem to go on and on, never losing a step, and others who actually get FASTER in their 50s (I want what they are having for breakfast) ... but I'll take my 6:00 pace goal gracefully, knowing that I haven't come apart at the seams ... at least not yet. Time will tell. Literally.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow ...

Okay, I will say it aloud ...

2011-01-04T13:55:00.006-05:00

After 10 weeks now of fairly consistent running, I'm going to claim that I am actually living a Running Life once more. Whew. That was a long time being lost in the dark woods of injuries. May I never take that path again.

In fact, it was early December when I realized that I had not run a race of any kind during 2010. I'd been injured most of the year, and then simply out of shape. But then it occurred to me that I had never failed to run against competition at least once per year, every year since 1973 (yes, that's right, the pre-disco era, and the final full year of the Nixon Presidency, when he uttered the infamous "I'm not a crook"). Well, this just would not do. I had to race in 2010.

So I scoured the internet for some kind of low-key race that I could enter and enjoy. I found one, a nice little trail race in New Jersey, put on by the NJ Trail Series folks. A 10k on the hilly trails of Lewis Morris Park, the old high school stomping grounds of my pal and fellow Harriers coach Kevin Horty. The previous year they'd had a relatively small field, and the times were reasonable. I could finish mid-pack and not completely embarrass myself!

I asked a few friends, and found a pair of adventurers who were willing to come along: my old friend Peter Masullo and my new, young friend Xiao Wang (both Harriers). Off we drove in my decrepit old Honda in the cold morning of December 11, 2010.

We found the venue just fine, and stood in the registration line a bit long, which gave me pause. These little trail races are exploding in popularity, I wondered if the field was going to be bigger than expected. As we completed our warm-up run, I was proven right. The Race Director (great guy, totally honest and doing his best) announced at least a 20 minute delay to get everyone registered. That led to quite a crowd standing around shivering. Xiao and I just kept jogging around. I think we had nearly 3.5 miles of warm-up running by the time we could line up at the starting line.

Finally, we were off, and attacking the first steep uphill. I felt surprisingly good, actually. Probably in about 25th place right away, better than I'd planned. The race had the 5k and 10k fields combined, no way to know who was in which race. The 10k was simply two 5k loops, simple enough. After about a half mile, we hit the first section of single-track. This is where technique comes into play, and the wisdom and experience of wily old vets like me can actually make a difference. We hit that uphill single-track, and within 1 minute I'd passed 10 other runners. They were tip-toeing along, staring at their feet, perhaps terrified of the rocks and roots below. Me, I'm a tractor, so I just chugged on by. Pretty funny, at least for me. Luckily, there was enough room to get by on the sides, and it was December so there wasn't much underbrush to trip me up.

Despite no racing in my legs and no speed training to speak of, I was doing all right. Well, admittedly I was huffing and puffing noticeably, but that was to be expected. For the next couple of miles things settled in. Xiao was off with the lead pack, Peter was bouncing around in the over-crowded trails somewhere behind me, and I was basically running along with the lead woman, who was a terrific climber but a bit picky on the descents, so we kept yo-yoing back-and-forth.

I hit the first 5k in about 22:10. Yeah, that's slow, but I was running pretty hard to achieve that and the course was fairly technical and featured a lot of turns (plus, just like an inexperienced high schooler, I had a little side stitch - yeesh). As I started my second lap, I feared that I would fade badly. But I actually hung in there. Trading the "lead" with the first woman definitely helped me, although during the final 1.5 miles I decided to stop passing her on the downhills so that she could be left alone to run her race and not have to keep passing me back on the uphills (after all, she was winning her race, I was just trying to hang in there). Over the final 400 meters she kicked it in and pulled away, while I just got across the line in one piece. I finished in 44:39, so my second lap was 22:29 and not anywhere near the crash and burn that I'd worried about. I'll take it!

All three of we Harriers had to pack up and leave before the results were posted at the race site, but I was thinking I'd been about 15th place in the end, out of maybe 150 runners. Xiao had been up with the leaders and had even moved into first place at one point, but he took a wrong turn and ended up finishing behind me. I know he was disappointed in that, but he seemed to enjoy running on the trails nonetheless. Peter was happy to be out in the woods, but his traditional start-slow-finish-fast had been impossible with so many people all over the single-track, so he just settled in to enjoy the day.

I was quite surprised when the results were posted online. I was 8th overall in a field of 145, and (on a technicality) given first in my age group (the technicality: they eliminated the top three overall from the age-group standings, and two of them were in their 40s, plus one other runner ahead of me was in his early 50s). So, really, I consider myself 4th in my age group. Like I said, I'll take it.

They posted some photos from the race (and amusingly enough from the warm-up laps too) online here. If you plug in my bib number of 40, you'll see some proofs - including Xiao and I doing some warm-up miles.

In retrospect, I am really happy we trundled out the NJ on a cold morning so that I could keep at least one streak intact. There are three more races in this series during January and February, and I'm hoping to do at least one if not all three of them. Maybe I can convince a few more Harriers to come along next time.

To the Race Director and crew: fantastic job, really. I am assuming the field was much bigger than you expected, but you were clear about it and kept things together. You helped set a fun and positive tone with your pre-race announcements. The course was well-marked and just challenging enough to make it a real trail race. Too bad it was a dry and cold day so that we had no mud, but maybe next time. Having the automated timing system was a real plus for a trail race, and a pleasant surprise. I wish I could have stuck around for post-race fun, because I saw some tempting snacks and libations. You definitely made me want to come back for more races.

Happy New Year everyone. Hope it's a good one. Let's ALL remain injury-free this year, shall we?

Dare I say it aloud?

2010-11-24T12:37:00.002-05:00

After what has been a very long and frustrating string of annoying injuries, I have actually managed to strap on running shoes and get out there fairly consistently now for the past six weeks. Is it possible that I'm actually finally staging a comeback of sorts?

I'm not the superstitious type, but I'm almost afraid to write this - to proclaim anything - for fear of upsetting the fates and having everything collapse again. Let's hope I have finally turned some kind of corner.

Mind you, I'm not talking about anything impressive. Just some 4-5 miles jogs at 8:00 per mile pace (on the downhills). But at least there is a little wear and tear on my running shoes again, and some sweaty running togs to throw into the washer. That's got to be progress, right?

With some luck (and patience, and a careful build-up), I might even consider doing a real workout before too long, or even (gasp) a race. I'm thinking a low-key trail race, some little event where everyone is friendly and there would be no pressure at all, just smiles and fellow racers encouraging one another. Oh, and maybe some knee deep mud. Always liked knee-deep mud. Good for the skin. And the soul.

Hope to see you out there soon.

Notes on a Non-Running Life?

2010-09-02T08:54:00.004-04:00

Perhaps I should rename the blog ...

I have been long remiss in posting because, well, I'm still not running.

Oh, I jog now and then. If I'm lucky, about 35 minutes at a tiptoe pace. And if I'm really lucky, nothing swells up immediately afterward and I can actually walk with no limp the next day. Yeesh.

In my 32+ years as a "runner", this has been the longest duration of down time. That includes several other fairly severe injuries, a couple of surgeries, torn tendons, etc. There was once a time that I bragged about running every single day for five consecutive years (oh, so long ago). Now I'd be happy to run just 2 or 3 days a week. For whatever reason, that's been too much to ask of my body for the past couple of years.

So, today, on the occasion of celebrating exactly 49 years since I arrived, sputtering and wailing, into the doctor's and then my mother's arms in Madison, Wisconsin - I have only one birthday wish: please let me get back to running!

The bottom line is that I have one more year until hitting age 50. I hope to take that year to slowly, patiently work myself back into shape.

I hope that your running is going much better than mine. Thanks for reading. I promise I'll get back to more-regular posts soon.

The Third Running Boom

2010-03-25T10:54:00.009-04:00

We runners used to be part of a happy fringe. Now, everyone thinks they are a runner!

Blame Oprah. Blame Willy C. Blame Lance and P Diddy and Katie. Blame Runner’s World. Blame the mainstream press too, they perpetuate the idea that running a marathon should be accepted almost universally as some kind of lifetime acheivement, bucket list item, or rite of passage ... no matter how slow you are.

But I'm going to propose that the actual number of runners is a fickle figure; it waxes and wanes over time. In fact, I think that we are now in the midst of what is actually the third "Running Boom".

The first running boom was in the 1970s. Many believe it was fueled by Frank Shorter's gold medal in the 1972 Olympic Marathon. I think you also have to acknowledge the contribution of Jim Fixx's excellent, influential, and best-selling book, The Complete Book of Running. The 1970s also saw a significant growth in road racing - it seemed like every small town suddenly had some kind of an annual race, and as runners we were amazed when some of them grew to over five HUNDRED participants - gasp! We were a happy fringe. Our running nerd heros included Boston Billy, The Great Greta, Joannie the Approachable, and Dr. Sheehan, our own philosopher! Sure, we were running nerds, but we didn’t care. We were a happy fringe.

Running faded a bit during the 1980s. Big races managed to hold fast, but the lure of cocaine and nightclubs prevailed upon the tastes of the young. The hip and trendy bought roller blades, and eschewed running as “boring”. Some tried to run, but developed shin splints and quit, or took up the new sport of triathlon, or just plain hit the couch and got fat. We runners were still a happy fringe, 80's style.

The second running boom was in the 1990s, and I'll call that the "marathon boom". It was fueled by celebrities (see above) and loads of everyday/chubby folks proving they could "run" marathons. The result was the explosion of a plethora of fund-raising 5k fun runs, which squeezed out a lot of the older (and longer and tougher) small-town races. In addition, it seemed that there was suddenly a marathon in every state on every weekend of the year. Jeff Galloway wrote tirelessly about strategies for mixing running and walking during races, or completing marathons with a MINIMUM amount of training and mileage (to we "real" runners, the mere thought that you would approach a race as serious as a marathon with the intention of doing the minimum amount of training was simply absurd). In many circles, there was loud criticism of this "democratization" of running. The argument went something like this: once you proclaim that your sport is for everyone, you reward mediocrity and spoil any chance for excellence: Running boom, racing bust. The 1990s also saw the birth of the Penguin movement. No, not those kind of penguins. This was a self-proclaimed and proud group of plodders who even found their own guru, John Bingham. Suddenly, runners weren't such a fringe anymore ... anyone could be a runner. The influx of these "joggers" (yes, that used to be a derogatory term!) watered things down a bit. It added raw numbers to our general pool, but in fact that growth proved difficult to sustain. After the initial excitement, a lot of Oprah-wannabes and other newbies managed to complete (painfully) their one marathon, then often quit running shortly thereafter. Also, the runners in the country during the 1990s were trending older and older. It just couldn't last. At about the same time as the dot com crash, the number of runners once again went down. But not for long.

At present, I believe that we are in the midst of the third boom, which really kicked into gear about 3-4 years ago and seems to be fueled mostly by an influx of young women. Of course, as young women flock to the sport, men will follow, increasing the total numbers even more. From my casual scanning of race results, it looks like the average age of runners is trending back down again. I have read that statistically there are four times as many race participants as there were in the 1980s. However, it would seem that today's runners seem more interested in general fitness than peak race performance. Racing is now more of a social activity. In addition, there is a wide array of expensive Batman-like gear that you see people wearing, as if it was a kind of special uniform for their everyday run: fuel belts and iPods and HR monitors and GPS watches, wires hanging out, hands filled with sloshing bottles and/or technology controls, fancy caps and cute little matching outfits (Aha! There is money to be made! Marketing!) ... it's all kind of funny, and it's definitely NOT hard core like it used to be. Rather than focusing on competition, today’s runners (women and men alike) seem more interested in spending time together. They train and even run races in groups, keeping their pace in synch with the slowest of their tribe, instead of pushing themselves to their limits. Our sport has become so much more affiliative (contrast that with the famous "loneliness of the long distance runner"). People are interested in particular races and make plans months ahead of time, not because that race would offer top-flight competition or a chance to run a personal best, but because it would be a wonderful vacation spot, hey, let's bring the whole family!

I don't mean to sound too sarcastic here. Another running boom might potentially mean a more healthy populace. Of all potential exercise regimens, running/jogging/walking certainly has the lowest barrier to entry, and anything that would help this country get in better shape has got to be good. Plus, lots of runners means lots of running-related commerce, and that leads to a wider array of gear for us to select from, be it clothes, shoes, or even sunglasses. More runners means that we have a larger peer group: that means more friends and potential mates ... that all sounds pretty good.

But I have to admit that I miss being part of a happy fringe. Ah, yes, the good old days ...

I'm still here

2009-12-04T09:42:00.002-05:00

Contrary to impressions, I haven't completely disappeared. I have been remiss in updating this blog, though, sorry about that.

On the running side, I remain in the dark purgatory of a seemingly-never-ending injury to my left hip. Doctors, injections, physical therapists, accupuncturists, and willfully ignoring the thing have all failed to gain a cure. I'm still in pain 24 hours a day, and that's been true for over seven months now. I'll keep fishing around for something that will actually help this thing get better. At this point, I think I am left with time ... I've heard it's supposed to heal all wounds. We'll see.

This is now my longest layoff from running in my entire adult life. Longer than the time I completely severed my achilles tendon and needed reconstructive surgery and a long painful rehab. To say that this year of running (er, not running) has been frustrating would be a vast understatement.

But life does present us with hurdles, some small and some large. I can see that this is one of my large ones. It's important to be patient, but it's difficult to maintain that in the face of month after month with no real progress. As runners, we all go through periods of injury, this one has just been particularly long for me. Sigh.

I was working on a conclusion to the general training outline I've been posting here. I'll get back to that and post soon. Again, I apologize for the delays, perhaps I need to stop feeling sorry for myself and get back to communicating and sharing (hey, any chance that might have any healing powers?).

Intensity

2009-09-21T11:32:00.002-04:00

Now that we've discussed the first two principles of training, it's time to get more complicated by adding intensity.

In essence, intensity is really just how 'hard' you train. Once you've laid in a base of frequent and appropriate-duration training, the truth is that you can just maintain that and you'll be fairly fit and probably make your physician very happy! Frequent aerobic exercise is great for your heart and lungs, burns calories, builds muscle, and recent studies suggest that it even benefits brain function. That's terrific.

The equation starts getting complicated if your goal is for something more: peak performance. In other words, just being fairly fit isn't the goal that you strive for; instead, you want to start testing the limits of your current ability as an athlete. In order to do this, you need to start adding some higher intensity training to your routine.

There are many, many books written on training as a runner. Up until this point in my reflections, most of them agree about 99% ... training starts with a base. But when it moves into a phase where intensity is added, the authors/coaches/researchers start to branch in different directions. Some suggest an almost-singular focus on running fast, to the exclusion of easier running. Others suggest simply adding in some fast running, in a rather unstructured way. Others publish multi-page charts showing you exactly what to run every day until you achieve a particular goal. All of these approaches, along with still others, are carefully plotted out, based on experience and research, and (frankly) probably work fairly well for at least some subset of runners. In other words, adding intensity, through whatever pattern or method you choose, will help you run faster.

