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Karnazing It

Posted in boston marathon, Odd Ball, tagged Dean Karnazes, Dunkin Donuts, Eating, flatbread, Food, Round Table, running 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.

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.

Have any suggestions?

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The Anchor

Posted in motivation, tagged anchor, motivation, running, why I run on February 25, 2010| 11 Comments »

Why do I run. Question or statement?

I’m not sure.

Why don’t I NOT run? I know. Awful grammar, but I think it might be the more appropriate question.

Why don’t I not run…

Because when I don’t run, I physically feel like crap.

Because when I don’t run, my mood turns dark.

Because when I don’t run, I feel gravity dragging me down.

Because when I don’t run, I feel less productive, less motivated, and less connected with myself.

It didn’t begin this way. For almost 39 years, I merely flirted with running. I ran a little track (110 high hurdles/330 IM hurdles) and cross-country (3 miles) in high school, but even then I didn’t really like it. I liked that I was competitive in my small pond in the 330’s but that was about it (I ran the 330’s because I didn’t have the endurance to run the quarter mile nor the speed to run the 220). When I got to college I hung up the cleats and rarely looked back. I would go out for an occasional run of 2 or 3 miles, suffer the leg pain for the next few days and then throw the running shoes into the closet until I had forgotten the aches. There was no consistency. I was consistently inconsistent.

After college my running became even more sporadic. I ended up teaching at a small ski academy in Maine (actually had a few future Olympians as students), and began power lifting with some members of the alpine ski team. The weight piled on. I had gone from 160 lbs in high school to 190 in college to a whopping 220 as a young adult (the scary part is that the last 30 lbs were between my chest, arms and neck). After teaching for three years I took a job in a New York City law firm and began working 80 – 100 hour weeks. Running went from sporadic to almost non-existent. I would work out when I could, but rapidly all of the muscle I had put on power lifting with the skiers went soft.

***

Flash forward 15 years and I’m married with 2 kids.

Leading up to this time I preached exercise but seldom practiced it. My wife and I had been dealing for sometime with our younger daughter’s diagnosis of autism; each in different ways. Despite putting on a good front, I was adrift and lost. My wife on the other hand had found focus in her blog – a diary of a mom. It was (and still is) an outlet for her and, in many ways, helped her find some sense of peace and purpose. It turned out she was good at writing and connected with people not just in the Autism community, but beyond. She gained an audience. She not only was helping herself, but she was now helping others as well.

I continued to drift, lost in a sea of uncertainty and doubt. Yes, I was the at home parent, taking care of my children during the day. It was and is the most difficult “job” I have ever had. That said, I was disconnected from adults and foolishly worried about how I would be remembered. True, my purpose was my children, but that is the case with any good parent whether they work or not. My focus began to unravel. That was until my blogging wife wrote this: Eye of the Tiger.

Go ahead. Go read it. I’ll wait.

***

So, if you continued to the comments section of her post, you saw that I jumped right in there with her (if you didn’t read it, the short version is that she declared that she had signed up for the 2009 Hyannis Half-Marathon). Truth be told, it wasn’t just the distance that worried me. After I read it, I called the wife and asked her if she realized that Hyannis in February was probably a little on the cold and windy side. She didn’t budge. She was determined. I remember feeling that I couldn’t let her do it alone. As independent as the wife is, I wasn’t going to let her fly this mission solo.

So I told her if she was going to do it, then dammit, I was going to support her all the way. The very next day I dusted off the treadmill in our basement and got to work.

3 miles. 30 minutes.

OH CRAP! THAT HURT!!!

That was Friday, October 24th, 2008. I gave myself the weekend to recover and promised myself 3 days of running the following week.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday. 3 miles. 30 minutes.

By Friday the lungs didn’t burn so much. The following week I did the same. I thought one more week of this and I should be able to bump it up a little.

But a funny thing happened that Wednesday, November 12th. The night before had been poker night. Occasionally one of the members of our poker group will bring a nice bottle of tequila. The night of the 11th happened to be one of those nights. Several shots, several beers and way too much junk food later, I woke up with an awful, AWFUL hangover. I managed to get the kids to school on time and went about my day.

I looked at treadmill after drop off and walked away. After a morning of errands I again looked at the treadmill, but my pounding head told me to walk away. Finally, after lunch I forced myself, my headache and my now sour stomach down to the basement for a run.

