Fifty Days of Running

Tags

hills, mental health, streaks

I started a run streak on Memorial Day way back at end of May because of  a suggestion on the Runners’ World website that read – We sorta dare you to run every day from now to July 4th which works out 41 days.

So I did.  I mean, what else are ya gonna do when we’re in the mess we’re in?  I haven’t run two days in a row since forever.  I figured if I could get through days 2 and 3 that I could manage 41 straight.  I did and then a strange thing happened.

I absolutely needed to run every day as in 7 days a week as in those 41 days in a row.  I started with 2 milers and kept progressing up through 2 1/2 and 3 and 3 1/2 and even ran 5 on the Fourth.

Took one day off and I’m back at it so I’m something like 55 for 56.

It’s not so much that banging out three miles is easy anymore which it is, it’s that my brain, my mental health, my me needs to get out and run.

There’s one place I run where if you get deep enough into the woods all you hear is you breathing.  Try bottling that.

These days I’m grasping for ways to cope and 3 or so miles including the sweatting sun block afterglow is as important as huffing and puffing.  Today I took the woods route and after completing one loop went back again specifically to tame a hill because I needed it, the hill needed me and I had no good reason not to.

Hills are your friends, friends.  One time I was chatting with another runner during a Philadelphia Marathon and she was getting killed by the hills which in reality weren’t all that bad.  She said she was from Florida.  I asked how she trained for hills  and she told me she ran overpasses on the highway.  Man made hills.  You do what ya gotta do.

The streak continues.

40 Days

Tags

40 days, Moby Dick, observations

Thanks to a shove from the Runners World website I am embarking on a 40 days in a row runapalooza.

From Memorial day to the Fourth of July for sure and beyond if feel like it.

I haven’t run two days in a row in years.  I always needed my day off but now throwing caution to the winds I’m on day 12 of 40.

I’m starting to need this.  Who knew?

40 days, same as Lent, same as Ahab chased the white whale.

Call me Ishmael.

The Summer Knows

Tags

August, July, movie, observations, Running, seasons

And not the title song from the movie ” Summer of ’42.”

As in the seasons know exactly when to change or at least they used to not too long ago.

It’s August 1st, July has been swept aside as the pennant races heat up post trade deadline and summer has taken on a decidedly different feel.  We’re settled in with heat and humidity and gardens are no longer sprouting and vegetables aren’t emerging anymore.  Everything that you’re going to get from your work in the dirt is already here.

Switching gears as I often do this post was inspired by me being out on a run yesterday through a tree lined and leafy neighborhood.  The shade was great.  It’s mid-summer and some trees have started to take notice of the shorter daylight hours by shedding leaves and bark, notably the Sycamores which are swinging into their usual summer pattern of getting ready for eventual autumn.

There are bark fragments everywhere along the curb and as mentioned above the seasons do know when to change.

As a long time runner and cross country veteran I’m dialed into summer running which leads to September miles followed by October races and November marathons.

I’m the last person to step on the accelerator in hopes of giving summer the bum’s rush out the door but I’m also a realist – I know what’s coming.

Sometime later this month and on into September the streets will be filled with fall marathoners getting in their needed miles before they test themselves over 26.2.  For some runners it will be too little too late in terms of building up mileage but a couple of extra miles never hurt anyone.

The summer knows what’s up, knows what’s coming and knows September is inevitable.

So do the Sycamores.

Time Flies

Tags

humor, road races, time travel

I ran in a local 5 miler yesterday.  This was the 43rd running of the race making it the granddaddy of ’em all  in the county.  You can do the math if you’re interested in knowing exactly when it all began.

It was during the early days of the running boom what ever that means.  Me?  I’ve been running since I was in the 4th grade.  We don’t need to do that math.

I used to kill this race.  Now it kills me.  But to the title.

First, the course…Start/Finish is on North Queen Street.  Go right on West Lemon for one block, go right on North Duke all the way to Chesapeake Street, go right, then left to enter the County park. or as the locals refer to it, County Park.  Once you become a local you don’t need to modify landmarks or places with the word the.  Everyone knows what you mean.

Run through County Park and go left back onto Duke Street. Instead of proceeding all the way to Lemon you chop off a block and go left on to West Walnut to Queen and then you see the Start/Finish line a couple of blocks ahead.

A side note here, our town dates to pre-revolutionary times so streets have royalty sounding names like Duke, King, Prince and Queen further subdivided by whether they run east/west/ north or south.

You have your North Queen, South Queen, East King and West King among many others.  We also in this interesting mix have a Lime Street and a Lemon Street.  You can actually stand on the corner of Lemon and Lime.

Further the street signs have been abbreviated thusly like N. Queen, W. King and of course S. Lime which reads S Lime Street.  That’s all I got in the roadway department.

Back to the 5 miler.  I’ve reached the back marker phase of my running career.  I know it, you know it and so what anymore.

I started either dead last or next to dead last.  Pro tip – If you wait for the starting corral to fill up the porta john lines disappear since all your fellow runners rush to the middle of the street for a good place on the starting grid.   This ain’t F-1 or NASCAR.  It don’t matter.

The horn goes off and I walk the 100 or so yards to the start line before I start my watch.  The front markers are sprinting their behinds off and I’m running a good  clip for me anyway up Queen to Lemon and on to Duke.  Here comes the title reference.

As I’m approaching what I know is the one mile marker and clock I look to right where it oughta be and it’s not there!  Did the organizers not have a budget for course clocks?

I file that away and continue up Duke where off to my left I see a guy walking and carrying what seems to the clock that was supposed to be at mile one.  I guess he figured since he had to pull double clock duty he yanked the clock off the tripod and trundled up to where the 4 mile mark is coming back.

