Why. (3 of 3)

So the Why. blogs have tried to tell you about my motivations for committing to the arduous task of running this marathon.  First I tried to explain why running goes with charities, and then I tried to explain why I chose this particular charity.  Today I tell you why I run.  

Many of you who know me from my middle and high school days know that I was a swimmer and didn't much care for running.  That was true right up until I moved to Boston, and then something new happened. 

Peer pressure.

I fell in with a group of great people who were runners and one night at Charlie's Kitchen we got to talking about one of my new friends marathon training and that's when I realized that nearly everyone around the table had already run one.  In that moment I knew that there was nothing that I could do that would equal the experience that they all shared - except to run a marathon.  Later that year the opportunity came up and I knew I had to try.  

So peer pressure is what got me started, but that won't get you across the finish line and then into another race.  What is it that keeps me running?  It's simple really.

I run because I want to live.

I want to live to be 100 and I don't want to have to rely on medical science alone to get me there.  I know that one of the secrets to a long life and healthy mind is staying physically active, and running is the best way that I've yet found to do that.  Swimming and biking are great, but require an extra level of preparation that in the past have kept me from doing them on a regular basis.  Running gets me up and going, and as a bonus I often get to see parts of the world that I wouldn't normally.  Things like; sunrise, sunset, Venus, a waning Moon, ice-covered trees, budding trees, house demolition, house construction, bag pipes, installation art - all of the ebb and flow of the world that I live in.  It also gives me time to touch base with all of the great runner buddies that I have, most especially the one who sicced the peer pressure to run on me in the first place (I'm looking at you Bec).  And it is something that I can constantly improve on and use to give myself another challenge, which is how we prosper in life.  I intend to cross that finish line tomorrow, and it will not be easy, but knowing that it is one part of a larger journey, life, makes it a tiny bit better.

As always, I love you all and appreciate your support of me, my family, and the Liver Foundation.  Please be safe in your lives and your endeavors, if you think of me tomorrow please wish me luck, but know that what I do is easier than what many others have to on a daily basis.  

Now you know Why.

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Why. (2 of 3)

So, I don't really have anyone in my life that has liver disease. As far as I know there's no history of it in my family, none of my close friends have it, and as far as I know I'm not particularly at any great risk of getting it (knock on wood), so why am I running a marathon to support the American Liver Foundation? Well, there's two reasons.

1. I knew from the past few years of volunteering with the team while Molly was training that they are a well-organized group that views its' marathon team as an important part of it's fundraising effort and supports it accordingly. I'm really impressed at the well-organized long runs, options for mid-week runs (hill runs and track work - though I don't do the latter), the team coach, and that they've developed good community relationships which has lead to free access to a physical therapist. The day of the race there's a ton of support on the course and afterwards. Each month there's a team meeting which allows you to better know your teammates, gain training tips, get fundraising ideas and get a feel for how we're doing as a team to reach the larger fundraising goal. Plus, these meetings always had a component that taught us about liver disease. All in all, the American Liver Foundation is really there for it's runners, if I've ever had a question or problem there's always been someone there who can help me with it. Also there are a lot of returning runners who are not only helpful to new runners, but also are very welcoming and friendly. The fact that these people come back year after years means to me that the ALF is something worth coming back to. The sum of all this is that if an organization is going to go to all these lengths to maintain its running team on such a professional level then it must mean that it's conducting its own business on the same if not higher level.

2. It's a good cause. I know that there's a lot of good causes out there, especially when you talk about diseases, and I am not the person to tell you that one is better than another, but trying to stop liver disease is one of the good ones. Liver disease comes in many types and strikes a broad range of people, most people think liver disease is caused by drinking too much or being overweight, which is true in the case of fatty liver disease or alcohol-induced liver disease, but these are only part of the story. In our team meetings we heard about people coming down with liver disease who were otherwise healthy active people (one had ironically just run the marathon for the ALF before being diagnosed). We also heard about kids who contract biliary atresia shortly after they're born. This isn't a hereditary condition, doctors suspect that it is viral but that hasn't even been proven yet, and what's worse, without early detection (as in the first 3 months of life) biliary atresia is fatal. Another scary one is autoimmune hepatitis, which is when your body suddenly and unexpectedly starts attacking your liver as though it was a foreign bacteria. Doctor's don't know what causes that one either. There's something like 80 different liver diseases, each with their own cause, symptoms, treatments and effects. The liver is the common factor to them all and so the ALFs research into understanding how the liver works helps fight them all. In that way helping with their research actually helps cover my own (and your own) health in a broad number of ways.

With that, I am 3 days away from completing this journey. Stay tuned for the 3rd part of "Why."

Why. (1 of 3)

As I've said before, a lot of strange things go through my mind when I'm running. One of the most common for me is wondering why other people aren't running when I am. Many days I see people dressed for going to Temple or out to breakfast and I don't wonder about them so much since they've got something else going on and are all dressed up anyway. But a lot of the people I see are just regular people who, in my mind and at that moment, may as well be running. It's an "I'm doing it, why aren't you?" kind of thing. I'd like to point out at this point that when I'm not running and I see someone who is running I think that I should be running too - even if I'm on my way home from a long run - so I may be going crazy.