I wasn’t letting Jess do this alone!

When I hit 3 miles I wasn’t paying attention. I looked down to see that I was at about 3.25 miles.

Hmmm. I wonder if I can do 4?

I hit 4.

If I keep going I might be able to do 5.

I hit 5.

Maybe I should see if I can do 6…

I hit 6.

Wow! If I keep going I could hit…I looked at my watch.Dammit! Gotta pick up the kids! I don’t know how far I could have gone, but I…felt…GREAT!!!

The next day I did another 6. The following day the same. I very quickly (and foolishly) started cranking out the miles to see just how far I could go on the treadmill. I started doing 8 and 10 miles runs on the treadmill like it was nothing, occasionally sprinkling in a 12 miler. I went from almost no miles in October to 110 in November to 130 in December.

I was hooked.

I felt good.

I rapidly dropped 20 lbs and nearly 4 inches off my waist. I secretly began thinking about running a marathon – about qualifying for Boston.

Running helped bring the rest of my life back into focus. Whether it was the endorphins or just the almost daily breaking of a sweat, I felt like there was balance back in my life. I was able to take the nervous energy that was distracting and tiresome and harness it in a way that gave me more productive energy on a daily basis. I didn’t want to go back.

I finally found that I wasn’t drifting anymore.

That is why I don’t not run. And just like any other physical activities, if you don’t just do it, you lose the motivation to keep doing it. I refuse to let that happen.

Is it ironic that I stopped feeling like I was running in place by hopping on a treadmill and literally running in place? Ultimately there are many, many reasons why I run or don’t not run. Several of those reasons are intertwined with each other, but finding a touchstone, an anchor if you will, was a big one. Running has become one of my anchors.

Why do you or don’t you run?

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The Barber

Posted in boston marathon, Odd Ball, tagged barber, boston marathon, history, running 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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Exploring Captiva

Posted in motivation, training, tagged Captiva, exploring, running, vacation on February 18, 2010| 1 Comment »

The nice thing about running is that you can take it almost anywhere. All you need are some shorts, a shirt (sometimes) and some shoes (if you run with them). Okay, if you’re a woman you may need a sports bra too, but I digress. You can run in the sun, the rain or even through snow, and if the weather is simply unbearable you can hit the treadmill or do what the great Emil Zàtopek used to do. He would fill his tub with blankets and run in place for hours. The point is no matter where you are, if you have the time and are physically able, there is very little excuse for not running.

This past week my family and I spent our children’s school vacation on the island of Captiva, Florida. The weather did not exactly cooperate. The historical temperature for this past week has been in the mid-70’s. The past 7 days saw a high of 67° and averaged much closer 62°. Not exactly your “lounge by the pool/let’s jump in the ocean” type of weather. However, it was perfect for running.

Lucky for me, I am a runner! One of the things I love most about running is that you never have to take the same route twice if you don’t want to. From day one of our vacation, I looked forward to being able to explore the island of Captiva. I figured that over the course of a week, I would get to check out quite a bit of the island. The last time we were here (close to 3 years ago) I went out for a jog (I was not a runner then) and barely got out of the complex we were staying in. The resort is about 1.8 miles from end to end and that was about what I could run at the time. 3.6 and I was done. It was not the distance that made me a jogger, rather the frequency with which I ran (which was once in a while at best).

This time around I arrived as a runner. The idea of running 8, 10, 12 miles was not out of the question. Nor was running 4 or 5 of the 6 days we were there. I was going to explore every nook and cranny of Captiva. I was going to take every side street and loop and see everything there was to see. There was only one problem: after my first run of 8 miles, I had essentially seen the whole island outside of the resort. In fact, that particular run even took me to the neighboring island of Sanibel. The 10 miles the next day covered everything I had missed. Part of the issue is that the island is only a few hundred feet wide in some spots and not much wider in others. There is essentially one road that runs north and south with few side streets open to the public.

Despite that, it is a beautiful place to run and reminded me that running is not always about “per mile splits” and training. Sometimes running should just be about exploring and observing your world. Running up and down that 6 mile strip over the course of the week, I noticed different things with every run.

