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R-un-apture

Posted in Odd Ball, other, tagged Harold Camping, marathon running, running, the apocalypse, the rapture, the runapture, the runocalypse on May 27, 2011| 14 Comments »

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So with Harold Camping telling us that the Apocalypse is 5 months away and that Judgement Day did in fact happen on May 21st, I’m left to wonder, were any of us saved?

Camping came to the date using the numbers 17, 10 and 5; 17 representing heaven, 10 representing completeness and 5 representing atonement.

Well, I have a theory. I think that some of us were in fact saved. Just like Camping used religiously inspired writings to determine the exact date, I have used my own religious sources to determine that if Judgment Day did in fact happen and if the Rapture and the Apocalypse are going to happen on October 21 then it is obvious who is among the saved.

If you look at any painting depicting the Rapture (go ahead, Google it), you will notice one thing in particular – every person rising up to Heaven has a runner’s body. Therefore, one can assume that if you are a runner, you have a pretty good shot at being called up.

Need more proof? Here are a few more numbers to chew on. We keep hearing that it is estimated that 10 – 15% of the “believers” will be saved. We also keep hearing that the number of those saved will be approximately 200,000,000 people. There are about 1.6 billion people in the world who run to some degree (courtesty of Yahoo!). If we take the average of 10 – 15% we get 12.5%. Guess what 12.5% person 1.6 billion is?

You guessed it, 200,000,000!

More proof? According to Christopher McDougall, our species was “born to run”. Therefore, it is how God made us.

So, to stay pure, we must run.

Still not sure? Let’s get back to Camping’s numbers – 17, 10 and 5.

If you add 17 and 10 you get the approximate distance of a marathon. Many first-time marathoners will tell you that “completing” (10) a marathon has a euphoric, almost “heavenly” (17) feel to it. This distance is, according to some scientists, the average distance ancient persistence hunters may have had to travel to chase down their prey, usually within a 5 hour stretch.

Get it? The answer, just like Camping’s “indisputable” mathematical proof is so obviously clear: if you have run a marathon in under 5 hours, you will/have been saved.

If you qualify, you are part of the R-un-apture and you will be let into Heaven. If not, get to work – according to my sources, there is an extension for those willing to run a marathon before October 21st…but you better do it in under 5 hours, otherwise you will be forced to suffer the Runocalypse.

a la NYCM's I'm In Stickers

Why do you run?

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Anger Management

Posted in motivation, other, training, tagged anger, kung-fu, management, running on May 25, 2011| 5 Comments »

Spring of 1992 was the last time I remember being Angry.

Yes, I’ve been mad about things many times since, but not since that Spring have I been truly, blindly, enraged.

I have a pretty long fuse – probably longer than most people’s (maybe too long). I don’t tend to get Angry – I mean really Angry. “angry” yes, “Angry” no. When “angry Luau” makes an appearance, it can be unsettling, not just for me, but for those around me who, for the most part, never see that side of me.

After studying Kung-Fu as a youngster for over 10 years I learned a few things, but two things apropos to today’s post were 1.)the need to stay calm and 2.)fear of what would happen if I didn’t. During those 10+ years, I got very good at what I did. I have spent a lifetime since avoiding physical confrontation for fear that in the midst of anger, I would do something that I would regret for the rest of my life. Twice in my early 20’s, things got out of hand, people got hurt, I swore to be more disciplined.

Recently, we (my family) have had to deal with some things, some people that have really tested my fuse. There have been moments when I have come close to losing it, but the remnants of my training have prevailed.

What does this have to do with running?

Everything.

I have not actively practiced Kung-Fu in almost 20 years. Any martial artist will tell you that when push comes to shove, the muscles remember, but I have not had the benefit of the daily workouts, the daily meditations, the daily focusing – that is, until I discovered running a little over two years ago.