Naturally there are plenty of reasons that people aren't running. They could be unable, unwilling, uninterested, just have done a run, or any of thousands of other reasons that I won't go in to now, after all, running isn't for everybody. The only people that I don't question while I'm running and thinking along these lines are the homeless. Once I was running down the street and internally wondering why about everyone I passed, and then I saw a homeless guy and didn't wonder at all about him. I simply asked myself what I had that he didn't (apart from the obvious) and I knew it straightaway; energy. I live a kind of life that provides me with enough energy to get through my day of work and have enough extra that I can spend it on running ungodly distances. And if my usual diet isn't up to the task, I can afford to buy more food. The homeless guy might have the time to run 12 miles, but if he's scrounging for food then he certainly doesn't have energy to burn on running what is a net zero gain of distance (since I always end my run where I start it).

In this way training a marathon is somewhat like giving to a charity. I have extra time and energy that I choose to put into running. I also make enough money throughout the year that I can give some extra to a charity or two, which I'm happy to do. I'm not going to get any buildings named after me, but I give what I can. I'm willing to sacrifice some of my time, energy, and money to help what I think is a good cause, and I think it's the idea of mutual sacrifice that makes allies of running or walking and charities. I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense to run for a good cause, the act of running doesn't help people with liver disease get any better; the money that is donated to the Liver Foundation does though. And so I take on two burdens; one is to run the equivalent distance from Marathon to Athens, and the other is to raise a significant amount of money for the American Liver Foundation. Many people don't see the value in either endeavor, but you my dear friends, family and supporters, do. For this I thank you. I am inches away from hitting the financial goal, and mere days away from the race itself. It is with your help that I've come this far and no matter what happens on the 20th, you have my gratitude. I understand that you have placed a lot of faith in me, and I will not let you down.

13 days.

The Home Stretch?

Wow, so I ran 21 miles yesterday, and boy that was a hell of a thing.  I'm pretty impressed at how you forget what it's like even though you've done it before.  

Basically the day went like this, early out of bed, meet the team at Boston College, and then take the bus out to Hopkinton for a team photo, and then a run back to where we started.  Believe me I know that seems like a lot of work just to get back to where you started, that was on my mind the whole ride out.  We took the group photo and everybody just started walking to where the starting line is supposed to be and then we just started running without any fanfare to speak of.  The weekend 3 weeks before race day is an important one for everybody training for the marathon and so between the other charity teams in the area and qualified runners I was one of over a thousand people running the course and never out of sight of other runners, which is a big change from our regular runs.  

Like I said last week, my body is up to the challenge of completing the marathon and so it's the  psychological challenge that I had to beat on this run.  So, I divided the run into 3 parts, 1 unknown and 2 known.  Part 1 is mile 1-9 and the unknown because though I've driven it before I've never run it.  The second part is mile 9-16, we did this part on the 16-miler, After that it's 16-21, which includes the foreboding Heartbreak Hill.  This division worked pretty well for me, the first 9 were mostly downhill and so I took it slow to keep energy in reserve, plus at this point in training I can run just about any 9 mile stretch even if I haven't seen it before.  The next bit was tougher as it includes both the highest and lowest points between the start and Heartbreak - this section really dragged for me, but might not on race day as it includes a mile of screaming coeds at Wellesley College.  The Final 5 miles weren't too bad really, even though it had those 2 big-assed hills and then the Heartbreak.  I read on someone else's blog that when faced with these hills you should just put your head down and go (kind of like not looking down when you're on top of a cliff), which worked pretty well for me.  I made it up Heartbreak with some energy to spare and was glad to see my teammates there.  

The day started grey and in the 40s, but we ended with a cloudless sky and tempts in the 60s.  Nice.  The funny thing about a one-way marathon is the tan lines, the right side of my neck and my right arm got a nice burn (not too bad) that was earning me calls of "redneck" by my friends all night.  I got to mile 21 in about 4:06, which is slower than I wanted it to be, and did include some walking, but I know that I could do the remaining 5.2 within the hour (unless I bonk on the way down Heartbreak).  Everybody talks about an extra kick of adrenaline that they get on race day, and I'm looking forward to seeing what that will do for me on the big day.

I'm pretty happy with my performance.  No blisters and the new shoes and socks held up well.  I was very sore at the end but the tightness in the backs of my knees didn't hit until mile 16 as opposed to 13 like last week.  At mile 9 I took off a layer of clothes and found that I had a bloody nipple; nothing new for me but you hope the body glide will keep it at bay, I'm starting to consider medical tape for the big day.  That's the blood on my shirt that I'm pointing out in the picture up there.  I love the shirt I'm wearing, it gives you the last set of directions that you need on race day, right on Hereford Street (uphill, grrr...) and then a left on Boylston, where the finishing line will be in sight.  Can't wait for that.

A day later I'm still in disbelief that I ran the 21 miles yesterday, but I did.  I didn't obsess about it, in fact when my alarm went off that morning I couldn't remember what I had to do that morning.  No, I just did the math on what was in front of me; one 9 mile race, one 7 mile race, 5 miles uphill, and don't stop.

Three weeks from tomorrow.

The Training Goes On.

So, it's been a while since I last reported in about the Chuck Stratton sighting. Since then I've come back to Boston and mushed on with training. I have to say though that until last night I felt like I was sort of going through the motions. Not surprisingly the long the day after I got back wasn't great, I was just out of energy completely. The next day was a fun 5K with my friends called the Ras na hEireann that is in Davis Square which was a lot of fun, as was the after party, especially since it was nice enough to sit in the sun all day!

