The Taper: Where Our Demons Hide

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Ahhhhh. Autumn: Fresh, crisp air blows in from the summer swelter. A new crop of crunchy-sweet-tangy apples replace the sweet-smooth peaches. The green landscape begins turning into the color of the sun-setting sky. The air itself looks almost yellow.

THIS IS MARATHON SEASON.

For those of us who ran cross country as kids, the smell of the leaves and their crackle under our feet is almost enough to make us feel 15 again. The smells of fall wafts past our noses - and our pace quickens. As we get older, many of us move on to road racing, then marathons. And so the autumn which was the season of mud, and trails and long yellow bus rides to Van Cortlandt park (for me anyway) now morph into long training runs along yellow tree lined roads.

For those newer to running, perhaps running a first fall marathon,  they learn that the dawn of fall and cooler temperatures seems to miraculously speed up their paces. Slogging through all those grueling miles through the hot summer yields fruits unimaginable during the August swelter.

Those final long runs are a gift from the root children, going back to sleep for the cool, dark months. And we can run FOREVER!!!!

And then IT happens, for all these roads lead to one dreaded place: THE TAPER -  (queue "blood curdling scream")

The Taper is what we long for, until we are in it's midst. Those last few weeks of training, where we feel that anything, especially our sanity, can snap at any time, is made tolerable by the very thought of 'the taper'. And then 3 days into it, we start going nuts.

There's gobs of advice out there for why tapering is important and why we all hate it:

Common Taper Maladies Include:                          Taper Adaptation:
* lethargy                                                                  * Increased blood volume
* crankiness                                                              * Increased muscle glycogen storage
* Uncertainly                                                             * greater neuromuscular strength
* New aches and pains                                              * improved running economy
* all runs feel HARD
* Sore throat
* Moderate depression
* Heartfelt belief that you have forgotten how to run!!!!!!!!!

Tapering is a relatively new thing - Endurance runners picking it up from swimming during the middle of the 20th century. Arthur Lydiad incorporated a 'Taper Phase' in his four phase system following on the success of Czeck runner Emil Zátopek who stumbled onto it after 2 weeks flat on his back in the hospital prior to the 1950 European Games - a tactic Zátopek continued to use as he rose to running prominence winning three gold medals in the 1952 Olympics. When the reputed 'best runner in the world' does something, others take notice. And now we have the TAPER - which is just the status quo today.

There are even entire books written just on tapering such as  Tapering and Peaking for Optimal Performance by Iñigo Mujika. And you can 'google' all day, everyday, for your 2+ week taper and find plenty of advice on dealing with tapering. There are many tapering protocols out there, and to some extent we must each learn through trial and error to find what works best for us - though the studies seem to be pointing at the greatest benefit seen with reduced mileage while intensity stays steady.

Now - the thing I wonder though, is WHY we suffer taper madness/blues/antsiness/etc. in the first place. What's REALLY eating at us?  Why do we have a love hate relationship with the taper? So here's my theory:

What fills us with angst is that we've done all we can do. We've done the training, now we sit and wait for it to gel at just the right time! But wait! Did I run long enough?? Did I run enough long runs?? Were my tempos too fast...or too slow?? Should I have done Yasso 800s for all 20 weeks of training?? OMG, I only ran one week at 50 or 40 or 30 or 100 miles!!!! I should have done MORE...MORE...MORE!!!! Ugggggg. What can I do now?  Okay. I'm 14 days out from my marathon. Maaaaaybe, just maybe, I should do just one more 20 miler. THEN I'll know I can do this. Or, maybe just one more longer tempo...some repeat 800s???? Something?????

When I feel that either I or someone I coach is going through this thought process, when I see myself or someone else do a run that looks like maybe, just maybe, they're trying to test their fitness, I ask two questions:

1) During your 18 weeks or so of training, do you believe that you COULD have done more?
2) What do you hope to gain from the test?

Most will answer, on reflection, that they worked as hard as they could have during the training. Most of us walk a fine line in marathon training between training hard enough but not too hard. And what we must understand during the taper is that the principle of supercompensation negates any benefit of "the test" run.

Optimal timing for stimulus application

  Applying  training stimulus before supercompensation is complete

These two graphs illustrate: a) why training is so difficult - you must introduce a new proper stimulus at just the right time; and b) Why a hard last test run during taper will do you no good. At that point, in order to gain the benefits of the taper PLUS the time frame needed for supercompensation, means that a last test run fails on every count. You may lose some of the benefit of the taper and you gain nothing because there's just not enough time to allow for supercompensation.