Much like the martial arts, regular running is about discipline – whether you are a marathoner, a road racer or you run simply for the health benefits, running regularly is about focusing, achieving and getting the body to push its limits, to do something that you would not normally do in today’s society (a sad topic for another post someday). When taking it up to the marathon level, running can also be about maintaining a certain level-headedness when every fiber in your being is telling you to stop.

As much as Kung-Fu helped me lengthen my fuse over the course of 10 years when I was younger, running has done the same over the last 2. The discipline obtained from running 20+ miles many times over has carried over into my non-running life, the part that must remain calm when anger is trying to rear its ugly head.

I still fear anger, as I did when I was younger.

Though I do not like to run angry because of the heightened potential for injury, I do find that running is a great outlet for those negative feelings. The rhythmic beat of running is conducive toward a meditative state that allows one to work through the anger without letting the anger grab hold of your core – much like the meditation sessions we would have in Kung-Fu class. Running also provides a heightened physical state that allows one to have the physical reaction of anger in a controlled way, sweating away the negative energy.

I have been mad and angry these past couple of weeks, bordering on Angry – people do crappy things; but running has kept me grounded. Running has kept me focused.

***

Sadly, running has not stopped me from feeling overwhelmed at times. Running has not stopped the tears – in fact, there have been runs that ended in tears as the emotion of trying to understand why some people do what they do pours out with my sweat and eventually gets to me. But the running I do has channeled the potential Anger, harnessed it and used it for the power of good (specifically and hopefully taking me to a BQ-5*).

***

Whether it is running or swimming or biking or boxing – hard, physical exertion can go a long way toward managing, channeling and potentially harnessing negative emotions like anger, much like Tai-Chi. With the path our lives took over the past few years, Lord knows what kind of person I would have evolved into had I not discovered running. The outlet that running has provided has been a Godsend.

I may not be a religious man, but Lord, I want You to know I am thankful. Thank you for the gift of fleet feet, emotional running and cleansing sweat.

*A BQ-# is the new designation I have seen floating around due to the new rolling registration for the Boston Marathon – the different levels being BQ-20 (qualifying by more than 20 minutes), BQ-10, BQ-5 and BQ. The higher the number, the more likely you will have the opportunity to register. My goal this summer is to achieve a BQ-5 so that I may register for Boston on the 5th day of registration as opposed to the second week where there is the possibility that registration will already be closed.

Why do you run?

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Flush

Posted in health, motivation, Odd Ball, other, tagged cure, hangover, how to cure a hangover, running on May 18, 2011| 11 Comments »

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Last Monday night I went to the Sox game. I went with one of my best friends, who was in from Texas. The game itself was miserable at first. The Sox, who had finally reached .500 a quarter of the way into the season quickly went down 6 – 0 early to the Orioles. In the end however, the Sox battled back and eventually won on Adrian Gonzalez’s walk-off hit off of the Green Monstah. During the game I downed 4 hot dogs, an Italian sausage with peppers and onions, a few beers and two larges slices of pizza (one pepperoni and one veggie) – I was a junk food eating machine.

What the hell does this have to do with running?

Hold on. I’m getting there.

The game was nearly 4 hours long, ending after 11PM. I dropped my buddy off at his hotel and didn’t get home until close to midnight. By the time I fell asleep, it was nearly 12:30AM. Not good on a school night.

When the alarm went off at 4AM, I felt like crap. I mean, I really did not feel good. The food and the beer had done some very funky things to my system, and my whole body was rebelling against me. As I struggled to the bathroom to change, my stomach gurgled, my head pounded and my gut just hurt.

I put on my running clothes and stared into the mirror.

What are you doing, man?

I had no answer. So I started to take my running clothes back off to head back to bed. As I began to take off my shorts though, I thought, when am I gonna make up the mileage? I had 12 miles on the schedule and honestly, there was nowhere else in the week to put them without throwing the whole training week off. So as crappy as I felt, I pulled the shorts back up and staggered downstairs for a run.

I lay on the ground to stretch and closed my eyes. The room felt off-center, tilted.

This is NOT going to be good.