But there is a warning here: adding intensity significantly increases your risk of injury. For that reason, I am going to advocate for a particular path or series of steps that I recommend you follow in order to add intensity. Is my "method" any better than that of the others? Possibly, for some of you, and possibly not for others of you. I am here to tell you that one method, one plan, one approach is simply not going to apply to everyone, period. As you gain experience as a runner/athlete, you will begin to understand what works best for you, and you will make adjustments to your training based on that understanding. No one, without working with you as a coach for years, is able to blindly recommend a perfect training program. 'Nuff said on that.

I advocate for a slow, methodical approach. I believe this will reduce your risk of injury, and maximize the chance that these workouts will build toward a peak without become drudgery. Of course, I'm aiming primarily at "working adults" here, not at high school or college athletes, or world champions (although this approach might be good for any of them, if they have the time to invest in it). I'm also aiming toward "lifetime runners", or those of us who would like to run and keep running. If your goal is to burn hot and short, try something else.

The basic pattern would be:
1. Tempo (2 months)
2. Intervals and hill repeats (2 months)
3. Repeats (1 month)
4. Peak race
5. Recovery (1 month)

Please note: I will write more about the time frames and how to piece together a year when I cover periodization in an upcoming post.

Tempo
Tempo-paced running is also known as aerobic threshold training. It involves running at 90-95% of your maximum effort, which can be thought of as a "comfortably hard" pace (about 12-20 seconds per mile slower than 10k race pace). Tempo runs can be steady effort or intervals of 1-2 miles, with 1-2 minutes of rest (jogging) between each. I recommend that you limit tempo-paced running to about 10% of your total weekly mileage.

Intervals and hill repeats
Intervals describe running hard (but not all-out) for a specified time or distance, with a full recovery between each interval. Generally speaking, if you are running intervals at the correct pace, it should take about the same duration as the interval for you to regain your breath and bring your heart rate back down to an easy, aerobic level. Intervals are run at a pace that is about the same as your race pace for a 2 or 3 mile distance. In other words, it's nearly as hard as you can run without 'sprinting'. Hill repeats are a variation on intervals, in which you simply run them uphill. It's possible that uphill repeats will need slightly longer recovery periods. (one quick note on recovery periods: while you might want to stand around panting - or flop on the ground - don't do it ... keep moving, even if it's just at a stiff-legged shuffle. There are all kinds of reasons for this, but trust me it's best to keep moving - jogging if you can).

Repeats
Repeats are special form of intervals, that are very fast, very hard, and rather short. They are run as close to "all-out" as you can achieve. Full recovery will typically take a much longer duration than the repeat itself (2 or 3 times longer; for example, if you run really hard for 30 seconds, you will need at least 1:00 to recover, but probably would do better with a 2:00 recovery). Let's face it, repeats are really hard to do. If you can do them with a group, it will help.

Peak race and Recovery
Once you have worked through these phases of intensity, you are ready to run your best race in months, then to take a nice long time (at least a month) to let your body recover from all of this work. Recovery means going back to the base-building workouts, and re-focusing just on frequency and duration for awhile. We'll get into this in more detail soon.

To reiterate: you add intensity to your workouts in order to make yourself faster and to strive for the best performance you can achieve. Intensity helps you get there, or it breaks you down in the process. Monitor yourself carefully, and back off if injury or exhaustion creeps in. However, if you give yourself the right amount of time to adjust to it, running harder and harder will reap benefits in your racing.

Subtext: for any of you who have been wondering how my own running has been coming along, I am loathe to admit it but I am still injured. Whatever I've done to my hip, and the diagnoses keep shifting slightly, it's a mess in there. Multiple injections have improved it, but it's not healed. I haven't even been biking, on the recommendation of my physician, so I'm just a lazy couch potato. It's awful. I am trying to follow medical advice and hope to return to running soon. When I do, it will be my path to follow my own advice put forth here. Hopefully, in future posts, I can use myself as an example of how to apply these principles of training. Stay tuned.

Duration

2009-08-24T09:24:00.003-04:00

Continuing on the theme of thinking through the four basic principles of endurance training, let’s turn our attention to duration. Again, the concept here is pretty simple: duration is the amount of time you spend in an individual workout.

Let’s assume that you have been training for at least a couple of months, building your frequency up to an appropriate level. At that point in your training, it’s time to start changing duration in order to increase your fitness.

Frequency was easy to change; all you had to do was add a workout here and there. Duration is slightly more complicated, because it does not apply across every single workout. To be more precise: at this phase in your training, you will hold frequency steady, but start increasing the duration of 1-2 workouts per week. Your other workouts will remain as they were.

As a distance runner, one of your staple workouts is going to be a long run. Many runners do these long runs on a weekly basis, primarily because weekends work best. When designing the ideal workout regimen, I would probably advocate for a long run about once every 10 days, but since most of us have day jobs, that’s just not practical.

Creating your long run involves adding time, but not intensity, to one of your workouts per week. There is no set mathematical model for this, of course, but start by adding 5-10 minutes to one of your weekend runs each week for a month. If that’s too much, just back off a little. One other word of caution about long runs: you can’t build up duration infinitely. I recommend building up for 3 consecutive weeks, then dropping back down for a week before resuming the buildup. The duration of a long run for non-marathoners will build up until it's about 1:30 or 1:40 in length; marathoners will go longer, at least 2:00 and maybe up to 3:30. When I’ve finished all of these posts on training, I’ll create a sort of template workout plan that will illustrate all of the principles I've been writing about.

That takes care of the weekend long run, but it’s also a good idea to begin extending the duration of one of your weekly runs (logically, a mid-week run). Here you aren’t targeting the same duration as the weekend, but you want to gradually work your way up to a run of at least one hour (or up to 90 minutes if you are training for peak performance). Again, this should be accomplished gradually … try adding 5 minutes per week until you reach 60 minutes, then stay at that duration for at least three weeks before building up again.
Remember, at the core of endurance training is your body’s adaptation to stress. You adapt to stress when you rest, so make sure that you are recovering completely following each workout. If not, rest awhile. Be patient. How can you tell if you are not recovering completely? Several signs to look for:

Lethargy
A sensation of "heavy legs" or "floppy legs"
Afternoon sleepiness
Weight loss or unusual weight fluctuations
Dreading the next workout
Loss of sexual drive or loss of motivation for things that normally excite you
Breathing unusually heavily during low-intensity workouts
Heart rate won’t go up during exercise, or a long lag before it does
Muscle twitches or cramps during the day or night
Unable to fall asleep, but then unable to wake up in the morning

If you have more than one of the "symptoms" described above, then you need rest, not workouts. Skip a day or two, and go to bed early each night. As soon as you feel refreshed and eager to get back at it, do so. If any of these symptoms drag on for more than a couple of weeks, I recommend you speak to your doctor about them.

Remember, during this phase you hold frequency steady and always keep intensity set at "low". Duration is built up over about 2-3 months, ideally (shorter if you are young and/or generally fit, longer if you are the opposite).

(On a personal note: I am still not running due to piriformis syndrome. I’ve now been off for almost 4 months, making this one of the longest layoffs of my 31 year running career. I am in biweekly sessions of physical therapy, and will see the doctor again in about 3 weeks. At this point, I’ve written off 2009 as a bad running year, and now just want to get back to some kind of running, ANY kind of running! I’m doing the recommended exercises daily, and trying to be patient. If there is a lesson to be learned through all of this, it is to see the big picture and to take care of the little things that will help me heal and then help keep me uninjured when I finally start running again.)

Frequency

2009-08-18T15:57:00.004-04:00

In a previous post, I outlined the four basic principles of endurance training:
1. Frequency
2. Duration
3. Intensity
4. Periodization

Today, I'd like to spend some time discussing Frequency.

On it's surface, the concept of frequency seems rather simple. It's just the number of times that you train during any given period of time. We runners typically speak in terms of days per week, but elite runners will likely talk about sessions or runs per week. For example, when I was younger and fit (and brash and foolish), I would train 8-10 times per week. That would include 8 or 9 runs, plus a bit of cycling or swimming. Of course, that meant that I was training more than once per day on a few days each week, thus the need to talk about frequency in terms of sessions per week.

Frequency is the baseline measurement for endurance training. You can't build any endurance at all without at least a moderate frequency of training sessions. Once per month won't do it, even if you think you can force yourself to do some kind of incredibly hard workout. The stress-response cycle that I have discussed here simply needs repetition in order to be effective.

To build your training program, you begin by holding both duration and intensity at a specific level, and work only on frequency. There is no exact formula for how to build up frequency, nor is there a perfect rule for the number of training sessions per week. Your experience will likely be your guide (but having an experienced coach would be the best approach). Even without specific instructions, the rule of thumb is to build any kind of training slowly and gradually. Let's get specific.

I am currently not running at all, as I work with doctors to correct and heal my injury. My frequency is zero sessions per week. When I begin running again, I will probably start by doing some very low-intensity, short-duration runs 2-3 times the first week (I anticipate running about 2-3 miles at (8:30 to 9:00 per mile pace). Assuming those go well, I will then proceed to add one more session per week, each week or two, until I'm up to six sessions per week. Full disclosure: for me, I'll probably aim to run 4-5 times per week, and cross-train (cycle or swim) once or twice per week. This formula should work for me, in part because it is based on my 31 years of consistent running (that is, I should bounce back fairly quickly). In contrast, if you are just beginning a running program for the first time, I'd recommend starting with only 1-2 sessions per week (even shorter and slower than me), and changing the frequency much more slowly, perhaps by adding one session only after keeping frequency steady for 3-4 weeks. Please note that neither I nor the hypothetical beginner will change the duration or intensity of our runs during this early build-up phase. We will keep our runs at low-intensity and short duration while we work solely on increasing frequency.

But how frequent is "frequent enough"? I wish I had a simple answer. It depends in part on your goals, and in part on your body's capacity to adapt to a training load. If your goals are based purely on losing some weight and pleasing your physician, one session every two days is probably adequate for your base frequency. If your goals are to run races up to and including the marathon, you are simply going to need to set your frequency at 6-7 sessions per week, with at least 5 of those as running workouts (the others can be cross-training). If you are looking to win your state championship, or aiming even higher, then you are going to need the dedication and capacity to train more than 7 times per week. Whatever your goals, your first step is to set your frequency at the level you need, before changing anything else in your training.

Frequency is the foundation. Next up, we'll talk about how to make changes in duration, building upon the groundwork of your frequency.

Periodization controversy?

2009-08-07T15:27:00.003-04:00

Last night, while perusing the September 2009 issue of Runner's World, I came across an article by Bob Cooper titled "The Rules Revisited". I usually like these kind of articles, in which old and accepted wisdom is reviewed and sometimes debunked based on the latest research findings. This is most-common with ideas about nutrition, so it's good to keep on top of what's new. However, under the sub-heading "Build to a Peak", the claim is made that runners can "Train the same year-round". What?!

This contradicts what I started to write about in my previous post. Let's explore that.

Periodization is not only conventional wisdom, it's backed by research study after research study. As the author states, "No training system is more widely accepted". However, he then goes on to note that "critics say that all training elements can be woven into a one- or two-week cycle that's repeated throughout the year." He also quotes coach Scott Simmons, who seems to think that you can keep increasing your training load infinitely, "As you become fitter you recover faster, so you can do harder workouts ... Why should you ever cease development and start over again?"

Well, he's quite the optimist, isn't he? I hope he only coaches young, strong runners, and then only for a short period of time. His recommendations are a recipe for disappointment and/or disaster for most of us. In the least they will lead to staleness and require much more context, but in the worst case scenario they are irresponsible and may lead a lot of inexperienced runners to think that they can just keep ramping up their training forever, next stop the Olympics!

Sorry, but life just doesn't work that way. If you keep on building up and building up over an extended period of time, you will either (a) plateau - reach a spot where any kind of training doesn't make you even the least bit faster, or (b) crash and burn - end up injured and/or wiped out by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or something of that ilk. It is quite naive to think that you don't need to plan for the rest you need.

Another issue I have with this point of view that is that it isn't the kind of training program that will help individual runners achieve peak performances. If what you want is to be basically fit and mediocre, then go ahead and train the same way all the time. Sadly, perhaps that is the goal we now aspire to as a culture, let's not strive against our perceived limits to see how far we can go, instead let's all just plod along at a medium-effort-level like a herd of sheep. After all, everyone gets a medal now, don't they? Ironically, in the same issue of the magazine is an ad by Pearl Izumi, where they riff on the idea that even though marathon participation has increased a lot over the past 30 years, the average finisher's time now is over an hour slower than it used to be. Yeah, but everyone gets medals!

At the end of the article, in the fine print, Simmons contradicts himself and admits "Most people need some time off, if only for the mental break ..." Yeah, right, mental break. How about resting appropriately in order to avoid complete physical collapse?

The purpose of periodization is to plan ahead, proactively, for the times in your calendar when you will push yourself to your limits as well as the times that you will recover. The basic precept of endurance training is a simple stress-response formula: you stress the body, it adapts, you stress it again, it adapts, etc. But this is not an infinite cycle. Any stress, if applied over and over endlessly, will break down a system. Even if that system is strong and holds up for a long time, eventually something will give. What goes up, must come down.

I am an advocate for periodization based both on my reading of the literature and anecdotal experience. Not mention the fact that it's simply logical. For a parallel illustration: In long-distance horse races, a veterinarian is on hand at various check-points to monitor the health of the horses, because the poor things are so well-trained that if you just keep whipping them and riding them for long enough, they will dutifully follow your orders until they are dead. That's right, dead. Don't be a slave to your training program or allow a coach to ride you into the ground like one of those poor horses. Build in the rest you need to keep yourself healthy and ready for the next build up in your training. Life is about cycles, ups and downs, waxing and waning. It's the natural rhythm of things. Embrace it.

And be wary of those who claim to debunk all forms of common wisdom. It's fine and necessary to question orthodoxy in order to make sure it holds up under actual research, but we should never lose sight of the fact that some wisdom is actually rather wise.

Training: the overview

2009-08-05T12:08:00.005-04:00

Note: in an earlier post, I mentioned that I would muse a bit about training. Should make for some interesting posts. To increase relevancy, I think I'll first write about the general principles, and then try to apply them to my situation when I return to running. Notice I said "when" and not "if". I hope I'm right about that. Even if it takes me a while to get back, this information should be at least somewhat informative. Let me know what you think.

Distance running is an endurance sport. As such, training is necessary for a distance runner to improve his or her performance. I'm sure that there are a very few people who could run quite well on little or no training, but for the rest of us it is pretty simple: if you train, you run better.

But what is "training"? How do you plan your training, or do you need to plan it at all? Isn't it just running? Fair questions. Not sure I will answer them to your satisfaction, but here is the way that I conceptualize it:

Becoming a better athlete in any endurance sport through training is based on four basic principles. I'll introduce each here, then address them one-at-a-time in upcoming posts.

The four principles are:
1. Frequency
2. Duration
3. Intensity
4. Periodization

Frequency is simply the number of times that you train within any given period of time (we typically discuss this in terms of workouts per week).

