IT Scare!

Into every planned marathon enter independent variables. Weather, obviously, and this winter has been rough. Last year's Boston featured beastly hot weather, although the winter leading up to last year's marathon  was dry and not even that cold. 

Last weekend on the morning of my long run I found a track free of snow and went for it. About 8 x 800, aggressive but reasonable pace. But with each successive circuit, my knee was trying to tell me something. And I, like a lost child in a store, wasn't listening. We joke that the kid doesn't want to admit to being lost, because that would be admitting to a problem and the kid doesn't want to admit there's a problem. 

Well, neither did I. A marathon is an investment of time, money, planning, calories, weather, hundreds of training miles, sometimes travel and lodging, and ultimately an entire day between getting to, running, and the long tail of recovering from those last 26 miles on the plan. And, as a charity runner, I have sought (and received!!) the support of my community on behalf of suicide prevention services. 

Anything can hop in and derail those plans - weather is a big one, injury another. Sometimes weather moves small things, like a track workout to the hills, or a long run to the next morning, and sometimes it shifts the entire marathon - and the front-loaded preparation - to the following year in hopes of less life-threatening weather. Each situation that comes up presents a complex calculus resulting in a go/no-go decision with far-reaching ramifications. 

Like whether to continue running on a sore knee, or how many days to take off; if the knee goes early in the training cycle perhaps it will come back in time to complete training to enable finishing a strong marathon (if nothing else gets in the way). Add in the extensive sponsorship I have received as a runner, and the commitment I made to Samaritans and the John Hancock program. That's a lot of forces at work. 

In fact, one of our runners had a knee blow up her marathon, too late in the training cycle to recover, but only mid-way through her fundraising cycle that still must go on. In talking with other Samaritans runners, just about all of us have had the same knee issue; one posits that the snow has altered our gaits and encouraged a tendinitis outbreak.

So last weekend I limped home, got busy with ice, ibuprofen, stretching, foam-rolling, I even got in another damned ice bath (and I have a low tolerance for cold). I took a couple days off, scrubbed the second of the three 20 milers planned, and was able to run a strong 6 and a 10 this weekend, adding back in my bike commuting and continuing with the ice and everything. 

I plan to ramp up next weekend for another 20 miler in two weeks, then I taper until 4/15. Phew. It is nice to be able to run strong, even if I have idiot lights on my dashboard flashing. I've been lucky to run without anything to worry about for a long time, and I believe - especially after being able to run strong this weekend - that my confidence in being able to run in a month is not misplaced. 

Why did my knee go off? I suspect a combination of running hard in dead sneakers, partially on snow, and missing the overall even conditioning of boot camp for a couple weeks. I got new sneakers and a good stretching plan...and ice baths in winter. 

How I train (for marathons)

For most of my life, running marathons had no relation to me. Other people ran marathons. Fit people. People with six-pack abs and legs of steel, people with steely resolve, sharp jaws, no body fat, way more discipline than me. The guy down the street, when I was growing up,  must've been the only runner in town. Now I think I live in East Boulder, the hordes of people sweating and grunting up and down the streets of my town before dawn all year round.

That guy down the street used running to shed a bunch of weight, and of course he died young of an early heart attack...Crazy people. Pheidippides died after, or didn't he? 

In middle school, I knew one high school kid who ran Boston bandit and came back to show off his blisters. 

Blisters? I was surprised he hadn't died from the exertion. 

So years ago, I ran my first 5k, then 10k. Then half. Then I bicycled from Boston to New York. Then I ran a marathon - a slow marathon, then another and eventually a third. 

So I've been asked how I train, both in general and in preparation for the marathon.

• Bike commuting about 17 miles a day: cardio, low-impact cardio. Getting into town is easy. Getting home is up damn hill and almost always into a headwind.
• Once a week I play pickup soccer with a bunch of tolerant, talented soccer players.
• In summer, once a week I swim a mile out and back at Walden with another group of hard cases. 
• Once a week CoonDogg Fitness. "Quality over Quantity." See below. Sign up at Arlington Community Education. I swear I dropped 20 minutes from my marathon PR and ten from my half just by going to boot camp. I've never been the group fitness sort, but Matt (mcooney15@yahoo.com) has a ton of energy, and the hour flies. Planks. Burpees. Squats. Cardio. 
• And finally, the running. For a few years, I was running 40 mile weeks rain, snow, shine. In marathon season, I'm following Hal Higdon's Intermediate 2/Advanced 1 in some combination. Out of season, I'm running north of 25 miles a week, with a 10 mile long every couple weeks, and running 4-5 days a week unless I am biking too much. 

And that's how it's done...

Seven degree wind chill

In the aftermath of another winter storm, this one featuring a few badly-timed inches of snow, fierce winds up to 50mph, and bone- chilling cold, I put in my 19 training miles.

I can think of weather I'd rather run in, but there it is. Maybe last year's marathon day weather was so bad because the winter was so mild and I'll get good weather for my Boston?