I took a deep breath, decided to skip the stretching, skip the outside and just hit the treadmill. At least this way, if something went terribly wrong I could run to the bathroom to throw up instead of on some neighbor’s lawn.

The first few miles were tough. My legs were still a bit beat up from my impromptu attack on Heartbreak Hill on Sunday. Combine that with the processed food hangover and the mild alcohol headache and it was a perfect mixture of nausea and pain.

FUN!!!

Within minutes I was sweating. At the time I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Normally when I run, I don’t start to sweat for a good 10 – 20 minutes.

This was too soon.

But I quickly realized that as I sweated more and more, I began to feel better and better. As painfully slow as the first 6 miles felt, I could feel myself purging the toxins out of my body with each step, with each drop of sweat. By the time I reached mile 7, I was in cruise control, covering the last 5 miles feeling great and refreshed.

And so I was able to take on the rest of the day much differently than had I gone back to bed. I am sure that if I had given in to the siren call of my pillow (and believe me, my pillow sings beautifully), I, along with anyone else who falls victim to those dreaded singing bird women, would have spent the whole day feeling like a big pile of poo. Instead, I was able to flush the toxins out of my system and actually enjoy my day – refreshed, purged, cleansed.

The next time you drink a little too much or eat too much processed food-substitute, think about curing that hangover with a run.

It works!

Why do you run?

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Progress

Posted in other, tagged Progress, retarded, the word on May 11, 2011| 5 Comments »

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On Saturday night, after his teammate Dwayne Wade was asked a somewhat inane question, LeBron James muttered, “that’s retarded” under his breath.

Not that I’m a LeBron fan, but it was disappointing.

What was even worse for me was his defense of his actions Monday morning:

“I didn’t understand the question,” James said. “…it’s the same as me saying, ‘I don’t think that’s a great question’ or, ‘I think it’s a stupid question.’ …I don’t know why someone would even ask him that question.”

As Charlie Zegers at About.com points out, then according to LeBron, “retarded” and “stupid” are synonyms.

Right.

Good job, LeBron!

It really got me down.

But I didn’t stay down too long. By the end of the day, I actually felt kind of good. It wasn’t LeBron’s comment or his defense that I felt good about. No, it was the across-the-board condemnation of both on sports radio here in Boston – from the morning shows into the evening hours, every sports radio talk show I tuned into, both on AM and FM, universally ridiculed LeBron for his use of the word.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the radio show hosts, but suffice it to say, I was pleasantly surprised that both left and right leaning personalities were on the same page on this topic.

Now, I’m not particularly PC. I do lean left on most politically social issues, but I also feel that the far left (along with the far right) has hijacked both the political discussion and process that is supposed to serve you and me. That being said, I feel there are some words that should be rarely, if ever, uttered – retarded is one of them.

It is hurtful; it is mean; it is lazy.

Kevin Arnovitz at the ESPN Heat Index Blog wrote this:

I also don’t think it’s hypersensitive to ask people to be more precise with their language — not as a political imperative, but because it’s so easy to do. This is life’s ultimate value play: We refrain from stigmatizing groups of people with our speech at very little cost, and we reap the benefit of collective dignity and knowing we didn’t hurt anyone. How does this play out in the practical world?

If a reporter asks a silly or inappropriate question, call it silly or inappropriate.

There was a time when the public reaction would have been to laugh at or ignore LeBron’s comment. I have come to realize that those that stand by and “let” hurtful things happen to others while they passively observe are just as guilty as those that perpetrate the hurt. Needless to say, it still happens, but it was nice to see that some progress has been made.

I hope that LeBron figures it out. Like it or not, he is a role model.

Why do you run?

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The Joy

Posted in motivation, other, training, tagged joy, run happy, running on May 9, 2011| 5 Comments »

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With all the “what went wrong” and “what could I have done” and “what will I do” posts over the last two weeks, I was told in passing by my friend Brendan that I was analyzing my Boston Marathon race to death. The tone in his comment was not critical or even one of “hey, earth calling Luau” – it was simply matter of fact.