After that though it was back to the grind of work and training and it was just hard to get into it all. I did my usual runs that week just fine, but wasn't feeling the old excitement and energy that I had been. That Saturday was a particularly tough day because I was I was planning to do 16 only to find that FitCorp was only set up for 12 miles, and only had one water stop! The water stop was at mile 3, so that meant that I had over 10 miles without water when there normally would be about 3 in that time. That's a hard way to go when you're not prepared. Fortunately I'm on a team with some damn good teammates. Out in Brookline I fell in with some of the other Liver runners who were going to 16 as well including this guy Adam that I've been getting to know over the past few weeks.  He was hitting a pace that was good for me and when it came time to commit to the 16 miles he offered me water from his fuel belt.  I can't tell you how much that helped me, nor how much I appreciate him for giving me water.  He was also very encouraging and walked with me a few times when I felt that I couldn't run.  Great help to me.  I made it to the end of this one tired, but surprisingly I wasn't sore or physically drained, the problems I was having were in my mind.  I hadn't regained the belief that I could finish the run; I had lost some faith in myself and I honestly think it's because of not getting enough rest.  I wasn't getting the "reset" that a good nights sleep gives you. I ended that 16 miles slow, but still happy because I had diagnosed my problem and all I had to do to fix it was stay in bed.  Nice.

I did that pretty well Saturday night and into Sunday morning (not quite into the afternoon).  Monday's run was pretty cold and upwind which is no fun.  I woke up yesterday feeling like my legs were still tired from Monday and Saturdays running and so was really worried about the hill workout at FitCorp that night.  I started late but settled right in to the rhythm of uphill to downhill and before too long was getting the feel for efficiently burning energy on the way up and recharging energy on the way down again.  When I got done I felt like it had been over too fast!  I felt like I hadn't done enough of a workout even though I had.  This is a really weird feeling that I didn't try ruin by running extra, that's a great way to ruin your training schedule.  

Now it's Wednesday morning and an off day.  I have 6 miles tomorrow before the big 21 Miler on the course on Saturday.  After this week I think I might actually be ready for that.

In related news, I got fitted for new shoes at my local Marathon Sports, and they switched me out of the Saucony's that I had been wearing for years and into the Asics Gel Fortitude 3. So far, so good!

In other news, my Mother should be getting out of the hospital today!  

Motivation.

It's really strange to be home while one of your parents is in the hospital; it means the time in their house has an emptiness to it.  We spend the day at the hospital and then Dad and I go home and he checks the messages on their answering machine and we go through the calls, most of which are for Mom, though not all of them know that she's in the hospital.  One of the calls this week was from the wife of the former pastor of the church we went to in Youngstown checking in on Mom and reporting that her husband had just had a heart attack.  This was hard to hear with all this other stuff going on; the good Reverend was quite a nice man and had been like a mentor figure to my father. 

I've been awful torn about going out and running, it seems like there's always something I should be at the hospital for, and it's hard to find the motivation to pick a new running course in a town that I'm unfamiliar with as far as running goes.  I have run though and the course was kind of a natural for me because all I did was pick a landmark that was familiar to me and then head for it.  I picked the High Falls and it works out that that an out and back is about 8 miles, and that's just what I need  now.  You can see my course by clicking here, though my newly calibrated watch tells me it's longer than what the Google thinks it is.  The section along the river is pretty good, but the genius urban planners here didn't make it a priority to preserve that trail all the way along the river, so I did have to run through the city for a bit of it, and downtown Rochester isn't as friendly or nice as Comm Ave or Beacon Hill.  Sunday's run went just sort of OK, but I made it through fine.  I planned to run the same route in the morning yesterday, but various things pushed that to the afternoon.  

Around 1:30 or so yesterday Mom complained about being too hot, so I stepped to the back for the room to see about setting up a fan for her.  I looked up from wrestling with that to see a Man standing at the door to her room.  He was probably in his 80s, dressed sharply in a blue blazer, shirt, tie and khakis, and had an obvious energy to him that made him seem much younger.  He was clearly waiting to be invited in which I did, and in three short motions had crossed the room to where my mother sat, dropped to one knee and was holding her hand before I knew it.  I was surprised by this partly because of his speed, but also because I had no idea who he was!  He knew Mom though and mentioned Becky, Dad and I as though he knew us.  I introduced myself and we shook hands, but he didn't give his name, so I asked him who he was as politely as I could.  He looked me straight in the eye and responded:

"I'm Chuck Stratton," and coolly turned back to my mother.

"The Reverend Stratton?"  I asked in disbelief.

He turned back to me, "Yes the Reverend Stratton, just let the ramifications of that sink in." 

I did.  

This was our pastor from Youngstown who I hadn't seen in 15 years or so, and who I had assumed was lying half-dead in a bed somewhere else in this hospital.  My father and I both tried looking him up but couldn't get the lady at the front desk to tell us he what room he was in, damnable privacy laws.  

"Wait, I thought you had just had a heart attack?"  I said to him.  He glanced away as though he was deflecting bullets with nigh-invulnerable skin and said:

"I did have one.  About three weeks ago.  I'm fine now."  He sounded as though he were the Black Night saying "It's merely a flesh wound" when his arm had just come off.  

After that he said a few more things to Mom, we introduced him to the Deacon of my parents new(er) church who was in the room and he was gone just as quickly as he had shown up.  Leaving me floored in his wake.  How did this man who had had a heart attack seem younger than the man I had looked up to all those years ago?  

