A Day of Rest

The 1981 film Chariots of Fire chronicles and contrasts the lives and viewpoints of two English runners, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, as they prepared for the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Liddell was the winner of the men's 400 meters at those games.  A devout Christian, Liddell refused to run in a heat held on Sunday (the Christian Sabbath) and was forced to withdraw from the 100-meter race, his best event.  Liddell had also been selected to run as a member of the 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams at the Olympics but also declined these spots as their heats, too, were to be run on a Sunday.

The schedule had been published several months earlier, and his decision was made well before the Games.  Liddell spent the intervening months training for the 400 meters.  When the day of the Olympic 400 meters race came, Liddell went to the starting blocks where an American Olympic Team masseur slipped a piece of paper into his hand with a quotation from 1 Samuel 2:30: "Those who honor me I will honor." 

Inspired by the Biblical message, Liddell raced the whole of the first 200 meters to be well clear of the other competitors.  With little option but to then treat the race as a complete sprint, he continued to race round the final bend.  He was challenged all the way down the home straight but held on to take the win.  He broke the existing Olympic and world records with a time of 47.6 seconds.

I am not so religious that I won’t run on Sundays.  In fact, I view Sundays as a day to catch up on some miles.  But I have a conflict this Sunday.  One of my other interests is playing the trumpet.  There was a time when I played in two Big Bands, performed at wedding ceremonies and had a trio that performed at wedding receptions.  The time commitment began to cut into my running, so I scaled back on my trumpet playing.  This past Monday I received a call to play a church gig this coming (Palm) Sunday.  I had injured my left hip flexor during the RMRR MTS 20 miler, and by Monday I could barely swing my left leg forward.  The RMRR Trophy Series at City Park was scheduled for Sunday at 9:00 and the church gig for 10:00.  With my leg in pain, I decided to play at the church service and forgo the race.

I was feeling better on Tuesday, so I attended the Phidippides track workout which was a pyramid – 400m / 800m / 1600m / 400m / 1600m / 800m / 400m.  I ran the 800s in 2:45 and the 1600s in 5:40.  While not back to 100%, I felt OK.

Saturday’s long run was interesting.  Everything was fine until mile 17 when my legs just gave out.  I shuffled the last three miles at 8:00 / mile pace and needed a ride home.  Clearly I am tired.  The last time I felt that bad during a run was last year’s Greenland 50K race.  I wonder if the heat had something to do with it?

We are getting close to our big spring races.  For me and Scott D it is the Platte River Half Marathon.  For Tim, Ken, David, Tom, Scott K and Mike it is the Boston Marathon.  Both of those events are in two weeks.  It is a time to rest. 

A Little Perspective

At the 1964 Summer Olympics, which were held in Tokyo, Kokichi Tsuburaya of Japan won the bronze medal in the Marathon.  After the Tokyo Olympics, Kokichi suffered from lumbago.  On January 9, 1968, he committed suicide by cutting his external carotid artery.  He wrote in his suicide note, “I am too tired to run any more”. 

I will never reach the height of success that Kokichi achieved, so I cannot comprehend the low that he must have felt to have taken such a drastic step.  But I do know what it feels like to be really tired.  After running 23 miles on Saturday and another 11 on Sunday, my legs were dead.  So I rested on Tuesday even though it meant missing the Phidippides workout.  The next morning my resting pulse rate was 40, two beats per minute lower than normal for me.  I ran my usual eight mile High Intensity Interval Training workout ten seconds per mile faster than my fastest time so far this year. 

I have a very full life; responsibilities like a job, family, chores.  For me, running is a diversion, a spice that enhances my persona.  We cycle through the year’s seasons.  Training for and competing in spring and fall marathons gives us a way to mark the changing seasons.  It helps us through the drudgery; makes the winters seem not so long. 

Sunday was the Rocky Mountain Road Runners Spring Marathon Training Series 20 mile race at Twin Lakes Park.  One conclusion can be drawn from the event.  Tim and I are not good for each other’s racing.  We have a destructive relationship with each other when it comes to pace.  What follows is the transcript of our interaction.

