Respect the Distance

The hill running I have been doing is paying dividends.  Yesterday I ran 20 miles on the Highline Canal Path, averaging just under 7:20 / mile.  Afterwards I commented that I felt as if I could have easily held that pace for another 20 miles.  That reminded me of three comments I often hear from first time marathoners.  

1)      “I’ve run a couple of 20 milers.  The marathon is only another 10 km run tacked on the end”

2)      “I’ve run a few ½ marathons.  A full marathon is just double that.”

3)      “Based on my 10 km race times, the on-line race calculator predicted a marathon time of (your goal time here).”

My responses to those statements are

1)      Wrong

2)      Wrong

3)      Maybe, if you’ve done enough long runs.

The marathon is a metaphor for life.  It is an exercise in life mastery.  Here are six things I have observed in my training for and racing in marathons.

My first marathon was awful.  I had just run a 10 km in 35 minutes.  I plugged that into an online race calculator which predicted a 2:50 marathon.  On race day I passed the ½ way point at 1:25.  The second half took me two hours.  Many people would have been happy to finish, but I was embarrassed by my performance.  I let myself get dehydrated and beaten.  I walked, a lot.  Blood stained my singlet and my shoes.  I did not live up to my expectations as a runner.  I knew I could do better.  

That is the first marathon metaphor, deciding to try.  Most people when asked about marathons say, “I could never do that!”  That just isn’t true.  The biggest road block is that first step; committing to try.  Once you’re past that stumbling block the rest is relatively easy.

The second metaphor for life is that you can’t let one experience define future events.  I was so angry after that first marathon that signed up for another one a year later.  My second marathon was only slightly better.  Tempered by experience, I ran the first half a little slower (1:28), but still collapsed in the second half (1:50).  It would be ten years before I would attempt another marathon.  

Which leads me to the third marathon metaphor.  Achieving your goal is only one step in a great progression.  I learned so much along my journey towards my goal of running a marathon in under three hours.  When I finally reached that goal, I was a changed person.  Knowledge comes from the journey.  

The fourth marathon metaphor is that straining yourself makes you stronger and better able to handle more stress.  I ran track workouts and tempo runs every week, in addition to the long runs.  By purposely operating beyond my comfort zone a couple times a week I was able to improve.

The fifth metaphor is to divide the race into sections and focus on completing each one so you don’t get overwhelmed.  One of the most valuable things that marathons have taught me is not to focus on the entire 26.2 miles.  Sometimes this means concentrating on the next light post.  Like climbing a mountain; when you start out, the summit seems an impossible distance away.  With enough steps, the summit soon appears.  

The sixth marathon metaphor is about getting stuck in a rut.  Running year in and year out can wear on you; tear you down.  As I got older I had to push harder just to stay at the same level.  Running became a responsibility, not a time to play.  So I entered open water swim races.  I swam the length of Horsetooth Reservoir in Ft. Collins (six miles).  

All of this is a long winded answer to the question, ‘why the marathon’?  The distance is fairly arbitrary, but it captures attention and stirs emotions.  If I were really clever, I’d be able to apply these lessons to the rest of my life.

Sparring Partners

Sparring is a form of practice with the aim of training skills and fitness, not to determine a winner.  On Saturday Tim and Tom sparred on the Highline Canal Path by running 10 miles at 6:30 / mile.  Sunday it was my turn to let Tim pound on me.  Our goal was to run 18 miles on the trails around the Bluffs and south towards Daniels Park Road. 

Maybe it was the day – a Sunday.  Maybe it was the hour – 6:00 am.  Maybe it was the temperature – the forecast was for another 100 degree day.  Or maybe the guys are tired of hearing me re-tell the story of how I beat Tim like a piñata at this spring’s RMRR 20 miler.  Whatever the reason, no one else wanted to join us for the merriment.

We met at the Runners Roost in Lone Tree.  Our route started with a steady climb for the first three miles.  I had run 14 hilly miles the day before and was struggling to keep pace with Tim.  I am normally fairly chatty, but today I was too tired to speak.  Our conversation consisted of Tim telling stories with me gasping out “uh huh” or “yeah” or some other mono-syllabic interjection just to let Tim know I was still behind him. 

