That Ship Has Sailed

With greater frequency I am forced to add another item to the list of physical activities I can no longer do.  Swimming 100 yards under a minute, running a mile under five minutes and dunking a basketball come to mind.  There is an even longer list of things I could do, but choose not to due to modesty, decency or because they are just plain stupid.

One such item came to mind as I was doing a Google search for “the running of the green in Denver”.  Somehow I ended up in a small town in the Basque region of Spain. 

Google feeds my short attention span.  Like chasing rabbits, I start down one train of thought and end up in some chat room and I’ve forgotten what I was looking for to begin with.  I was trying to determine a good place to park downtown; a spot close enough for me to gimp back after the race, but not too close so I could avoid traffic.  Given those parameters, I found the perfect spot on Lawrence and 17^th Street. 

I started typing “running of the’ and Google thoughtfully gave me the option of “Running of the Bulls”.  The most infamous “Running of the Bulls” occurs in Pamplona, Spain and is an annual ritual which involves many cervezas and the risk of death.  Just the things I was into – when I was 22.  Now, as I stand at the threshold and peer into the abyss of my 50s, running a 7 kilometer race in Downtown Denver is about as dangerous an activity as I can handle.  

What took me down that rabbit hole was the recollection that two guys I used to pal around with actually survived The Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.  There is a bit of alright and I remind them of my unqualified awe at that accomplishment.  I can say with certainty that they ran faster with the bulls than I did at today’s Running of the Green.  They had to.  Their lives depended on it.  

For the record, I finished the 7 kilometer course in 26:16 (~6:03 / mile) - 52^nd overall – 6^th in my age group.  It was great to see so many red singlets from my fellow mates on the Runners Roost Race Team in front of me.  The weather was perfect for the 26^th Running of the Green.  While the temperature was 26 degrees when I awoke, by race time it had risen to about 50 degrees.  There was barely a whisper of a wind.  There is something really cool about racing through city streets.  

Rounding

The struggle bus makes many stops in my neighborhood; all of them self-induced and emotional in nature.  I recognize the source of my internal conflict.  Maybe my capacity to embrace dissidence has atrophied as I’ve gotten older, but I like symmetry. 

From the visual appeal of Greek architecture.

 

To the recurring motifs of Bach’s Two Part Inventions.

 

To the predictability of the Pythagorean Theorem.

I’m the same way with mileage and yardage.  There is something unsettling about finishing a run at some fraction of a mile, or adding up the yardage from a swim workout only to find out I’ve swum 4,950 yards.  It just feels unresolved, like a hanging chad.

As I’ve noted before, distances are arbitrary.  Between miles, kilometers and time surely I could find some metric that would be whole.  I drive myself crazy being yard wise and hour foolish.  It is good to remind myself of the core reasons I stomp by woods on snowy mornings. 

Garmin brings out the OCD in all of us.  Here’s a simple question – If you complete a run at, say, 7.89 miles, do you call it ‘good’ or do you run around in circles to square it up to 8 miles?  Or, if you run, say, 8.11 miles on Tuesday, do you add that .11 mile onto your next run?  Am I the only one who thinks like this?  Do I need to check into a small, padded room? 

There is also some noise.  A few years ago after running the Boulder Backroads Marathon, four finishers were comparing mileage from our Garmins.  There was a .4 mile spread.  That’s a 1.5 % difference – a catastrophe if we were attempting a lunar landing, but a rounding error if we worked for Enron.  A training log isn’t like a check book.  Mileage doesn’t need to be balanced. 

 

Some tension is good. 

Bach wrote the book on resolving the dominant 7^th chord. 

There is something comforting about the asymmetry of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater  

There is elegance in plotting a graph that approaches, but does not reach, a Limit.

Maybe I could just run as much as I felt and it wouldn’t matter how many miles I ran.  Maybe I could find other people who felt the same way.  Maybe there’s a place where there are no hills and you always have a tail wind; where they play Yanni 24x7 and no one gets cramps or blisters.