[Moments before the start]

Carl:  “Hey Tim, how’re ya doin’?”

Tim:  “Hey Carl, pretty good.  Looky here, what pace you thinkin’ of runnin’ today?”

Carl:  “6:40”

Tim:  “Yeah, that sounds good.”

[Just after the 1 mile mark]

Tim:  “What was that split?”

Carl:  “6:34”

Tim:  “We’d better back it off a little.”

Carl:  “Yeah, sounds good to me.”

[Just after the 2 mile mark]

Carl:  “What was that split?”

Tim:  “6:33”

Carl:  “We should back it off a little.”

Tim:  “Yeah, good idea.”

[Just after the 3 mile mark]

Tim:  “What was that split?”

Carl:  “6:32”

Tim:  “We should back it off a little.”

Carl:  “Yeah, good idea.”

This went on for seven more miles.  We rolled through the 10 mile mark in 1:05:20.  If the race had ended there, we’d have given each other high fives and called it a good day.  But we still had ten miles to run.  Things got ugly towards the end.  I finished the race in 2:12:15, roughly 6:37 / mile pace.  That was almost five minutes faster than I ran the first 20 miler last year and three and a half minutes faster than my personal best for the course.  While it was the pace I thought I could hold, I would have preferred more even splits.

The usual suspects: Mike Q, David R, Scott K, Jeff O, Jay S and Kevin C ran strong today as well.  Scott D was a happy face at the 5/15 mile aid station with water, Gatorade and Sports Beans.

Tim and I are two alpha males who are pushing the mid-century mark; one of us a lot harder than the other.  We have no business trying to run 6:30 / mile pace for that distance.  When we run side-by-side, neither one wants to give in.  As a result, we goad each other.  The best news for each of us is that I am not running Boston and Tim is not running Colfax.  

Oobla Dee Oobla Da

This was the first week of daylight saving time.  I want that hour back, now!

This week’s Phidippides workout was 12 x 400 meters; alternating moderate / fast.  I averaged 1:16 for moderate ones and 1:10 for the fast ones.  That 1:13 overall is what I averaged for 16 x 400 meters last August.  This is what we call early season speed.

On Saturday we ran 23 miles in Waterton Canyon; twice up and down.  Combining the two trips, we averaged 7:38 / mile going up and 6:55 / mile coming down. 

The topic of weight came up.   For the record I am 6’ 2” tall and weigh 172 lbs.  That translates into a Body Mass Index of 22.1 which is right in the middle of “normal weight”; whatever that means.  It would be nice if I weighed 165 lbs, but I love food too much to ever get down to that kind of racing weight. 

While driving north on Wadsworth Boulevard returning from Waterton Canyon a pack of about 80 bike racers was making its way on the south bound lanes.  It was a microcosm of my cycling career. 

The impetuous young rider off the front, thinking he is the second coming of Merckx.   

The strong rider at the front; pulling the pack along. 

The strong and smart rider about five riders back waiting for the county line sprint before exerting himself. 

The fit weekend warrior happily sitting in, enjoying a fine morning with friends. 

The barely fit weekend warrior at the back working hard to keep that gap between wheels to under six inches. 

And, at last, the rider who has been dropped; fighting vainly against the wind to catch back on. 

There was a time when bike racing was everything to me.  With few obligations, I rode about 500 miles / week.  I had four bicycles, two just for racing.  I made a vow that if I was no longer strong enough to ride with the pack, I would quit the sport.  Then came the day when that happened; I was dropped like the f-bomb on The Jersey Shore.  I wobbled home, hung my bike up in the garage and didn’t ride it again for about ten years.  Life went on.

Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!

This week was the first Phidippides track workout of 2012; a two mile time trial followed by 2 x 800s.  My time for the 2 miles was 11:21 with even mile splits.

Saturday we returned to the High Line Canal.  It has been three months since we’ve run on the path.  We all agreed it was nice to be back.  After the hills and wind at the Rez last week, we were grateful for the soft, relatively level terrain.