We ran past the Sky Ridge Medical Center and the new houses being built at RidgeGate.  From there we picked up The Willow Creek trail.  At the top of the bluff we doubled back down and picked up the Bluff Regional Park Trail.  There is exactly one tree on this route and there are a number of signs posted warning of rattlesnakes in the area.

We continued west, then south as we headed towards the East-West Regional Trail.  We crossed MacArthur Ranch Road where the trail turns into single-track.  The original ranch, homesteaded by Edith and Mark D. McArthur in 1919, is no more.  The 700 acres were sold off years ago as ranch-ettes and other subdivisions. 

The running got a little easier once Tim slowed down.  In a few minutes Rock Canyon High School came into view as the trail bent south to parallel Monarch Boulevard.  At that point the run became more of a slog.  I couldn’t help but notice that we were keeping pace with, and eventually passed, a couple of bicyclists who were pedaling along Monarch. 

We stopped at a parking lot near what appeared to be an archery range.  Someone called out to Tim.  It was Randy.  What a pleasant surprise.  A few minutes later Jeff appeared.  We chatted as we ran the two mile loop that leads to the edge of the bluff that overlooks Lone Tree.  After a short break we trotted back to the parking lot.

The trek home was painful.  A skinny dude about half our age shot by us and was out of sight in minutes.  We were both very aware that we still had to climb over the Bluffs again and we had to cover a couple of miles before we got to that point.  Later, I would say that the run was fun and then it wasn’t.  This is when it stopped being fun. 

At the foot of the Bluffs we entered survival shuffle mode.  Willpower got us to the top of the Bluffs and from there, it was all downhill.  Hitting the pavement for the last mile was a real shock to my legs.  We plodded back to our cars and commiserated about what sorry shape we are in.  The total damage was 16.5 miles.  My Rock ‘n’ Roll Denver Marathon is in nine weeks.  Tim’s Chicago Marathon is in eleven weeks.  Time to get crackin’.

Peck Hill

My mind wanders.  There is a place and a time I return to with some regularity.  The place is Syracuse, NY and the time is the span of years between 1982 and 1986.  I attended the university that sits where the vale of Onondaga meets the eastern sky.  I went there to earn a degree, which I did.  But I did enjoy a full college experience. 

I joined the crew team in the fall of my freshman year, rowed all four years and earned a varsity letter.  The experiences I enjoyed are the lasting memories I have kept from what seems like a lifetime ago.  I recall the first crew meeting I attended in the fall of 1982.  About 50 wide eyed novices crammed into the small gym the team used (three of us would graduate together four years later and within a year we would attend our captain's funeral).  We watched a movie about crew and the coaches spoke to us.  They said the training would be hard.  We would row, lift weights and run.  I liked what I heard. 

We rowed, a lot.  At first, we rowed in old wooden boats built by George Pocock and pulled wooden oars.  We were spastic and scraped our knuckles on the gunwales.  In the winter we rowed indoors in ‘the tank’ which is a small indoor swimming pool with rows of seats down the center and oars attached to simulate a crew shell.  It is like something out of a Wagner opera.  We raced in sleek, lightweight fiberglass shells with wrapped fiberglass oars.  We rowed on Onondaga Lake and the Seneca River which are part of the Erie Canal system.

When I walked onto campus in the fall of 1982 I weighed 175 lbs, the same as now.  When I left campus at the end of my freshman year I weighed 215 lbs.  The ‘freshman 40’ was the result of intense weight training.  We did weight circuits and many, many squats.  My thighs were 24 inches around when I graduated.

The third leg of our training was running.  There were two workouts we did during the winter months.  One was running the stairs in the upper level of the Carrier Dome.  Typically we ran 50 flights.  From experience I can tell you there are 29 rows in each flight and they are labeled A through ZZ; the last six being X, XX, Y, YY, Z, ZZ.  To this day, over a quarter century after the last time I ran those stairs, I associate great pain with those three matched pairs of letters.  This twisted conditioned response explains why I hate ZZ Top.  After those workouts our legs would shake uncontrollably. 