I learned a duct tape trick to cover the toes of my trainers against the slush, which sort of worked for awhile. I looked for roads that were both plowed and low-traffic. 19 miles of them. Three hours and ten minutes worth.

Running up hills into the west wind brought me nearly to a standstill. I keep going, into what is kind of like resistance training -imagine how fast I'll be able to go on bare, warm pavement if I put my time in on the icy, slushy, windy days.

This run today was complicated by landing square on my unpadded sit bone playing Futsal this morning, getting knocked on my tush. Aggravating a two year old glute injury, but it's just a bruise, not a twist or a break...the upside of running in this kind of cold, and because I never really figured out how to keep my backside warm, I really couldn't feel much at all...I think all I can't do is sit.

Boston is a phenomenal town in which to run a marathon. Here, people cheer for everyone, not just the name on their signs.

Here, on a blowy Sunday afternoon when folks are digging out, I slog past a couple guys who encourage me, say they are jealous, and when I say "let's do this," one says, referring to Boston, 9 weeks to go! I suppose the only freaks out running on a day like this would be marathoners. Boston marathoners, this year, thank you, no caveat necessary!

What does a recreational marathoner eat?

What does a recreational marathoner eat? Anything she wants ;-)

It is a good day when Lose It! tells me I can eat 3500 more calories after a twenty mile training run. 

Breakfast is oatmeal, peanut butter, blueberries and cinnamon. Lunch? sandwich. Cookies. Dark chocolate. 

Snacktime is where things get interesting. 

I joined Pinterest, spent about half hour on it, and high-tailed it out of there after I'd gotten the single most useful thing I'd ever seen in my life: a recipe for cookie dough truffles. I find the chocolate coating a bit fussy - with things the wrong temperature, the insides leak out. But that's not the only problem. The coating process simply takes too long.

Four of my other collected favorite words in English are "sheet cake and forks," so it should not surprise anyone to hear me rant about "cookie dough and spoon." I found another recipe that works just as well with half the butter, but I tend to add baking soda and salt to get the taste right. Also, don't use dark brown sugar. Trust me.

 Another really useful piece of advice I saw a while back is that chocolate milk, or hot chocolate, makes a really good recovery drink. 

When I'm running, I don't do many of the fancy running substances (I'm recreational, after all, and though they won't be testing me after the race, I don't need to go all performance-enhancement on anyone!) Probably because it is dessert-like, I use Gu Energy packets. Peanut Butter! Chocolate!! Jet Blackberry! Caffeine!! And, despite a life-long aversion to jelled candy, my new sister-in-law turned me on to Clif ShotBloks, also sweet, sometimes caffeinated, and much less messy than the Gus.

But back to the hot chocolate. When I buy out, I am partial to L.A. Burdick. They know their chocolate beverages, hot and cold. Big time.

However, I am lucky enough to live within biking distance of the Taza factory, and was lucky enough to score a Cocomotion hot chocolate maker off Freecycle awhile back. Want to make sure I keep my strength up? I'm partial to Cacao Puro!

So what does an old, slow, sweet-toothed recreational marathoner eat? Whatever looks good!

Anxiety Meds

Play Soundtrack in new window: These Days, Jackson Browne...

I learned years ago that extensive endurance training rattles loose long-forgotten, emotional memories. Riding north of 100 miles on a bike I would grind home with swirls of high school nights flashing like planetarium laser shows. I'd conjure people, scenes and emotions I hadn't visited in years, hadn't thought I would ever resurface through the accretion of life and maturity in the years since.

While emotional, surprising, and totally not under my control, I came to savor the richness of the snowglobe effect distance training has on my brain. 

This past week I ran an early morning 9 in single digit degrees then went to work and came down with a touch of flu. Feverish for a day, I slept two days and kept still a third. 

I don't care what happens but I absolutely cannot keep still another. 

I don't know if the parade of nightly horribles keeping me from sleep the last two nights comes from the virus's last stand or the longest stretch of endorphin-less time I have spent in years.

You whom I have wronged, failed, inadvertently insulted or let down, who through inexperience and short-sightedness I have committed transgression against, all the jobs I haven't gotten or even applied for, the work not done well, the achievements I have through sloth or ineptitude, left for someone else, the daughter, partner, sister, parent, niece, aunt, cousin, friend, superhero I could - should have been...has all this and more haunted my recovery from this light brush with flu-like symptoms. 

The money I haven't saved, the money I spent, the cookies and candy I ate when I shouldn't have, the food I didn't eat when I should have, the donations I didn't make when asked, the non-sustainably sourced food I have consumed, the fuel burned on my account for reasons substantial and trivial, the food I have microwaved instead of prepared slowly, ... yeah, far enough overboard that even I eventually figured out that some rheostat up there went miscalibrated. 