And he’s right.

Inadvertently, he reminded me that the running is not necessarily about the race or the analysis, but rather, it is about The Joy!

The benefits of the Runner’s High are well documented. So are the health benefits one gets from running; as are the psychological ones; and to a lesser degree, the intellectual ones.

What Brendan reminded me of is the joy of simply being active. All of the benefits mentioned above come after a certain amount of time on your feet. To achieve them, you have to work – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

The Joy however is that feeling you get while you’re slipping on your shorts and then into your shoes, and then finally as you are stepping out the door. That anticipation of movement, of sweat, of earned endorphins, of that feeling of “spentness”

I love that feeling – that sense of joy, that sense of knowing you are about to bring the pain and it is going to hurt so good.

I haven’t forgotten the Joy while I have been dissecting my 2011 Boston. In fact, the Joy has been, in part, what has kept me sane, allowing me to continue to have the desire to run despite the disappointment and analysis.

Well, after Brendan’s comment, the analysis is done, the disappointment is harnessed.

Yes, it is back to training; yes it’s back to numbers – The Around the Lake Marathon is less than 12 weeks away. But this cycle is going to be about The Joy!

Why do you run?

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The Foundation

Posted in other, tagged A Diary of a Mom, Happy Mother's Day, Jess on May 8, 2011| 9 Comments »

She is the foundation upon which our house has been transformed into a home.

She is the roots of the tree that give life to the leaves.

Because of her, Katie is wise beyond her years, Brooke continues to make real progress and I continue to evolve.

She is a fighter, a protector, a nurturer.

She is a teacher. She is a student.

She is a speaker. She is a listener.

She is thoughtful, sympathetic, empathetic.

She is beautiful and sexy, though she often forgets it.

She doesn’t need to wear make up…ever.

She is strong and weak at the same time.

She is a wife, a lover, a friend.

She is a tiger and a bear.

But first and foremost, she is Mama to my little girls.

Happy Mother’s Day, Jess!

The girls could not have designed a better mother for themselves!

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If Only…

Posted in other, tagged autism, autism awareness month, awareness, swimming on April 30, 2011| 15 Comments »

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As I slipped into the pool this morning to try to implement my new effort to incorporate a complement to my running, I was momentarily distracted by the cheery singing of “ring around the rosy”. I looked up to see a group swim lesson going on with parents and toddlers. I smiled at the joy on the parents faces and the playful laughs of the little ones.

And then I cried a little.

As we come to the end of Autism Awareness Month, I can’t help but wonder, how much further along would Brooke be had I just been more aware when she was that age. Watching those parents and their children brought me back to swim lessons with Brooke. Swims lessons that were fraught with anxiety, screaming and crying. There was no joy, there were no playful laughs.

It was the beginning of an 18 month stretch where Brooke became more and more difficult to interact with.

We’ve come a long way since then. Her progress has been tremendous. But there is still a long, long way to go.

And moments like the one this morning as I slipped into the pool are tough reminders that maybe, just maybe, life would be different right now had I been more aware.

If only I had been more aware.

Had we given Brooke the therapies she needed at a much younger age, maybe her autism would not be as severe. Maybe her social interactions would not be as difficult.

This month is important. This month can save lives. Awareness can alter the course of personal history.

Please, PLEASE, don’t let Autism Awareness end with the turning of the calendar.

You just might ease the life-path of a little girl or boy and save the collective life of a family.

Why do you run?

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Next?

Posted in other, training, tagged Post-Boston, Running plans, What's nexts? on April 25, 2011| 17 Comments »

Where will these shoes be running next?

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So…

Now what?

What’s next?

Damned good question.

Boston 2011 has come and gone.

A 3:10 Boston Marathon would have made it easy – the Vermont 50 in September followed by running the New York City Marathon with Autism Speaks in November with some shorter races between now and then.