We also ran on the roads around the university, which was so much fun.  A few days each week we ran about four miles or so.  Every Saturday we ran a nine mile loop called the Peck Hill run.  I never wore a watch, so I have no idea how long it took to complete.  Picture 30 Clydesdale division runners plodding along.  We wore cotton sweatshirts and cotton waffle knit long johns.  It often snowed and we came back from those runs soggy messes at risk of hypothermia.  I loved it.

When the last ice age receded from the area that is now Upstate New York, it carved out the Finger Lakes (Cayuga, Seneca, Otisco, Skaneateles, Owasco, Keuka, Canandaigua, Honeoye, Canadice, Hemlock and Conesus).  In its wake it also deposited hundreds of huge boulders, some 100 feet in diameter.  Over the millennia these rocks eroded and vegetation grew in the soil.  They became hills called drumlins.  When viewed from the air they look like someone placed objects randomly on a table and covered them with a green cloth.  Those were the hills we ran.

Every run ended with a half mile climb up Mt. Olympus Drive where my alma mater stands on her hilltop high.  It was from that vantage point that I wrote these lines:  The hills across the Mohawk Valley were undulating and tan with green veins running through them.  The sun had burnt the grass but the trees were evergreen.  I think of that place and time when the evening twilight deepens and the shadows fall.

On Sunday six of us (Tim W, Tim G, Scott D, Kevin C and myself) met for a run from Roxborough State Park, over Carpenter Peak and down Waterton Canyon.  It is a beautiful, but challenging, 12 mile circuit.  There is a vertical gain of about 1,000 feet over the first few miles, then the route passes through a few miles of rolling hills of scrub oak before sharply descending to the Strontia Springs Dam.  From there it is a six mile decent back to the Waterton Canyon trail head.  Carpenter Peak provides the best views of Roxborough State Park with vistas of the foothills and canyons to the west.  In the distance lies the Denver skyline and the famous rock formations that made this area a Colorado Natural Area and a National Natural Landmark.  It was a great outing.

Road Find

This week I ran 70 miles and feel ever the worse for wear for having done so.  On Sunday and Wednesday I ran 21 miles from my house to DeKoevend Park and back.  I made my way there via the open space trail, Broadway, the C-470 bike path and the Highline Canal path.  There is a water fountain at about mile 4 (and 17) and one where I turn around at the softball fields in DeKoevend.  I had a Gu Energy Gel at the halfway point and two Gu Chomps at mile 17.  That was the extent of my hydration and calories for the 21 miles.

On Saturday I ran 15 miles with Tim, Tom and Ken at the Goodson Recreation Center.  I pre-ran five miles for a solid 20 mile outing.  It was great to see the guys and get caught up.  Tom is recovering from breaking two toes and a couple of ribs doing some un-running related activities.  Ken’s hamstring is healed and he is running well.  Tim is in fine form for this part of the race season.

There was an article about Progression Runs in the latest Competitor magazine.  The article was written by Brad Hudson, a former 2:13 marathoner.  The gist of the article is that it is possible to boost your fitness by picking up the pace of your runs as you get closer to the end.  This is exactly how I ran the 20 miles.  I averaged 7:40 / mile for the five miles I ran before meeting the boys.  The last three miles were run at 7:00, 6:50 and 6:30 per mile.

On one of those runs this week I found a craftsman ¾ inch combination box / open end wrench.  Someone is going to miss that tool.  Several years ago I found a small set of Husky wrenches.  I have found several gloves; twice I found a matched pair.  In all the years of running I think I have found a total of five dollars in change.  The banner day was when I found two crumpled one dollar bills rolling along Daniels Park Road. 

Last winter I set out for a run on a pleasant day with the temperature about 45 degrees.  It was so pleasant, I ran in shorts and a long sleeve T-shirt.  A storm quickly blew in and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees.  I was grateful for the two gloves I found that day. 