When I told my Dad about it he likened the experience to the Disciples seeing Jesus after the resurrection.  I don't know about that, but I could see that this man was unstoppable, and it filled in me a desire to be the same.  After my Dad showed up I went for my run, adding a half mile to it despite winds here being in the 35mph range.  

I don't know how being here for my Mom will affect my training, but I am going to try to be unstoppable.

16

Just finished the 16-miler am I'm waiting at the gym for Molly to finish
showering. What a day. Nice weather, but the run was kind of an
emotional disaster. Somehow I just wasn't ready to run today and that
just pervaded nearly every step of the way. Now I'm sore and have
blisters and a bloody nipple. That's right, I said bloody nipple.

More on all that later, now it's time to party

Urban Run

It's Thursday so that means another run from Crossroad's.

We had a nice break from the cold over the weekend, and Tuesday it warmed up for the snow (if you consider 30F warm), but overnight it dropped like a bad habit and at the start of the tonight's run it was near to 19F.  This caused my usual running partners to sally out and stay home.  Most of the group had already left to do the Woodland Hills run by the time I got there, so I couldn't do that (not that I would have anyway, that's way too much work for a Thursday), so I was on my own for a run.  

The goal was to do about 5 miles, which I could normally do on the river, but the wind along the river was strong and I wasn't sure that the paths wouldn't be too icy.  I decided to try out a course that I had once planned for an earlier Crossroad's run that was about what I was looking for. 

I cut over from the bar to Commonwealth Avenue, which in the Back Bay is actually more like a boulevard in the French sense of it.  There's expensive sandstone row houses down either side, and 2 pairs of traffic lanes divided by a wide, tree-lined walkway that is punctuated every so often by a statue or monument of some kind.  In the winter they put white christmas lights on the trunks of the trees so this area is illuminated in a warm light.  I headed east between the trees and into the Public Garden.  Crossing over what is apparently the worlds smallest suspension bridge (according to the Wikipedia which is never wrong) I noticed a guy clearing snow off the little ice-covered lake that the Swan Boats float on in the summertime.  I imagine he wanted to teach his kids how to play hockey here tomorrow or something - that's the Runner Mind talking again.  At Charles Street I looped around Beacon Hill and came up past the classically beautiful City Hall but neglected to look for the wind turbine on the roof that the Mayor hasn't been good at telling anyone about.  From here it was a quick run over the hill to Park Street T Station and after that I made a right onto Boylston Street.  I then cut across the West side of Boston Common and made a left to reenter the Garden from where I had left it. 

I could tell at this point that I wouldn't make the 5 miles I was looking for if I went straight back to Crossroads, so I decided to act on a thought I had had on the way in.  In order to make up the extra mileage I would run a loop around every statue along Comm Ave.  I know it doesn't seem like it would add much distance, but sometimes when you're running you just do something for the rigor of it, and ignore the fact that people might think you look crazy for doing it.  

First up was a giant statue of George Washington on his horse, and was a big loop because it's still in the Garden and has quite a formal path around it that looped me right out towards Arlington Street where I hit a light for the first time in this 3-mile journey.  It wasn't a long delay and from here it was a straight shot to all those statues and the loops they wanted me to do around them.  On I went and loop I did around:

Alexander Hamilton, slain by Aaron Burr

John Glover, Revolutionary War Hero

Patrick Andrew Collins, former Mayor

The Vendome Fire Memorial, which honors the deaths of 9 firefighters in the line of duty

William Loyd Garrison, abolitionist

Samuel Eliot Morrison, naval historian and sailor 

- after Sam I had a good long straightaway and decided to see if I could sprint it, which I did -

The Boston Women's Memorial

Domingo Sarmiento, one-time President of Argentina

and finally;

Leif Ericson, famed Icelander who may have once sailed into Boston Harbor, depending on your source....

After that I still wasn't quite up to 5 miles yet so I went past Mass. Ave to the Charlesgate overpasses and made the two rights that got me back to Beacon Street and the bar.  I felt strong in the end and sprinted again.  

It was a good run and I was glad to engage the city's beauty and history a bit more than I normally do.  Those statues that I passed range in age by over 100 years and you can tell by looking at them; not because some look old or new, but because of the way you're meant to interact with them.  The older ones are always a bronze man on a huge stone block that you're meant to walk around and observe from afar like a painting in a museum.  The newer ones have smaller parts that you're meant to walk right up to and engage in order to learn their meaning.  the Vendome Memorial has a timeline of the fire and features the names of the men who died on that corner which offers a much different experience than the Bunker Hill Monument in nearby Charlestown (hint, it's a giant stone obelisk).

The thing I'm noticing more and more lately is that when I do a shorter run (under 7 miles) I don't feel very tired when I'm done.  And today I felt that I could up my speed as I was going without getting too winded.  Something tells me that it's time for me to push harder and run faster more regularly.  Uh-oh.

More Snow Running

It's been a few interesting days of  running.  Saturday there was a break in the cold/snowy/icy weather that has held Boston in a death grip, which made for nice conditions for the run up Heartbreak.  In fact, I haven't sweat so much since I started this training as I did that day.  We hit Comm Ave.  and it was all relentless sun and mid-30s.  I even had to take off a layer, which is also unprecedented.  I felt great and even had some extra energy for the last 3 miles which is a rarity for me, especially considering that I was running by myself pretty much the whole way.  My regular running buddies were doing a different course and I didn't fall in with any random people along the way.  It worked out fine though and I had a great run that was pretty close to the 10 minute mile pace that I want to hit.