Duration is the amount of time you spend, per workout. Notice that I am focusing on duration here, not distance. Practically speaking, duration will typically range between 20 minutes and 2-3 hours.

Intensity is the amount of effort you expend in a workout. It will range from low intensity (walking or easy jogging) to high intensity (running at or near 100% of your maximum in short burst intervals called "repeats").

Periodization is the way in which you schedule your workouts over longer periods of time. We typically speak in terms of several weeks, or even years. Periodization more-specifically refers to how you weave together the previous three (Frequency, Duration, Intensity) along with periods of rest and recovery to maximize your potential. An effective training plan will incorporate periods of building up and periods of backing off, on one, two, or all three variables.

Let me try to put this into concrete terms by using an example. Let's say a runner looks at her calendar in January wondering how to train for a fall marathon. Let's assume that she's been running about 4 times per week for 30 minutes per run at a comfortable pace. Let's also assume she's clever and understands the four principles of endurance training.

To plan her year, she will begin with a period focused on frequency, holding duration and intensity relatively constant. In other words, she'll first get herself up to 5-6 days per week for 30 minutes at a comfortable pace. This period won't take long, about one or two months.

Next, she begins making changes to duration. She is still building strength, and not so concerned about speed, so she keeps intensity low, but begins to stretch at least one weekly run for more than 30 minutes. She's smart, so she does this gradually week by week until about 3 months have passed, and she's running 6 times per week, 4 times for 30-40 minutes, once for an hour, and another for over an hour. In addition, during those 3 months, she has established a periodic cycle in which she builds up her duration about 5% per week for three consecutive weeks, then drops back down for one week to rest and recover. She has laid a foundation of strength, aerobic conditioning, and endurance.

Now it's time to tinker with intensity. Up until now, the changes she has made to her running have been relatively low-risk. She's running more often, and going longer, but it's all been at a comfortable intensity and she's never really out of breath or feeling particularly stressed. However, to maximize her potential, she needs to start pushing her limits a bit. She starts with a period of aerobic threshold training, where once or twice per week she runs a faster pace, but one during which she can still talk (but only 2-3 syllables at a time). Again, she follows the cycle of three weeks of increasing intensity, then backing off for one week to recover. Another month passes.

It's now summer time, and her race is only 3 months away. She plans to increase intensity once per week, by running a set of intervals at faster than her 10k race pace. (Note: I'll talk about these various kinds of workouts in a later post). She is training for a marathon, so she also needs to add a long training run of more than 90 minutes about once per week. She will work her way up to a 3 hour weekly long run before the marathon. This period of training will be the hardest of the year, and is most-likely to lead to injury, but is necessary if she wants to peak for her race.

Following her race (let's just say that she ran strong and beat her previous best by 15 minutes), she knows that it's time for a period of rest and recovery, an "off-season". Otherwise, if she were to jump right back into training, the likelihood of injury and/or illness is very high. She knows she's fit, and it's hard not to be right back out there every day, but she has long-term goals and realizes that rest is just as important as work. When December rolls around, she looks back over her year and makes a similar plan for the next, perhaps slightly increasing frequency, duration, and intensity over the year before (because she is stronger and more experienced), or possibly cutting back on those variables if she knows that she's been pushing herself hard for 2-3 years and it's time to back off for one year, maybe skip a fall marathon, to ensure that she can be a runner for many years to come.

Of course, this is a vast over-simplification, but it begins to illustrate the basic concepts in action. If you are self-coached, it's important to think this through from a high-level, and map out the periods of training for your year. If you have a coach, make sure to talk to him or her about how these principles are being applied for each workout. I've often said, a coach should be comfortable in answering the question "Why this workout today?" in honest and direct terms that are informed by a long-term strategy. If not, then it's time to find another coach.

More to come, on each principle and the kind of workouts that fit with each, along with an outline for how I'll train when I can begin running again.

The Gods Must Be Angry

2009-08-03T12:47:00.004-04:00

Not sure what I've done this year to infuriate the pantheon of deities who overlook athletics, but my punishments never seem to cease. Call me Prometheus.

So, I still can't run, not at all. Last time I tried, my piriformis went on strike, and convinced all of its neighboring muscles to join the picket line. Traitors!

This leaves me limited to cycling, which isn't a bad endeavor, really. Except that cycling in NYC is bit like living in a really bad video game (credit for this concept goes to an old friend and cyclist, John Barrett). At the controls of your 15 pound pedaled steed, you do your best to remain upright (and alive) as you dodge pot holes, taxis, buses, kids on scooters, parked car doors opening into your path, manhole covers, construction sites, garbage, broken glass, brain-dead pedestrians, zombie joggers with iPod headphones blaring who never look before turning, overly-entitled dog-walkers wearing their perpetual scowls (what is it that makes dog owners in NYC so on-edge all of the time?), take out delivery guys on rusty old bikes going the wrong way, homeless crazies who toss things at you, cops, firemen, pigeons, squirrels, puddles, horse carriages, cars, tourists, other cyclists, and ill-timed stoplights. Whew!

Now, even if you can put yourself on hyper-alert and manage to enjoy a ride with all of that chaos going on around you, cycling offers one more challenge: weather.

I can *run* in any kind of weather, believe me. Nothing ever stops me. They say when it comes to running, there is no such thing as bad weather, just choosing the wrong gear. But cycling in the rain is akin to being blasted with a fire hose, from a polluted water hydrant. I swear, I would get *less* wet if I just jumped into a swimming pool.

Seems every single time I gear up for a long-ish ride this summer, the clouds immediately roll in, the thunder peals, and the rain pummels me from above. Not to complain, but come on! Can't I just have one or two convenient hours in the sun now and then?

I would throw myself on the proverbial ground and beg mercy from those mighty immortals who have deemed this the year to spoil my every attempt at running and to drench me on every bike ride ... but I predict they'd just make it rain (or maybe hail) on me while I was prone before them, and enjoy another chuckle at my expense.

Anybody have a dry helmet I can borrow?

Boring

2009-07-28T10:01:00.003-04:00

This is getting boring. I hate being injured and not running. Pout, pout, pout.

I'm finally back on the bike, which helps a little. I was spinning around Central Park this morning, envying all of the runners slogging it out in the humid air. I'm hoping that a few weeks of easy, steady cycling will help both my fitness and my mood, while I continue to wait for this injured piriformis to calm down.

What can I write that I haven't written already? The darned things is sore, possibly swollen, it's not really getting much better. I can stretch it a little now without the wincing pain I was having as recently as two weeks ago, but I still feel it all day, every day. It's either throbbing away, or it's in spasm and pressuring the sciatic nerve, which makes it seem like my hamstring hurts. At this point it's been hurting for so long that I can hardly remember how it feels not to be hurting.

In an effort to keep this blog from being a long series of "I'm still hurt" postings, I think I might do some musing on training and racing in future posts. Perhaps naively, I still hold out hope that I'll be back running at some point soon, so perhaps thinking through the kind of plan that one needs in order to start over again would be helpful to me and to you readers. We'll see, right?

30 years later

2009-07-24T10:20:00.003-04:00

Just in case some of you might have an interest, I've started another blog with a very specific focus. One of the most-treasured memories of my final year of high school was our cross country team's season, which ended with a conference championship. That happened exactly 30 years ago. To celebrate that anniversary, and to take a look back at how we trained and thought about the sport in those halcyon days, the new blog will trace that season day-by-day, starting now in late July. I have entries in my running log detailing every workout and race from that season, along with some old, yellowed press clippings and photos. I think it will be a fun project to post each day's log entry on the same date (more or less), and then add some commentary from the perspective of three decades later. While the new blog is specific to a small-town Wisconsin high school team in 1979, it is my hope that the chronicle of that season might be interesting and may even evoke some memories for each of you.

http://1979bhscc.blogspot.com/

2009 is not my year

2009-07-23T08:49:00.004-04:00

On the advice of the doc and the physical therapist, I tried my first tiny bit of "light jogging" last night. It was a complete and abysmal failure. The first three minutes hurt, but I can stand pain. Then the next two minutes hurt a lot, which made me start to worry. At that point (and remember we are talking only 5 minutes of jogging here) everything in my left hip and thigh just seemed to seize up completely. I am experienced enough to know the difference between pain that I can run through and pain that is telling me, "Hey you, stop, right now, and I mean it!"

So I walked back home, slowly. Sigh.

The pessimistic view would be that I'm just not going to come back from this latest injury. It's not healing, even with medical intervention. I'm done.

The optimistic view would be that it's just a little too early for me to try jogging. The piriformis is still not settled down, and perhaps there are still some underlying issues with my balance and alignment that need to be addressed before I can run again. I am simply not yet healed.

I prefer to be an optimist, but I will admit it's getting harder and harder to maintain that perspective.

I think what I'm going to do for now is limit myself to cycling for the next few weeks. I've used the bike to help bring myself back from injuries a few times before, so I'm hoping that it's going to be an effective method once more.

The bottom line is that I'm not going to be running the races I'd hoped to in August and September (the NYRR Club Team Champs, and the Reach the Beach Relay in New Hampshire, along with a couple of trail races). I feel pretty lousy about this. It's been a depressing summer in terms of running, and I'm not convinced that much is going to change this fall. I am going to take the pressure off completely, and not even think about racing for the rest of this year. I have to face the fact that I'm not even anywhere near jogging at this point, much less being able to run hard in competition.

I guess that 2009 was simply not my year for running, and I should just stop worrying about it.

Yeah, right.

The Needle

2009-07-15T13:12:00.003-04:00

I've just returned from the Physiatrist's office, where two things happened:
(1) he did a nerve conductance test to verify the exact placement of the injured, inflamed muscle
(2) he shot me up three times with cortisone and marcaine, right into the piriformis muscle on my left side.

I have these comments about each:
(1) Apparently, when the piriformis was put into a stretch (rather uncomfortable), the nerve response was nearly zero. The thing is in spasm and swollen so badly that it's almost shutting down my sciatic nerve on the left side. It's a wonder I don't just fall over when I try to walk on my left leg.
(2) Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch. Did I mention ouch? Picture this: I'm curled up in a near-fetal position in my underwear, and the Dr. is inserting this big 5 inch long horse needle into my hip, to deliver the meds right to the injury. I'm sweating bullets and trying just to breathe. He tells me midway through that I'm "doing well", but what he can't see is that I've begun to grind my teeth into small bits, my eyes are beginning to pop out, and I have a miniature version of Niagara Falls made of perspiration running down my back. When he would actually hit upon the injured muscle with the tip of the needle, it would sort of "snap" in a painful reaction. Man, eye-watering pain ... luckily only for a few seconds.

Now, take all of that, and multiply it by three.

My advice if you ever get this shot: do not, under any circumstances, actually look at the needle. Trust me.

The plan:
I start physical therapy later this week, and hope that I can learn some new stretches and/or strengthening exercises to get this thing under control and then keep it that way. The Doc said I could start running very slowly and gingerly in "about a week", depending on what the Physical Therapist said. However, he said my first runs should be only 1-2 miles long. Ahem. That's not really a "run", but what the heck, I must not complain at all if this is getting me back to running, even if on an extended timetable.

My summer is a complete wash anyway in terms of running. Once again, I now attempt a comeback. When you get to be my age, you look back at your running career and realize that it's really just a long series of comebacks!

But, you know what they say, there is no shame in falling down, only in not getting back up again.

Back to the drawing board

2009-07-13T09:36:00.002-04:00

Sorry, dear readers, I have been off the grid for some time. This is due to a combination of things: (1) injured, so not running still, (2) stress at work, (3) two weeks vacation in the gloriously unpopulated woods of northern Wisconsin.

My summer of 2009 has been without running so far, which is horribly depressing. Just before I departed for my vacation, I saw a recommended "Physiatrist", who diagnosed my problem as piriformis syndrome. That label scares the heck out of me, because my best friend had his running career essentially ended because of piriformis problems. Not good. Now that I'm back at home, I'll go to a follow-up appointment this week and undergo whatever aggressive treatments they recommend (I assume this will include an injection of cortisone/lidocaine to the muscle itself, followed by physical therapy). If all goes well, I might be back to running in 2-4 weeks. If all does not go well ... who knows?

It sucks not to be running, I'm sure you'll all agree. What's ironic is that when I'm running well, I take it for granted and/or even sometimes feel a bit resentful about getting out there everyday ... but now that I can't run, I would do anything to be able to jog even a few steps without intense, shooting pain in my left hip and hamstring. My 2009 running goals are all out the window at this point. All I want to do is be able to jog again.

Hope that your running is going much better than mine!

Pins and Needles

2009-06-03T08:44:00.003-04:00

Still not running, which is no fun.
Yesterday I had my first-ever acupuncture treatment. It was interesting. I’ve typically put myself in the hands of sports med doctors, but in general I find that they lack imagination and the treatment is always the same:
1. Stop running.
2. Go to physical therapy twice per week for two months.
3. In PT, they stretch, massage, and apply ultrasound to the injured muscle. It won’t work.
4. After two months, we'll give you a shot of cortisone and you’ll be fine.
5. However, we won’t ever discover any underlying issues and you’ll be injured again soon.
6. Go to Step 1, repeat.

As far as acupuncture, well, at least it’s not going to make it worse, right? And perhaps it will work. I think, after all, that the problem is a gluteus muscle in spasm, which is irritating the sciatic nerve and causing me to favor it, which in turn messes up all kinds of supporting muscles.

Nothing else has worked so far, including:
· Complete and utter denial, pretending that nothing is wrong
· Stretching
· Not stretching
· Taking anti-inflammatories
· Not taking anti-inflammatories
· Running
· Not running
· Cycling
· Not cycling
· Moping around feeling sorry for myself
· Grousing, whining, complaining, grumbling, etc.

After one acupuncture treatment, I have no idea if it’s working. It was kind of fun though. I laid face-down on a massage-type table, and the practitioner stuck about 25 needles into my lower back, legs, and hip. None of it hurt at all; in fact I could barely feel anything except when he put the very last one into my hip, near the injured muscle. That one caused a kind of twinge … not painful, but sort of uncomfortable, only for a moment. Then I lay on the table, a heat lamp shining on my lower back and backside, soothing music playing, for about 30 minutes. I have to say that part was nice. I slipped into a relaxed semi-meditative state, and just concentrated on breathing slowly and deeply.

Today my hip is still sore, but I think the pain may be a little less site-specific, so maybe the acupuncture did something good. I will go back for two more treatments over the next four days, as recommended. What the heck. I also think I could use a chiropractic adjustment, I know I’m not aligned properly even if only because of my slightly gimpy right leg (following Achilles tendon reconstruction in 2003). I don’t want to add another variable, so I’m going to stick with the acupuncture for the time being, look into chiropractor afterward.

My plans for early summer racing are basically cancelled at this point. Oh, well, I always run better in the fall anyway.

On Being Injured

2009-05-18T09:30:00.004-04:00

If you are a runner, you are going to deal with being injured. I hope that you are very durable, or at least a fast healer, so that your need to cope with running-related injuries is minor. But, trust me, if you are in this for the long term you are going to get hurt. Like I am right now.