One day it was some of the over the top houses,

Is there enough room for your whole family dude? The owner's son built the same house 1/4 mile down the road

another day it was the beautiful surf

Notice nobody's in the ocean. Was a cool 62ºF.

Notice nobody was in the ocean? It was a cool 62ºF.

and yet another I got to see some majestic ospreys putting together a nest.

I guess my point is that when training for a marathon, half, 10k or what have you, it is easy to get lost in the numbers. Yes, you want to strive to hit the marks in your training to achieve your goal, and don’t get me wrong, I derive great pleasure from those training runs and hitting those marks. But it has been a joy this past week just running for the sake of running.

Feeling the ground, slicing the wind, seeing the sights.

Final stats:
Days Run – 4/6
Miles Run – 31.36

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Running with my Stomach

Posted in motivation, training, tagged focus, running on February 15, 2010| 5 Comments »

I was in the last few miles of a hard 8 mile run a couple of days ago when I felt my pace slipping and my form failing. I had just fought through a mile of heavy headwind, followed by a protected stretch, but I was now entering a spot where the wind was going to be the strongest. I had been clipping along at about a 6:50 pace and I was tired. As I came around the turn, the wind hit me like a right cross from a heavyweight boxer.

Oh, man! I thought, this is not good.

I tried leaning into the wind. I was not going to let this wind kill my run.

It wasn’t working.

I could feel myself slowing down. The harder I tried, the sloppier I got.

C’mon! I yelled out loud. No Fear, Dammit!!!

It was all coming apart when I remembered something I had read in Chi Running. I don’t have the book with me so I can’t give you the exact quote or even the context in which I read it, however, I can tell you that I remembered something about leading with your stomach. Let you abs lead your body and your legs will follow. Something like that, anyway.

So I changed my focus. I stopped thinking about my form, I stopped thinking about my legs, I stopped thinking about my burning lungs. Instead I began to focus on my abs. I don’t want to say that I tightened my abs, but by focusing on them I felt like I was engaging them. As soon as I did that, the movement of my legs became effortless – literally. I’m not exaggerating. For about a half a mile, by focusing on my abs, I was able to run without physical effort. What’s more, my pace picked back up. After running the first half of mile 7 in 3:50, I came back with a 3:30 second half. I was only able to do this for a little over a half mile. Physically I felt great, but mentally I just could not keep the focus going. That half mile break from physical effort however allowed me to find my reserves. I closed the run with a 6:38 final mile.

So the task over the next few months is to train myself mentally as well as physically. If I can learn to stay mentally focused for three hours, Boston should be easily achieved. Of course, I had a hard enough time doing it for 3 1/2 minutes, but hey! what’s another 176 1/2 minutes, right?

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Redefinition

Posted in boston marathon, motivation, training, tagged boston marathon, running, running goals 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.

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

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Pre-race Jitters

Posted in other, tagged jitters, running, Super Sunday 10K on February 5, 2010| 9 Comments »

I haven’t run a lot of races. Since hanging up the cleats in high school, I’ve run 4 races (a 10K, 2 half marathons and one full), and those 4 have been in the last 12 months. The funny thing is that I haven’t had too many jitters going into these races. I knew I wasn’t an elite runner and quite honestly, aside from the marathon, I didn’t really know what I wanted to accomplish in the races.

But this Sunday I will be running the Super Sunday 10K for the second time. It is my first repeat race.

And I am nervous.

Why? It is a race I am familiar with. It is a race I know I can finish. I ran the race last year in a respectable 46:58. It was my first race as an adult, but I am more nervous about it this year than last.

Shouldn’t it be the other way around? In life, when we repeat things, aren’t they supposed to become easier? For the past few years as our elementary school’s PTO President I had to speak to groups of parents both large and small regularly. The first couple of times were nerve-wracking, although that might have something more to do with the fact that the chair I was sitting in before my first speech ripped a dollar size hole in the back of my pants – I had to back my way onto the stage, but that’s another story for another blog. It very quickly became easy, almost second nature speaking to them, no matter how controversial the topic might be.

So why am I nervous? It’s not like I’m not competing for a medal or a prize.

I am nervous because I am competing against myself. I set a standard last year that I hope to improve upon and that scares me a little. What if I don’t beat my time? What if I pull a hamstring and can’t finish? What would that say about all of the running I have done over the past 12 months?