So, what's a crazed, anxious, exhausted, depressed, crankipants runner to do??? Acceptance is the only answer. Understand that this is just how it may be. Try to be kind to yourself. Sleep more. Get a massage. Drink lots of water. Eat good nourishing food. Spend time outside going for easy walks. Read a book. Re-watch Spirit of the Marathon. 

And always remember - there's always more...

"We may train or peak for a certain race, but running is a lifetime sport." ~ Alberto Salazar

The Colorado Floods: A Little Compassion Goes a Long Way

May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings,
Slow to make enemies,
quick to make friends,
But rich or poor, quick or slow,
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.

Last November I had the unpleasant experience of being in NJ/NY less than 2 days after Hurricane Sandy hit that area. The devastation was heartbreaking. And the response from the running community was simultaneously dismaying and uplifting. I was attacked by many for going to the area - my supposed purpose for going was to run the contentious, soon (not soon enough) to be canceled, New York City Marathon - but my real purpose was to support my family in New Jersey and friends from the area who were planning to run even as they suffered. It would have been much easier to stay in nice, sunny, comfortable Colorado. This experience was horrible in so many ways.

Now, fast forward...Not quite one year later...4,500 hundred square miles of Colorado is flooded...

Highway 34 toward Estes Park, Colorado, as flooding devastates the Front Range and thousands were forced to evacuate, on September 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Colorado Heli-Ops, Dennis Pierce). 

The rain begins in earnest on Wednesday, September 11th, 2013 - Yes, THAT date. It continues at such a furious rate for the next two days with NO break. The entire norther front range of Colorado becomes a lake of sewage, debris, mud - and the memories and lives of many people. Canyons wash downstream. Houses crumble as they slide down hillsides.

This video shows an area just north of where I live. These are roads I run and bike on every week.

The rain continues...through Friday the 13th...and does not stop until Monday afternoon, September 16th, after a solid week of rain - most of it torrential. In the end, the rains cause an inland sea the size of Connecticut.

And now we all emerge from our homes, blinded by the sunlight like lovers of wisdom emerging from Plato's cave. What is still real??

 ******************************

 Crazed eyes - Windows to the soul

Now a week later...Things are still not right. I am now deep in the midst of tearing out carpeting and padding from the basement. Some roads are still closed. Most trails are still closed. People are still suffering.

The costs for this flood is estimated at 2 billion dollars. Entire towns and communities have been washed away. We are all weary and worn down.

The Boulder Marathon, which was originally 'postponed' until later in the fall, is now 'postponed' until September 2014!! I'm not sure that counts as postponed - but I suppose I'm splitting semantic hairs. 

I am scheduled to run the St. George Marathon on Oct. 6th, and due to unexpected flood expenses, and just the overall stress of this situation, I request a deferment - something SGM clearly does not offer. But I think I might as well give it a shot and send an email. What harm can it do? (I will learn the answer to that question soon enough!)

And I start thinking about the Boulder Marathon runners, and other area runners running marathons elsewhere in the coming few weeks - many of whom I've been training with these past couple months - and I start thinking of how race directors reached out to runners post Sandy and the cancellation of the NYCM: Philly RnR allowed NYC marathoners into their full marathon at a discounted rate. Others including: Malibu, St Jude, Harrisburg, Tucson, Route 66, Seattle, Mesquite, and others, all reached out to runners. I took the Tucson Marathon's generous offer to register for that race at their early registration rate. I believe it helped all of us to heal from a very negative and emotionally draining experience.

*****************************

And the wheels start turning or churning -  perhaps like a hamster wheel - spinning aimlessly around.

 ...or maybe one the kind of wheels that flatten and pulverizes all reason and sense...

I start looking at what's happening beyond the bounds of my very small, damaged world, and I realize that I'm not over whatever happened in NY. And, I say, something has to give or I will implode. The one thing I can not deal with at this point, emotionally or financially, is running a marathon (call me weak if you will!)  - and so I start wondering if others are feeling this way. 

I email about 25 RDs from marathons either nearby or with good reputations, run within 3 weeks of the flood, to ask what their response is to anyone asking for a deferral and if they have reached out to Boulder Marathon runners to offer spot or deals.