But I think I have some re-evaluating to do over the next couple of months. By late-May/early-June I need to make a decision of WHAT is it I am training for. I have to decide what is more important to me this year – Is it scratching a 50-miler off the bucket list or is it taking one step closer to a sub-3:00 marathon? Can I do both?

A couple of things to consider:

The fall marathons I would be considering (a return to Smutty, maybe Bay State) don’t happen until AFTER registration for Boston 2012. This means that my chances of getting into 2012 would still be based on my 3:19:19 from Smuttynose 2010. Based on that performance, I will not be allowed to register until the 2nd week AND will have to hope that my 1:40 buffer is fast enough to squeak in. The likelihood of there still being spots available for me will be pretty slim. So, does it even make sense to attempt a 3:10 – 3:15 marathon in October. To add insult to injury, even if I do manage a sub-3:15 but not a sub-3:10, I will be back in the same boat as I am now because of the lower time standards for Boston 2013.
If I run New York this year with Autism Speaks again, I will definitely approach it as a fun run. I would probably still try to improve on last year’s time, but my approach would be completely different, with my first half being a lot more relaxed. That being said, my New York Marathon strategy should not be hindered by a 50-mile trek in September.
I AM considering a small marathon at the end of July. The 24-Hour Around the Lake Race has a BQ-Certified marathon built into it. The marathon is 8 laps around Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield, MA. That’s pretty monotonous, but it’s also flat, like the elevation varies between 25 and 32 feet above sea level flat. One other quirk is that it is run at 7PM at night. That would be interesting and I think that as long as I didn’t get greedy, I could actually make a decent run at a sub-3:15 – that is, as long as the temperatures aren’t too crazy at 7 o’clock at night in late July. A sub-3:15 here would put me in on the 5th day of Boston registration where I think I would have a better than 50-50 shot of getting in. In addition, the pull of an early fall marathon taking me away from the Vermont 50 would disappear.

So…

Decision, decisions.

Why do you run?

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Cracks

Posted in health, other, tagged autism, autism awareness month, dam, running, running angry, tears on April 5, 2011| 37 Comments »

Every once in a while I wonder –

what will her life be like?

who will she call friends?

how many of them actually will be?

will she be able to live independently?

who will watch after her?

will her older sister feel burdened?

will she be…happy?

Autism Awareness Month is a double-edged sword.

I am thankful that so many out there, including many of you, are so supportive and even pro-active. I’ve witnessed the beginnings of a DOAM-Tree; I’ve seen light bulbs go off in peoples heads and on on their porches; I’ve read the President proclaim the official national observance of Autism Awareness Day.

But I’ve also had the harsh reminder that my daughter has autism – more severe than some, not nearly as severe as others; I am constantly reminded that her life will not follow the path of her friends, her cousins or her sister; I’ve watched as she struggles to initiate social interaction and keep up with those that are moving too fast to slow down, even at her own birthday party; I’ve watched as the events of a day simply prove too much, leading to an evening of uncontrollable crying; I’ve impotently stood by, knowing there is nothing I can do other than to just be there with her.

And that is when the cracks come.

I do a pretty good job of holding it together most of the time. My wife is the cryer – she likes to say she and her side of the family have leaky eyes. It’s not a negative or positive thing – it is just who they are. In part because of that though, I have built a wall to keep my tears on the inside. It would do our family no good if we both ended up in puddles of tears. I will and do cry, sob, thrash, scream, lash, break down – but it is always inward, never, if rarely on the outside.

Running has helped with that. Much of the raw emotional energy that comes from the pain of watching my child struggle has been channeled into 4AM runs – I try my best not to run angry, but sometimes I have no choice.

But you can’t run away from pain. You can’t run away from hurt. I can’t run away from autism. I won’t run away from my Brooke.

And so the cracks come, and the eyes begin to leak.

As quickly as they come though, a finger is put in the dam and the leak is stopped…for now.

what will her life be like?

who will she call friends?

how many of them actually will be?

will she be able to live independently?

who will watch after her?

will her older sister feel burdened?

will she be…happy?

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Why do you run?