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Karnazing It

Posted in boston marathon, Odd Ball, tagged , , , , , , on March 1, 2010| 6 Comments »

My friends over at RTR (Run Talk Radio) are currently feuding with Sarah Silverman over the use of the term “to Prefontaine” something. Each is claiming that they were the first to use Prefontaine as a verb. I believe that RTR has documented proof, but Silverman may have them outgunned in the lawyer department. As the battle lines are being drawn, I would like to officially lay claim on my own use of a famous runner’s name as a verb.

But first a little background.

When I first started running back in November ’08 I read Dean Karnazes’ Ultra Marathon Man. I found the book as a whole fascinating. Karnazes’ writing style was easy to read, and despite the occasional “look at me, aren’t I amazing” lines, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. The stories of the various ultra marathons he ran were inspiring and hysterical. The things he accomplished by running made me want to run and run far. If you are new to running or are an old pro, I highly recommend it as an entertaining, inspiring book.

It was, however, the opening chapter that astounded me. The book opens with Karnazes running on a California desert highway, in the middle of the night, looking for a signal on his cell phone. Long story short, when he finally found a signal, he called a pizza delivery place called Round Table and convinced the owner to deliver a whole pizza, a whole cheesecake and a large Starbuck’s coffee to him…in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the night.

Karnazes paid his bill, and then continued to run, hot coffee in his water bottle, cheesecake still in the box in one hand and the large (did I mention large) pizza rolled into a cigar in the other. He continued to run while he ate.

How was this man doing that? Pizza? Cheesecake? Really?

I was floored yet intrigued.

Here I am now though, almost a year and a half under my belt (still a novice). I’ve learned a few things and my legs are a little more solid underneath me when I run. Last Saturday I figured maybe it was time to see if my stomach was solid too. My buddy Mike had an 18 miler scheduled for his training for Boston. About a month ago I had run a 17 miler with him through Boston near the end of which we passed a hamburger joint that was cooking up some aromatic delights. At the time I cursed myself for not having stuffed a $20 bill in my shorts before running. This time I wasn’t going to make the same mistake. Learn something on every run, right? I figured this was the perfect opportunity to put my stomach to the test.

All night and morning before the run I kept thinking, “what to put on the pizza? ham and pineapple? do I top off with black olives? maybe I go in a different direction and go for a hamburger?” Right before the run however, Mike pointed out that since we were starting our run at 7:00 AM, the likelihood of a pizza or hamburger shop being open for business during our run was highly unlikely.

Hmmm…what to do.

“There are a couple of Dunkin’ Donuts along the route,” he mentioned. Okay! Back in business…but donuts? Donuts are not test! I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, but then, Breakfast sandwiches!

At about the 12 mile mark I took off. We had been running along at about a 9:15 clip and we were 2 miles out from Dunkin Donuts. I didn’t want Mike to have to interrupt his run so I needed to buy some time. I flew over the next two miles at a 6:40 pace. I looked at my watch. I had bought myself 5 minutes. I burst through the door at Dunkin Donuts and looked at the menu board.

Even better than breakfast sandwiches – Flatbread sandwiches. Those are kinda like pizzas! Oh! And they have ham & swiss ones!

I ordered 2 of them, and told the woman behind the counter not to wrap them. I would be eating them while running. She looked at me like I was nuts. I looked at my watch as I headed for the door.

4:55, 4:56, 4:57…

As I jogged out, flatbread sandwiches in hand, I saw Mike come running through the parking lot. We fell in step and I started eating.

Initially the sandwiches went down easily. It felt good to be eating something. My body obviously needed something after 14 miles, but after running the last 2 miles at near 10K pace, all my blood had moved to my legs and away from my stomach. The sandwiches sat like a heavy rock in my stomach, but after about a half mile things balanced out again and I felt great. I think that if I had just waited a half mile before wolfing down the food everything would have been fine.

So, it’s with this past Saturday’s experiment that I’d like to lay claim on the following:

To Karnaze – (verb) karnazed, karnazing – to eat something that could qualify as a meal while running long distances.

He karnazed that pizza between miles 20 and 21 of the Boston Marathon.

or

I’m planning on karnazing a meatball grinder on my next long run.

Hopefully Sarah Silverman doesn’t come after me too. Good luck RTR! I’m rooting for ya.

In the meantime, I’m gonna go figure out what I can karnaze on my next long run.

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Have any suggestions?