Keen eyed readers will note that above I mentioned the course cuts one block off the return so one mile and four miles are not in the exact same place.  Hence, the one mile clock serves both one and four miles.

As I’m running and I see the clock being hand carried upside down I make out 10:44 as the seconds keep ticking away.  Suddenly I have this ” Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds” moment.

I am running faster than the clock is physically moving.  Soon I’m even with it and just as quickly I’m passed it leaving time in my wake.  Picture that Dali painting of the melting clock.  Saucony meets surrealism.  I am not running faster than the speed of sound  or light.  I am outrunning time itself.

I continue up Duke, go right on Chesapeake, go left into the winding roadway of the park cutting all the tangents I can find and realizing that tangent running is probably not taught in school anymore but that’s one class I passed.

I run back up Duke and eventually I find the one/four mile clock right where it’s supposed to be.  I’m also toast at this point but I’m passing some people and some people are passing me.

I have found in a marathon when you are bringing up the rear you make a lot of friends who are just as slow as you are.  Everyone talks, jokes, laughs and encourages each other.

Sadly, now everyone except me and maybe two other people are not wearing ear buds. Everyone else is and they can’t hear anything.  Conversation is not longer a part of group runs.  One guy had a speaker in his backpack and was his own little running/walking jukebox.  Maybe he couldn’t find his buds.  I forget what song he was playing.

I go left on Walnut, left on Queen, it’s my version of Right on Hereford, Left on Boylston.

I cross the finish line and grab a water.  There is a fenced in beer garden set up and normally your entry would be guaranteed by virtue of your: 1- wearing running gear,      2- sweating like a racehorse, 3- panting like a cheetah and 4 – your race bib.

But if you don’t have your Real ID or something similar you are turned away.  Fine.  Just fine.

I grab a bag of chips and leave.

Time is on my side anyway.

 

 

Running in February

Today- 56 degrees plus sunshine plus Saucony Kinvaras equals 3.5 delicious miles.

A Wonderful Film About Running

Tags

beer, movie

It’s called ” Beer Runners.”

Go see it.

It will remind you why you run and why running is good for you.

Timing is Everything

A few years ago I received a Garmin super duper looper watch as a gift.  I wore it on and off never really paying attention to the data it collected other than my pace and total mileage.

Recently I dug into the innards of the watch looking for whatever useless information I could find.

There was the usual mileage count but there also was a number that struck me dumb. Something I had never even considered in terms of running and being a runner.

The mileage was around 500 give or take.  I wear the watch infrequently when I run and certainly not during timed and measured races.  The number that amazed me was this.

It was total time.

Those 500 miles took almost 96 hours of my time.  That’s a couple of days worth of hours stacked end to end.  And that’s only the recorded time when I wore the watch.

How much time does anyone suppose I have directed towards running since I was , oh, say 16 years old some 50 years ago?

Time well spent.

 

Running Tags

Can someone over at corporate find a way to keep all the football themed advertising/fantasy blogs away from the tag ” Running” please?

Running Writer’s Block

Tags

creativity, mileage

I have finally figured ( I think) why these pages ( and my writing self) have been blank for so long.  It’s not like there is any shortage of things that drive me crazy in the world or a lack of a daily dose of stupid in the news.  November 8th, 2016 anyone?

The summer of 2016 is the first summer in about a dozen years that I have not toiled and sweated and ached in training for a marathon.

No worrying about mileage, shoes, hotels, travel, work, weather, tapering, upping my mileage, lowering my mileage or long runs for me.  And that’s my writer’s rub.

I’m a retired marathoner now.  No more 10 or 12 or 14 mile runs for me.  I’ve settled in nicely at 3 to 4 miles every time I lace ’em up and go out.

I’m rarely on the road for more than an hour.  The long runs of yore provided time and distance to think and let my mind go to happy, restful and creative places.

Now when I run I barely have time to get past the ” Which bills can I afford to pay this week?” mile point when I round the corner and I’m back home.

For the sake of my sanity and creativity it appears that I need to go long.  As the song says and I’m paraphrasing here, ” Stealin’ ( Runnin’) back to my same old used to be.”

Happy Labor Day to the people who actually work for a living.  You know who you are.

 

Words Is My Business

Tags

humor, words

I was an English major after all…I often link my creativity on these pages, (well, they’re not really pages anymore now are they?)

I’ve  linked the creative side of my brain directly to the running side of my brain and they meet somewhere in the middle of my oxygen infused brain in a happy handshake and hug and eventually lead to the keyboard and this page which really isn’t a page as we know that pages used to be composed completely of paper and so good luck with that.

Words and Running – here goes…

I noticed in between couch naps induced by the Daytona 500 a few weeks back that what used to be the ” Medical Facility” at the track is now the ” Care Center.”

Care Center is a softer, more kindly, not scary way of saying there is an ER located on the infield.  Because Emergency Room  would indicate that one could seriously injured making umpty nine left turns at 200 miles per hour if something should go amiss.

Talked with a friend last night about his dad’s upcoming ” procedure” which the dad insists is not an operation.  Seems to me if your chest gets shaved, swabbed with betadine, you get knocked out for a couple of hours and there are surgeons involved then you are have what we used to call in the old days – “Surgery.”

Procedure is a softer, more kindly blah, blah blah see above.

I probably could have titled this post something like “Words are what you make them and not always what they seem to mean.”

I forgot to mention that this post is brought to you by the good folks and me who ran 4 miles today on a glorious afternoon.

The weather is getting warmer, the runs are getting longer.

Looks like the word business is picking up.