Monday was warm again, but it had iced over during the night so there were some definite icy patches along the way.  

Tonight was really great though.  Once again there was all kinds of talk about snow hitting us over night, and once again it actually hit later on in the morning.  We had a steady falling of snow all day, but not so much that the plows couldn't handle it so the Hill Repeat workout went on as planned.  It was coming down for the whole run and pretty soon after the plows went by there was a nice layer of snow, and so I tried the YakTrax again (pictured above left).  These things are really great, and I went from being really worried about slipping and sliding in the damp snow to feeling perfectly stable in no time.  We did 7 hill repeats and I'm just really happy that they've gotten easier.  Hills are a big fear of mine for this race, especially since they kicked my @$$ at the BAA Half-Marathon in the fall.  I gather that we'll be doing 7 for a while, and then 8, 9, and eventually topping out at about 10 a night.  Something tells me that will be a bit monotonous.....

In addition to just generally having a good run, it was great to be out in the city during the snow.  Everything was just beautiful and quiet and the light was awesome.  I would have missed it all had I just gone home; hmmm, I guess I need to add that to list of reasons to run a marathon, getting to run hill repeats in the snow.  

Runner Mind

In the mid-1940s rocket and jet engine technology was brand new and aviators and aircraft designers were pushing the limits of speed and altitude, the main speed goal was to travel faster than the speed of sound.  The best test pilots in the country flew across the New Mexico skies trying to breach that sound barrier, they pushed the throttle forward and accelerated to higher and higher speeds that pushed their aircraft through air that was increasingly turbulent.  Many men got right up to the edge of that barrier and only to find their aircraft coming apart on them, or they lost control and ended up plowing a furrow across a dry lakebed.  The man who finally did it for the first time was named Chuck Yeager, an already accomplished fighter and test pilot who became a legend with his transonic flight, and through many other achievements afterward.  What's remarkable to me is that the day he broke the sound barrier and set a new speed record he reported a smooth flight.  There was the usual turbulence as he sped up to close to the speed of sound, but as he got right up to it, things smoothed right out.  It was what he was expecting at all, and seems sort of anticlimactic today.  His flight had rough patches, but at the moment he was expecting the most danger things suddenly went smoothly.  

I'm a distance runner, which means that over the years I've trained my body to be comfortable with running distances of more than 4 miles.  I don't know that I'd say that I'm good at it, but I know that if you challenge me to a 50 yard dash I'll probably lose, but a 10K I can power through and do OK.  A 5K (about 3 miles) is tougher for me, this distance is more about speed than persistence and when I'm 2-3 miles in I'm panting away and thinking that I'll never make it to 10 miles or whatever the distance is today.  But then suddenly after mile 3, things smooth out, my breathing evens out, I don't pant anymore, my legs have found they're stride, my gait is going well, and I don't feel like I'm sweating buckets anymore.  This becomes the middle part of a run for me, and it's the best part because I feel like I could do it forever.  In this stage of the run my body moves exactly how it should and it has become the vehicle for my awareness.  My mind is just being carried by my body and now acts as an almost passive observer to what's happening around it.  At this point I've entered the Runner Mind.  

If you ask, most distance runners won't be able to tell you what they think about while they run.  It takes you 3 hours to run 14.7 miles, they must be thinking of something.  They are, but in a way they're not, at least they're not thinking of anything that they can explain rationally later on.  While you're running little bits of information trickle from your senses into your mind and send you on strange journey's into memory.  The sound of a wind chime brings forward the image of a crystal resonating in time with nature, which brings to mind the image of beautiful lights dancing in the night sky, stars which in the time of Galileo were believed to be held on crystal spheres in the heavens that slid past each other creating beautiful tranquil music that filled the space around the Earth.  That music must've been very much like the wind chime I just ran past, or why else would I be thinking about them?  And what do 500 year old and outdated theories of astronomy have to do with making it up Heartbreak Hill?  

Nothing, I'm in the Runner Mind and the purpose of that is to distract your rational mind from the irrational activity that you're pushing your body into doing.  I mean really, for what rational reason are your running 14.7 miles today?  Oh right, so in two weeks it'll be easier to 16 miles.  Yeah, that makes sense.  

Its not always crystal spheres that I'm thinking of, but it's all random stream of consciousness type stuff.  If I could get it all on paper it would be as loosely connected as pages on the Wikipedia, but somehow it's interesting to me, and that's the point.  

Cold Midweek

So it has been very cold in Boston this week.  As I write this weather.com has a temp of -3º for Cambridge, which is lower that when I got home from my run last night by about 12º.  Something about cold runs must tire you out more because it was barely a 5-mile run and I still passed out on the couch until 3am.  Man that sleep felt good though!

Tuesday night was the first of the hill repeat training, which luckily saw a break in temps...it was up 33º!  Hill repeats are basically just what they sound like, a loop that takes us from FitCorp, down around the Boston Common and Public Garden, past the original Cheers, to the foot of Beacon Hill.  Then we run up and down Beacon Hill a bunch of times.  This week it was 5, next it will 6, and ascending for the rest of training.  Fun times.  There's a big crowd and since it's a repeat you never feel all that along which is nice.  It seemed very daunting the first time, but after the 5th repeat I felt surprisingly good.  I'm hopeful that this help me on the Woodland Run up Heartbreak tomorrow morning, which should see 7º temperatures. (cue ominous music...)