This is what I receive: 

From: Dayle L. Wallien

Race Director, PVC Monument Marathon

Scottsbluff, NE  

We extended our registration deadline and kept it open as long as we could (our race is September 28) and I have still been trying to accommodate people who call in.  I also reached out to the Boulder Marathon Director (didn't hear anything back) offering to let runners run our race for free if Boulder wanted to provide their medals and shirts (because we already have ours here and we have some extras, but not a lot - we have SWAG, including race bags, medals and shirts for 15 more full marathoners and 50 more half marathoners) for their runners.  We suggested we would provide an additional silly shirt that said something like "We ran the Boulder, Colorado Marathon in Nebraska.

And, from the Jackson Hole Marathon: 

The Jackson Hole Marathon has been contacted by several individuals impacted by the floods in Colorado.  We have offered a full roll over to the 2014 event. 

Best,

Jay Batchen

Most I hear nothing from. I receive a few auto-response 'form' emails from other marathons stating that they do not give deferrals. Period. My friend, who's scheduled to run Steamtown and has more than $11,000 of damage to his home, is told - Sorry, "No deferrals" -  Even for those living in a disaster area???!!!

I send and email to SGM explaining my situation. I ask for a deferral, no refund, just a chance to run next year. I hear nothing...and nothing. I post on their Facebook page. Three days pass. Nothin'. I get frustrated, and say so on my FB post - things start getting heated, and others tell me to stop stirring up bad feelings.  

that night I decide to drop the whole thing, crawl into bed, and cry. Bad feelings indeed.

But when I wake the next morning I send one last email to the SGM, one last time.  And finally I receive a response from a real, honest to gosh human being!  

I’m sorry you have not been successful in contacting us.

I’ve gone through all email and phone messages but did not see anything from you - thinking I may have missed it or perhaps it went to junk mail. We still had you registered as well.

We have all heard about the flooding and the devastation created from it in your area – our thoughts and prayers are with everyone.

I have cancelled you from this year’s race. We will most definitely offer you a deferral to the 2014 St. George Marathon... 

We wish you the best

And that's really all it takes to make people who are having a hard time feel that someone out there cares. It really doesn't take much but this one email restored my faith in this whole enterprise into which I invest so much of my heart and soul. I only ask that other marathons extend the same offer. I did not ask for my money back. I simply asked to be allowed to run next year. What can be the downside to that? The goodwill you engender is worth so much more. The compassion you add to the world through your actions makes a difference.

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” ~ Aesop

My First 50k: Great Cranberry Island Ultra

 
The thing about a 50k is that it really isn't a big deal. I mean, if you've run a few marathons (I've run more than a few) then it's no biggie, right? - 5 extra miles.  Baaaaaaa. How can you even call that an "ultra"?

And then it's a week away and the freak sets in. This was a little bit like giving birth (or the anticipation of it) for me. I never took a childbirth class - When I asked my doc if I should, she said, "Well, it depends on how comfortable you are with the whole thing". I spoke to all my momma friends and asked: "Did you get anything out of taking a childbirth class?" The singular reply I got was: "I learned how to breathe in and out", with accompanying demonstrations of the crucial breathing technique. Well, I thought, I already know how to do that. And I thought to myself, well, women have been giving birth since the beginning of humankind, so what's the big deal. Then at about 39 weeks I started to freak. It hit me: "OH MY GOD, this thing has to come out of me!!!". And a 50k felt the same way. It was no big deal, until it was right there and I had to do something I had never done before...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We land at the Manchester-Boston International Airport at midnight. Exiting the building from baggage claim to collect the rental car, we walk smack into an invisible wall of humidity. I let out a sigh and a quiet, resigned, 'uggggg', and we load up and head for the Econo Lodge.

The next day we head to Maine. The weather is heavy and thick. I know that lower altitude is supposed to feel good. I'm supposed to feel all light and oxygen enriched, but in reality I usually feel the weight of all that extra oxygen. Add to this the fact that my sinuses are in total revolt, and I feel like I'm moving through a world of mud with a fish bowl on my head - And I can honestly say that I am not feeling very psyched.

Two days before my first 50k, and I barely (NO exaggeration) stumble through 4.4 miles of jogging.

So for the next two days I fortify myself with Sudafed and nighttime Ibuprofen. I gotta clear this noggin, and I gotta sleep. NOW. I can not actually imagine running this thing right now.

I chill. We sail out to Little Whaleboat Island. I sleep. Things improve, a little.

 You can barely tell that my head is about to explode and make a big fat mess all over the deck, can ya??

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And then we make our way north, a drive my husband and I used to make so often, from Brunswick to Bar Harbor to climb on Mount Desert. It has been a very long time. So much is the same - exactly the same as it was 19 years ago. That is both comforting and disconcerting. I'm not the same. And yet, I am the same.