Left hip, back side, probably gluteus medius. It’s inflamed, and in spasm. Therefore it irritates my sciatic nerve, so I get the occasional shooting pain down my left hamstring and ITB. Running more than a couple of steps is painful. Sigh.

As an endurance sport, running is essentially a long series of physical stresses followed by periods of recovery. In order to be a runner, you will be testing your body’s capacity to adapt to your workouts and races. That repetitive process, whether played out over minutes, hours, days, weeks, or years, will eventually lead to a break down, or two, or three or more. It is inevitable.

In her seminal 1969 book “On Death and Dying", Elisabeth Kubler-Ross first introduced the now-famous concept of the five distinct stages of grief. At first she intended to apply these stages to those with terminal illness, but she later postulated that the very same coping model applied to anyone suffering a loss that was felt deeply on a personal level. I can’t imagine a better definition of how we runners react to injury.

Stage One: Denial.
You think that the pains you feel couldn’t possibly indicate an injury; after all, this can’t be happening to you. You run, you recover, you do it over and over, so this just can’t be an injury, and it will just go away if you ignore it. You keep running.

Stage Two: Anger.
Of course, the pain intensifies, to the point where you can’t ignore it any longer. You think (and maybe even shout out loud, enraged), “Why me?” At this point your fellow runners and loved ones find it difficult to deal with you. You simmer and seethe; words of encouragement sound as if they are mocking you, and anyone who is running is subject to your resentment, envy, and displaced rage. Of course, you keep running, with gritted teeth and an edge to your attitude.

Stage Three: Bargaining.
Whether you are religious or not, you begin to negotiate your case with a higher power, muttering things like, “Please, just let me get through the next race, then I promise I’ll take some time off and I’ll start stretching regularly and eating right and everything else I should have been doing.” At this point you also start impulsively improving other habits, in the desperate hope that doing right by your body in other ways will magically heal the running-related injury. You make sure to brush twice a day, you eat better, you remember to take your vitamins, and you get to bed earlier. Eventually, you try taking one day off from running, as if you can trade just one workout for a clean bill of health. But, of course, you go right back and you keep running.

Stage Four: Depression.
The pain of the injury has now compromised your ability to run. You take one day off, then two, then suddenly a week has gone by and you haven’t logged a single mile. You stay in bed a little longer in the morning, thinking “That’s it, I’m finished, I’ll never run again.” You find yourself lingering in the ice cream section at the grocery store. Your running shoes are now tossed into the back of the closet; you can’t stand to see them. The latest issue of your favorite running magazine arrives, and you toss it into the recycling bin without even opening the cover. Nothing can cheer you up. You’ve stopped running and you think you don’t care.

Stage Five: Acceptance.
Finally, one day, you look at yourself in the mirror, and you admit, “It’s true, I’m injured.” You feel slightly ashamed at having taken all this time before admitting to the obvious … again! You also start to listen to your family and friends, who have known all along that you probably just needed some rest, or maybe a visit or two to your physician/chiropractor/acupuncturist. While you don’t quite see light at the end of the tunnel, at least you admit that you are in the tunnel. And you stop despairing, and start making the adjustments necessary to get back on your feet. After all, you haven’t lost your identity, you’re just injured. That’s right, JUST injured. You know you need to be patient, and you finally begin the healing process.

Ironically, I’ve been through this more times than I care to count, and yet I fall victim to the same pattern almost every time. You could take my running log, page back through it, and discern the stages as I plodded through them over and over again. Take this latest injury, for example. It was over eight weeks ago that I first wrote “left hip tight and sore”. Did I change anything? Nope. That’s stage one. Then you see the tone of the log entries change, and the stray comment appears such as “damn hip still sore, WTF?” Yep, stage two. Then there are some embarrassingly sincere comments like “need to stretch more” and “taking anti-inflammatories”, and (rolling my eyes as I type this), “just need to get through the 50k at Bear Mountain”. Right … stage three. Of course, I managed to get through the 50k race, despite limping along the entire way. Immediately thereafter I stopped running entirely. Sure, I got on my bike and did some half-hearted pedaling last week, but I also “overslept” a couple of times and missed the bike workout completely. My wife tried to be sympathetic, but I was moping around and detaching. Tsk, tsk, stage four. Then, at the end of last week, I finally faced the music and just admitted that I’m hurt. I also began to recall in more detail the time two years ago when I had a very similar injury in my right hip. I eventually overcame that one, and my right side is completely fine now. Given the right amount rest and easy stretching, I’ll get the left side back in shape someday too. Made it to stage five.

Kubler-Ross emphasized that not only is there nothing wrong with going through these phases, but in fact it is necessary, on a psychological level, to move through them as part of the normal process of coping with loss. She also pointed out that not everyone experiences all of the stages, and not everyone goes through them in the very same order, but to my estimation they remain an elegant and resonant way to describe a very common experience.

May you never be injured. But, if you should fall victim to the rigors of our running lifestyle, try not to beat yourself up too badly for being, well, human.

Bear Mtn Trail Races: Another Look Back

2009-05-13T09:09:00.006-04:00

The race organizers of the North Face Endurance Challenge trail races at Bear Mountain did finally get results posted on the web. Scroll down to find the Bear Mountain races from May 9, 2009, each distance listed separately.

I wanted to make sure to recognize a few other performances by friends of mine that I failed to mention in my last blog post:
Cassandra Miller, 1st female in the half-marathon
Clint Earnhart, 3rd overall in the half-marathon
James Redmond, 21st in half-marathon
Bobby Hutton, 23rd in the half, the only other New York Harrier .
Lou Pahnke, 79th in the 50k (his first 50k, I believe, same as me)
Carrie Gatlin, 95th (15th woman) in the 50k
Two other friends of mine, Eric and Mark, were pulled from the 50 miler at about 34 miles for not making the time cutoff. They were disappointed, but seemed to take it in stride. It would seem that the time cutoffs for the 50 miler remain rather aggressive, given the technical and difficult nature of the trails in use. Nice work, everyone. I'm sure I missed a few other Reservoir Dogs who were running, there seemed to be a lot of them out there, that's only because I just don't know everyone on that team.

I've been analyzing my own race over the past couple of days, trying to see if my subjective experience matched my actual performance. Here is a breakdown of my splits from aid station to aid station, along with paces for each and cumulatives:

It's obvious that my pace varied quite a bit, probably in correlation with the terrain and technical nature of the various sections of the race. I also spent more time in aid stations progressively until after 21 mile station, where I ate so much that I felt full the rest of the way (so I paused only briefly for a quick drink at the last two stations). Obviously, I struggled to get from 25 to 28 miles. This section of the course included the climb up and over the Timp Pass, which was the steepest in the race. I walked most of it, and I was so tired that I ran poorly on the rocky descent (sort of race-walking , more than running). Once I got past that section, I rallied a bit on the final 3 miles or so, running my second-fastest miles splits on the day (admittedly, that section was less-technical, although it did have three uphills worth note and I was definitely plodding along with neither grace nor style at that point).

I liked Ben's comment to my last post, that these races are more about mental anguish than physical pain. I wish I could claim it was true for me. If you look at the photos of me nearing the finish line (from my previous post), you can probably notice that I'm favoring my left leg, limping slightly (hips dropping in, lower back a little stiff, shoulders uneven). I wish that my hip had felt better, then I could have faced the mental pain differently ... as it was, I was all-too-focused on dealing with a nagging injury (physical pain with every step).

I feel a little better today, in retrospect, about simply finishing the race. I can't say that I'm measurably proud, because I honestly think I should have been running at least a minute per mile faster ... but I can admit that there is something to be said about not giving up. I also have to be sensitive to the fact that, despite feeling like I struggled all day long, I managed to finish 25th out of 161, which comparatively is not all that bad. Plus, I'm sure those behind me were giving it their best, and suffering with their own injuries, demons, doubts, and challenges.

Funny (ironic) that I can truly say that everyone who completed that course should be proud, and yet not feel quite that way about my own performance. I suppose it's part of the character trait that makes us runners: always hungry, never quite satisfied, always anticipating a better race next time.

Race Report: North Face 50k

2009-05-11T09:39:00.010-04:00

Thanks to Andel and Dima from the Reservoir Dogs for these photos

“Oh, I’ve had better days”

That was my response to the question, “How’s it going” at the 21 mile support station during Saturday’s North Face Endurance Challenge 50k trail race. Admittedly, I was playing the line for mild comic relief, but I also have to say that it was the truth.

I suppose we’d all prefer that our experiences could be easily classified into clear, separate categories, such as: unqualified success v. abysmal failure. The fact is that my race on Saturday was neither, or maybe both … but I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.

I am not the superstitious sort, but even I have to admit that I was surrounded by portents of doom that morning. When my alarm fired at 4:20am, I stole a furtive glance out the back door to see that it was absolutely pouring rain, with occasional flashes of lightning. Of course, my left hip (which has been stiff and sore for over a month) was tight and bothering me already, not a good sign. I wolfed down some breakfast, grabbed my gear and a large umbrella, and managed to speed walk to my car without getting completely drenched. The northbound Westside Highway was partially flooded, and certainly had more traffic than one would expect for 5:00 am on a Saturday ... all of us creeping along in the middle lane, except for the homeless guy pushing an empty shopping cart up the highway in the dark in the pouring rain ... only in New York. I managed to get across the George Washington Bridge okay, but the Palisades Parkway heading north was shrouded in dense fog, a dangerous accompaniment to the still-pounding rain. My hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, I kept telling myself to relax, go with the flow, I’d get there eventually, etc. Luckily, as dawn began to break, both the rain and fog let up, so I managed to arrive at the Bear Mountain parking lot more-or-less on time. However, as I pulled in, four vultures were standing on the ground just in front of my car, staring at me. I could only imagine that they had heard about that day’s race schedule, and that they had made plans to feast on the carcass of any runner who would fall exhausted upon the trail … perhaps they were sizing me up for a potential meal later in the day.

After the requisite pre-race rituals (bathroom, petroleum jelly, re-tying shoelaces, bathroom, loading up the Fuel Belt, bathroom … you know the drill), I headed to the start area and greeted several friends from the Reservoir Dogs, a ‘sister team’ to my NYC racing team the New York Harriers. It was nice to know that I’d have friends out on the course, and it was a bonus to see that a few others had come along to spectate and support (thanks for the encouragement guys, it made a huge difference on such a long day). I was also pleasantly surprised to be approached by a couple of you who said that you’d been following this blog! Thank you, kind readers. I hope to continue to interest and inspire you.

I was determined to start slowly and run at a pace that I could sustain for about six hours, but this is new territory for me so all I could do was take my best guess. As the eager leaders bounded up the first hill, I hung back and relaxed, chatting with a couple of happy if sarcastic lads from Ireland, who eventually disappeared up the trail never to be seen by me again.

From the gun, my left hip and hamstring were bothering me so much that I could sense myself limping slightly. Not good. The fact is that I limped all day, not really what you want to be doing for an ultra. Sigh. I caught and passed an old teammate, Mike V, who was doing the race with his son. We ran together for about a mile, but eventually lost contact and I was surprised not to see them as the day wore on. I hope they had success and finished strong.

The course was, as expected, wet and rather mucky in parts. While the rain had stopped, there was still a bit of fog and mist in the air, and the trees continued to drip for most of the day. Lovely, really. The overcast skies were a godsend, because the air was quite humid and felt rather warm … sun would have led to overheating and dehydration. I enjoyed the first 16 or 17 miles, running slowly, walking the steeper uphills, trading places back and forth with a few other runners. With the exception of the lead female runner, most of us knew we weren’t competing for any prizes, we were just looking to go the distance.

Results from the race still aren’t posted (almost two days later – c’mon guys, get it together), so when they are I’ll come back to this blog and do a more detailed analysis of my race. For now, I can say that the aid stations were positioned perfectly, and well-stocked with both goodies and volunteers. I broke my race up into sections based on making it efficiently from aid station to aid station, monitoring my effort level and any potential problems along the way. I am proud not to have hit the wall or suffered a major bonk, which I chalk up to having had a large pre-race breakfast and to making sure to top off calories at each chance I got. Between aid stations, I sipped Cytomax, nibbled SportBeans, and sucked on Rolaids (good for keeping the stomach settled and for preventing muscle cramps). At the mile 21 aid station, as I tore into my drop bag and refueled, I apparently won the award for the most-food-eaten-at-an-aid-station-all-day, at least according to friends from the Reservoir Dogs.

But I’ve left out the negatives so far, I suppose I’d rather not even mention them, but then the story would be only half-told. Simply put, my left hip hurt all day. I couldn’t run normally, I had to shorten my stride and concentrate a lot of energy to prevent myself from limping. That was no fun. As the day wore on, I started to wear out. Honestly, I was good for about 20 miles. No, I didn’t drop out of the race, but after mile 20 I was clearly not the same as I was before. I was walking more frequently, my legs were feeling a bit dead, and I was basically in the just-keep-moving mode.

We never like to admit our limits. I think there is a deeply-ingrained aspect of the American ethos (mythology?) that is instilled in us from the moment we arrive: you can do anything you want if you just try hard enough. The question: is that really true? Or, more poignantly and philosophically, how could we possibly be so naïve to think that it could be true?

I’ve run 15 races of marathon length or longer. In all of them, without exception, I find that I can hold everything together pretty well until about 20-22 miles, then it all starts to unravel. The objective observer would ask, “When are you going to admit that your physiology just isn’t made for going past 22 miles?”

Someday, perhaps.

As I get older, and slower, I have begun to hang my hat on the thought that I can just move up in distance, and still be competitive. You know what? It’s not really happening.

I completed the 50k race on my feet, a bit stiff but still moving. I think I can take pride in having finished a tough course on a wet, muddy day. Okay, so it took me 6 hours and 13 minutes. Not exactly what I had in mind. I really don’t know what place I finished, but I’d guess around 30th to 40th. Hopefully they’ll get results posted before too long, because I’m curious about it. When they do finally get published, make sure to take a look at the excellent races run by Ryan and Ben from the Reservoir Dogs, who garnered first and second places overall, and by their teammate Silke, who was third woman overall. Truly impressive running, and results they can be proud of for a very long time.

Post-race, I sat at a picnic table with those three and other enthusiastic friends, and we recounted our experiences in short bursts between sips of water and bites of salty food. I had ambivalent feelings about the day. I’d made it, that was an accomplishment. But I’d walked more than I’d wanted to, and I’d just plain felt tired and worn out for the last third of the race. I wondered then, as I still do now, if perhaps I’m just not cut out for doing events of this kind of distance and duration. Truth be told, I enjoy more, and have had more success, at trail races between 15k and 25k in length … and if I just had enough sense to remember that I’d be in good stead, right?

Ah, but I’m just another stubborn runner. I’ll quite probably never learn.

Congrats to everyone who conquered that course yesterday, whether fast or slow. You deserve to feel good about what you accomplished. I’ll be back with more on this event once results are posted.

Hip pains and anxiety dreams

2009-05-06T09:07:00.002-04:00

With only three days to go before the 50k trail race at Bear Mountain/Harriman State Park, the clock is ticking loudly. Meanwhile, my left hip is tight and sore and I find that I’m plagued with anxiety dreams … you know, like when you dream that you are suddenly thrust into a situation that you should have prepared for, but you didn’t, and you start to panic because you don’t know what to do – even though you should – and everyone is looking at you with disdain … and then you realize that you forgot to wear pants.