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The Barber

Posted in boston marathon, Odd Ball, tagged , , , on February 22, 2010| 2 Comments »

I used to go to this woman in the city to get my haircut. She had been taking care of my wife’s hair for a while and I hadn’t had any luck with the local suburban stylists (yes, I know, I just said I go to a stylist.). She was (is!) really good. She even went on to open her own salon with both my wife and I following. However, even with the carry-over-customer pricing, she was still on the expensive side. It just didn’t make a whole lot of sense for me to drag myself into the city AND pay for parking if I could find someone local. Finally, after asking a local mom whose husband’s hair I thought looked pretty good, I found my guy. I’ve been going to The Barber ever since.

What the frak does The Barber have to do with running?

Well, it turns out that he used to run. Not only did he used to run, but he ran during what some might call the Golden Age of Running here in Boston and the US as a whole. The 1970’s and 80’s. He was fast. Not “Oh, your in the top 5%” fast, no, he was FAST!!! He has run Boston more times than I can count or hope to run, with his best finish being a blazing 2:28:00! Just to put that in perspective, that would have placed him 39th in last year’s Boston Marathon.

-Well shoot! I finished 39th a couple of weeks ago in a 10K.

-Yeah, I’m sorry Luau, he would have been 39th out of close to 29,000 runners.

39th in an age when runners have better training, better technology, better diets. He still would have finished 39th. That’s nearly in the top 1/1000th of runners. He ran and trained with the best, including the Legend, Bill Rogers.

Every time I get my haircut I get a new story, whether it’s how he loved to break competitors on the hills, how one day he beat Boston Billy in a marathon (kind of), just how much smaller running used to be (when he showed up at a marathon he pretty much knew where everybody was going to place) or how he had a friend who used “grass” as a PED before going out on 30 mile long runs.

It has made me realize that running is a sport that is rich with history…history that we can’t necessarily find in the history books. The Barber was a second tier runner, one of the best locally, but not one to make it into the best sellers or record books. Yet his stories are in some ways just as compelling and interesting as Beardsly’s and Salazar’s Duel in the Sun or Kara’s and Hall’s attempt last year to bring the Boston crown back to the US.

I am thankful that I found The Barber. Thankful that I get to hear the unwritten local stories. It makes me realize that I am not only part of a wonderful running community in the here and now, but I am also connected to all those great runners that came before you and me.

If you are under the age of 50 or just recently took up running (like in the last 10 years), I highly recommend finding your local old-time runner and listening to his or her stories from that different time. Running has changed dramatically in 40 years. The stories from that era are fascinating. I feel lucky to have heard just a few from the Barber.

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Redefinition

Posted in boston marathon, motivation, training, tagged , , on February 11, 2010| 5 Comments »

Along the right side of this blog’s homepage is a list of my long-term running goals. They used to read as follows:

5K – 20:00 (PR – N/A)

10K – 43:00 (PR – 46:58)

1/2 Marathon – 1:35 (PR -1:40:47)

Full Marathon – 3:20 (PR – 3:54:04)

Within days of starting this blog I quickly knocked down the 1/2 marathon goal with a run of 1:33:14. It was somewhat of a breakthrough race for me. I had managed to take over 7 minutes of my previous best and it was the first time I had made it to the first page of a race’s results. Even with that race however, I figured that 43 was still a pretty good goal for a 10K. Last week I shattered that expectation with a run of 39:29 and in the process beat my long-term goal for the 5k with splits of 19:55 and 19:34.

So I need to redefine my long-term goals for the 5K and 10K. Fine. 19:00 and 38:00. Done. I think 19:00 is achievable, not sure about the 38:00, but what the heck, they’re long term goals, right?

But what about the half and full marathons? That’s a little trickier. When I ran the 1:33 half, I changed my long term goal to 1:30. It’s a leap, but not one that is too dramatic. It would still require me to take over 15 seconds off of my per mile pace. The full? Well, I crashed and burned in my first and only marathon, freezing up at mile 20 but still managing to finish. 3:20 still feels like a fantasy. When I got home from the Super Sunday 10k, I used to my time to find out what my vdot (performance based VO2 Max) was and how that translated into a 1/2 and a full.

1:27 and 3:02.

Really?

Are you frakkin’ nuts?

Yet there it was. Staring at me. Daring me. Taunting me.

1:27 and 3:02.

So, what do I do?

What. To. Do?

My goal all along has been to qualify for Boston. That remains in place and quite honestly, until I do that, I don’t think an even faster marathon has any place on my long term goals. If I finally qualify this year, then maybe I shoot for 3:00 marathon someday.

