The biological clock

I talked to a friend today who just began a year-long plan to train for a marathon and then run it fast enough to qualify for Boston. A worthy goal, I told him. But I also wondered why he would choose such a lofty goal when he has a demanding job and three young daughters at home who will be competing for his attention. "I don't know Dave," he answered. "I just felt my biological clock ticking." Funny how mid-life will do that to you. I'm 47, nearly 48, and my best running years are way behind me. As I was walking the dog tonight, I thought back to what happened to those years, that span of about 18 years from when I quit the JC track team to the time I began running the trails of the Del Monte Forest with my daughter. Rugby, college, the newspaper job, getting married, learning to be a husband (an on-going process), having kids and learning to be a dad (a never-ending process). All things I wouldn't change. My peak physical years were spent changing diapers, pulling all-nighters on writing assignments, mowing the lawn (something I probably should have done more of). But I don't regret it and I don't regret that I probably won't see huge improvements in my running. I know I can't point to a target four years away and say I'll be so much faster when that time comes. That time has come and gone. The alarm has gone off on the biological clock.

P.S. - What's the qualifying time in the 50 and over category for Boston?

Monday, ever so important

I've come to the realization that Monday might be the most important running day of the week. It struck me last week during my run, when I realized coming off two days rest, it was probably the ideal time to attack the hills (before fatigue and soreness would make a coward of me). It was also the best time to set the tone for the week. When I don't run on Monday, or cut it short, I find myself trying to make it up later in the week. This adds to stress, which adds to grouchiness, which adds to me wondering why I'm doing this at all. Not good. A long, hard Monday gives me a cushion for the rest of the week (you know how that blank calendar seems to fill up by itself as the week goes on?). And today actually felt pretty good, 11 miles with my mini-Hurricane Point built in (a two-mile climb). Get this, as I assaulted one of the hills I found myself thinking of something else, rather than the pain in my thighs and calves, and the sound of my labored breathing. It was like I woke up and there I was at the crest of a climb. I like that a lot.

Monday morning is still the worst, but Monday running, well, it seems to be one of the best (oh, the best day running is when you don't have to worry about hurrying back to go to work or housework, when the day is yours and you choose to spend it running, because, heck, you just want to.)

Comfort run

Some years ago, on one of those many occasions when I began running again I fell into an interesting conversation with a fellow runner/worker. "All I want," I told her, "is a long flat path, a dirt trail, shaded by tall trees. A place where all I can see is the long, straight trail ahead. Do you know where one of those is around here?" She smiled and shook her head. But I found one of those the other day. I had spotted the entrance of the trail on a drive through Pacific Grove and was reminded of seeing a path while we were house hunting there a few years back. I was near my turnaround point on a nine-mile run when I hooked up with the trail. For one of the few times in my running life I began to dread the turnaround. The path divided a grove of Eucaliptus and went as far as I could see, flat as a pancake. My first thought was, dang, I wish my life was like this sometimes, straight and flat, one foot in front of the other. No bends in the trail where unwelcomed surprises might linger, no intimidating climbs where the pain of anticipation almost outweighs the climb itself. Just straight, cool and easy, where I could push myself as hard (or not) as I wanted. I kept going that day, until I realized that if I didn't turn back soon I'd miss that meeting at work, and miss enough of those meetings and I'd be out of a job. I think I came to the end of that trail where it intersected a street, but I couldn't tell. The trail might have picked up again after another few blocks. I'll probably explore it again sometime.

* 10 miles today, mixing in a lot of hills. I couldn't face the killer climb, but halfway through my run I felt guilty for not doing enough hills, so I began adjusting my route to get in more climbing. Practice, practice, practice.

Hurricane training

The most feared, at least by me, portion of the Big Sur Marathon is Hurricane Point. It is my Goliath, a two-mile, 500-foot climb that drives me on training runs to go up hills I'd rather go around, that drives me in the gym to do one more set of lunges that I'd rather skip, that haunts me at the dinner table and makes me look at that chocolate chip cookie and ... OK, it doesn't keep me from eating cookies, although I kind of wish it would.