I know it’s just pre-race jitters, and you’d think after over 700 races in my running career that I would never feel this way anymore. But I do. And to be honest I kind of enjoy it. It’s actually uplifting in a way, energizing. I don’t wake up from those dreams in a cold sweat; instead I wake up and start chuckling. Pre-race jitters means that I still care, truly and deeply, about the race that is pending. It still MATTERS to me. I think that’s kind of cool, and I think it keeps me young.

My hip: I don’t think it’s anything major. Just all the miles I’ve run in the past six months and the fact that I’m all out of whack. The reconstructive surgery on my Achilles tendon 5.5 years ago has left me unbalanced, and it shows when I pile on the miles. Right after the 50k, I’ll get back to some cross-training and see if I can calm down that hip/hamstring over time. For now, I’m just taking it very easy pre-race (a couple days off even), and dropping some ibuprofen and bromelain.

It’s been raining all week, and although the latest forecast says 20% chance of rain on Saturday (race day), it could be a bit wet and muddy out on the course … that’s to my liking. I’d much rather have overcast skies and wet shoes than the opposite: hot sun with a dry, dehydrating wind.

I’ll be back to blog my race report next week. Good luck to all of you on your individual running adventures this weekend. Wish me a bit of luck too, seems clear I’ll need it.

Race Report: 2009 Leatherman’s Loop

2009-04-27T11:25:00.005-04:00

Helter skelter in a summer swelter

An angry sun rose over Pound Ridge Reservation yesterday morning, squeezing every bit of burning heat from its nuclear furnace, hell bent on sizzling the flesh of we mortals as we lined up to start the 23rd edition of this great tradition of prancing through the mud. As I did my final pre-race sprint to try to awaken my aging legs, I gazed back at the assembled horde crowding the line under the flapping plastic flags. I’d never seen so many folks at this race, and the summer-vacation-like weather added a significant number of supporters in a concentric ring: spouses, kids, dogs, friends, and assorted curious onlookers. What a scene!

We jostled cordially for starting position and listened to the long list of stars (past and present) who were venturing once more into the fray. Then the traditional blessing was recited (… beauty above me as I run, beauty within me as I run …). I felt a rivulet of sweat already trickling down the nape of my neck and knew we were all in for a hot one. The scene felt so incongruous, because I associate the Loop with windy, gray, cold, rainy weather and shivering competitors huddled together for warmth and freezing cold, black, soupy mud … not smears of SPF 70 sun block and dry hot gusty breezes.

Just as my skin began to sizzle like cheap bacon, the horn sounded and we were off, in the most-chaotic start I can remember in years. I was pushed, elbowed, and stepped on repeatedly, while the sprinting masses closed in from both sides, shutting me off from contact with the lead pack. Uh oh. My work was going to be cut out for me in the woods. We turned downhill into the first muddy (barely) patch, and that bunch of macho dudes who shot out at the start all suddenly downshifted in unison … so I ran right into them, literally. Sorry, my fellow Loopers, no ill will intended on my part, I didn’t plan to bump and touch any of you at that point in the race, but these old legs of mine were still actually accelerating (it takes me awhile!), and all of you suddenly slowed down. I managed to weave through without major incident. My two older sons were counting runners at the first little stream crossing, and they had me at around 20th place, give or take a few.

The next mile or so of the course stays fairly narrow, with rocks and roots, and goes up and down a couple of times before hitting the first river crossing. I found myself trying to pass one particular runner who was already wheezing with effort, but he just would not let me go by. I tried three times to get around him, but each time he accelerated (wasting both his effort and mine). I backed off and waited about two minutes, until the river, when I shot past him and hit the water hard. I actually passed 4 runners who were wallowing about in the water (although one other guy passed me, nicely done). Up and out over the slimy rocks, and into mud we went. On this warm day, I was already cotton-mouthed and red in the face. Ugh.

The sand hill was just a tough as ever, with an added ‘bonus’ this year: the sand was palpably hot! With the unbroken blazing sun on our backs and the steaming sand radiating heat from below, it was like trying to climb the wall of a sauna. It was so hot that my visual cortex malfunctioned, I swear, all I could see was about 2 feet in front of me as I tried to find footholds and get over that monster.

I had been working my way through the field (“on your left, thanks … on your right, thanks …”) steadily, and there was Tony at the top of the sand hill announcing that I’d managed to get back to 9th place. Okay, not bad, but I’m melting!

The second half of the course is less technical than the first, and it’s all about maintaining your power as long as you can, and trying to reel in those in front of you. I could see old friends Steve Calidonna and George Buchanon up there, and did what I could to join them so that we could be a merry trio. I also assumed that my old pal and teammate Stephen Marsalese would eventually pull up on us from behind, and maybe we could call ourselves the Fearsome Foursome. But alas, on this day Steve was feeling the heat (and hallucinating that the course was somehow stretched half a mile too long), old Cannonball was busy chasing a young guy just ahead of him so I never did close that gap, and Stats Marsalese had his own duel going on behind me and never quite caught up with us. We were all doing our own thing, together but separate.

I was looking forward to the final river crossing near the finish like never before. In fact, for at least 10 minutes prior, I had been fantasizing about performing a perfect belly flop into the cool waters, then maybe spending 5-10 seconds underwater, anything to cool off my core just a little. That day-dreaming might have been just what I needed to motivate me to stagger through the final stretch of tall meadow grasses and jump into the not-so-raging torrent. An impressive gaggle of spectators had gathered, all hoping for us to trip up and fall flat on our faces in the murky water, cheering mercilessly. It’s funny, in trail racing you never expect to have any noise like that. If you are lucky there might be half a dozen hearty souls clapping politely along the home stretch. This was more like the crowd at a high school cross country meet, complete with screaming and clapping and shouting. Brought back some very old memories.

I pushed the final uphill stretch to the finish (into the relentless sun) the best that I could, somewhat confused that so many people in attendance actually knew my name as they urged me on to the line. Of course, post-race, I remembered that race organizers had printed our first names in bold letters on our bib numbers. Duh. It was a tough, hot day, but I had somehow managed to finish in 7th place overall out of 955 finishers (see results here). That gave me first place in my age group, but only because Tommy Nohilly won the race outright (he’s 42), and George Buchanon just turned 50, so both were removed from my age group technically, even though they finished ahead of me. Rest assured, that technicality will not hinder the enjoyment I get from eating the cherry pie that was my reward (yes, pies as prizes, not silly trophies … after all, you can’t eat a trophy, or share it with your family … all races should give baked desserts as awards).

No amount of water could slake my thirst after the finish, as I tried in vain to rehydrate. But once my stomach was sloshing about adequately, I wobbled over to the nearest stream bed with my sons. While they waded around barefoot, I sat right down in the cold water and soaked my weary legs. My older son Max remarked about how calm and peaceful it was to just sit in the woods, with no distractions and no reason to rush anywhere. Well put, my boy, well put. The truth is, even while racing in the woods, and even while giving it all I’ve got, I don’t actually feel “rushed”. In fact, and this may sound odd, I often find myself wishing the race could go on longer. I know that’s not a practical thought, and the truth is that my effort-level yesterday was geared toward a distance of 6.2 miles, so I would have completely unraveled if my wish had come true. So it’s not really about wanting the race itself to suddenly, magically be longer, it’s just the feeling of wanting the EXPERIENCE to continue, the wish to capture the moment and surround myself with it, the old dream that was expressed in song with “… catch a falling star and put it on your pocket, never let it fade away”. Corny and sentimental? Yes, but still true.

A huge thanks to the race organizers and everyone else involved with this great event. I heard a rumor that there might be an autumn race on these trails, I hope that it turns out to be true. Count me in. My one suggestion: use the entire set of trails available in that area and make it a nice and LONG race!

Race Preview: Leatherman’s Loop

2009-04-24T09:08:00.006-04:00

This Sunday (April 26, 2009) I’ll head north to Ward Pound Ridge Reservation to take on the Leatherman’s Loop, one of the most-popular (and muddy, and wet) trail races in this area. Shockingly, this race filled up with it’s limit of 900 entrants only 16 hours after online registration opened this year. I wonder if race organizers will need to start going to a lottery system soon.

It’s well worth browsing around the race website, it’s a bit irreverent and includes a video of parts of the course shot from the runner’s perspective. The most ironic thing about the video is that it doesn’t even really show how difficult some parts of the course actually can be on race day. Crossing rivers and splashing through mud aside, it’s that darned sand hill climb that really does you in. I used to run up the thing (in fact, years ago there were TWO of these, but one was found to contain a rare species of plant and is now off-limits), now I power-walk it (and sometimes pass people ahead of me who are trying to run).

I’m not sure how many times I’ve run this race, the online archive of results is sadly incomplete. I’ve got all my races recorded in my running log, I should go back through and count them up. It’s got to be close to ten times (update: I counted ... it's actually only five times, which surprised me, seems like I've run it more times than that ... maybe just because I like it so much). I’ve managed to slip into the top 10 a few times, and I think I won the masters division once or twice, but I don’t expect anything like that this weekend. Not only am I getting just a wee bit older, but my training is focused on longer distances right now, and my left hip has been rather tight lately. At this point, I’m no speed-demon and I won’t be able to keep up with the young turks who can attack and accelerate for this short distance of only 10 kilometers. But I’ll give it my best shot.

One worry is the heat. Looks like it could be record high temperatures this Sunday, possibly near 90 degrees F. Horrible. Stupid global warming. I can’t recall ever running Leatherman’s Loop while wearing sunscreen. Usually it’s rainy, windy, and miserable (i.e., perfect). I’m not well-adapted to running in the heat, especially when it comes on suddenly. At least it will make the river crossings feel deliciously cool!

My favorite memory of Leatherman’s Loop? One year I was running strong and working my way through the field. At about the halfway mark, I put in a 300 meter surge and barely managed to pass three runners just before we dipped left down into a particularly swampy section (just before the sand hill). No sooner had I made my move when I found myself face down in a mud puddle, maybe 5-6 inches deep : black, slimy, stinky swamp mud. I had tripped over some hidden obstacle, probably just a root. I didn’t even really have time to get my arms out, so I was literally flat on my belly and slurping mud. Of course, all three of those guys went right past me while I was lolling about in the mire, so all that work I’d done to reel them in and pass them had gone for naught. What could I do? I just got up and got after them again. I managed to reel them all back in, one at a time, the last one right after the sand hill. But I finished that race with black mud caked all over me, even in my hair.

I look forward to this race every year for the spirit, the course, and the friends I see at the start and during the race. Of course, I’d like it even more if it was 10 or 12 (or more) miles longer …

Happily felled by a crafty stone

2009-04-20T13:20:00.005-04:00

Trail running is my passion, my play time, my challenge, my inspiration. For me, a 20 mile run on the roads, even in perfect weather with great companions, is at least part drudgery. So repetitive, so leg-deadening. I always feel sort of hungry and bored after the first 90 minutes or so, and just want to head home. Sigh. But yesterday, I ran 22 miles on trails, back at Bear Mountain/Harriman State Park again for probably my last recon run prior to the race on May 9. The weather was rather glorious, typically histrionic meteorological predictions of gloomy precipitation never reaching fruition. The park was as crowded as I’ve seen in awhile, with lots of hikers (many proudly stomping about in squeaky-clean new boots) probably out for their first woods excursion of 2009. Some were a bit stunned by me; admittedly, I must have been a rather stark contrast to the sunny, quiet spring woods as I came thrashing along, dripping sweat and slurping out of my energy drink bottle.

But most folks were friendly and happy, displaying that kind of peaceful glee that getting out of your car/house/office and spending time in the woods will do for you. It’s something not only joyful, but also broadening … I’m finding it hard to put into words. People are friendlier when they are out on trails, water bottles bouncing and trail mix in their pockets. It’s almost like it becomes difficult to be in a bad mood when you are walking in the woods. I think this also applies, at least to me, about running in the woods.

I bumped into a few fellow runners who were also out checking the course. In fact, I passed the same two guys three times, they must have been using shorter routes than I was … you’d think they’d have been annoyed by it, but in fact each time I caught them they were grimly studying their trail map, trying to figure out which way was up. So I think they were glad to have me come huffing and puffing past each time, saying hello once again and pointing them in the right direction.

Long trail runs aren’t without their perils, of course. It was warmer than I expected yesterday, and I did not really bring enough liquids with me. During the final 7 miles of my run I must have crossed 4-5 streams of babbling clear cold water. I was just dying to plop down and drink deeply, but alas one can no longer do that because of giardiasis. I should have brought something to purify the water. I also didn’t eat enough (again!), so I was bonking a bit for the last hour, but I struggled through.

The laugh-out-loud moment came at about 18 miles, when I had just finished a long and gruelingly technical descent on a rocky trail, and finally hit an easy section of fire road. Within 15 seconds, I was face down in a small cloud of dust. I had tripped over the only stone within at least 50 meters in any direction (isn't that the way it always happens?). There it was, clear as day, about the size of a loaf of bread, sitting in middle of the trail and seemingly mocking me. I swear I never saw it. In fact, I think it may have been hiding behind a small shrub, plotting its attack, and then executed its plan perfectly, catching me on the toe and dropping me immediately. I had hit the dirt with a solid thud and a sort of neanderthal grunt which echoed off nearby boulders and came right back at me. It sounded so cartoonish that I guffawed like a teenager at a Seth Rogen film.

I ask you this, how many times do you think you have fallen down clumsily, bloodying your knee in the process, and then responded by laughing hysterically? You see, that is the magic of running on trails.

However, I do hope that rock picks a different victim on May 9.

Complain, but take nothing for granted

2009-04-13T14:33:00.008-04:00

Complaining is a time-honored tradition among runners. We complain pre-race (tired, under-trained, not enough sleep, bad day, etc.), we complain mid-race (too crowded, idiot in front of me can’t keep steady pace, volunteer dropped water cup on my foot, etc.), and most of all we complain post-race (sore/injured, disappointed, should have run harder, should have gone out faster/slower, wore the wrong shorts and got chafed, feet blistered, etc.). We engage each other in a subtle game of one-upmanship at each stage, to us it’s just part of the ritual. To others, of course, it’s just more evidence confirming that we are out of our collective minds.

I ran a 10k road race on Saturday. I could complain about it for a paragraph or two without even thinking too much. But if age and experience were to bring you only one thing, it should be a sense of perspective. Once in awhile, I actually find some.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was in a hospital emergency room with a completely severed Achilles tendon, the result of an ill-timed leap for a rebound in a rec league basketball game (what was I thinking?). The thing was just shredded, like a rope that had been pulled too hard and just ripped apart. The on-call physician stood shaking his head and told me that I’d probably never run again (yes, all I was asking about was running, I didn’t really care about much else). Okay, it did happen more than 5 years ago now, but the terror of that on-the-spot prognosis still sends shivers down my spine.