Maybe it’s in Utah. 

Peer Pressure

Much gentle ribbing from Jay Survil I had borne as best I could.  “Run the double” (both the 5 and 10 mile races at the Winter Distance Series) he would say.  Those of you who well know the nature of my disposition are aware that I don’t back down from a challenge, however insignificant and good natured.  Why let Jay have all the fun and glory?

And so that is how I found myself standing next to Jay at the start of the 10 mile event of the Snowman Stampede this past Saturday.  45 minutes earlier I had finished the 5 mile event in 30:50 – 11^th place overall and 2^nd in my age group which earned me a $15 gift certificate to the Runners Roost. 

The weather conditions for the 5 miler were idyllic.  The temperature was in the upper 40s and the wind was out of the west-southwest at ~4 mph.  The out-and-back course headed north out of Hudson Gardens. 

In case you were wondering, 45 minutes is not enough time to recover from a five mile race and truly ‘race’ a 10 mile race.  The caloric expenditure was not that great – about 500 calories.  I really wasn’t hungry afterwards.  I drank my proprietary blend of carbohydrates and protein.  I drank a cup of mocha-java, thanks to the Coda Coffee Company which had thermoses of coffee and hot chocolate. 

The physical effort of running fast taxed my leg muscles though.  I walked, jogged and stretched to keep my legs loose.  Even with that, the first ¼ mile of the 10 miler felt like someone was tearing needles through my legs.  After that, my legs limbered up and I felt pretty good for the next four miles.  That was the tailwind talking.

The conditions for the 10 miler were brutal.  While the temperature stayed about the same, the wind turned and blew out of the south at close to 15 mph.  Even though I knew the last half of the race would be into the teeth of that wind, nothing really prepares you for that first blast of wind in your face as you turn to head home.  With only a handful of bridges to block the wind, the last few miles were a real grind.

You could argue that running both races is good training for the marathon, but that argument would be with yourself.  This training mirrors the fly-and-die race strategy favored by many.  Just to be clear, that is not a good race strategy.  No, you cannot be one runner and truly ‘race’ both races.  You must choose. 

Jay and I were not alone in “running the double”.  While ~500 people ran the 5 miler and ~440 people ran the 10 miler, there were several hearty souls who ran both.  Christopher Desilets and Krystalanne Curwood won the special awards for fastest combined time in both races. 

Running both races was a good reality check-in for my training.  I need to do more tempo runs and I have three months until the Colfax Marathon to do so.  Also, I have some bragging rights and the street cred to say “run the double” in the future.  Please don’t hate me if I say it to you. 

Money Changes Everything

Motivations come in every imaginable form.  You can fill in the blank; “I run for ____________.”  The older I get, the more motivations I need to pull myself from my cozy bed in the mornings to go run.  Since I was selected to the Runners Roost Team, I am committed to racing several races this year.  Nothing focuses your training like signing up, and paying, for a race.  It is all commentary until you toe the line.

This week I registered for two races, the Colfax Marathon, which will be held on May 18^th, and the Running of the Green, which will be held on March 16^th.

This will be my fourth running of the Colfax Marathon.  To mark the occasion, on Saturday morning I ran 21 miles – two laps around Cherry Creek State Park.  The temperature at the start of the run was 21 degrees which, with the wind chill, felt like 17 degrees.  About ½ an inch of snow fell during the 2:52 that I ran.

It is amazing how difficult it is to start that second lap.  Each mile takes you away from your car.  There is some mental math I do as I approach the point of no return where turning around and retracing my steps equals a full lap.  But I made a commitment and David Rothenberger was game, so we set out in the cold and snow.  There weren’t many souls out running in the park, but we did see some footprints in the snow. 

As the reason for the long run is time-on-your-feet, and not pace, the total running time was slightly less than what I expect to run Colfax in.  The effort justified the plate of two eggs over sweet potato hash browns I devoured when I got home. 