We make our way through Southwest Harbor, in a steady rain, to the Seawall Motel situated right at a natural seawall.  It's thick-as-pea-soup foggy out now - and the cool, salty moisture feels good. Except for the gently lapping surf, all is quiet darkness out across the bay where I know Great Cranberry Island sits in wait. I stand on the second floor walkway, and look out where I know the island sleeps. I still can't quite get my head around this...

I wake at 7:30. At this time the air has a cool nip to it. If only we could be running now! The race starts at 11:30 (to allow people to get out to the island and for those who are camping to have time to set up their tents), but the boats only leave every two hours, so I need to catch the 9 a.m. boat. After a frantic search for the ferry dock (small Maine towns like to keep things interesting for those "from away") I jump out of the car in a bit of a fluster bid farewell to my husband and daughter, and trot down to the dock barely catching the boat. 

I'm on the boat with Jill (no longer 'just' a facebook friend) and her boyfriend Brian. Lot's of Marathon Maniacs on board - lots of chatter, introductions, stories shared - and we all know, or perhaps we don't know, what's coming. And I can't help but feel that we are somehow sailing off to battle...And I am reminded of what often plays through my head at these times:

From Shakespeare's Henry V, 1598:

KING HENRY V:
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

I know. A little over the top. A little melodramatic, but there's something to it!

And all is peaceful...The calm before it all begins...

We arrive at the island and there are pickup trucks and decrepit island cars and golf carts a plenty to haul our stuff the 1/2 mile up the hill to the start. As we walk up this hill, it dawns on me that soon I will be running up it, quite a few times.

Then there's time to kill - it's only 9:30. I get my bib, introduce myself to Gary Allen (RD and head of Crow Athletic, a northern Maine running club of which I'm actually a member), park my self and my stuff in a shady spot on the porch of a church and stroll over to a little cafe for some much need coffee.

Clouds obscure the sun, but each time the sun comes out of hiding it feels like a stab of heat. Please, more clouds.

Finally 11:30 approaches. Speeches are made, the national Anthem is sung, and we're off...

 Thus begins the journey of 7.5 laps of  the island...

And everyone seems to take off like a shot. Here's what I'm thinking: "Ummm, folks, we have 31 miles to go. Where's everyone off to so fast??" You'd think that most of us have been around the proverbial block a few times and know better than to try to pull a jack rabbit start - but no. Everyone's happily chatting along as if this was just a fun little island jaunt. What's wrong with me??  Lots of people are running with friends. I have no friends - well Jill is here somewhere, but I don't know where. I trot along, alone, and the arch of my right foot is screaming at me. Now, I do have a right foot injury (from twisting my foot in a hardened horse hoof print on the trail months ago) nagging me (peroneal tendonitis at the 5th metatarsal attachment) but it's never been that arch! Okay. Work it out. (WTF!!)

We round the first turnaround and I'm heading back, seeing the people coming the other way. I spot Jill and Brian. We high five. A guy with a mohawk yells out "Go Chronic". I chuckle and wave, not sure I heard it right and too surprised to say anything. And the first miles tick along...

During this race we pass over the start/finish line, ummmm, I don't know, 14, 15 times - Oh, I can't possibly do the math. Our names are announced, and as always, people struggle with mine. But as I cross and head down the hill toward the next turnaround I hear my name. Then I hear, "Hey, I'm Facebook friends with you" over the loudspeakers. I wave and trot off.

Any remaining clouds burn off within the first hour and the sun beats down from the blue bird blue skies. The only saving grace is slight breeze that feels like a gift from the gods, though the gods could be a bit more generous!

Again I pass the guy with the mohawk - I hear, "Good job Chronic". Okay. I did hear that. "I can't believe you know that!", I call back. "Thanks". He responds, "It's easier than your real name". Then I hear a runner, 'Jim' is on his bib, call out, "Good job Caolan".

And so it goes, lap after lap after lap after lap. You see the same people, over and over and over. You cheer everyone on. They cheer you on. You get to 'know' them is a strange sense. The Islanders come out. They see how you're doing on lap 2...on lap 6... two women have cheered for me each time I pass their house: Lap 6 "Caolan, you're so consistent, so strong. great job" Ummm, I don't feel that way!

As the 80+ish heat and 75+% humidity begin to wear on me I stop at the table where we stash our stuff and pull out my bottle of HEED, pouring it into a smaller handheld. This is valuable time, time I don't ever allow in a marathon - but hey - THIS is an ULTRA, right? I do this 4 times over the course of the run, but I'm glad I did, even though I now wonder just how much time I "wasted" doing that.

