How I Forgot Everything I Know About Running, Missed A PR By 28 Minutes, And Ran the Las Vegas Half Marathon With Pneumonia

Look, I’m not the worst runner in the world.

I’ve run a 50K in California. The New York Marathon - twice.  I’m not fast, but I’m not last. 2:07 PR in the half set at the Ruskamaraton in Levi, Finland in 2002 (very fun race BTW).

Yet somehow, between deciding to start running again in June 2012 (after an inexplicable 4 year hiatus) and toeing the line at the Zappos' Rock n' Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon on December 2, I forgot everything I knew about running and had the worst race experience ever...

What did I forget?

  

          1)  Stay Warm

It gets cold in Evergreen, CO where I live when the sun goes down. It does the same thing in the desert. Las Vegas is in the desert. The race is called “Strip At Night”; i.e., you run after the sun goes down. I bought arm sleeves on the way to the airport in Denver. I brought a jacket with I could “leave” at the starting line. I had light gloves. I was all set to stay warm. Left it all in my hotel room.  The sun went down. I got really chilled waiting in Corral No. 21 for my wave to hit the start line 40 minutes after the gun went off. Started cold, stayed cold, ran cold. Not good for reasons that will be even clearer in a couple of bullet points.

         2)     Asphalt Is Not The Same As Dirt

I run on dirt trails in the mountains around Evergreen. Love running on dirt trails. They go every which way but straight. They go up. Down. Around. They are easy on your knees, legs and everything else. Dirt is forgiving. Plus, for some reason, you can feel fast on a trail even if you are going snail slow. Las Vegas is a city. Its streets are straight, flat and have not been made out of dirt for a long time. My feet, legs and everything else did not like Las Vegas’ asphalt very much. I hurt the next day. Everything hurt. And I did not feel fast.

         3)      Don’t Run in Shoes You Hate

When I started training for Las Vegas, I at least realized that I couldn’t run on asphalt in trail running shoes and so I bought a pair of Hoka OneOne road running shoes. And used those for my long runs. And never, ever, liked them. They are weird and over-cushioned. As far from barefoot running as you can get and still actually be touching the earth. I ran in shoes I was not comfortable in on a surface I didn’t train on. Much as you hate to give up on shoes you paid a bunch of money for, it beats running in them in a race for which you trained months and months and hating it.

         4)     Get There The Day Before.

Out of town race. Couldn’t get there until the day of the race. No expo. Had to pay $40 for the privilege of picking up my race packet the day of the race (Dear Zappos, This seems like an extra horrible money grubbing price gouging exercise to me since I’d already paid way more than $100 for the privilege of running the thing to begin with). Stressful. Frazzling. Not conducive to being rested either. Need I say more?

          5)     Drink the Water

I know how to stay hydrated. I run with two hand held Ultra bottles every time I go out on the trails even if I don’t need them. With GU in the water and GU Gels in my pockets. I thought – great to run a race where I don’t have to carry water – that will be fun. But not only didn’t I carry water, I didn’t drink much of it either. In the desert. Partly I blame the crappy water station set ups that they had, but that is not much of an excuse.

So at this point, the halfway into my story, I am frazzled, tired, cold, dehydrated, running in shoes I hate, and on a surface I didn’t train on. But there’s more!

          6)     Treadmill Miles Don’t Equal “Real” Miles

No matter what anyone says, running inside on a treadmill in front of the TV is not the same as running outside on the road.  I got the miles in but they were not strong miles. And running on a treadmill is also not running on asphalt. I mean it’s a great fall back, but it ain’t the same, and when you get to mile 12 or so, you figure it out. Too late.

         7)     A Long Taper For A Short Race Is A Bad Idea

I tapered for two weeks. Two. For a half marathon. I lost some edge in doing that. Too rested can be as bad as too tired. This wasn’t the main problem by far, but it didn’t help.