It has been 20 years since my wife and I last participated in the Running of the Green – Lucky 7 K road race.  It was pre-kids and we ran it with some friends.  It was so long ago I couldn’t find the race results, but I can tell you I did not make the podium and we all went out for brunch afterwards. 

So, here’s wishing you an injury-free year and success at whatever races you choose to run.

I am much farther back than third

If you look closely you can see the scar, just below and behind his left jaw bone.  When it was fresh, it looked like a gill on Aquaman.  That was where the doctor operated on his cancer.  If you don’t know Ryan Turbyfill’s story, it is a powerful one.  I have been a witness to his remarkable recovery this past year. 

Ryan’s story is a poignant reminder that we have a choice in how we frame the adversities we face in life.  Are we victims or do we channel difficulties into making us stronger?  The results verify the reality.  Ryan is stronger than ever.  He has done it with the grace of a champion. 

Ryan and me at the Rocky Mountain Road Runners' December Trophy Series Race.

If you look closely you can see my scar, just behind my left ear.  When it was fresh, it too looked like a gill on Aquaman.  When my father saw it for the first time, he almost hurled.  It is where the doctor removed the tumor.  It was the summer of 1991.  Mary and I were newlyweds and we weren’t sure if I was going to live to celebrate our first anniversary. 

The recovery was slow.  I didn’t keep records so I don’t remember when I started working out, but it was close to two years of inactivity.  I was grateful for my 37:01 at the 1994 Bolder Boulder. 

All of us get scraped by adversity and if we stand close enough we can see the scars that are left as a reminder.  But hey, no one looks good that close up. 

In 2013 I ran 2,262 miles, or about 43.5 miles per week.  I also swam 605,650 yards (about 344 miles).  I rested 20 days.  I doubt I will run or swim that far this year, but I might.  This year I resolve to race more, which may result in running fewer miles.

This weekend’s runs were in less than pleasant conditions.  Saturday’s 14 miles was run in a storm that dropped ~6 inches of snow.  Sunday it was 12 degrees when we left the Runners Roost Aurora store.  I would have been quite happy with 10 miles, but Tom Norris sold me on running 12 miles. 

And for a post run sweet treat I made these:

Runners Roost Retail Team Bars

3 mashed bananas

1/3 cup apple sauce (or 1 small apple chopped and microwaved 4 minutes until soft)

¼ cup almond milk

3 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

½ cup raisins

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix the bananas, apple peanut butter and milk until smooth.  Add other ingredients and let stand 5 minutes.  Spread into a greased 7 x 11 baking dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Let cool, cut into 8 servings.

Nutritional Information per Serving

Calories:  170

Protein:  4.8 grams

Carbohydrates:  30 grams

Fat:  4.5 grams

This is Livin’

Ah, the decadence of Sunday mornings.  Sleeping in until 5:45; a 16 mile trail run over hilly terrain; earning that plate of two fried eggs over sweet potato hash browns.  What more could a guy ask for?

When I left the house for my run, the temperature was 37 degrees, near the lower limit of shorts weather for me.  The temperature would climb to about 50 degrees before the end of my run a little over two hours later.  Along the way I spied a cute family - buck, doe and fawn - who were observing me from a draw near the path in the Backcountry Wilderness Area. 

I am a late adopter when it comes to gadgets, preferring to wait until the technology has proven itself and the second or third revision is on sale.  But there are a few pieces of technology I enjoy.  One is my Garmin Forerunner 205. 

I have owned a Forerunner 205 for about seven years.  I am on my second 205, having exchanged my original one for a refurbished unit when it stopped working.  I do not use all of the features on it, which is why I have not upgrade to fancier units. 

Garmin offers computer based software that allows the hyper anally-retentive athlete to micro-analyze their workouts.  I don’t have time for that.  I have an account with Strava, which offers many of the same features with a nicer interface.  Here is the map and elevation of this morning’s run.  You see that I haven’t figured out how to change the units to miles. 