As I cross the mark entering my last lap, I see my husband and daughter. My husband asks how much I have to go. Another lap, I tell him - which of course means nothing to him - but to me it means this is the hard one - the last 4 miles. And this lap is hard - really really hard. At the final turn, I can no longer calculate how far I have to go. I look at my Garmin, but still I'm second guessing it. Is it 1 or 2 miles left. Oh, I give up. Just run.

My adductors are cramping on the uphill, cambered roads - and I'm trying to delay the inevitable. With half a mile to go I suddenly realize that it's not the mile and a half I thought I had left. I see the flags that line the road leading to the finish, and my legs come alive. I push with all I have up the final hill to the finish. 5:04:44.

As usual, all is a blur after I cross the mat. All I can think is: "I gotta get these shoes off NOW". A volunteer runs up to me and loops a medal/belt buckle over my head. Another runs over with my finishers 'rock'. My daughter runs to me, excitedly animated as always asking things I can't quite make sense of. I hobble over to my bags - and stand there trying to figure out what to do first. I can't really move.

I wait for Jill. I talk with the people I've spent this long day with: Jim, Bob, Nancy, Maddy, John, Shawn, Zach and Juli... etc...all people I know now - who I didn't know this morning. 

We make our way the half mile back down to the boat dock. Doug (Welch), the guy with the mohawk, is still running, now with a beer in hand.

 

"How do I know you?" I call out to him. He walks over to me, "Facebook and your blog". "I really appreciate your support today. Thanks", I say. We chat for a bit. We hug, and he trots off up the hill.

And as we wait for our ferry back to Southwest Harbor, I stand in the icy waters looking across Frenchman’s Bay to Mount Desert and the rolling blue hills. And I am tired and hungry and salty and achy to the bone...and happy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that's the story of my first 'ultra'. Does that make me an "ultramarathoner"? I don't know. But it has changed me. And now the story continues...

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face...You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”  Eleanor Roosevelt 

50k at 50: Great Cranberry Island Ultra Marathon

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”  ~ Andy Warhol

In 5 days time I will be running the Great Cranberry Island Ultra Marathon which is also RRCA’s 2013 National Ultra Championship and the last year this race will be held.

So I suppose that's all a pretty big deal, and yet none of that really matters to me, because I suddenly realized that this little race is a much more personal journey for me.

19 years ago I moved to Colorado from Maine. Most of my prime racing years were spent in Maine. Most of my PRs were set in Vacationland. When I was 26 I stopped racing, just like that - burned out from the pressure I put on myself. When I was 30 I decided to run the Maine Marathon, my first marathon, on a whim and minimal training. It remains my fastest. I wouldn't run another marathon for another 16 years.

Now, almost 25 years after those racing days of my youth, I return to Maine for another first.

And I have just turned 50, and well, running a 50k seems appropriate. It's been a while since I've attempted to do something I am unsure that I can actually do - as in, I never have, so who knows - right?

Time changes everything 

except something within us 

which is always surprised by change.

~ Thomas Hardy

And now I am a very different person, and I am exactly the same person. I love Maine - and it will always feel like my second home, or maybe even my first home, because it was the first place I chose to live - To make my home. No one understood why I would move to Maine, way up north, where it's freaking cold, in the middle of nowhere, with a population equal to one block in Manhattan. Why would this Jersey girls do such a thing? Why? Because that place spoke to me and I fell in love instantly and deeply. The only reason I left was because it is a tough place to make a life as a young person. Educational options were limited, and so I had to leave or forever stay stuck in service jobs. That's how saw it then, anyway. I always planned to go back.

And so this all seems very fitting to return in the month of my 50th birthday, a birthday I tried to ignore. A birthday I shrugged off with the usual glib saying "Age is just a number".  But the reality is no glib saying. And it turns out that the reality is more akin to that tuned in Talking Heads song...it all is 'same as it ever was'...but it is never the same... 

 ...You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground
You may ask yourself, how do I work this?...

Time isn't holding us, time isn't after us... 

Letting the days go by, letting the days go by, letting the days go by, once in a lifetime (?) 

It feels right to return now to do another 'first' in Maine.

And all of these thoughts, and my past self and my present self, and I now know (because age has brought some insight from reflection), that my future self, will all be there on that small island ushering in the next stage of this life...

I feel like I am watching everything from space 

And in a minute I'll hear my name and I'll wake
I think the finish line's a good place we could start
Take a deep breath, take in all that you could want 

Some Myths That May Be Killing Your Running: Part 3

I began this back in November, 2012. This is the third installment but deals with Myth #5...

