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.

 

 

The Road Taken…

Tags

Philadelphia Marathon, Running

If you’ve run the Philadelphia Marathon you know there is a point about 12.5 miles into the race where the course splits left and right.  Go left and it’s another 13 miles.  Stay right and the finish line for the half comes into view.

Yesterday knowing myself as well as a runner can I took the fork in the road towards the cheers and leaned right as looked left and waved the full and what would have been my last marathon goodbye.

Undertrained and trailing nagging injuries is not how I wanted to run a full marathon yesterday.  I took the pass and will always have the pleasant memory of my seven previous Philadelphia Marathons.

I wrestled with my decision for the first six miles and at six I realized that I didn’t have another twenty in the tank but I sure could dial up a seven point one.

I probably could have run 18 miles yesterday but that would have left me many miles from the finish line and headed in the wrong direction.

Discretion, in the long run, is the better part of not being stupid and a left turn at the split would have been a nightmare.

So there was really no ” Lady or the Tiger” decision to be made.  I’m glad  I knew which way I was going to go when I got to the point where I would have had to decide because who knows what would have been going on in my head if I had to choose in real time at the exact time I would have had to made that choice.  Got all that?  I probably would have stopped running and caused all kinds of running traffic problems.

I finished the half with a fine sprint, got my gear and finishers’ medal and never looked back wondering or wishing or hoping what might have been.

I’ve graduated to being a confirmed half marathoner from here on out.  Another full might be fun but I’m done.  Running more halfs definitely will be fun.

The weather was great, heard  Bill Rodgers speak at the expo, bought some guaranteed instant pain relief cream which sorta works.  Bill and the Mayor were at the starting line working the crowd.

The crowds were terrific as usual, almost everyone had a smile on their face and that includes me when I crossed under that big banner that read “Half Marathon Finish Line.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Marathon Song – Sorta

Tags

Running

Just When You Thought…

Tags

Philadelphia Marathon, Running

Having a good day.  Feet don’t immediately hurt getting out of bed in the morning.  Blue sky, cool temps and big plans.  I’m on a roll and I haven’t even gotten started yet.

I’m at my local farmers’ market or as we locals refer to it, ” Market.” Say you went to Market everyone knows where.  Not “The” Market, just Market.  It works.

The morning is chilly so I slip on my  jacket with the logo that proudly proclaims ” Philadelphia Marathon, 2005.”  The logo is grey on a black jacket, nothing flashy.  I bought it back in the old days when the marathon provided chicken soup and other refreshments to all finishers and the expo was in a tent at the start/finish line.  Is soup still on the menu?  Is there still a menu?  I don’t know, doesn’t matter.

At market purchasing apples and a youngish adult spots behind the counter sees the logo and asks ” Did you run the marathon?”

I proudly say yes and add that I’m planning to run another one on Sunday.  Heh, heh, ain’t I great or what?

He says, and I quote,” Well, pardon me for saying this but you look kinda old to run a marathon.”

The comment was not intended to be mean, just an honest observation I suppose. Two points for honesty.

We continue to talk about nothing in particular but then I move on to pick some other essentials like brownies and pears.

Looking forward to a sunny day and a long, cool run on Sunday with the wind at my back and that brownie in my pack.  Kinda old?  Why I oughta …

Mostly I just laugh at myself.  And remember to use the episode as a reminder not to take myself or Sunday too seriously.  The finish line?  I’ll get there when I get there.  After all, I’m kinda old.  Ha!

 

 

 

BA Degree in Running

Tags

bad ass, Marathons, rain, Running, thunder

Earned a BA the other day on the roads.  BA meaning Bad Ass Degree.

Thought about running and thought twice when I saw ominous dark clouds off to the west.  The weatherman genius in me says probably going to rain at some point. Should I run or not run.

Then a realization hit me and it pushed me out the door.

Suppose on Sunday morning, November 22nd when I’m in Philadelphia getting ready to run the marathon the weather looks iffy.  Am I going to say, Naw, looks like rain so I’m going back to bed.

The short answer to that will be no. So would the long answer and the only answer would be no.

And that thought is what got me out the door in an effort to outrun the storm.

As you might expect I caught in a downpour. I can run in rain.  Running in thunder and lightning which I did not expect is another story.  And that’s when I earned my Phi Beta Kappa BA.  Got up on my toes, dug down for some speed and killed the last mile all the way home through rain and thunder.

My diploma was waiting on the front porch when I arrived home.

Final score: Phil 5.8 miles, Rain headed out of town.

Is it too early to check the ten day forecast for Philadelphia for November 22nd?