Running has been the one constant in my life. Running has been there for me through the turmoil of adolescence and the ambivalent emotions of growing older, through successes and failures at jobs and relationships, through times of loss and grief, through times of growth and celebration … I’m not certain who I would be without running. The threat of losing running as part of my life was nearly overwhelming.

Luckily, I found the right surgeon, who promised me that my Achilles would look rather lumpy and ugly but that he’d put me back together so that I could run, IF I followed all of his advice on accelerated rehab. I did, and I’m here today running and blogging about it. Thank you.

So, about that race … okay, so it was cold and rainy and windy and way-too-crowded, and my training has been all wrong for this type of short road race. Okay, so I only finished in 143rd place. Okay, so I used to run much faster when I was younger and I always feel just a little bit embarrassed at my road race times these days. Whatever. In the end, I was able to run hard for just over 37 minutes and cross the finish line strong (I actually finished 6th out of 348 in my age group) then stumble into the warming glow of the bright smiles of my teammates who were all happily and breathlessly buzzing about their own races. As one after another crossed the line and joined the impromptu huddle, there was a clear sense of pride over having ignored the elements together and given it our best. How can I complain, really, when so many people couldn’t even dream of doing what I’d just done, and when I myself have been threatened with losing that ability forever?

I think it’s important not to take for granted this running thing that we all love so much. It can be snatched away at a moment’s notice. It is precious, like so many things in our lives that we value deeply but too often treat as if permanent and not worthy of acknowledgement. We should never forget that everything is temporary, which is why it is so vital to embrace each moment of our lives.

The next time you hear me complaining about some silly little thing (“that fourth mile marker was at least 4 meters short!”), look me in the eye and smile knowingly. I’ll shut up fairly quickly. Then again, if only I hadn’t gotten that little blister on my heel during the race I think I could have broken 37 minutes …

Why race?

2009-04-07T09:39:00.004-04:00

I occasionally meet other runners who seem to train all the time but never race. If asked about it, they either say that they just don’t care to race, or that they don’t like racing. If you press them, they sometimes will claim that they are not competitive and/or dislike people who are. Hmm. I suppose that I can accept that for some people running is a kind of meditative experience and that jumping into a race would feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, life is filled with uncomfortable experiences, some of which are not only important, but lead to deeper self-awareness and personal growth. If you never challenge yourself, then how can you know who you really are? You say you don't like people who are competitive? Good luck with that one, because it's human nature to compete (Disagree? Observe a group of children for an hour and get back to me). Furthermore (and leaving the psychobabble behind) putting a few races on your calendar is likely to make you a better runner, period. Here are some of the reasons that I think all runners should plan to participate in at least a few races every year:

Racing is honest. It provides you with an objective measuring stick for your fitness. The clock does not lie. The results of your races can be used to establish the proper training paces for your workouts, which will lead to improvement.
Racing provides focus to your running. It guides your training cycles (weeks of build up, peak, race, recover, repeat), which in turn makes you a better runner and reduces your risk of injury. With no races on the calendar, you can get into a rut, do the same workouts week after week, eventually tire and feel burned out.
Racing provides focus to your lifestyle. When you have a race planned you are likely to eat better, get to bed earlier, spend more time at home with your family, limit your distractions and vices.
Racing inspires. You are inspired by those around you, and they in turn by you (that goes for your fellow runners as well as spectators and supporters).
Racing motivates. This is especially true if you are a member of a team or have friends in the same race. There is something about a race that I call the pull-push phenomenon: The fastest runners at the front of the race “pull” the rest of the field along and help everyone to better performances … but in addition the back of the pack, by running hard and doing their best, also "push" the front of the pack to faster and better performances.
Racing is exhilarating. It is a peak experience. Racing is an opportunity to challenge yourself and your boundaries, to feel truly and completely alive.
Racing is satisfying. George Sheehan said, “Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.” Pleasure is cheap and readily available, you can get pleasure from a good ice cream cone ... but you get true happiness by pushing yourself and battling your inner demons until you have succeeded, and a race is a perfect crucible for that experience.
Racing is self-affirming. By completing a race, you realize the reward for the preparation. You feel the glow of having reached for a goal and achieved it.
Racing is a fun and social activity. It is a chance to see your friendly rivals and to meet potential new ones. It is a shared experience. In a race, you have become part of a community. We’re all in this together, after all.
Racing is ACTIVE, not passive. In a race, no matter your pace, you are doing instead of just watching. In an of itself, doesn’t that just feel good?

So, sign up for a race soon. See if you can prove me wrong on one, some, or all of the above. Then again, you might discover something I’ve missed … if so, send it along.

See you at the starting line.

North Face 50k Recon, Part 3

2009-04-01T09:11:00.009-04:00

With the North Face Endurance Challenge 50k Trail Race coming up on May 9, I have been making time to get to Bear Mountain/Harriman State Park to traverse the entire route as preparation. In previous postings, I described some of the challenges of the first 7 miles and last 9 miles of the course. That left the middle 14 miles as unexplored (at least for me). My chance to cover those miles came last Sunday afternoon, following the short trail race I ran that morning.

It’s somewhat hard to decide how objective I can be about this latest recon mission. First of all, I was a bit tired from running all-out in mud that morning. Second of all, it was a cool, breezy, misty day, which left the course a bit sloppy and the rocks quite slick; I didn’t fall, but I came close a couple of times, very close. Still, even taking all of that into account, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the middle 14 miles of this race course include the most technical and difficult (and in two cases actually a bit dangerous) portions of the course.

I actually ran 17 miles of the course, from the 3.9 mile mark to the 20.9 mile mark, according to the race booklet. Having run a race earlier in the day, I think I took on a little too much in the afternoon, because I ended up running out of fuel and bonking at about 14 miles. That made for some slow slogging and uphill walking during the last 3 miles, but I suppose I should be glad that it was my energy level and not my legs that gave out on me. Even my sore right hamstring, which had really bothered me in the race, seemed to hang in there just fine at the slower pace of this trail run.

As far as the course, it’s pretty easy from the Anthony Wayne Recreation Area for about 3 miles until you pick up the Ramapo-Dunderberg/AT trail. This is technical singletrack folks, with typical east coast rocks and roots and the need for you to choose carefully your every foot fall. You ascend, then descend, and the last hundred meters down to the shelter at the next trail intersection is very treacherous: on this wet day, it was downright dangerous. You basically hop down some boulders, but they are scattered at odd angles and there are no good hand holds anywhere … be very careful here, a fall is possible and injury likely if that happens!

The next couple of miles, ending up at Silvermine Lake, are nice, and especially a short section just after the lake along soft pine needles. After you cross Seven Lakes Drive, it’s a long slow climb on a fire road to hook up with the Long Path, which puts you back into technical singletrack and several significant climbs and descents for a few miles. The danger zone comes right after passing the Stockbridge Shelter (on your left at the top of a large rock outcropping), where you once again have to hop down and around a few boulders … on this day those rocks were wet and slippery, and the hikers who were holed up in the shelter shook their heads at me as I slipped and skidded down. Eventually, you hook up with the AT again via a short unmarked trail, and emerge on Arden Valley Road. You plunge downhill on the road (ugh!) to Tiorati Circle, then head right back uphill on the road straight across. Navigation got weird at that point, as a completely unmarked and unmapped trail is supposed to take you into the woods to hook up with Ramapo-Dunderberg again … I don’t know if I took the right trail, but I managed to get there. You aren’t long on the RD before you turn off on another unmarked trail, and this one is a bit of an adventure. It’s completely overgrown with underbrush (looks like blueberry bushes and other low bushes), and there must be at least 20 trees that have fallen down across the trail that you have to jump over (update: ran that section of trail again on 4/5/09, and simply counted the downed trees that I had to step over ... 74. No kidding). Luckily, it trends almost entirely downhill. Lucky also that the race will be taking place in the spring, because by summer that trail is going to be so overgrown you won’t be able to see it (although snacking on the blueberries would be nice).

The remainder of this part of the course is actually quite nice and very runnable … of course, as I mentioned earlier I simply hadn’t eaten enough pre-run so I ended up speed-hiking parts. What I’ll need to remember is to stay relaxed and on pace through this area during the race. As I’ve written before, my common mistake in longer trail races is that I tend to pick up the pace mid-race, not because I’m trying to do so, but because I’m just enjoying myself so much and I get into a sort of rhythm that is just a little too fast. Because this section of the course, which will be from about 17 to about 21 miles on race day, is fairly easy I will have to be careful to hold back.

So, at this point I’ve seen the entire 50k course, and I am both impressed and a little nervous about the race. There are a few really difficult spots, and certainly a half-dozen places where a navigational error would be very easy. Hopefully, the course will be marked well enough for that not to be a real problem, but only race day experience will answer that. If you are running one of the races on May 9, best of luck to you. I hope we all have decent weather and great races.

Race Report: Mudders and Grunters, March 29, 2009

2009-03-30T09:19:00.018-04:00

March 29, 2009: Mudders and Grunters 5 mile trail race

Following some late-week rain, there was the promise of mud (glorious, stinky, swamp mud!) on race day for this year’s Mudders and Grunters race in Westchester County. The organizing Taconic Road Runners Club does a great job maximizing the use of the relatively small footprint of Franklin Roosevelt State Park, snaking runners through fire roads, single-track, swampy back lots, and even a couple sections of bush-whacking. The popularity of this race seems to grow every year, and runners come from farther and farther away to be a part of the fun.
I decided to run the race this year as ‘part one’ of an epic day of trail running, which would include an additional 17 miles of tough trails in Bear Mountain/Harriman State Park post-race … but that story is for another blog entry (coming soon).

Because Mudders and Grunters gives out not just the usual overall and age-group awards, but also recognizes top teams, most-muddy, bloodiest, etc. the race gets it share of nutty costumes and fringe lunatics. I love it. While warming up, I saw three women in bunny costumes replete with puffy tails and floppy ears, as well as a young couple dressed as French maids (yes, one woman and one man). There was a smattering of chattering high schoolers, nervous but keen on grabbing attention, along with the more-typical: the gazelles, the grizzly vets, the happy mid-packers, the hungover … you get the picture. And there was a large contingent of my friends running from the Reservoir Dogs, another NYC-based running team with a great subset of enthusiastic and adventurous trail runners. From my team, the New York Harriers, only myself and the ageless Bobby Hutton showed up. Too bad, the rest of you just don’t know what fun you are missing. According to the race results, there were over 400 finishers this year, which must be a record.

At the starting line, I bumped into old friends and rivals, including George “Cannonball” Buchanan (one of the toughest guys to race because he never holds back), Steve “Stats” Marsalese (who knows my running history, well everyone’s running history, better than we do), and Kevin Shelton-Smith (who is capable of flying across the Atlantic, missing the start of an ultra by 4 hours due to airport delays, and still placing in the race). Because this race is so short, I knew I’d have to run hard and fast to finish ahead of any of these familiar faces (some of whom I’ve been racing for over 20 years), much less to keep up with the dozen or so very-fit young guys limbering up nearby.

The start seemed to come suddenly, and we were off. The young lions loped to the front, the rest of us battled for early position in anticipation of the single-track and mud to come. I felt a slight twinge in my right hamstring from the beginning, not a good sign for an old fogey like me and something I’ll have to keep an eye on over the next few days. Back to the race: The first section of wading through deep, odiferous muck begins less than a mile in, and starts with a sharp left turn downhill after crossing a park road. I could see arms flailing in front of me, a sure sign of poor footing. I made it through the turn unscathed, but immediately ran into (literally) some young dude in front of me who was clearly in over his head. He actually apologized to me (well, we apologized to each other simultaneously, funny). Slurping through the slimy shin-deep black bog, I could see Cannonball already at least 30 seconds up on me. This is the way we race each other time and again: he gets out fast; I try to reel him in.

Over hill and dale we rambled, criss-crossing the park in search of mud wallows and thorns. With each technical section, I’d pull some time back, but with each fire road those ahead would pull away again … we were yo-yoing around the course. We came to another nasty swampy section, and I heard someone splashing through behind me, a quick glance confirmed that it was Stats and he was gaining on me. Luckily for me, there was a large tree that had fallen right in front of us. Me being the sneaky rabbit, I ducked under it and continued my assault. Behind me, I heard Stats groan a large "OOF!" at the tree (later I learned that he tried to go over it, but had thumped his belly on the trunk; and in fact the same technique had resulted in a moment of feeling stuck for Cannonball).

With half a mile to go, there is a stream crossing that never looks so bad … until you jump in and it’s twice as deep as you expected, muddy, weedy, and cold. I managed to struggle out of the water as quickly as I could, still chasing Cannonball who was now within range. But he still has such quick feet for a recently-turned-50 year old, and he just kept dancing along there in front of me, tantalizingly close. I gave it all I had, but just could not catch him. I would wager that he ran the first half of the race about 45 seconds faster than I did, and then I ran the second half of the race about 35 seconds faster than he did … so do the math (more-or-less) and he got me by 7 seconds at the uphill finish, with Stats just behind me by 8 seconds. We’d finished in 13th-14th-15th places overall, not bad for a threesome of old dudes. Oh, and Kevin was right there too, finishing in 17th. Of course, some barely 40 year old speedster from the Albany area had traveled down to the race and smacked us all convincingly by finishing over 2 minutes faster. Ah, well, that’s running: the strongest runner wins, period. I love that. No whining, no bad calls by the ref, no coach playing favorites. Just you and the course.

My prize for finishing second in my age group was one of the coveted, pink-frosted piggy cookies, which I consumed gleefully on my way back to the car before heading off on my second trail adventure of the day.

I’ve run this race a number of times, once even finishing 2nd overall. I often find myself a bit ambivalent in telling others about it. On the one hand, it is so much fun and challenging and hilarious, I feel like every runner should get a chance to experience it. On the other hand, part of what makes these cold, wet, sloppy trail races so much fun is that they are the polar opposite of mainstream: with small fields, crazy characters, joking race directors, familiar faces, and the camaraderie that comes from sharing something relatively obscure and zany and hard. I don’t want races like this to get too popular or crowded, but I clearly understand why more and more runners seek them out. May we always find the happy medium!

Great job, Taconic Road Runners Club, keep up the good work. And congrats to all of my fellow competitors, you earned it on that course. By "it", of course, I mean a long hot shower. With lots of soap. Please.

USATF President Doug Logan has ideas, but …

2009-03-27T16:56:00.009-04:00

An article in the Jan-Feb issue of Running Times magazine outlined some of the ideas that new USA Track and Field President Doug Logan has been touting to revamp and revitalize distance running in America. I think he has a steep learning curve in front of him, but perhaps his experience and enthusiasm will help him reach a point where he understands the challenges and can put in place initiatives that are effective. I don’t know who his most-trusted advisors might be, and of course I’m not one of them, but that’s not going to stop me from looking at some of his ideas (as described in the article) and responding to them from my own, long-time runner’s perspective.

From my interpretation of the article, it seems that Logan has three main goals:
1. Recruit ‘weekend warriors’ to become members of USATF
2. Attract more fans and sponsors
3. Unify the leadership of distance running in America

On the surface, these aren’t bad goals. Any organization is at least somewhat dependent on its members, its ability to sustain interest and financial support, and its ability to provide leadership. Let’s take a closer look at these goals and play around with some ideas of my own.