I have found much more as I have made my way along these roads and paths.  As an athlete, I have gone through many transitions.  These changes have paralleled the larger developments I have experienced in my life.  I have tried to run faster.  I have tried to run harder.  Now I am learning to accept myself and my limitations.  When I run with friends, I get a glimpse at the true joy and meaning of running.  I am learning that winners are not always those who cross the finish line first, but rather those who are able to discover more about themselves with every step.

Gabba Gabba Hey!

I miss running with the gang on Saturday mornings.  Due to family schedules I have been doing my long runs on Sundays, which means I’ve been doing them by myself.  I like to run with some music.  I have an iPod Shuffle; an amazing piece of technology.  It holds one GB of data.  The dimensions are 1.62 x 1.07 x 0.41 inches and it weighs about half an ounce.  So small, a dog could swallow it. 

Apple ran an ad in 2004 for its iPod.  They asked celebrities “What’s on your iPod?”  I would describe the genre of songs currently on my iPod as Punk Rock.  Artists include: The Clash, The Pretenders, Billy Idol, The Police, Blondie and Green Day.  But the overwhelming number of songs, making up roughly 75%, are by The Ramones. 

The driving beat and hearty 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 help keep me motivated.  It puts me in a good mood.  The Ramones were a dysfunctional group; Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and the drummers (Tommy, Markey and Richie).  They appealed to a selective audience of loyal followers and never achieved the fame they deserved while they were in their prime.  They stayed true to their music.  Johnny (John Williams Cummings) died from prostate cancer in 2004.  Joey (Jeffry Ross Hyman) died from lymphoma in 2001.  Dee Dee (Douglas Glenn Colvin) died from a heroin overdose in 2002.  None of them were runners.  Ironically, the only surviving members of the band are the drummers. 

I had the great fortune to see The Ramones perform live in the spring of 1986 at a dance marathon while I attended Syracuse University.  A fight broke out when one of the skin heads in the mosh pit bounced into a group of football players.  The athletes picked up the poor dude and threw him into a crowd of fraternity men.  The band stopped after playing just three songs.  

Here are my favorite tracks:

"Danny Says" which is a love song written by singer Joey Ramone at the Tropicana Hotel in Los Angeles when The Ramones were staying there for the recording of End of the Century album.  The romantic inspiration for the song is believed to be Linda Danielle, Joey's girlfriend at the time.  Linda later ended her romantic involvement with Joey to instead begin a relationship with, and eventually marry, the band's guitarist Johnny Ramone.  Although this virtually ended dialog between the two bandmates, both remained in The Ramones until the band split up in 1996.

"Blitzkrieg Bop" was named after the German World War II tactic blitzkrieg.  The precise meaning and subject matter of the song are, unlike many of The Ramones' other early compositions, somewhat vague and obscure.  The song’s classic “Hey!  Ho!  Let’s Go!” has become a staple of sports arena PA systems around the country.  

Rock 'n' Roll High School is a 1979 musical comedy film produced by Roger Corman, and features The Ramones wrote two songs for the soundtrack, including the title song. 

Joey Ramone’s solo album Don't Worry About Me was released posthumously in 2002, and includes the single "What a Wonderful World", a cover of the Louis Armstrong standard.  The song was used in the movie Freaky Friday. 

So, what does all of this have to do with running?  Not much, I suppose, except it is what I think about when I think about running.  Here are some of the other thoughts I had on today’s 21 mile run:

Train the way you race; race the way you train. 

Don’t just make time or take time to train.  You have to fight for it, otherwise it won’t mean as much.  Don’t go looking for time, you won’t find it.   

Once an athlete; always an athlete. 

There are no silver bullets.  No magic potions, no innovative training techniques that will lead to faster times. Only work.

Let’s take a trip, the two of us, into our golden years.  Let’s lay our results aside.  You may have beaten me.  I may have been lucky enough to finish ahead of you.  It doesn’t matter.  Let’s run the rest of the way together. 

When I arrive at the Pearly Gates, I want to come tumbling in with a mass of Lycra, Nylon and Gore-Tex, lathered in Gu and Powerade; asking “Did you get my splits?”