         8)     Running Up Hill Doesn't Train You For Running Flat

I ran hills. Lots of them. The only flat spot around my house is the floor of my garage. Just taking the garbage cans to the road at my house is exercise in mountain climbing. There are no hills in Las Vegas. As far as I can tell, Las Vegas is so flat that every place in town is slightly lower than every other place else in town. That’s flat. You need to train flat to run flat. And IMHO the treadmill doesn’t count.

         9)     Don’t Run Sick.

I ran sick. But I didn’t realize how sick. Its dumb. You can’t possibly have a good race. I felt it coming on for a few days before the race. “Bronchitis,” I thought. “No big deal.” I’d put in the miles, the time, the preparation. My sisters, nephew and S.O. and spouse were there to cheer me on. I had set a modest goal of 2:16 vs. my PR of 2:07. I convinced myself I was OK. The first 5K was on target pace. After that, on the flats of Las Vegas Blvd., it was all downhill to a final overall pace of 11:45 or something like that.

So, let’s review, I ran the Las Vegas Half Marathon: 

• frazzled, 
• tired, 
• cold, 
• dehydrated, 
• in shoes I hated, 
• on a surface I didn’t train on, 
• without enough real road miles, 
• following too long a taper, 
• on a pancake flat course having trained for hills, and
• I was sick - with pneumonia as it turned out afterwards.

Still, despite all that, I finished in 2:35. A mere 28 minutes off my PR. :-)

And I now that I have remembered all the things I forgot? I’m looking forward to my next race. Which will be:

• on trails, 
• in the mountains, 
• in shoes I love, 
• hydrated, 
• rested.
• warm,
• and, with any luck, not sick.

You see, I may have forgotten everything I knew about running, but I haven’t forgotten that I am a runner.

Thanks for reading!

Leaving Defeat Behind

I am a lawyer.

A month or so ago I lost a major lawsuit.  We worked for several years on this case. If you’ve ever litigated you know that you put your heart, soul and ego on the line when you walk into a court room. Losing is breathtakingly devastating. You never get used to it. Lawyers rarely believe that their clients are wrong. Lawyers are far less cynical than the public gives credit.  They actually want justice to prevail. But often times it does not.

I am also a runner.

Running, as many of us have learned the hard way, doesn’t solve problems. That you can’t run away from your problems is a true “truism”. Sure you can analyze problems, get creative, come up with great ideas and solutions while on a run; maybe you can even escape from them, forget it all for a while out on the trail - breathing hard, scrambling up the mountain in the cool air, smelling of fall.  But there is a difference between escaping, running away from and leaving behind.

Until the problem is solved, for better or worse, there is no running from it. But sometimes when my problem is resolved; I cling to it - especially, if the resolution was not what I wanted. We cling to it as if there was something more we could do or could have done. The bitterness of defeat in this lawsuit was very heavy and I clung to it very tightly, ruminated on it and wanted a “do-over.” 

Defeat. Bitterness. These things can burden us and in the long run hurt us in ways hard to heal. You can’t solve defeat.  You can only set it down and leave it behind.  Move on. Oh, sure, learn from your mistakes and grow from your loss if possible and all that. Although in my view the conventional wisdom is wrong, defeat often holds few lessons, and if there are any they can be learned without carrying around the defeat like a talisman – as if one defeat could ward off another.

A week after my defeat, it had become a burden that was not teaching me anything and was hurting me. It needed to be dropped somewhere, left behind, as far from me as possible.  So I did something relatively foolish physically, but maybe smart mentally, I went out and ran on the hardest trail I knew in the area. An eight mile loop called “Too Long Trail” that should really be called “Too Long and Steep Trail”.  It gains about 1,000 feet in elevation in far too short a distance – maybe three or four of those eight miles – and it starts at about 7500’. 

It was a trail that I had no business running on a Tuesday night in October as the sun set and temperatures dropped. Flashlight in hand, I went out and purposely ran that thing as hard as I possibly could with the goal of leaving my defeat behind. So hard that I stopped to catch my breath more than once, held my chest to see if it was going to explode and my stomach to see if I was going to puke.