And off to ride my bike to work!

Running in a Microclimate

This weekend was an interesting run. The temperature when I got up was about 17 degrees, but the wind chill was registering it as more like 9. That is not awesome, but it’s not easy to tell how the wind chill is going to affect you when you’re running and I can say that I didn’t much notice the wind this time. It was a nice sunny day and conditions were such that sidewalks were mainly clear of ice except for random spots where people hadn’t shoveled enough. At FitCorp they told us that today was to be a 14.68 mile run – this was in opposition to the Liver Team schedule that had us doing 12 miles, which was much more in line with the training I’ve been doing. Jumping from 10.5 one week to nearly 15 the next wasn’t a great idea and my mid-week runs had only prepared me for the step to 12. Several other people mentioned the change in distance and several of us decided to only do the 12.

Somewhere between the car and the gym I had lost my tight running hat that makes me look a bit like a henchmen for a James Bond villain so I ended up wearing my Harpoon baseball hat instead. I felt pretty unsure about this as it doesn’t cover my ears and I knew they’d be quite cold in the 16-degree weather, but I didn’t have much choice. We started off and straight out in front of the State House we cross the brick line in the sidewalk that is the Freedom Trail, which is a line that connects important historical sites in the city, but today it was also effective at concealing a random ice chunk that was loose on the sidewalk. I hit the chunk of ice right on and turned my left ankle on it which hurt like a mother. Turning an ankle is the kind of thing that can end your run abruptly, but fortunately this time it just hurt and I could run through it, so I ran on down the hill.

Runners become very aware of climate on a micro level; we try to keep in mind which side of the street will be shady or on which part of a loop the wind will be at our backs. We run along the North side of Beacon Street the whole time as it’s more likely to keep us in the sunlight and out of the shade of the buildings on the south side of the street (which incidentally have lower property values because of being in the shade). I got to about Dartmouth Street when I realized that my right ear was ice cold while my left ear was in the sun and much warmer. Somehow though, the cold ear and the turned ankle didn’t hamper me at all, I kept right on to Cleveland Circle at a good pace and with nothing to really complain about. I downed a goo pack (remind me to write more about them in another posting) at the 3 mile mark and its extra energy boost kept me going almost all the way back to the gym.

The intended 15-mile course took us down Beacon Street like normal and out to Cleveland Circle, where we were to head off the course and do a long loop around Boston College and then back in to FitCorp the way we had come. They gave this nice little had drawn map that was not at all to scale to tell us what the course was, and once I got Cleveland Circle I checked it to see where 6 miles which was where I wanted to turn around. 6 miles was marked as being next to “BC Dorms”. Now, there’s a lot of BC Dorms and I had now way of knowing which one to turn. Just across Cleveland Circle is the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and when I got to there I was struck by how tranquil and still it was, and so rather than just run to some arbitrary point and turn around I decided to loop around the reservoir instead. It was great, very quiet, not much traffic around and once I got about halfway I could see the tall buildings of downtown Boston in the distance – a sight that is both exciting and disheartening. I was impressed that the path along the reservoir was plowed most of the way around, and where it wasn’t I could run on the sidewalk in Evergreen Cemetery. The only places that I came across ice were the areas of the sidewalk that were at times in the shadow of the thin lines of trees spaced out along the road. I’m always impressed that the difference between an icy and a dry surface is defined by such vague line as the shadow of leafless trees.

Something was working right in my head for this run and I didn’t have to spend much time keeping myself psyched up and so the remainder of the trip went on without incident. I got back to the gym ahead of the runners doing the 15 mile loop and it felt really weird that all of these people who are stronger, faster runners came in after me, but we all have to run our own race. They ran what they needed to do and so did I. In the end I did only 11.5 miles, and I wish I had known at the time so I could’ve worked in another half mile, but I’m still happy with my run.

Afterwards during stretching I had some fun conversations with the other runners and I wanted to mention how utterly insane I think Mara is. Every Saturday she runs the 2 miles from her house to the gym before whatever our long run is, and then runs home afterwards. So Saturday she ran 2 miles to the gym, 12 miles on the course, and then 2 miles home. That’s 16 miles on what’s meant to be a 12-14 mile day! She says she does it because it’s easier than parking.

Man, runners just aren’t right are they?

Settling into the week.

So it's Wednesday and I've gotten two of this weeks three runs in before the 12-miler on Saturday, and boy have they been special ones.  As some of you might know we've had some winter weather here in the Hub.  When Bec knocked on the front window Monday at 6:30 in the AM there was a nice layer of ice over every horizontal surface; I don't quite know how she made it down the hill from her house, but the important thing is that she did and so there was no turning back.  We headed out on our usual course the to river, hoping with every treacherous step that we'd hit a patch of sidewalk that where someone had had the foresight to lay out some salt.  We weren't that lucky, even Harvard hadn't thought about that.  We did make it to the river and decided not to attempt crossing the bridge ("Bridges Freeze Before Road", anyone seen that sign?) so we headed along the river on the Cambridge side.  There was a lot of running on the grass next to the sidewalk and stopping to make very deliberate steps, but in the end we made it home the better for having been out in the ice.  