Myth Number 5: Online logging sites/social media offer a new opportunity for measuring ourselves against our peers and keeping us on our (competitive) toes, and offer opportunities for free training advice and that's always a good thing.

Now, as I see it there are two problems here: 1) Competing and comparing oneself may or may not be beneficial, and 2) While there's lots more advice to be had out there than in the dark ages (pre-interwebs), advice can be good or bad.

“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” ~ Aristotle

*****************************************

I'm going to start with #2:

Let me begin with some Philosophy that seems to make a lot of sense, and ideas that weave through so many theories about how we learn and how we achieve personal excellence.

Aristotle argues that there are three necessary elements in mastering anything:  Practice, desire, and a teacher. Today I want to focus on that last element. By "teacher" what Aristotle is really trying to get at is someone who sets an example of what it is to do X well. If we are surrounded by those who know what they're doing, then we are more likely to learn well.

So let's say you want to master the game of basketball. If you are surrounded by Michael Jordans then you are likely to learn good technique and develop good habits with regard to playing basketball. But if the only basketball players you know do not know how to play basketball (they run down to court holding the ball, can't get the ball near the basket, etc) then you are unlikely to learn well. Why is this? Well, when we don't know much about something (and we all start here for everything we do) then how do we judge good from poor skill??

So if I know nothing, it's hard for me to judge good advice from bad advice. In this regard, Aristotle concedes, we are very much subject to the whims of fickle luck.

But wait just one second! We do each also have the ability to reason and sort through what does and does not make sense. Perhaps all is not in the hands of the fates after all. But reasoning, as well, is developed like all other skills - we learn how to reason well and value reasoning well IF we are surrounded by those who live that value and exercise that virtue.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ~ Aristotle 

There are many people out there, well intentioned people, who offer heart-felt advice to those seeking answers. BUT that advice, even when it is very well-meaning, does not make it good advice. It is up to each of us to sort the wheat from the chaff.

And if I hear "Go hard or go home" one more time I will scream!

***********************************************

Now moving on to #1 above:

We live in a hyper competition obsessed culture (even though this doesn't seem to be getting us much of anywhere). In Facebookland we are all shiny happy people living lives of brilliant perfection - for runners this means: stronger...faster...farther... On Dailymile, or Strava (or any of the other social-logging sites) we run hard. We compare our times, our distances, our training plans, our goals. We sometimes allow what others are doing to direct our own goals (or we beat ourselves up for not being as awesome as runner-x).

All of these issues can also hit those in running groups (face-to-face rather than online). Groups can easily slip into 'group think' where everyone is expected to do the same races and train the same way, and if they don't fall into step then they are left out, criticized...sometimes ostracized.

Running groups, whether virtual or real, and logging sites are ONLY helpful when they further our own aims. But when the aims of the the group cloud our own minds and confuse our own internal navigation, then I believe its nefarious influence undermines our own learning, our own journey and even our own lives.

Examples Offered: 
* I've had runners confess to me that they stopped a run early and/or turned off their GPS because their pace dropped and they didn't want to have to post a slower overall pace logged onto Strava.
* I've had runners confess to "stalking" my training for their own purposes - usually to measure their own training or to try to copy mine.
* I've read posts where someone comments that they are going to copy another runner's training (usually an elite).
* I've seen comments indicating that a runner decided to run a race, usually a marathon, because that would make them a "real" runner.
* I've seen people get upset and indignant when other runners don't post their paces for runs (on Dailymile, et al).

Does any of this help your running?? Not really. Can it hurt? Yes! Others can inspire us to reach higher and farther, but it has to come from within first. We must use the running community for encouragement and examples of what might be possible, but not as examples of 'oughts' - I ought to do X. It is so easy to confuse 'wants' with 'oughts'. It is so easy to look at what others do and judge oneself as not good enough, not tough enough...

Each one of us 'out there' is a role model for someone else. Whether you want to recognize this or not it's true. What you may think is no big deal another may admire beyond belief. Be careful with that power and be aware that others may influence you - and that can be good or not so good for you.

As Jean-Paul Sartre convincingly argues, when we act we are making a statement about how best to live - we are all role models - and with our freedom comes responsibility:

"I am thus responsible for myself and for all men, and I am creating a certain image of man as I would have him be. In fashioning myself, I fashion man" ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

That Wild Creature Called Yearning

“There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write.”  ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

It's been over a month since I've written anything...anything at all...and it's not for the loss of anything to say but rather all the things swirling around the drain of my mind and clogging it full of gunk. Around and around thoughts race through my head in great, tail biting circles. So many thoughts. So many things to say. Nothing gets out but garbled gobbly-gook.