And somewhere on that run, maybe at one of those “rest stops”, that defeat got left like a rock kicked to the side of the trail.  It’s probably a dull red and slightly warm to the touch. The recent snows probably melted right off it. But I’ll never see it again. It’s gone. It wasn’t until close to the end of the run that I realized it was gone when I was suddenly running smooth. Dancing down the trail with gravity.

I can’t run from my problems, but once the “worst” has come to pass, once the problem is an outcome and not a possibility, I’ve discovered that running helps me learn what I can and leave the rest behind.

Because unlike a dog that loves you and finds its way home again, defeat follows you home only if you carry it. I finished that run with a much lighter load than I started - carrying just a few empty Roctane® packets.

And a smile.

_________________________________

Thanks for reading.

Running as Art

There is art. There is running.  And when you mix the two, there can be transcendence: running as art.

Running as art is an attitude. It means observing the world as you float along, and creating something from it what you see - even if it's just happy exhaustion. Running as art can change our perception of the world, our abilities and our place in it.  The art of: "Big hill, climb it." "Tired, overcome it." "Sore, push it." "Joy, experience it." "Beauty, feel it." "Hunger, feed it." "Love, give it." "Sadness, let go of it."

Good art makes you more real. Makes you feel the ground beneath you. Nothing grounds me in reality better than a hard run in the rain. When I am cold. The world looks amazing from that place of discomfort.  Our world is filled with comfort. To the point that we are dulled and numbed to it.  We wait on our couches for the world to come to us but it doesn't work that way. Running doesn't allow you to be dull or numb. To the contrary, you are forced continually out of your comfort zone.  Forced to acknowledge fear, limits, aspirations, love, beauty and so much more. Outside your comfort zone there There is no run that doesn't show you something new in the world or in your heart. I've never heard of anyone fall in love, decide to pursue a new job or find peace while watching Jersey Shores...yet for runners these experiences, large or small, are pretty common, all in all.

Running well doesn't mean running fast, in the art of the run, its the openness to the world. yourself and the discoveries just around the next bend in the trail that count.

Today the world is a big wet, cold blanket of fog so thick I won't be able to see the trees on either side of whatever trail I choose to run. No, I'm no Picasso, but I'm still going to create a masterpiece out there.

What will you create today?

50 at 60 in 10

Elevation Change for Leadville Silver Rush

A lot of people (well, a few) have asked what I mean by "50 at 60 in 10".  What I mean is that I want to run the Leadville Silver Rush 50 Mile Trail Run when I am 60 years old (July 2016) in ten hours or less.

Non-running people "get" running. Sort of. Healthy. Stay in shape. Stay or get thin. So why would I want to do such a thing as run an ultra. It isn't needed to be healthy. Or be thin. Or stay in shape. I can achieve all those things with far less strenuous pursuits. And the goal is four years in the future! Even running friends give me an odd look when I mention an ultra. If its not about fitness or weight or bragging rights or trying to deny the fact that I am getting older, what is it?

I helped staff the Leadville Silver Rush aid station at Mile 43 this year. Last stop, I think, on the 50. We helped the runners with water, ice, potato chips, sandwiches and other stuff - and conversation and encouragement.  Bad '80s music was blaring. They were dusty and tired and sore. And happy. The joy of running was on their faces. Even the tiredest and slowest looked happy (OK...most of them looked mostly happy).  At one point, a top ten male finisher came loping into the aid station and was met by a buddy with two bottles of Guinness. They popped the tops and both drained them. Then the running buddy took off towards the finish line seven miles away.

There is something about running really, really long distances that elicits a certain attitude. I don't know if the attitude comes first or if the long running brings the attitude. Ultra-runners seem to enjoy life more, take it both more and less seriously and care about each other. Its odd because ultra-running races are lonely endeavors in so many ways, but  that couldn't happen without a solid community. There are no Rock 'n Roll Ultras, and I hope there never are. Its that attitude towards life that I am most interested in. It's why I run.

And I am hoping that if I just run far enough, I can catch it.