After a hard day of hills on Monday and a solid week of weightlifting, on Friday I decided to give myself a break from this Hurricane Point obsession and take a long, flat "comfort" run. As I pulled the car up along the coast, I could see the shrubs bending with the wind and a mist being blown off the breakers. Earlier in the day, spying the world from the safety of my bedroom I could tell it was a fine sunny day. But what I hadn't realized was that it was a windy one as well. Yet, as I began running up the coast I could feel the slight tailwind (why is it always slight when it's a tailwind and always a gale when it's a headwind?), and it was nice to be pushed along, even though I knew I'd be facing a headwind on the way back. ... Now, one thing about Hurricane Point, there's a reason "Hurricane" is in the name. The two times I've run up it there has been a headwind, but one only strong enough to annoy. I've been told I've been extremly lucky. As the sports editor of the Monterey County Herald, the hometown paper of the Big Sur Marathon, I've read plenty of stories about Hurricane Point and the winds up there. I've read about runners feeling like they were actually being pushed backward by the wind and having to strain just to hold their ground. ... Well, I can tell you if the wind gets raging up there the way it was on my run Friday, I could be in big trouble. As I turned around on this 10-mile run, I was stunned by the strength of wind. It made me feel like I was running in slow motion (OK, I often look that way even when the wind isn't blowing). I was being pelted in the face by sand. If I hadn't been wearing the sunglasses my wife had given me for christmas, I'd probably be blind right now, my eyeballs having been sandblasted. I bent my shoulder into the wind and dropped my head. Next thing I knew I was getting a virtual facial shower. The hat I was wearing had become soaked with my sweat. When I bent down, the liquid was dripping off the bill of the cap and being blown back in my face. But I'm no dummy, it only took me a mile or two to figure out if I turned my hat around this wouldn't happen anymore.
I arrived back at my car my lips stinging and chapped and my legs stiff and sore from battling the head wind. Foremost on my mind was the very thing I didn't want to think about this day, Hurricane Point.

A swift kick

And then there are times training for this Big Sur Marathon where I feel the best movtivation for me might just be a swift kick in the rear. I dilly dallyed around today, taking a nap that ran an hour longer than planned, which cut into my running time. Then all of TWO MILES into an easy six miler I began having thoughts of dropping down to a walk. That was TWO MILES in, on a slight down hill grade. I began thinking about my last blog, about the triumph of reason over testostorine and I realized there are times when I need to use my machesmo (of which, I'm in short supply) to push myself out of my comfort zone. I didn't go looking for a chinstrap to slap against my helmet, but I did pick up the pace. Coincidentally, the words of the song playing on my IPod seemed very appropriate, "sometimes you have to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight."

The plan is to head to the gym tommorrow to lift big, heavy weights and whip that elipitical machine into submission. I'll also check to see if I've grown any chest hair.

Motivation

In my high school football days, after one of us made a mental error it wasn't uncommon for one of our coaches to rip our chinstraps off, slap it against our helmets (causing a ringing effect) and scream, "You are an IDIOT!" It was all in the name of motivation. So for years, that became my technique to motivate myself (thank goodness at the time I wasn't in charge of motivating anyone else). I found I became quite good at calling myself an idiot. I also found I could do the "Nobody belives I can do it, but I'll show them" attitude. But instead moving closer to accomplishing my goal (running faster), I found I started to believe that I was indeed an idiot, not capable of performing well under pressure. That indeed, I couldn't do it (even though, well, nobody really cared enough to say I couldn't do it). As I grew up, I finally figured out that bringing down my self esteem wasn't going to drive me to my goals, only to depression.

I think of that in the midst of training for the Big Sur Marathon because this past Monday I took on a killer hill during a training run. I wasn't feeling my best as I climbed and began visualizing walking (not a good thing). That is one of those make or break moments I think. For me, years and years ago, it was a moment to get mad, to try to motivate myself using anger. But along the way I figured out that just doesn't work for me. Rather, it often led to failure (if not in the moment, down the line) that led to depression. On Monday, words popped into my head that made me feel better, "it's practice." That seemed to lift some of the weight from my shoulders. I might fail, but it didn't matter. I was doing this to get better, to improve. It wasn't a make or break, it wasn't a measure of me as a runner or a person. ... Well, it was painful, but I got up the hill without walking. It was a good and productive practice.