A year ago I was happy just to finish, in part because 6 months earlier I would have laughed at the idea at finishing a 10K in under an hour. A year later, things have changed. I am more competitive – with myself.

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Was it the shoes?

Posted in health, training, Vibram Five Fingers, tagged running, running form, Time, VFF, Vibram Five Finger on February 4, 2010| 10 Comments »

So lately I have been going back and forth between my VFF Treks and my old Brooks Defyance. It’s due to a combination of things: the weather, the cold, the long treadmill runs. I used to hate putting on my “regular” running shoes because, well, I hated them. They’re heavy and I can’t feel anything with my feet when I run in them. Lately though, I’ve noticed something. I actually feel ok when I run in them. I’m not doing anything exotic (intervals, fartleks, etc.) with them, just long slow distances on the treadmill or my shorter, typical runs outside if the snow is fresh and deep or wet and slushy.

Last November, while I was running my local half-marathon, my buddy Mike (he seems to be popping up every where in this blog) was volunteering. He had planned to run it but had injured himself a few weeks earlier during a 5K. He said to me after the race that he noticed that my gait was different from when we had first run together 10 months earlier. It really didn’t register with me, except for the fact that I was running in my VFF KSOs.

But this past month has me wondering. I did more running in my traditional running shoes in January than I had since June of last year when I started running almost exclusively in VFFs. It used to be that if I put in a certain number of miles in regular shoes, my right knee would start screaming for a break. Consequently, I would have to take a week off from running and I would turn into a grumpy old man. But this last month has been different. When I went back to do the math I was shocked to find that I had run well over 100 miles in January in my Brooks.

Yet, the knee is peachy.

Why?

Did the VFF’s improve my form or did time? I remember reading early on in my rediscovery of running that you can very often tell the difference between a beginner and an experienced runner by the length of their stride. The longer you run, the shorter you stride becomes because your body learns how to be more efficient. The shorter stride means a quicker turnover and a lesser likelihood of your limbs flailing and wasting energy. My stride is definitely shorter than it was in November of 2008.

I also read when I first discovered Vibram Five Finger shoes that running barefoot or with a minimal shoe like the VFF forces your body back to the way we are designed to run (not on our heels), which in turn, shortens your stride. In the VFFs you tend to land more on the flat or balls of your feet. Has running in the VFFs for the last 7 month altered my natural footstrike so I can run that way in any shoe? I may have to take a trip to visit my buddy Pete’s lab to find out.

In the meantime, I ponder: was it the shoes or time that has made me a better, more efficient runner. The shoes or time that improved my form and now allows me to run pain free.

As has always been my way, I will take the middle path and say that it is probably the result of both.

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Persist

Posted in motivation, tagged dailymile, motivation, new year's resolution, persistence, running on February 1, 2010| 11 Comments »

How’s it going?

It’s February 1st. One month has passed since the new year.

Still sticking with it? Still strapping on the shoes and pounding out a few miles?

I hope so.

A few weeks a ago I was reading a variety of posts both lamenting and praising the “resolution runners” that were pouring into the gyms and onto the streets.

As runners we curse them for clogging up the treadmills and sidewalks, but at the same time hope that many of them will take running on as a regular part of their lives. Runners know that part of the solution to our problems with the Health Care System is running. A healthy nation puts less strain on the system.

Runners, as a whole, are a healthier bunch that tends to avoid many of the diseases associated with being a “bag o’ potato chips eating couch potato”. I know that most of my dailymile friends are still running. It’s what we do. We let each know what we’ve done and push each other with support and challenges.

But I wonder, are you still running?

or biking?

or swimming?

I hope that you are fighting through the powerful inertia that is your couch or bed. That you continue to fight to get to the point where if you haven’t run by the end of the day, you feel a little edgy. It is a wonderful feeling, knowing that you’re legs want to run. Scratch that. Need to run. It will get easier. The change, both physically, but more importantly mentally, is coming.

It’s only been 31 days.

Persist.

***IF you have lost momentum, so what? Today is the 1st day of a new month.

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A Drop in the Bucket

Posted in boston marathon, motivation, tagged American Liver Foundation, boston marathon, Charity, drop in the bucket, help, long run, Run For Research Team, running 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.