Why I'm Running Again

 
Life and age are funny things. They creep up on you. Ever since I stopped running with any regularity or goal a few years ago, they seem to be creeping up on me faster and faster. Which means I'm going slower and slower.

I remember a run that I had perhaps a decade ago, running through Rockefeller State Park Preserve just outside Tarrytown on the Hudson River on a sunny, chilly October afternoon. It was my last long run before my second  New York Marathon.

Now the Preserve is really quite hilly from mellow meadow to a steep pitch you swear you should have a safety line to run down or up. The only semi-flat path is the one around the lake in the middle of the Preserve (a lake the Rockefellers built so they would have one to picnic by...) and even then the path slopes and rolls up and down around the duck filled waters.

And on that day I ran and ran and ran. Up those hills, across little fast flowing streams, leaves scrunching under my running shoes, sweat pouring off me. There was one hill in particular, that I'd always had trouble making it up. I always ended up huffing and puffing. Oh, I'd make it but it was a "just barely" and "I think I can, I think I can" kind of thing. If I'd owned a heart rate monitor back then I probably would have scared myself into having a heart attack by the time I got to the top.

But this day, at the end of two hours, I soared. I reached the top in a smooth segue of heart, soul and breath, and as I rounded the top and made the crest of the hill, the Hudson lay glittering before me. The wind and the sun and the river all clapped their hands and twinkled with the laughter of sun and swirling red, yellow and orange leaves. I can still smell how the wind was, the smell of earth, and decaying leaves and season more beautiful for its fading. I don't know that I have ever felt so alive as I did in that moment. That sense of connection between body, mind, soul and world. A bit, maybe, of what the Buddhist call "Big Mind" I suspect.

I've missed that connection since I stopped running regularly, that feeling of one's mortality pumping strongly in your chest. Of knowing its strength and weakness. That it can carry you to the top of the hill but not beyond your numbered days. Its a good thing to know. Life that is. That's what "running for your life" really means. That's why I've started running again through the trails around my house here in Evergreen. Its a tough slog right now, I'll be honest. It's not much fun. The altitude is a killer, the extra twenty pounds are a knapsack I'd rather not carry. Nor the years for that matter. But its coming back a bit.

Yesterday when I ran across the Elk Meadow and up Bergen Peak, it was cold and damp and the sun flitted from pine branch to pine branch, here and there I could see it, that Big Mind. Once or twice I felt it poke my soul. "Big Mind happy to have this old runner back chasing it", it laughed deeply and silently.

And this old runner, well, this old runner is glad to be running for his life again.

Thanks for reading.

Sluggo Koan

At one time Nancy asked Master Sluggo, “Does a cartoonist have Buddha Nature or not?” Master Sluggo answered: “No."

The Greatest Pancakes. Ever.

We runners - we like to eat. Most of us will admit that this is a motivator for our running. At least one of many. As for me, pancakes are king when it comes to carbo-loading and general treating myself. They are comfort food par excellence! I've tried many, many recipes over the years but I think I have stumbled upon the best yet - in the October 2012 issue of Runner's World.  I've tweaked it a little by subbing egg whites for whole eggs and cutting the sugar and salt a little but this seems to affect the end result not at all.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Dry Ingredients:

•  1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1/3 cup each of cornmeal, whole wheat flour and old-fashioned rolled oats
• 3 tsp sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

Liquid Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups low fat buttermilk
• 1/2 nonfat milk
• 2 egg whites from large eggs
• 2 tbsp canola oil
• 1 tsp vanilla

Mix dry ingredients in one large bowl and the liquid ingredients in another bowl.

Heat a nonstick griddle over medium-low heat.  Instructions on heating the griddle never work since everyone's stove and griddle are different. You'll no doubt have to fuss around with a few test pancakes. While that is heating up, pout the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk until just combined. Don't over mix.

Use oil or PAM or your choice of something to help keeping the cakes from sticking!

Pour out 1/3 cup of batter for each pancake. Drop a few blueberries on the cakes at this point if you desire. Cook. Serve.

Real maple syrup and butter are musts.

You know what to do now!

Thanks for reading!