I get frustrated when I remember times I've beat myself up in the name of motivation, or when I'm witnessing someone else beating themselves up. A friend of mine was going through that recently. She was having trouble getting motivated to do anything (having lost her momenteum over the holidays). Yet, she was beating herself up about it, "I'm a lazy slug. I can't move. I'm no good. I'm worthless." You know the spiral. And I think, if we could just harnass the energy of that downward spiral and turn it, how easy it would be to snap out of these funks.

It would sure beat the snap of chinstrap across the helmet.

** 12 miles on Monday (often painful). Tuesday: the eliptical and lifting weights. My left achilles feels pretty sore (yep, I'm limping). I'm listening closely to my body. Injury would be a very bad thing.

Finding time

I've been able to get back into the running rhythm, post holiday, but not the blogging rhythm. A pretty good week this last one and a solid start to this one with a 12-mile run on Monday (although, who knows how long it was really, and who knows what my heart rate was or if I worked hard enough ... oops, don't want to go down that gadget road again). Received some interesting advice (some e-mails as well as comments) on the GPS scenerio. I did return it and am now pondering other options. ...

Paralyzed by gadgets

Oh, I remember when I was so jazzed, having purchased a GPS for myself (w/mom's x-mas money for me, thanks mom). A week later, it sits on my dresser, still in the box. Today I just may return it to the store. What happened? It started with a conversation with some relatives on Christmas Day. After a few cocktails we talked about training. They argued (with a passion fed by alcohol) that a heart monitor was essential to high quality training, much more essential than a GPS. The next day, I read an article (by a friend of mine) that the type of GPS I had purchased had gone belly up on him twice within a year. His advice? Buy it from a store with a good return policy (ouch!). Then I began reading reviews of a combination GPS/Heartmonitor ... very discouraging. Stuff like, the heart monitor was unreliable, the GPS lost signal in the trees, or sometimes for no reason at all. And I began questioning my own motives for buying such gadgets. I'm not training for the Olympic finals, I just want to run the ENTIRE Big Sur Marathon. I don't want to set a world record. A friend of mine reminded me how she remembered admiring my competitive drive in high school, and how she knew I was applying that to this marathon running, and how I really needed a heart monitor to take my running to the next level. And I sat there thinking, there are so many more important things I need to take to the next level (my skills as a writer/editor, my marketability, my relationships, not in that order). Running just doesn't rank up there. But then, those are thoughts of a frustrated guy, a guy who just a few days before felt like he had the tools to rule the world. And so the GPS sits, and if I don't make a decision on it soon, the decision will be made for me (when the store won't take it back).

The GPS sits, but I got off my rear today (having taken four days off) and hit the road. 6 1/2 miles along the coast, where the waves crashed against the rocks, sending up plumes of white water, some extending 10 or more feet into the air. It was quite beautiful really and I thought, "boy, I bet the GPS would work out here ... I wonder what my heart rate is, should I be running faster? Is this an effective training session? "

Back in the saddle

It's been about six days since I've run, and that was a pidley little 3 1/2 miler I snuck in before the family and I headed out for some holiday quality time. As the New Year wound down it became more difficult to find the motivation to get out and run, even though I didn't have work to contend with. There seemed to always be things to do, or plans to be made, or sleep to be had. In the end, I just gave up and decided to take the rest of the vacation off from running (didn't hurt that it was pouring rain for a few of those days). I guess part of the measure of me as a runner will be how I snap out of this. But with the return of the routine of the kids in school, my wife and I back to work, I don't anticipate any problems with resuming my training ... I just hope these aren't famous last words.

I'm visualizing about six or seven miles Tuesday, flat along the coast (if it's not storming). Wish me luck