Shaking Off a Good Ass-Kicking

I responded to my friend at Be The Dog, and after I was done I realized I had a breakthrough and should keep this for my own.

CW - We realized last week that we'll be running races on the same day.  You have a half-marathon in Brooklyn over the Columbus Day weekend, while I'll be in Portland, OR, for a marathon.  (Being good government employees, we have that Monday off.)  I'm glad you learned so much from the Parks Marathon; even if it wasn't your fastest race, you gained more by figuring out how to make the ones that follow better.

I'm digging for similar silver lining after a training run this morning, but I'm not as sanguine as you.  After a summer of oppressive weather - I like hot weather over cold, but enough is enough - this morning autumn seemed to have broken with the temperature around 20C at sunrise.  I made it to Gravelly Point before the 7 am start, after eating and packing all that I needed.  This was going to be a good one, a perfect landing on the accelerated training schedule I adopted to get me to Portland.

I'm resigned to a 9-minute pace, and today's target was 20 miles.  No one else raised a hand when the run leader asked runners to identify their paces.  Overachievers at 8- and 8:30-paces, where I used to be, and a bunch in the 10-minute and or more-sensible groups.  I was prepared this time.  In previous weeks, I've started with 9-minute types, only to find that we were planning to run different distances.  They'd cheerfully reverse course after 4 miles, leaving me to trudge on alone, or I'd come to my turnaround only for them to bear down and continue with their challenge.  And today a guy sidled alongside me, and asked if he could run with me.  (Do you have to ask in this situation?)  We headed up the Potomac, watching planes landing and rowers rowing and, predictably, at mile 3 he said goodbye and left me to my fate.

This time I was prepared.  I brought my iPod, and quickly dialed up a genius mix based on "Shake It Off."  I have the musical taste of a 14-year-old girl.  I shimmied alone through Arlington, into Georgetown, along Rock Creek Parkway onto the Zoo's grounds, reversed course to the Lincoln Memorial.  And by this time, things weren't going well.

I have an unusually high exercise heart rate - 150 is pretty light for me.  (My resting is about 48, so no one seems concerned.)  However, at anything above a crawl my HR vaulted.  I improvised a heartrate fartlek, backing off when my heart rate skyrocketed.  People passed me; once upon a time that didn't happen.  Sometimes they passed me twice, because they would zip past me, only to then rest as I caught them, and then they'd have to catch me again.  At Hains Point I fell apart - the silver stake was the tantalizing water fountains at the several bathrooms--all out of service.  Crossing the Potomac, I caught up with Kimberly, one of the more reasonable people.  We chatted, then resolved to run the last mile together.  God knows that if I hadn't been running with her I would have succumbed to the cramp building in my right leg, and if the run leader hadn't been standing in the Gravelly Point lot with a checklist I might have called the whole thing off.

But it wasn't enough to finish.  On the short drive home, I felt really lightheaded, and once I got home, climbed two flights of stairs (why, Lord??!) my legs cramped badly, so much so that I asked my wife to stand over me and give me a deep massage with her heels.  That helped, and with a multivitamin and a lot of water, a nap, and a shower, I was back among the living.

I'd like that not to happen during the race, especially since if I fell apart I'd still have 10K to go.  I see that drinking lots and lots of water would be good.  I will try to link up with like-minded people to get through the tough spots.  I'm happy with what I wore, with one exception:  I'll have a spare Band-Aid in my pocket.  You're a woman, so you may not realize that after a lengthy run the friction of a salt-laden shirt over a man's tender, exposed chest can lead to the telltale, painful "Bloody Nip."  I will eat immediately after I finish.  And, frankly, I needed a good ass-kicking to know that even if things go south I will finish.

So the next time I take to the trail, I'll look back on today's run and shake it off.  It was a necessary step in the process of showing up in Portland ready to run 26.2 miles.  And not die trying.

Integrity Run

I'm still convinced I'm going to run this marathon.  I registered, but also paid for plane tickets and an airBNB for my family and me.  It would be cheaper at this point to run the race than not to run, and I'm pretty cheap.  So I'm still in.

But I've had to face some facts.  This is my first true marathon since 2008, when I coughed and sputtered through the Richmond Marathon... in the end in a pretty good time, and with some fun on the way.  I've run some wacky off-road races in Cameroon and Cyprus, but without the festival experience that an American marathon carries.  No one even knows for sure how long the Race for Hope is!

And I'm older.  Undeniably, while some things work just fine, some things are slower, harder, or simply not where they used to be a short eight years ago.  My knee took a major hit last fall, and I'll be running with an awesome looking brace to protect the cartilage that is starting to degenerate in my left knee.  But over the summer when I realized I wasn't hurting that much any more, I realized I could gear up for one more marathon, and set my sights on Portland -- I have a number of life confluences converging there, and maybe I'll mention them later.

After last week's debacle, I was sore the next day.  And the next.  I feared I'd broken myself, irreparably.  I didn't run, I didn't lift at the gym, I didn't stretch.  Carolee might have said I needed to 'DELOAD', and so I 'rested.'  For the first time in a while I went seven days--one calendar week--without any real exercise.  Things were looking bleak. I needed an integrity run.

I couldn't meet the group last Saturday, so Sunday afternoon, after the Washington Professional Football Team won, I laced up my shoes, loaded up with gear, and set out alone for a 15-mile run.  This is generally longer than I've been running solo, but I had to prove to myself I could do it.  And I pulled it off pretty much without a hitch. I was disappointed that I later realized it was barely a 14-mile run, but I think something was off, because my pace was glacial if it really took me THAT long to finish.  (I just went back and found another 0.2 mile I'd missed, so maybe I don't suck.)  Encouragingly, my heart rate stayed well within comfortable range.

And so I did.  I proved that I can handle a distance (and, really, if you can run 15, you can run 26, right?).  I also focused on a few things I will need for success:

1. Food:  I need to carry more food with me so I don't bonk.  The Marathon offers Ultima Replenisher, a mineral supplement that does NOT have carbs.  (In 2003 I saw what happens when people rely on these supplements: they sink into the pavement at mile 18.)  More importantly, I need to gain weight.  Through the increase in exercising, a decrease in eating, and generalized worrying, I've lost a few pounds off my already-rangy frame.  I'm not saying I'll be fat, but I need not to show up hungry.  
2. Pacing group:  I need to latch onto the 4:00 pace group at the race and hold on for dear life.  I'm confident that I'll feel better than that early in the race, but I need to save something for the end.  
3. Leg strength:  my legs are weak.  I used to do squat and lunges and my legs would spring with power.  They're dead now, and because the brace supports a lot of weight on my left leg, my right thigh tires quickly when it overcompensates.  I asked a friend last week if she thought I could considerably increase my leg strength in just three weeks.  She said No, but now I'm going to try.  

My head's back in the game.  To prove that I have a reserve of speed, I sneaked in a treadmill run this afternoon:  30 minutes at 8:00 / mile with a slight incline.  I did it with no crisis, though I can't shake the fact that I once held a 7-minute pace for 26 miles.  But, you know, that was pretty awesome, and I didn't give myself credit for it then.  Now, I'm going to nail this marathon 20 years later.  It's going to be ugly, but I have more of an appreciation of what awesome is.

That's integrity.