1. Recruiting weekend warriors by showing them meaningful benefits

I’m not going to belabor this point, but I feel it must be made: “weekend warriors” is a condescending term for the tens of thousands of runners who train hard and make sacrifices day-in and day-out in the pursuit of being the best they can be. Sure, there are weekend warriors out there, but the runners I know aren’t in that group. We might be termed “sub-elites” or “age-group competitors”, but what we do is far more than stumble out of bed on the weekends and jog around the block. Logan should take great care in recognizing this, or he will alienate a huge portion of his potential constituency.

Now, just what are those benefits that he is referencing? Unfortunately, the article never lists even one. Luckily for you, dear reader, I ’ve got a list of suggestions:

Take a look at what VeloNews has done for competitive cycling coverage in this country, and emulate that model for competitive running. Consider partnering with mainstream running media (Runners World, Running Times, etc.) to get the word out.
Provide regional coaching clinics for member clubs; this could be done in conjunction with RRCA, who already offer a terrific coach training program at their annual conference.
Provide meaningful discounts, both for general retailers and for specific events (e.g., race entry fees, track meets). Be aggressive here, people are hurting for money and they need to see value in sending USATF a check.
Provide better online resources. You will really make a splash if you provide two things to your members: (1) an online running log that is easy to use and comprehensive, and (2) a combined event calendar and registration system that does not charge the same kind of silly “processing fees” that active.com and its many competitors do (as my friend and fellow blogger Steve Wolfe has pointed out, how on earth could there be a higher cost for online registration than for mail-in, hand-written forms?? After all, self-service with automated tools should make the process easier for race directors). If the USATF provided the one reliable place to go to find a race and sign up for it without large added fees, membership would grow exponentially.
Feature your members on the website, one new person every single day, with photos and biographies. You could make it a random selection, or make it by nomination, but recognition will go a long way.
Publish online a periodic digest of the latest in human performance research. We runners don’t have time to read all of the professional journals, and even if we did most of us wouldn’t know what to make of them. Form a panel of students, supervised by experts, whose job it is to read and interpret the meaning and importance of the latest research and put synopses online.

2. Attract more fans and sponsors

The article describes Logan’s goal to “… attract more fans and sponsorships -- perhaps through the creation of a series of running events that leads to a major championship. That would be a model similar to what football, baseball, basketball, hockey and even NASCAR follow, but very different than the current USATF system of having various championship events scattered throughout the calendar.” The author then quotes Logan as saying, “Do we really have a sport? … Running is a bunch of disparate activities ... The reason sports get media exposure is because they have periodic competitions leading up to a championship event."

Now hold on just a minute there Mr. Logan. Okay, so you want to make sure we have a “sport”, I understand that point. But I think that you may have really jumped to a conclusion here about why sports attract fans and get media exposure. Let’s think this through a little bit …
Periodic competitions leading up to a championship event isn’t the only factor that makes mainstream sports so popular. You have to take several other things into account: history, local and regional loyalties, the spectator-friendly nature of certain sports, and the ability of people to identify themselves with certain teams or individuals.

If you want to make running into a sport (and I assume your primary focus is on track meets here, but I think you should keep as wide a perspective as possible), then you have got to find a way to embrace all of these factors. How? Well, you are going to need a league of some sort, with teams that represent specific cities, states, or regions … build that loyalty. Teams need some kind of continuity, in coaches and athletes, so that fans can develop favorites and rivals. That league needs to have a defined season, so that champions can eventually be crowned at the end, and so that the losers can come back and get them next year. Your league must emphasize the long history of running in this country, its origins, its future stars. Most of all, you need the potential fans to feel like they are part of the event.

Track meets, in particular, have a format that does not appeal to everyday spectators. There are unexplained, long lulls in the action, occasionally interrupted by some flurry of activity. There are rarely any teams involved, it’s always every man for himself, even in international competitions. The events are all mixed up in the public’s eye, so there is no sense of continuity. There are no teams, no won-loss records, no standings, no playoffs … how can fans get excited without those ingredients?

Let’s talk about television coverage for a moment. You’ve got to admit, it’s awful. The incessant focus only on individual champions is terribly off-putting. The athletes typically come across as annoying, ego-maniacal posers. TV coverage focuses far too much on world record-setting performances, which means that anything less than a new record comes off as a disappointing performance. Think of it this way: the equivalent would be if each and every play in an NFL football game was deemed a disappointment by the announcers because a touchdown wasn’t scored. You know what? Fans understand that you can’t always be perfect, you have to find a way for the press to go with that, and for the focus to be on the competition, not the world records. Other problems with TV coverage: there is far too much human interest filler, and not enough racing. Let’s go back to the that comparison with coverage of an NFL football game: You wouldn’t cut away right in the middle of a long punt return in order to show a short piece on how the punter loves his three dogs, and then cut back just in time to see the returner cross the goal line. Fans would be outraged, they would have missed the entire play, wouldn’t know how he scored, how he avoided the tackling, etc. Yet this is what television does during race coverage, it interrupts the race to blather on about the people … invariably, the viewer misses the crucial move, or blindly goes along thinking that the only interesting part of any race is the final 0.5 seconds and then it’s all just a waste of time if a record wasn’t broken. Not good. You’ve got to show the race and you’ve got to get announcers who can recognize what’s going on and add a dash of excitement to explaining it. Also, if a break for an ad does occur just when a marathoner makes his move, for goodness sake go to a replay to show it!

You have this enormous throng of your so-called weekend warriors , who should be the number one fan base for all things running, but they are not … why? We don’t help them identify with the team, town, sport, athlete, etc. We need to find a way to connect professional league competitions to established local races. Bring the pros to the people. In fact, make the pros NEED the people. Make participation count: host city must have 200 runners finish a local 10k in under an hour, or their team is penalized a few points. Get the kids involved too, have them run a short event and count their participation as a way to earn the points back if they are lost. I see no end to creative ways that this could be pulled together.

3. Unify the leadership of distance running in America

In the article, the author noted Logan's “ … concern that the long-distance running community is too splintered …” referring to organizations such as the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA), Running USA (RUSA) and Professional Road Running Organization (PRRO), among others, but was emphatic when he said the distance running community needs to have a cohesive voice. "… What do they all do?" he says, adding that it seems as if people want to form new organizations and groups rather than uniting under "one or two banners. It's symptomatic of [what has been] an overall lack of leadership."

Well, you left out a number of other important groups of varying size and purview, like the NYRR, CARA, HARRA, and even ATRA (plus any number of other indecipherable acronyms). Lack of leadership? Yeah, maybe at a higher level, but each organization typically has its own set of capable leaders. Is it really necessary to eliminate other groups in order to succeed? Or would it be better to provide services that are so good that the other groups come to you for assistance? Seems rather simple to me, frankly. Invest now, reap later. The path to success is not to try to eliminate your competition through criticism, it is instead to do better than your competition and then let the rest take care of itself. If you provide a clear direction, sense of purpose, transparency, willingness to adapt, and capacity to be helpful, you will attract the members, sponsors, and media coverage that you seek. To borrow a well-worn movie line: If you build it, they will come.

Good luck, Mr. Logan. I hope you can succeed where your predecessors haven’t. If you're ever in NYC and want to do some brainstorming, I'm your man!

Why join a running team?

2009-03-26T13:41:00.008-04:00

I was out for a long run with my teammates a few weeks ago. It was a nice, sunny Sunday morning, and we were loping along in a group of about a dozen, chattering away as runners often do during long runs … you know, friendly banter, bragging, and teasing. We passed a middle-aged couple who were running more slowly than us, and as we went by I heard the woman say to the man, “You see, that’s why I could never join a running team, they are all so fast and serious about it.” My first instinct was to turn around and disagree vehemently … but then I would have been left behind by everyone, and probably would have only intimidated the couple. Sigh.

It did get me to thinking, though, about how misguided and uninformed (ignorant?) such points of view really are. Now I know what you will say, that woman was actually expressing her envy in that moment, and actually feeling inadequate. I get it. On the other hand, it’s often helpful for all of us to have at hand an organized set of thoughts for when someone who is uninformed makes a similar statement, or simply asks, “Why would you want to be on a running team?”

I think the answer boils down to four positive factors: we run on teams because (1) we feel more connected to a community, (2) we learn, (3) we improve as runners, and (4) we share mutual support with our teammates.

Connecting
Running together with teammates is fun, and often leads to all kinds of socializing even when you aren’t running. Your teammates are people with whom you share an experience (often a peak experience), regardless of your differences in age, gender, attitude, income, background. Not many aspects of life provide you that kind of common bond. On running teams, romances blossom, couples form and often get married, new career paths are found or suggested, and deep friendships are formed. You will share laughs, trade barbs, and feel attached to those around you. You will be a part of something bigger than yourself, because the team benefits from you just as you benefit from the team, regardless of your foot speed.

Learning
As part of a running team, you will be given the opportunity to learn, from other runners, more about running and all that it involves. You might have access to expert coaching, or the advice and mentoring might be less formal. Regardless, you will find out all you need to know about your training plans, running form, injuries, diet, gear, etc. You will also experience the “osmosis effect”: by simply being around experienced runners, you will inevitably pick up their good habits, pace, form, breathing, stretching, pre-race routines, gear choices, and more. Teams provide organized plans, for training and for racing. And all of what I just described actually leaves out everything else you might learn through your conversations and friendships with your teammates.

Improving
Our sport is pretty simple. It’s based on three principles: frequency, duration, and intensity. You can’t improve if you don’t have all three. Frequency: by being a part of a team, you commit yourself to getting out there for scheduled workouts. Duration: Want to run longer? Good. Know the best way to do that? Just get together with teammates and stretch out your long run together. Works every time. Intensity: If you want to maximize your potential as a runner, you are going to have to push against your limits from time-to-time. I don’t care how intense you are, that process simply cannot be done effectively on your own. You can’t get fast without running fast, and you can’t run as fast on your own as you can with others. Only one member of each running team can be that team’s fastest runner, the rest of us are improving every time we chase that guy or gal as hard as we can.

Supporting
We are all human, and at various times we can all benefit from getting or giving a helpful pat on the back, or an invitation, or a compliment, or a chance to release a pent-up emotion, or help dealing with a crisis or loss. Looking for support? You’ll find it with those same runners with whom you have already shared so much. As a part of a team, you will get recognition for your own accomplishments (and who doesn’t want that?). Even if your team is made up of a bunch of sarcastic wise-guys, you still know that when they are teasing you they are actually congratulating and complimenting you. Finally, there is safety in numbers, and a set of teammates will provide you with that, which is particularly important if you are a woman.

So, join a team
We run with a team because the team is important to us, and because we are important to the team. If you live in an area with even a little bit of population density, you can find yourself a running team that is a good fit, for you and for them. Don’t hesitate. You won’t regret it.

We runners knew this already ...

2009-03-24T12:59:00.002-04:00

But having Will Smith say it out loud and proud to millions of kids is a truly wonderful thing: running and reading are the keys to life (although not both at exactly the same time, of course). For a bit of motivation, click on this video (and share this with the children in your life).

North Face Recon, take two

2009-03-23T09:49:00.004-04:00

North Face Endurance Challenge NY: Bear Mountain Course Recon, take two

Last week, my wife Monika and I found that we could both use a vacation day. Luckily, neither of us had busy Fridays planned at work, so we got the okay from our respective bosses and spent a nice full day together. That’s been a rarity since the bouncing baby boy was born six months ago, so we relished the opportunity to spend some time with one another. Of course, we wanted to run trails. Perhaps that sounds silly to some of you, but the fact is that Monika and I actually designed our honeymoon specifically so that we could run on breath-taking trails together every day for one week, such is our love of running on dirt. In fact, on the last day of our honeymoon, we ran a trail race together on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, and she ended up winning the women’s category. But that’s a story for another day.

On Friday, we went back to Bear Mountain so that I could combine our run with some additional course recon. Monika wanted to do about 12 miles and I wanted a little more, so we decided to keep things simple: we’d run the North Face Endurance Challenge half-marathon course (minus The Pines section), then I’d drop her off at the car and head out to recon the 10k course. I will be running the 50k course on May 9, but the first few miles and last few miles of all courses are the same, so for me it was a chance to really memorize the start and finish trail navigation and hills.

Friday was the first day of spring, but you wouldn’t know it at the time we woke up, because it was snowing outside. Beautiful, soft flakes floating down gently on our back patio. It was too warm for accumulation, but it was very pretty nonetheless. When our little guy’s sitter arrived, we headed north on the Palisades Parkway, gazing at the fresh coat of white snow on the trees and shrubs. It was snowing so hard that you could not see across the Hudson River, a temporary white out. By the time we got to Bear Mountain however, the sun was coming out and there was no trace of snow. Sigh. I love running in snow squalls, but Monika probably had a more rational take, “I’d rather not run all those miles while soaking wet.” Good point.

I noticed earlier in the week that the printed instructions in the 50k participant’s handbook did not match the map published therein. Hmm. Looking over the packets for the other distances, it seemed to me that the printed instructions trumped the map, so I went with those. I think they might be updating the map in the packet, because I noticed it was missing from the race packet recently.

The trails for the half-marathon (and especially the 10k) are mostly wide enough to run two-abreast, so passing your competitors in either of those events should not be a problem. There are many sections that are rocky; I think the trails were once carriage roads with cobbles, but over the years the erosion and freezing cycles have dislodged the stones and made the footing a bit tough. Even if you are running the 10k only, I still recommend fairly sturdy shoes or those sharp, loose rocks are going to hurt. The 10k course is a little more wet and muddy than the others, and there is one stream crossing where the footbridge has been washed out, those of you running that distance should have some fun with that. The half-marathon includes some steep climbs in the last 4 miles, the same uphills that the 50k and 50 milers will face in the final miles of their races. Be prepared to walk a little, especially right before you get to the Timp Pass. I dare anyone to run that last uphill … it’s hard enough just to hike it.

After the Timp Pass, there are only 3 small uphills remaining, but they are going to feel like mountains at the end of a long trail race. Luckily, none are very steep or very long, so you should be able to just plug your way along. Me, I just tried to keep up with my lovely wife as she hopped, skipped, and jumped up those hills on her first long trail run since the baby was born last September ... I could tell she was loving it.

When all was said and done, we both had wonderful runs and even managed to locate a Dunkin Donuts afterward (she for coffee, me for the decadent frosted treats). For us, it was a perfect day together, and we were home in time to play with the little one the rest of the afternoon.

I’m scheduled for the Mudders and Grunter’s 5 mile trail race next Sunday (March 29), and with rain predicted later this week that should be a delightful slop fest. That race seems to get more crowded every year, as more and more runners recognize the fun and adventure of running off-road (and crossing a chest-deep, ice-cold stream about a half-mile before the finish line). After that race, I’m going to refuel and then head across the river back to Bear Mountain to run the middle 17 miles of the 50k course. When I'm done, I will have seen the entire 50k course, which should give me more confidence and peace of mind going into the event. Now, you might say that racing a five miler and then heading out for a 17 mile trail run is a rather nutty plan, and you are probably right. But I’m sticking with it because I feel strongly that I need more long trail runs in order to be successful on May 9 in the 50k. I’ll post information about the middle 17 on this blog next week.