I will, however, put the 1:27 in for the half. It is somewhat out of reach I think, but I’m going to put it out there. Who knows? Maybe I’ve run as fast as I ever will, but I think it’s worth a shot.

By setting our goals slightly out of reach, we are forced to stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zone, beyond what we know we can do.  It is in that uncomfortable area that we discover more about ourselves and quite possibly arrive at a moment of redefinition.

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*I’d be curious how you go about setting your running goals.

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A Drop in the Bucket

Posted in boston marathon, motivation, tagged , , , , , , , on January 28, 2010| 12 Comments »

The other day I ran 16.7 miles. Right, so what?

It’s not the 16.7 miles that has me writing this post. It is what the run meant, to me anyway.

I have a friend Mike. I have known him since our college days. I owe him. He took me in after I graduated from college.  At the time I had no idea what I was doing with myself.  He was attending his sophomore summer and had a room in our fraternity all to himself.  Or so he thought.   When I arrived at his door a few weeks into the term, he very happily put me up on his couch for the rest of the summer.   I stayed, rent free, for nearly two months. He never complained – not once.  Over that summer, Mike became one of my dearest friends.

Years later, unbeknownst to me, Mike came dangerously close to losing a battle with a liver condition.  With the help of a team of doctors here in Boston, he fought back, got healthy and is now looking to pay it forward by running with the American Liver Foundation’s Run For Research Team in this year’s Boston Marathon.  This will be his first marathon.

What does this have to do with me?  What does this have to with 16.7 miles?

The Boston Marathon has been a dream of mine for a little over a year now.  The idea of running the same race the Kelly’s, Katherine Switzer, Bill Rodgers, Joan Benoit, and Alberto Salazar all ran is something that I find absolutely exhilarating, but as many of you know, one cannot just sign up for Boston.  One must either run for a charity team like my good friend Mike or qualify for the race by running another marathon within a certain amount of time.  I have nothing against charities.  In fact, as a family we have worked very hard to raise funds for both big (Autism Speaks, St. Jude’s) and little (the Autism Alliance of Metrowest, Playground funds, Pre-School Programs) organizations.  But very early on, I decided that I wanted to run Boston because I had qualified.  It will require my running a 3:20:59 or better marathon.  I am not there yet, but I hope to within the next year or two.  I digress.

Mike has chosen a different, and in some ways more admirable and selfless path.  His desire to run Boston has put him in a position to help those who helped him.

Mike signed up to run and has been fairly successful in raising funds for his team.  However, he was having some difficulty with the long runs.  When he first started his training, he very happily drove down to where the team was meeting every Saturday with the hopes of spending the next 2 hours or so chatting with other runners.  What he found though is that many of them would plug-in their ear buds and zone out for the bulk of the run.  I can relate to that.  I do it quite frequently when I am running my long runs…alone.  Having limited experience at running for long distances, Mike feared that he would struggle to stay focused on his own.  He doesn’t run with music so I can totally understand why he would be think that.

So when he emailed me a week or so ago and asked if I wanted to join him for a scheduled 14.5 miler, I said I was game.  I hadn’t run more than 13.1 since November, but “what the heck”, it would be nice to get a truly long run in.  We had a great time chatting for two and a half hours.  We even went an extra couple of miles, finishing the day at 16.7.  It was the most pleasant long run I have had to date.  No hurries, just running with a friend, chatting pretty much non-stop for the entire run.

At the end of the run (it was both the longest time – 2:35:00 – and distance he had ever covered) he looked at me and thanked me, saying that he didn’t think he would have made it to the end without the company.  I frowned.  It may have been more of a struggle had he been on his own, but I told him he would have finished just fine.  He thanked me nonetheless.

My point is this: we may not have the time nor the inclination to dedicate ourselves full-time towards a particular charity or what have you, but during these unsure times, the very least we can do is help those who are helping others.  Did I accomplish a huge feat in running those 16.7 miles?  Did I “make the difference” in how Mike has raised money for the liver team? No, absolutely not.  My contribution to his run was three hours out of my weekend.

A drop in the bucket.

But drop by drop, the rain fills the bucket.

You can find Mike here.

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I won the Boston Marathon last year…

Posted in boston marathon, motivation, Physics, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 28, 2009| 7 Comments »

…I finished with a world record shattering time of 1:59:59. The first sub-2 hour marathon in history…AND I did it in my signature Luau VFF’s.