Today we had some warning that conditions would be less than ideal, in fact schools started closing yesterday afternoon even though the snow wasn't meant to start until midnight.  Dawn brought with it about an inch or two of wet snow on the ground, Bec was a little worried about sleet but went out on the porch and decided that it was a great day for a run and texted her to get moving.  It was right around 32 degrees which is a great running temperature, and it was also the perfect opportunity to try out our YakTrax  which are basically like chains for your shoes.  It wasn't sleeting when we left but by the time we hit the river it was coming down pretty well; not ideal for wearing glasses.  We looped around the river and when we hit the Eliot Bridge and the turn towards home I felt good enough to keep going another bridge - an uncommon experience even in the summer - and so we went on to the Weeks footbridge.  Today ended up being a 4.4 mile run with a brisk sidewalk shoveling afterwards.  Nice.

I know they say that you shouldn't run in conditions like this, and I fully admit to the danger, but there's something really fun about it too.  We ran the same courses that we've been running all year (2008 that is) but they were more interesting and fun than normal.  I've always loved being out in the snow and running is just another fun way to experience it.  Also though, I'm in training for a marathon in April, the only way that I can have fairweather training is if I move to someplace warmer, and as appealing as that might be some days, it's not in the cards.  This means that I can't be too choosy with the weather that I run in.  Plus I don't have treadmill or gym membership so I don't have that to fall back on it.  I've made a commitment to the marathon and that means some days I've got to run in sleet, or "sneet" as I've heard the mix called, then so be it.  

First '09 Long Run...and it felt it.

Saturday was not a particularly good day for me running-wise.  Turns out it's not a great idea to skip 2 weeks of long runs, eat holiday foods, and then try to run Heartbreak Hill for the first time.  You'd think I'd be smart enough to know that, but I guess there's some things you need to learn by doing.....

This was the first of our "Woodland" runs, which are going to become a pretty standard routine for my training.  Basically we do the usual meet at FitCorp at 8am, and then get on the D-Branch of the Green Line T train and head out to the Woodland Stop and from there we run back to FitCorp.  Seems kinda backwards to go all that way only to run back to where you started early on a saturday morning, but hey, it's what we do.  

Woodland is near to mile 17 on the marathon course and starts you on what is basically a slight downhill, I'll have to learn to enjoy that as it's the last time I'll be seeing a slight downhill on this 10.5 mile run.  

Within a quarter mile you make a right turn onto Commonwealth Avenue (Comm Ave to the locals) past the Newton Fire Station, and bam! you're climbing a hill.  I'm not sure what the actual boundaries of Heartbreak Hill are, but I think it actually is comprised of 4 smaller hills that rise up and level off a bit only to rise up again.  It's the sort of thing that always seems to be almost over - but then isn't.  Hills aside, the run up Comm Ave is very pretty and scenic, which offers something to take your mind off the hills.  This part also has what I've heard called a "Carriage Road" which is basically a third lane for local traffic on the other side of a grass (snow covered) median and made for a great place to run since the traffic was light and one-way.  This area is frequented by a lot of runner's who live in Newton, and you can tell them apart from the marathon trainers by their high-tech and expensive running gear and the lack of a look of terror or exhaustion on their faces.  Kevin O'Connor, the host of This Old House, ran part of this stretch for segment on the show once.  If you've seen it and you're a Boston runner you'll find it pretty amusing.

Anyway, the hills aren't easy, but eventually I get past them and hit Cleveland Circle and realize that I only have half of last weeks long run to go, 6 miles.  Later on in training that'll be a good thing, right now it still seems like a far way to go.  It is, but I make it without too much fuss.  I'm the second to last person to get back to the gym, except for Nhu who stayed out too late the night before and so was 20 minutes late starting the run.  He wasn't that far behind me when I got back.  

I don't like the feeling that I had when the run was over.  It was a hard run but I can only blame the hills for part of it.  For most of it I have to blame myself for not training harder over the holidays.  There's still plenty of time to get ready for the marathon, but I'm still disappointed that I'm not further along.  I have to keep pushing myself so that I can work out of this low point.  

Brief Hiatus

As you may have noticed, I haven't updated in a few weeks.  Don't worry, that doesn't mean that I haven't been neglecting my training (much).  Truth is, a lot has happened since the last post, but most of it is somewhat mundane.  

I've missed the last two long runs.  3 weeks ago the run was cancelled due to the world ending in Boston.  Or at least what passes for world ending around here.  Starting the Friday afternoon before the run we got about 12" of snow, the threat of which is enough to close schools across the region, and yes that meant Molly had a half-day.  It also meant that I had a break from running in all that stuff too.  Sadly that "break" extended into the next week since we got a second round of snow the following Monday.  

After that was the chaos of family and travel that is the week of Christmas.  Between the two of us we had all the planes, trains and automobiles that either of us could want.  Rochester had at least twice the snow that Boston had, and when it wasn't cold and snowy it was raining.  That week was a bust as far as running goes.  Plus there was eating, sweet sweet eating.  

I've run twice this week and I think I'm ready for tomorrow's 10.5 miles.  I better be since we're running a big chunk of the course for the first time.  A chunk including Heartbreak Hill.  Dun-dun-dun!

10 Miles of Talking

Hello True Believers.  This weeks run was not what I was expecting at all.  I went into it with a bit of trepidation, 10 being a bit further than I felt ready for, and I didn't have any "gu" packets to help keep my energy up over the distance; 10 is my usual lower limit for that stuff.  Fortunately though, I wasn't hungover this time.  