North Face 50k Recon Mission

2009-03-16T08:57:00.005-04:00

North Face Endurance Challenge New York: 50k Bear Mountain Course Recon

I headed north to Bear Mountain State Park yesterday to scout the trails that will be used in the North Face Endurance Challenge New York 50k scheduled for May 9, 2009. I’ve run some of the trails at Bear Mountain/Harriman over the years, but not quite in the direction/combination that they are using for the race.

I began the day at the starting line of the race and headed out to cover the first 7ish miles of the course. At that point, I cut across due east on the AT (up and over a couple of peaks), and picked up the race course again for about the final 8 miles. I’m hoping to head back in the next few weeks to run the rest of the course (miles 7-23).

Most of the parts I ran were “runnable”, with plenty of wider trails and a sprinkling of technical single track. In addition, the saw-tooth profile is accurate: this thing is never flat, you are either going up or going down nearly all the time. The course descriptions in the North Face Endurance Challenge handbook are fairly accurate, although the navigational directions lack distances, which made for a few head-scratching moments yesterday (e.g. “turn left on ski trail” … um, which one?). In all, I think I made three wrong turns, and only the first one was really significant (and a stupid move on my part, I missed an obvious blaze). One thing I've noticed at Harriman over the years: there are plenty of unmarked trails shooting off in many directions. I suppose that comes with the many years that the main trails have been open, and the fact that the park is criss-crossed with automobile roadways that hikers want to connect to by cutting their own paths. At any rate, you need to keep your eyes open and make sure you follow the right blazes, or you can get off-course in a hurry.

I haven’t done this North Face event before, so I don’t know how well the organizers will mark the course beforehand. There are a couple of tricky nav spots in the first five miles, but only the second one is missing any kind of signage (it’s the turn off of Seven Lakes Drive onto Silvermine Ski Road). I missed that one completely, but I knew I was supposed to be crossing the creek that was about 100 meters from the road … so when I spotted the footbridge off to my left, I just bush-whacked over and was back on course.

Over the final 8 miles, there are three sections that are going to cause me some problems. The first is a short section of technical and narrow single-track on the Bear Mountain trail (yellow blazes) heading uphill, followed immediately by the second: a toenail-blackening descent on the same trail (did these people never hear of switchbacks?). The final tricky section is the descent off Timp Pass on the old woods road, which has been eroded over time and is now just a path strewn with fist-sized, sharp, loose rocks. I was slipping and skidding down that thing and nearly fell twice … that’s going to be fun during the race when it comes around the 26 mile mark.
On the final mile back to the finish, there are a couple of angled cross-trails that can throw off navigation, too. Keep your head up.

My assessment: Despite several sections of fairly easy trails, this race is going to be pretty tough overall. I’m looking forward to it while at the same time a bit nervous, which is probably appropriate. I find that the hardest thing for me to do in these longer trail races is hold back over the middle third of the race. I do pretty well being patient and eating/drinking for the first third, but I tend to get into a kind of rhythm in the middle third, run too hard, not take in enough calories, then pay for it over the final third of the race. I hope to practice a little more patience on May 9. We’ll see.

Plantar Fasciitis

2009-03-13T17:05:00.009-04:00

Dealing with plantar fasciitis

If you run, sooner or later you will get hurt. Lately, seems all of my friends are dealing with plantar fasciitis (pain in the heel and/or bottom of the foot). Here is the advice I usually dispense, which seems to be helpful. Major Caveat: I am not a physician and will never pretend to be. What follows is homespun advice coming from my experience with this injury and my attempts to help my friends deal with it. If you think any of this advice is hogwash, well, you are not only entitled to your opinion but you may even be completely right. All I can say is that this stuff has been helpful to a lot of people within my (admittedly limited) circle. If you are in real pain and it’s not getting any better, then stop reading blogs and go see a real doctor!

1. While running: use hard, thermoplastic heel cups in your shoes. These will look and feel funny at first, but they just plain work. In fact, every runner should make sure to have at least one pair around and use them anytime you experience even a twinge of heel pain, arch soreness, or Achilles tendon tenderness. Note: do not even think about those silly “gel” heel cups or anything made of rubber or soft materials; they might seem like a good idea, but frankly they could make your problem even worse. Hard plastic heel cups can be hard to find because they aren’t popular sellers at chain stores. Try checking eBay.com under “hard plastic heel cup”. Should be inexpensive, maybe $20 or less per pair.

2. Get some Birkenstock sandals to wear around the house. As much as you can, try *not* to walk barefoot until the foot is fully healed, EVER. Don’t even tiptoe to the bathroom in the middle of the night with bare feet, or you will re-injure tissue that was trying to heal while you were sleeping.

3. For your everyday shoes, if feasible, adding a significantly firm arch support will really help. I think that these $60 Birkenstock blue foot beds work really well (women’s model shown in this link, but they make them for men too). These are almost as good as expensive orthotics: http://www.birkenstockusa.com/products/women/insoles/arch-support/blue-footbed-casual/1100

4. Loosen the calf muscle through gentle stretching. Best stretch is a non-weight-bearing type. Easiest is simply to engage the shin muscles to lift the top/toes of the foot toward your knee, about 5 seconds at a time, then relax. Start with maybe 5-10 repetitions about 3 times per day; you can increase by a little every couple of days until you are literally doing this a couple hundred times a day. (After you are fully healed, do these every other day as a preventative measure).

5. Loosen the calf muscle through self-massage. I like “the stick”: http://www.thestick.com/products/index.cfm You enter your vital statistics, and they recommend which model to buy. Or just go to the nearest running shoe store, or sometimes your health food store will carry them. Doesn’t really matter that much which exact model you get, using it consistently is the trick. Your goal is to relax and elongate the calf muscle, encourage it to release. Warm soaks in the bathtub prior to the massage will help even more.

6. Exercises: Do only if this doesn’t cause pain! Either pick up spilled marbles with your feet, or do the “dish towel curls”. There are decent descriptions of these on WebMD.
http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/exercises-to-reduce-plantar-fasciitis
http://www.webmd.com/hw-popup/towel-curl
A note on WebMD: while they show these exercises well, the stretches they recommend are, in my humble opinion, too intense and likely to cause Achilles irritation or even injury. Stick with the stretch in #4 above.

7. Fighting inflammation: The Dr. will probably want you to take anti-inflammatory medication, which is fine (if your stomach can handle it). You can eat certain things that will also be anti-inflammatory: pineapple, mango, banana, garlic, onion, mustard, fresh fish, soy, yogurt … and reduce your intake of caffeine, alcohol, eggplant, cabbage, grapefruit juice, and anything that you might be allergic to (shellfish, peanuts, whole wheat, strawberries, tomato?). Okay, all of this might be just old wives’ tales, but I’ve found that it has worked for me and for others. Finally: never ignore the anti-inflammatory properties of good old ice. For this injury: fill a small plastic water bottle (a round one) with water, freeze solid, then take it out twice a day to simply roll the afflicted foot back and forth on it until it melts. It's cheap, re-usable, and remarkably effective.

8. Go to your local health food store and purchase “bromelain” in pill form. It is a natural substance (found in pineapple) that some studies have shown to be nearly as effective as acetaminophen at fighting inflammation, with no real side effects.

9. Practice patience. I know that you are a runner, and living through even one day without a run is nearly as painful as your foot. But take the actions described above, and you’ll get over this injury just like you have gotten over all of the others. What’s that you say, you never get injured? You are one lucky, lucky dog (or, you are basically a liar).

Humble Pie

2009-03-10T16:05:00.005-04:00

In my last post, I wrote about how running is a kind of adventure, if you open your mind to it. The OED defines adventure as "an unusual and exciting experience". Perhaps it takes some effort to make your everyday run into something unusual and exciting, but there are times when the adventure is just handed to you. Of course, not all adventures turn out to have a truly happy ending like in the movies. Below, I'm going to run an article I wrote last summer, about just such an adventure. At the time, I had no platform from which to 'publish' these thoughts. Well, now I do ...

A Big Slice of Humble Pie
The Escarpment Trail Run, July 27, 2008

Success as a runner will resonate with your core sense of self-esteem, confirming your commitment, rewarding your hard work, and justifying the two dozen pairs of smelly running shoes in your closet. By contrast, failures cut deep … after all, when it comes to running, you can’t blame anyone but yourself. At the 2008 edition of the Escarpment Trail Run, I was handed a very big slice of humble pie. I deserved it, I ate it (with only a bit of complaining), and frankly I continue to digest it. These are the kind of lessons that make of us more than what we would be otherwise. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

The Escarpment Trail Run has been on my radar for years. I love running trails, and usually the harder the trail the more I love it. Escarpment has the reputation of being one of the toughest trail races around, and even though it’s only 30k in distance, runners find that it takes longer to complete than a marathon simply because it’s so damned difficult. In years past, I have had one reason after another that caused me to miss this race: injuries, other conflicting races, vacation travel, insufficient training, etc. This year I made sure to run a tough trail marathon in March so that I could qualify (Escarpment is not for everyone, runners must provide evidence of their ability to deal with the trails and/or the distance by submitting race results along with their entries). Finally, 2008 would be my year to run Escarpment. My training went well through the spring and summer. I ran several long trail races, finishing each feeling strong and near the front of the pack. I was thinking that all signs pointed to my being well-primed and ready for Escarpment. Ah, yes, but pride cometh before the fall.

Race morning dawned humid, overnight thunderstorms having left behind several inches of rain, promising to make the course wet and slick. Still, things went well for the first hour. The course was very difficult, with many hand-over-hand climbs, eye-wateringly steep downhills, and much of the trail overgrown with sharp-thorned raspberry bushes, hanging low due to being wet and heavy. By the two hour mark, I was well-scratched but still feeling great, and had started reeling in the fast-starting runners ahead. This all felt familiar, as I had planned to go out conservatively then finish strong , maybe even crack the top 20 by the end. Yeah, right.

In retrospect, it was the downhills that got me. So steep, so slick, with countless ledges that required severe downhill leaps and bounds. At first I felt like I was handling these just fine, but then came more … and more and more and MORE. Finally, like an old jalopy driven a bit too hard, my brakes just gave out. My quads started to cramp, and I knew I was done. When the mind says “Go!”, and the body says “No!”, there isn’t much you can do. Sure, I tried denial at first, but that wasn’t very effective. Then anger, frustration, willing myself forward. My legs responded with full vengeance, by seizing up completely on a set of downhill ledges, causing me to stop halfway down, yelping in pain, frantically massaging and stretching them, hoping not to be crushed by the next runner leaping from above. A glance at my watch showed that I’d been out for just under 3 hours, and I was clearly in trouble. I knew there were only about 4 miles to go, but it might as well as have been 20. I went from” race” mode to “just-get-there-eventually” mode. And with the risk of cramping up and falling off the side of some cliff, I had to think about life safety. Yeesh.

Humbled and hobbling, I finally crossed the finish line in 4 hours and 11 minutes, more than an hour behind the winner. Frankly, given how horrible I felt, I’m surprised it didn’t take even longer. As I limped back to the car through a cold afternoon thundershower, with my wonderfully supportive wife offering words of encouragement, I was already attempting to be philosophical about the whole experience. I had finished a very tough trail race, definitely the hardest trail I have ever run in competition. I was sore and knew I would be for several days, but I was uninjured. I had seen the beast, and I had survived. I had been humbled, brought to my proverbial knees by a monster of a course that I’m sure has had it’s share of my fellow runners locked in it’s sharp teeth.

Prior to the race, I’d overheard one runner say to another, “Will you beat the mountains, or will the mountains beat you?” I certainly had my answer. I was soundly beaten, thrashed in fact, chewed up and spat out. I can only feel awe and envy for the men and women who ran far faster than I did, and achieved their respective victories: you are all truly incredible, keep up the good work. Frankly, the same goes for anyone who survived that course still on their feet. As for me, I’m going to need to do a lot of quad-specific, ledge-jumping training before my next attempt. Let’s see, if I dump a pail of wet, muddy gravel on my kitchen counter, then leap up and down from it repeatedly while my wife whacks me with a bundle of thorny branches …

Running Toward

2009-03-09T14:20:00.005-04:00

I started “running” in the late 1970s. By running, what I mean is actual training in order to run fast in foot races, not jogging a lap around the field as punishment for missing a tackle at JV football practice. Despite the so-called Running Boom that was then underway, and Americans supposedly embracing the phenomenon in massive numbers, I was still dealing with the razzing of the locals in my rather small hometown in southern Wisconsin. At first, and no doubt exacerbated by the fact that I was an adolescent male, I’d get infuriated at the experience. I’d be out running, and I’d get plenty of this type of guff:

“Hey, where’s the fire? Haw! Haw!”
“Faster, faster, faster, heh heh!”
“Whatsamatter, yer girlfriend catch you with her sister?”
“What are you running away from?”

Eventually, I’d reach the edge of town, and get out on the country roads or shaded trails all by myself. Slowly entranced by the rhythms of my own breathing and the tapping of my feet, my active mind would begin to relax in a way that it never would otherwise. If you are a runner, you know these moments … your thoughts begin to unfocus, you can almost deconstruct your experiences and your reactions to them, but without really making an effort. Some say this is a moment of Zen, but I have never been able to find an adequate label or even describe the experience very well. But I know it happens.

Even at that age (now over 30 years ago) my initial anger and resentment started to unravel into a kind of free-floating curiosity. Hmm. What was I running away from? Maybe I was running away from what I could become, if I were to join the herd and shout insults from the porch at what I didn’t understand or envied. Or perhaps I was running away from the intrinsic nature of being an adolescent male, the foaming and volatile mixture of aggressive independence and deep longing for connectedness that boils inside our male souls and drives us all mad.

No, those were interesting theories, and even if they were true in part, they did not describe the WHY of my running. Not even close.

One day, it kind of dawned on me. And I do mean dawned, as in a slow revealing of the light, subtle enough to seem too slow to be changing, but yet unstoppable. I wasn’t running away from anything. I was running toward something. But that something wasn’t the next race, or a few lost pounds, or some distant physical border, or popularity, or any such external goals. It was much bigger and much simpler than that. I was running toward me. I wasn’t fleeing, I was seeking.

This mini-revelation has inspired and influenced my running ever since. To me, running is a kind of exploration, an adventure every day. I embrace the weather, put my face to the wind, and I am alive and on the move. Every run is a chance to discover something more.

Why start a blog? I don’t have a great answer for that question, but I’ll play around with it on my next few runs. Let’s just say, for now, that as I continue my seeking I think there are some things I could stumble upon that might need saying (or writing, as it were). Reactions, ideas, thoughts. I can’t promise they will all be profound or even worth reading. Some will be about running, some about life in general. Maybe now and then you will find something interesting.

In the meantime, join me by going out for a run, no matter where you are. Unlock your thoughts and let them spill out and fall apart for awhile. You never know what you may find.

- Douglas