I love listening to music while I workout and I have two devices that allow me to do so.  When I swim, I listen to tunes on a SwiMP3, which is a waterproof MP3 player.  The sound waves travel through bone conduction.  Because water is about 1,000 times denser than air, it almost feels like you are “swimming in the music”.

When I run, I listen to music on my iPod Shuffle.  It is so small; a good sized dog could swallow it whole.  Fortunately my cats are only capable of licking the unit, but Charlie has chewed through a pair of ear buds.  I can’t help but wonder if Apple embeds subliminal messages that play through their devices, because I have found myself shopping for black mock turtlenecks. 

The Forerunner and the Shuffle are nice gadgets, but they don’t move my legs.  I have to provide the locomotion.  An honest sweat in the cool air is its own reward.  While my body is fast yielding to the wasting hands of time, I can still enjoy a long run on a perfect fall morning.

A tale of two runs

On a recent road trip to California to visit my oldest daughter at college and explore some colleges for my younger daughter, we spent time in Las Vegas, Anaheim, Pasadena and Cedar City, UT.  En route to California we spent the night in Primm, Nevada.  I don’t think there is such a thing as a bad run, but the eight miles I logged in Primm come close. 

Primm straddles Interstate 15 where it crosses the state border between California and Nevada.  It is named after the original developer of the town, the casino owner Ernest Jay Primm.  We stayed at Whisky Pete’s, so named for the bootlegger Pete MacIntyre.  Three and a half laps around the town gave me eight miles total.  The route was completely flat.  The remarkable thing about the run was the illumination of the neon lights made my early morning run seen like it was mid-day. 

And on we went to Anaheim.  2.5 miles east of the intersection of Harbor and Katella in Anaheim, CA lies a ¼ mile swath of waste land that cuts north and east through LA.  About thirty feet below street level flows the Santa Ana River.  Adjacent to the river is a soft, wide dirt path that parallels the river.  There is an on-ramp to the path located just past the entrance to the Honda Center, where the Mighty Ducks play.  That arena and Angels Stadium which sits a about a half mile away, across Katella, are built upon land reclaimed from that ditch.  I ran seven miles on that path before returning to get ready for a day with the family in The Magic Kingdom. 

This was an unexpected gem of a run, not what you would expect to find in the highly developed satellite of Los Angeles.  Every 20 yards birdhouses perch atop the barbed wire fence posts and the chirps of birds could be heard over the drone of traffic, ever-present, even at 6:00 on a Sunday morning. 

The murmur and splash of the river could be heard as it flowed over rocks.  I have swum in those waters at the mouth of the Santa Ana River, several miles downriver, where it empties into the Pacific Ocean between Newport Beach and Huntington Beach. 

While in the Greater LA area I swam with my old friends of the Fullerton Aquatics Sports Team at the Janet Evans Pool.  I met some new friends at SOCAL Aquatics in Tustin.  I also got a chance to see the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. 

During today’s long run in Cherry Creek State Park, which doubled as a tempo run for me, the topic of the difficulty of running a sub three hour marathon came up.  I have been fortunate to have run three marathons in under three hours and still feel like an interloper in that crowd.  Modesty and decorum necessitate the trite expression “I had a good day.”  While that is a fact, the full truth is a good performance comes after months of focused, dedicated preparation.  A good day, or a questionable course, gives you a few minutes.  A bad day could cost you 20 minutes. 

Do a couple of minutes on either side of the three hour mark change the way you perceive your abilities?  Do you let it dictate your worth as an athlete?  What do the prairie dogs think about as we run past?

Answers to these rhetorical questions tumbled around my mind as I labored through 14 miles at 7:45 / mile pace.  Based on the way I felt, it seemed inconceivable that I was able to run 26.2 miles at any pace, and certainly not at 6:44 / mile which I did at this year’s Colfax Marathon.

In other news, congratulations to the University of Colorado Men’s Team for winning the PAC 12 Cross Country Championships, which were held yesterday in Louisville. 

I registered for next year’s Platte River ½ marathon, so now I have five months to get ready to defend my masters title.