After a very trying spring, emotionally and physically, I slowly began reclaiming myself. I never would have guessed that it would take me this long. So much yearning remained unrealized, unquenched. What to do with it all - with all that yearning.

“The swallow that hibernates underwater is a creature called yearning.”  ~ David Quammen

I became like Pandora desperately holding the spirits in, not because they are evil, but because they are all just too much or too untamable - obstreperous little beasties. And yet in reality it is I who was shut-up in that box. I peaked out from time to time, a slice of light burning my eyes, quickly shutting the top afraid something essential might slip out.

And yet all that bottled up gunk struggled to get out and pushed and pulled and poked me in the eyes. And I held tight to the lid against the unruly beasts of my own making.

In May I left my teaching job of 16 years (ah, the fear and trembling!), and I thought, in all naive innocence and wide-eyed excitement, that this would somehow liberate me - body, mind, and soul to follow my proverbial bliss. But alas, that only began the insanity as I threw myself head first, with great gusto, into the trials and tribulation of growing a new business, pursuing ongoing educational opportunities, and training for my first 50k. All of this left me frazzled.  And wanting...wanting more...yearning...wanting it all NOW.

“The ancestor of every action is a thought” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

And during this time I did force myself from the box to do and not merely think. I ran the Estes Park Marathon, which remains a blur of unthinking doing, and quietly kept plugging away at my training. Then last week I went through an intense week of USATF training - something that demanded a different part of my brain and body - and through all the sleep deprived stress of that week something was pulled away from my eyes. I noticed something as I walked to my biomechanics exam - completely terrified of failing - I realized that I was completely THERE again. Why then? I don't know. Perhaps a yearning was satisfied in the challenge that required doing. And the box burst open on that cool morning in Hayward, CA. And my beasties did not flee. They stayed by my side and I made peace with them. For now...And I did not fail.

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.  ~Carl G. Jung

And now I realize that all that thought was necessary - all that being stuck in my own head had a reason. It's happened before and it will happen again, but you never really recognize what's happening until it is past.

Running is, in essence, a solitary endevour, even when we run with others we are ultimately on our own and it is all up to us (I can't help but notice that it is a lot like dying in this regard). We can use others to help us through this aloneness (and I don't mean loneliness) and they may serve to distract us from this nature of running, but it either happens because of us or it doesn't. And this is what makes running both liberating and terrifying. It's completely in our own hands.

I think we all go through these phases of turning inward - and they are necessary and regenerative - but at the same time they feel somehow wrong and alien and disconcerting. And yet, like any metamorphosis, we emerge a different person in some important respects. But the fact remains, that that metamorphosis is somewhat painful, unnerving, disorienting and weary-making when we are in it's midst.

 

My 50k, Great Cranberry Island, is now a week and a half away and I can actually imagine doing it now. Perhaps I needed that to hit me before all the bottled up stuff could be set free. Or perhaps I'm open to the thought that it might reveal something I do not yet know...

“I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.”~ Michel de Montaigne

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Appendix: It was brought to my attention after publishing this that my title sounded like something written by David Quammen (who I'm afraid to say I've never heard of - hate to have to admit these things), and so I will give him credit (and edited above with said quote) instead of changing the title. Though I didn't get it from him, he said this first - so I'll credit him for sending it out into the ethers, where it must have seeped into my gray matter. So be it. I see these yearning creatures much the same as the wild things, gnashing their fearsome teeth.

Running Naked

A Summer Challenge: Run, Sans Technology, Once a Week

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” ~ Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland

I listen to Lorraine Moller tell her story about running the marathon at the Barcelona Olympics where she won bronze. It was hot - super hot - 95 degrees Spanish HOT (everything's hotter in Spain ;). Standing at the starting line waiting for the gun, she glances at the watch attached to her wrist. Telling the story, her eyes tell me that she is startled by the very absurdity of this thing strapped to her wrist, in these conditions, for this race of races for her. She starts waving her hand about, "Why am I wearing this thing. I'm here to race." And she mimics unsnapping the band and tossing it away. The gun fires they are off to race.

I thought back to this story a few weeks ago when I pulled my car into the parking area of the Boulder Rez for the Boulder Distance Classic 15k and realized, to my absolute horror, that I had forgotten my Garmin. The feeling of helpless dread quickly spread from my brain out into every cell of my body and I felt a little sick to my stomach and weak in the knees! I did some quick math calculations to see if I could possibly drive home to get it and return on time for the race. And then I began reeling in the panic.