I ran the first ten miles with Tim and Ken who were planning on only running ten miles.  Six of those miles were at or below 7:00 / mile pace.  The last ten miles were accompanied by Johnny, Joey, Marky and Dee Dee.  I averaged 7:30 / mile, but the last few miles were a survival shuffle. 

This was good mental training for the last four miles of the marathon when all my hope is shaken.  With the glycogen stores all but depleted the body is searching for fuel.  The mind must shut out the signals that are screaming “stop”.  Then it negotiates a slower pace.

Sunday Jeff and I ran up Waterton Canyon.  The fire road has recently re-opened.  It had been closed to facilitate the dredging and silt removal from Strontia Springs Reservoir due to fallout from the Heyman Fire.  No thanks to Terry Barton.

We ran past Susan Williams who was giving instructions to her charges.  Jeff and I took a moment at the top to consider the dam which loomed three hundred feet above us.  We wondered what would happen if it broke, sending several thousand tons of concrete and water toward us.  How much time would we have?  How far uphill could we run?  Would we have enough time to get to higher ground? 

The last time I had run up the canyon was 15 years ago and I was pushing my daughter in a jog stroller.  It was a nice 12 mile run on a fine late winter day.  Though the weather was threatening at the start, the skies cleared and it was sunny and pleasant when we returned to the trail head. 

Home and Back Again

Dedicated to Bennett Shotwell - November 28, 1937 - February 23, 2012 - RIP

Last weekend I was in New Jersey, so this week’s missive is a two-fer.  The purpose of the visit was to spend the weekend with my father to celebrate his 80^th birthday.  I am lucky that my father is still alive and it was a wonderful weekend.  The festivities included going into Manhattan with my brother, Sam, to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  By coincidence my niece, Julia, was in Manhattan for a geography conference, so we had a mini-family reunion.  My father made some great food and I ate a bit too heartily.

The highlight for me was listening to my father discuss his art; sharing his insights into composition, technique and inspiration.  Professionally, my father spent his whole career designing curtains and bedspreads.  But at his core, he is an artist.  He and my mother raised five children in a cold, drafty, 4500 square foot Dutch Colonial in Montclair.  As I move through the adventures of life with my own family, I realize how difficult that was and feel more respect and love for the man.  My father had an impressive career and has a legacy of rooms full of artwork to prove it.  

I did manage to squeeze in a run, though.  Two and a half miles, as the crow flies, from my father’s house, atop the first Watchung Ridge sits the Eagle Rock Reservation.  The people of Essex County dedicated a memorial there to the fire fighters and police officers who gave their last full measure of devotion in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001.

From that vantage point the view afforded is spectacular.  About 20 miles to the east lies the Manhattan skyline.  The Hudson River offers a buffer between the docks of Weehawken and Hoboken (birthplace of Frank Sinatra and where I proposed to my wife).  This is the area where, on January 15, 2009, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III safely landed the Airbus A320 he was piloting.  From where I stood I could see the new Freedom Tower.

I ran past parks I used to visit in my youth and the houses of old friends.  Altogether I covered 12 miles, climbing the Watchung Ridge three times.  As I ran past my old middle and high schools, two things occurred to me.  One is how little things have changed in the 25 + years since I lived at home and also how much smaller the area appears.  

I need no souvenir of my visit, save for the muscle memory of traversing the First Mountain three times.  There’s a sadness from the leaving; going away from the home I once knew, the place I call my home town.  It was a respite, a break from the routine; to honor a milestone, to feel the family, to breathe the heritage.  

Yesterday I ran 22.25 miles in 2:45; about 7:25 / mile pace.  It was a brutal run.  Bent over and gasping afterwards I grunted that I don’t know where the energy is going to come from to run four more miles.  One of the purposes of the long run is to prepare your body to run for the eventual race time.  So, time on your feet is the key.  

In other news, today was the March edition of the Rocky Mountain Road Runners Trophy Series; a three mile race around Crown Hill Park.  There was a stiff wind out of the west.  I covered the course in 18:06 with the following splits – 6:11, 6:01, 5:54.