The Highly Anticipated Luau VFF

Get yourself a pair today at http://www.vibramsfivefingers.com.

Okay, so no I didn’t. I didn’t even qualify for Boston last year. Shoot, I barely ran a sub 4-hour marathon in my first (and so far only) try. But, somewhere, and I mean that, I did it. I not only won the Boston Marathon, but I won New York, Chicago and London as well.

The coolest part…

-wait for it-

…is so did you!

Of course, it didn’t happen in this universe, but if you are familiar with quantum physics (of which I am – just enough to make a fool of myself) you may also be familiar with the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI). In a nutshell, MWI states that for every decision we come to in life, both/all choices are in fact made and reality branches off in two or more directions instead of just one.

For the infinite number of choices we could have made since the beginning of time, an infinite number of not-quite-identical worlds have branched off into existence. Infinite worlds – infinite possibilities, all occupying the same space, just not the same reality. This is not fantasy. It is scientific theory that is actually gaining support in the scientific community.

In one of these worlds, all of the right choices have been made to turn me into a world-class marathoner. I am simply the best there was, is, and ever will be. There is also one where YOU are the number one marathoner of all time.

Looking at the glass half empty, I could ask: Why am I not in THAT reality? Why am I stuck here as just an average, every day runner? I point this out not to tease us or make us feel bad. No, I choose to look at the glass as half full. This other me is still me – the other you is still you. We are connected by the fact that we are essentially the same person. So when I am out there pounding the pavement, feeling the legs tire, I can reach across the ether, mentally touching that other reality and channel the world-class me. He’s/I’m out there/right here – occupying the same space, often running the same routes.

The next time you feel yourself lagging, draw on some cross-dimensional strength. I’m sure the Olympic medalist you would be happy to lend a hand.

***I also have a best-selling book, Run Luau Run, available on Amazon and at your local bookstores. Well, somewhere I do.

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The Quest

Posted in boston marathon, tagged , , , , , on November 14, 2009| 6 Comments »

Boston

So last night a good friend and fellow runner informed me that the Boston Marathon had closed registration for the upcoming 2010 event.  This was two months before the record closing from last year.  I had been convinced that I had until mid to late January to run another marathon in an attempt to qualify for this year’s race.   Disney or Miami – those were the two marathons I was looking at.  Based on my performance during the first half of the Manchester Marathon I thought I just had to run smarter and I would be fine.  Despite my awful crash and burn in the second half, I felt like I had learned a thing or two that I could take into the next marathon.

But then my friend emailed me and told me the news.  My first reaction was, “Okay, I can’t qualify for this year’s Boston.  How else can I get in?”  There are many charities that are awarded bib numbers that I could work with.  My friend who emailed me is running for the American Liver Foundation (if you have a moment, please check him out at http://liverrunner.blogspot.com ) and he suggested that there may be a few spots left on his team.  He also suggested running for Dana Farber.  Another running friend mentioned the Doug Flutie Foundation.  I went online and began checking out the various charities, wondering which would offer the easiest path to an official number.  They are all good and well deserving charities.

I never got past the splash pages for any of the charities, some of which are somewhat close to my heart.

The truth is I started this journey, this quest if you will, with one thing in mind.  I wanted to run a marathon and qualify for Boston.  I wanted to be able to say, “I am a Boston Qualifier!”  A few months back I saw a movie called “Spirit of a Marathon”.  The movie followed the paths of several different people, of various running skills, as they prepared for the Chicago Marathon.  One runner in particular put a lump in my throat.  He had run several marathons, always with the hope of qualifying for Boston.  He had had a good training cycle and thought that this year might be the year.

At one point he looks at the camera and says, “there are different levels of runners.  There are runners.  There are marathon runners.  And then there are Boston Qualifiers.”  I got chills hearing that.  My eyes even got a little leaky.  I was completely crushed when later in the documentary he injured himself and was unable to run.

I want to be on that level of Boston Qualifier.  I may never reach it.  I know there are ways to get in that are just as honorable.  There is nothing wrong with running to change and save lives.  It is just not the path that I want to take.

So now I know that I will not be running Boston in 2010.  I will still run part of it.  I plan on pacing my friend through parts of the race.  But I hope to still run Disney in January and run a qualifying time to apply to the 2011 race.  Just like a marathon itself – you get hit with bumps and challenges.  The key is to power through them and achieve the goal.

That is my quest.

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