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I never used to wear a watch, never mind a GPS. When I raced a lot in back in the 1980s, race volunteers usually stood at mile markers calling out times. This predates chip timing, so there was only 'gun time'. So, your official split time was the time called out. Period. Back in those days I had a standard Timex 'running watch', no GPS, and I knew roughly where mile splits were for some routes I commonly ran because I DROVE the course - No internet mapping sites back then either!!

During a roughly 18+ year hiatus from racing, I ran routes based on estimated distances based on how long they took me and what pace I guessed I was probably running. Many of these routes are trail runs so I couldn't drive them to measure them. Turns out, running now with a GPS, I was pretty close in my estimates - though almost all the routes I ran I underestimated the distance slightly. For all that time, from about 1990-2009 (when I started racing again) I did not keep track, in any systematic way, of my mileage though I knew I was running about 45-50 miles a week just because I wanted to.

Back in my 20s I became obsessed with my running journal and the weekly totals that I marked down each week became a measure of my self worth. A year after I quit racing, my nutty new age roommates had a bonfire/ritual where we all brought things to burn, things that we wanted to leave behind - to rid ourselves of - I burned one of my running journals. Today I deeply regret that. I wish I could have that one back. Many of my PRs were recorded there. Many of my demons revealed themselves there. The journals I still have I now use for understanding. Alas, at 26 I thought I had a clue. I had no clue. And I now realize that I probably still have no clue.

When I started racing again in 2009 I was still pretty old school - I only drank water on long runs and I still had my trusty Timex watch. But I did now have MapMyRun and the USATF mapping site. Training became a bit more precise - but not much. When I did marathon pace long runs I had to make a mental note of where on my route the faster sections started and ended and where the mile marks were along the way. This, I had to admit to myself, was not ideal.  And so in 2010 I got my first Garmin. And the world of exacting training began. Would I now slip down the rabbit hole...?

I have tried not to fall into the abyss. I have continued running some runs without any watch or GPS. I will run routes I know well so that I am confident that I will get home when I need to be home, but otherwise I have no clue what my pace is. I just go out and run what I want to run. These are runs that are usually very easy recovery runs - where I don't really need to see that I'm moving at a snails pace. These are runs for me. I don't need to share them with my friends when my Garmin automatically uploads and shares with all and sundry...these runs are for ME, the animal in the world.

But racing without it???? Can I still do that?

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“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.”  ~ Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland

Runners have a tendency to get very caught up in the numbers and graphs of running. We record miles over days - weeks - months - years - a lifetime, pace, elevation, heart rate, calories, number of donuts burned, gas saved - we love the objective numbers. However, we can also get too caught up in that. We can lose the run in the numbers. We can lose the experience of it...the feel of it.

“Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise.”~ Heraclitus

But, there's other important benefits we may gain from running naked - a GPS, while a very useful training tool, can also interfere with our internal sense of effort - the FEEL of running. Some runners become so dependent upon technology, that they have no sense whatsoever, of what they are running without the feedback. And that is when the technology takes over and we lose ourselves. Part of running 'maturity' is learning what that FEEL is all about.

I've heard runners wonder out loud if a run even exists if it's not recorded somewhere. Well, every run is always recorded, in your neurons and cells. Why would that be seen as any less 'real' than having it 'recorded' on some computer chip somewhere?? With each run new neural pathways form in your brain - it doesn't matter if you've run the same route a million times - no run is the "same" run. As Heraclitus correctly noted;

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” 

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And so, I run my 15k - a distance I had only ever run once and recorded only in that journal that will forever remain ashes -  And I 'just' run it according to how I feel. Since I'm rehabbing an injury my aim is to make it a fastish training run and a test run for the ol' butt sprain - and so I run based on how I feel. Rationally I think a nice 8:30 pace would be about right. I have no idea what I'm running. I just run. I cross the finish but forget to look at the clock. I have no idea until the results are printed out. My pace was 8:10. 

I have no doubt that that race would have been different had I had my Garmin. Faster or slower the same??? I don't know. But the EXPERIENCE of the run would have been qualitatively different. I learned something important that day. I will do that again soon. On that day I just ran and I felt the run and I was the run.

Once a week, leave the technology behind and run like a child, just as you please.

 “We are most nearly ourselves when we achieve the seriousness of the child at play.” ~ Heraclitus