For Auld Lang Syne

Can't decide on a New Year's Resolution, with so many to choose from.

#1 Watch less TV
#2 Run more miles per week
#3 Finally buy a house already
#4 Create a real PHR and pour tons of health and exercise data into it all year. Graph the results.
#5 Finances and health: 100% online, integrated, and manageable (should be easy by now, I mean this is 2010, right?)
#6 Completely avoid the gym for the first 2 weeks in January, then train for a marathon.
#7 Save the world, because while I'm at it why the heck not?

Neurons are Accelerometers

I swing my arms with each step. The centrifugal force fills the capillaries in my hands, causing pressure on nerve endings which I feel as a pleasant wooshing sensation. I can tell when they are moving straight up and down, front to back, contributing ever so slightly to my overall forward motion. I can also feel when they swing wide, sapping a measure of momentum with pendulous regularity. This is one of many frictions and forces conspiring to slow me down, a complex web of muscle strain vs elasticity, bounce vs inertia, laws of physics vs state of mind.

I found my gear-check bag from the San Jose half marathon and inside was a shirt. I wore this shirt, ran 13.1 miles, stuffed it in a gear bag, and gave it no further thought. That was almost two months ago. The shirt still had my number pinned to it. It had not been washed.

Think I'll go for a run now.

Burning Calves

There I was on my mountain bike atop Skyline Ridge Trail, the San Francisco skyline ahead of me, the bay to my right, the ocean to my left, hawks flying above and below. All in the name of cross-training. It's good to have a reason to do this. My calves and ankles were feeling pretty beat up from the running lately, and nothing stretches them out like a good bike ride. Except at the end, flying down the hill towards the parking lot, feet at 3 and 6 o'clock, bobbing and weaving over the bumps and jumps, my calves absolutely on fire the whole way down.

Pain for gain and a with little rest I'll be stronger for it. This is what it takes to run a marathon. Six days a week, an hour of intensity most days, hill repeats, tempo runs, mountain biking, and a two hour run every weekend. That has to be the base.

So I Had a Bad Day

Ran the dish yesterday in 35 minutes, back of the pack. Definitely an off day, so let's review.

Nutrition - coworkers took me out for a farewell lunch at PF Chang's, exactly the wrong food for running.

Conditioning - Using the "I'm recovering from a marathon" excuse only works for two weeks. After that I'm just being lazy, even if I am wearing my marathon shirt. I felt like I had too much untapped glycogen in my legs, more energy stores than muscle, definitely not that "running lean" feeling I want.

State of mind - oscillating between self-doubt and who gives a f---.

Stride - off balance. I usually have a mantra. This time, no mantra.

End result - I kept moving until I got there, but it wasn't the relaxing zen feeling I look for in a run. I need to up my weekly mileage. I also need to fix my reward system. Just because I like peanut butter ice cream doesn't mean I can eat it for no reason. I have to work for it or it throws off my motivation. So today I spent an hour at the gym and rewarded myself with some chocolate milk. If I'm good then maybe this weekend I can run 16 miles and have some peanut butter ice cream.

Only Ten Miles?

More and more I appreciate the mental challenge of long distance running. It should get easier. No it should not. Doing something difficult is the point. Maintaining pace while you deteriorate, holding it together when you are falling to pieces.

I set out with the lofty goal of 16 miles, as a summer base to carry me into the October marathon. Then life happens. Late night, early morning, barely made it on time and the only hydration was half a can of leftover diet soda. That's when I knew it was not going to be a 16 mile day. I can run an hour without water okay, that's seven, eight miles tops. I ran five out, then a bit more to the dam before turning back. Then the real challenge: it was five miles back.

Don't try this at home, kids.

In a way I looked at it as another challenge. I took a ten mile run and made it as hard as sixteen. I got to that "I want to stop now" feeling that I need to power through. I maintained pace... for the most part. I maintained, physically and mentally, steady to the last mile. I can run another ten minutes, I kept reminding myself.

I made it. When I was done I drove straight to Robert's Market in Woodside, bought a large cold bottle of Gatorade, and drank until I had brain freeze.

Forward Motional Stability

Up to a point it's about how well you train. After that it's how much pain can you endure. More accurately, how hard can you work to inflict pain on yourself. You expect a marathon to test you physically. The mental and emotional tests come as a more of a surprise.

The hardest part was knowing I could simply stop. After everything I did to push myself up to and beyond my threshold of pain, to think maybe I could just stop. It is mental work to endure pain. The threshold can be increased, only to crash through it again. When you've spent enough time over your limit it doesn't matter anymore.

Oxygen depletion has its own side effects. The world comes and goes in waves.

To keep a steady pace while you undergo a steep decline, that is the game.

Sleep Soundly, For Tomorrow We Run

Everything is set, I have all the supplies for Saturday's run, we have a plan, we're all on the same page, I can sleep peacefully, without worry. I drift off...

In my dream, I woke up in a panic. What time am I supposed to be at the run? 6:30am. I look at my clock. It's 6:25! Why didn't I set my alarm? They're counting on me, I'm going to be late. I jump out of bed and run to the dresser to get my running gear. I open the drawer but it's full of nothing but boxer shorts. I open another. There it is. I grab a pair of running shorts and slip them on, but they don't fit, it's like they're 4 sizes too small. I'm hopping around the bedroom trying to get them on and the room goes all squirmy. Just when I think, this is just like those dreams I have, I realize it is

I wake up.

From my bed I can see it's only 5am. Good, I have plenty of time. I turn on the light, get up and head into the kitchen for coffee. That's when it really hits me.

The run isn't until tomorrow.

I turn around and go back to bed.

Commitment. Dedication. Whatever.

When you turn the TV off, you turn the world on. Perhaps the key is committing to what you really want to do. It's not the obligation or the deadline, it's waking up every morning and thinking about what you can do next, and the possibilities are wide open.

Right now I'm living my ideal Sunday: coffee outside with KFOG's Acoustic Sunrise playing in the background (all radio, even local, is streamed over the Internet at my house), a bit of cleaning, and later an afternoon in Golden Gate Park and Haight Street. I need some new guitar strings and maybe I'll find something interesting at Amoeba Records. The DJ there always has something on tap. Last time it was Taken by Trees, a 45 single.

Of course a vital part of my ideal Sunday is resting, relaxing, and generally feeling good, made possible by a Saturday morning long run. Twelve miles yesterday, I'm finally back in the range of the long distance runner. It takes hard work to relax this much.

Within it all, I keep thinking about what I've committed to do, how much I want to do it, and what do I most want to commit to next? The possibilites are wide open.

Rock n Roll Seattle

So I got talked into running a fourth marathon. I can accept that. I've been slacking, I can accept that too. Now, after fighting a wicked cold I'm pretty much starting from my base, so I better get serious about training from here on out.

Rock n Roll Seattle Marathon

This looks like it could be a whole lot of fun. Miles and miles of fun. I had my first marathon. I had my on-my-own marathon, I had my worst marathon. Now it's time for my best. It's going to take time, dedication, willpower. It would be a good idea to give up television for a while. I need to start now, and before I put it off another minute I'll say it again.

Right now is the only time I ever do anything.

!

Philosopher/Bureaucrat

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

-Ecclesiastes

Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

-George Orwell