We started off on the usual course down Beacon Street, and by about mile 2 or so I was seriously thinking of only going 8 miles.  I just felt miserable.  Low energy, cold, achy muscles and joints, bad bad bad. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the first time I've felt like quitting on a run, but it's the first time in this training course, and it's still early yet.  I did end up finding the strength or energy or whatever it was, to make the 10 miles.  The secret?  Conversation.  

I made two friends out on the course yesterday, one a young teacher from Boston running for the Boston Medical Center team, the other a guy who works in the trademark department at Harvard and is running for the Brigham & Women's Hospital.  They were two people very different from each other, and neither of them had any idea who I was, but we knew that we were out there going through the same tiring, if not painful, experience, and that it's good to not be alone for that.  Neither of them knew it, but talking to them carried me past my doubts about energy or increased distances, and for that I'm grateful.  

This is one of the great thing about being a runner in general, and in Boston specifically.  It's great to run because you have these odd experiences as you make your body move all that way, and it's great to do that in Boston because on occasion you have someone to share it with.  

Running, even in the rain.

So I ran in the rain tonight.  That's not something that I do all that often, and most people feel like it's something to be avoided.  I agree, and usually am able to work around the weather which, let's face it, isn't as bad as everyone from New England makes it out to be.  Usually if it's raining in the morning when I'm supposed to run I can wait until the evening and it won't be that bad.  I was tempted not to run at all tonight, but all of my other attempts at running this week had been thwarted by frigid temperatures and general not-wanting-to-get-out-of-bed-ness.  I needed to run today otherwise the 10 (or 12) miles on Saturday would not be good.

Tonight was a group run set up by an Irish Pub in Boston called Crossroads.  They host a regular Thursday night run out of their second floor bar that is free to all but is mostly populated by people running Boston for charity.  Oh yeah, when a runner says that they're "running Boston" it's shorthand for the Boston Marathon, that's just a thing.  Tonight the running group was small, I think it was 2 groups of about a half-dozen each.  

Like I said, I wasn't super psyched about running in the rain and was a bit worried about not having a waterproof shell to wear over my cold-weather clothes like everybody else.  The idea was to run a 4.1 mile loop around the river, passing the Double Tree hotel that my folks stayed in last time they were here.  Word before we left was that some people were running an extra loop to get up to 4.5 miles.

Outside the bar the wind seemed to have come up, but it wasn't quite pouring yet so that's something.  We got to the river on on the ramp on the way down I pulled ahead of everybody.  The funny thing about running is that I never feel like I'm running fast, it just sometimes feels that the people around me are running slower than normal.  I was by myself right up until the bridge crossing that would've taken us 4.1 miles.  In my mind I had committed to doing the 4.5, I was feeling pretty good, so I joined up with 3 other people who had caught up to me and we headed towards the next bridge.  About three quarters of the way there Sheri Olivet, Chair of the Runner's Council, suggested that we go one more additional bridge for a total of 5.1 miles.  This was a bit more than the 4.1 I had been planning on, but who am I to say no the Council Chair?  

The wind got bad at times but never as bad as I feared it would -  it can get pretty bad on the Charles - even crossing the nearly half-mile long Mass Ave Bridge that is the home stretch.  At some point I went from tolerating the run to really really enjoying myself.  It's a weird transition that is hard to understand or to put your finger on, but it happens during some runs.  I found myself wishing that I had my camera with me several times because the city was draped in fog and the lights of the buildings were lighting up the clouds.  The lights of Fenway were on for no particular reason, but that happens a lot.  Plus there these random times when traffic along Memorial Drive would come to a lull between red lights and for a few precious seconds it would get quiet and dark - a rare thing in Boston.  Totally worth it.  

I felt really strong crossing the Mass Ave bridge, and felt great when I got back to the bar.  not just because I was done running running, but be because I had had a good run.  

Let's get this blogging started right

Hi all, my name is Andy, and I've just begun training for the 2009 Boston Marathon which is something that I'm pretty excited about.  I'm blogging about it as a way for my family and friends to keep track of where I am in training and in my fundraising goals - both of which are critical and difficult things to undertake.  26 miles is a long way to run, and then they throw that last .2 miles in for good measure and it just about crushes any strength that you had left in your legs.  The Boston Marathon is an especially exclusive race to run, and if you don't qualify (which I haven't) then you have to enter as part of a charity team and raise money as your entry fee.

Running is hard, and training for a marathon is one of the hardest things I've ever done.  But if you're going to do something hard you might as well be doing it for some sort of good cause.  I'll be honest, I do get a good feeling out of running, but some days when it's cold, raining or snowing, that's not enough.  What makes it enough is that I'm doing it as part of a group of other runners like me all dedicated to the goals of finishing the race and raising money and awareness for the American Liver Foundation.  Liver disease is pretty scary and despite what many of us think, isn't limited to people who drink heavily, there are other forms of liver disease that can strike people who have never drank before.  In future posts I'll be telling you about a girl who got sick at age 7.  So, at this point if you're reading this you should consider yourself asked to make a donation to an important organization with the goal of curing all forms of liver disease, an organization that is well enough organized that it has a really good chance of succeeding in that goal, provided the correct support.  

So, in the future you'll be hearing more about the ALF, and I don't mean the puppet from the 80s TV show, and my training.  We're having an introduction to our long run program this saturday so look for an update about that.  

Thanks for reading this far, and I hope that you'll follow me on this long journey, and help me by making a donation, there's a link in the side bar.