I know, I am catastrophizing with all the shoulds, and all the slights I debit on your behalf against myself (I have really thick skin, so please don't worry  that I spend all my time tallying imagined, unintended hurts). And all the underachievement. If I were well I would consider the leadings a compass. My point is that the data coming through in the teeny hours was overwhelmingly absurd.

I have got to get moving again stat. Running does that for me, calms the anxiety, calibrates the rheostat controlling these racing, anxious, self-flagellating, wild insomniac thoughts. 

It finally dawned on me sometime after midnight the connection between the last few days of no moving around and this toxic, only partially honest, sludge causing insomnia and a racing heartbeat and composed mea maxima apologia at all random hours.  I so appreciate being well enough to move and am totally fine with facing the consequences if I false start and relapse for not sitting still long enough. I gotta get going.

Samaritans, for whom I am running, answer calls from brains like mine operating under a severe happy-hormone deficit. I am honored to support them. And getting my soccer shoes on for some cross-training. Join me!

"Don't confront me with my failures, I had not forgotten them." 

Metaphorical Monkey Bars or How I Get Through New England Winters

It's already getting lighter. By now we're getting about half an hour more sunlight than we did at winter solstice. 

Sunrise inches back towards 7am - this I know because the sky lightens before I've finished my morning run. Sunset inches back towards 5pm, this I know from the lingering colors up there when I get to leave work on the early side. 

What do I mean by monkey bars? Winter is so dark, and so cold, that I find myself holding my breath through certain milestones, I think of swinging from monkey bars to avoid the alligator pit underneath the playground structure. 

January 23: the first day our daylight increases by two minutes or more per day. 

Feb. 1: 10 hours of daylight. 

Feb 2:  the date the average daily temperature in Massachusetts starts going back up, degree by degree. 

Truck Day (Feb 5, 2013)

Pitchers and Catchers (Feb 10)

Full Squad 2/15

TBD when I hear the first Grapefruit radio broadcast

March 20, first day of Spring. 

By then it might still be snowy and cold. Or rainy and cold. But it'll be light, and any cold that lingers is really expensive for someone. The sun by then totally has the advantage. And I'll stand down my guard against those alligators. 

How do you survive the winter?

Cold. Windy. Hilly. Late. Do I have to?

For the first time in a long time today's run took effort to get started. Off schedule, step back week, icy cold wind. Why bother. Only 10 miles. Other things to do. 

All the advice says go out for 10 minutes. Even if it's only 10 minutes.

I've read running described as an "undifferentiated" activity - it allows one's thoughts to go wherever they want while your body does its fairly repetitive activity requiring a minimal amount of mindfulness. I consider it like Tuvan throat singing (find info here), where the singers somehow emit two notes at at same time. My body does one thing, my brain (other than making sure I don't run into traffic) another. I cannot throat sing. 

Here's the rough trajectory my brain took as I ran all ten miles the doctor ordered: 

I head out into the 24 degree wind, uphill. Remind myself why I'm doing this Marathon for Shaira and everyone else in need of an ear in a time of crisis. How fortunate I am to be able to run like I do - some people would commit crimes to be able to run like this. Ok, it's not so cold out. 

None of the miles Team Samaritans run will bring anyone back, I get that, but at least two good things result: the money we raise will make sure that Samaritans will be there for the next person who needs. That's one good thing. This hill isn't so imposing. The other good thing? Keeping the memories of those we run in honor of front and center. 

I take it back about the two things. I wasn't expecting the third set of good things happening after I committed to run this race. I get to experience an enormous amount of support from everyone who sponsors me, asks me how training is going, asks me how to donate, offers to run with me, tells me where they plan to cheer us on. 

I am so blessed. And grateful. And humbled. 

And old, which brings on the other half of my thought process this morning's solo run, the other reason I am doing this thing, this marathon, this running. 

I recently had a short conversation with a very young grandmother whose granddaughter turned 15. "When I reached 15," she said, it was the first time I was aware of growing old. It is half of 30!" Which echoes what my next birthday has me thinking (it is not a round number), that it is half of an absurdly big number. It's time to take all that public health aging stuff seriously. I'm pretty healthy, but not perfect. I'm hoping really hard that the physical challenges I put my body into will help me live healthier for longer.... 

Thinking of 15 put this song in  my head. Hmm. How old was Al Stewart when he recorded that song? Probably half the age I am now. Oh, I bet the internet will know - and because the internet will know, and because I am going to figure it out, it is what I will leave you with. 

Also, I will leave you with the suggestion that I might be convinced to do a stand up comedy set at a fundraising party I'm planning for the middle of March. Bring your phones and set them to record!

Time Passages album released 1978 (alstewart.com); Al Stewart born 1945 (wikipedia). 1978-1945 = ok, not half my age now but pretty damn young. And I am older than I look, people. Besides. What would a 33 year old singer songwriter have to be nostalgic about?? 

I wonder whether I would look older if I stopped running or younger. Which finishes my blog post, and my ten mile run.