Don't Say You Don't Belong

My wife ran another half-marathon this weekend. She's been very fortunate to mix business travel with road running, and I think if I could do the same with my work I would. Actually, I was able to during the first two years. After that work-related travel was pretty much minimized. If it couldn't be accomplished by phone or video conference then...and only then...did you have the chance of going on the road.

So there we were, in Miami Beach for an information technology conference. Well, she had the conference. I could have run the event if I had felt the compulsion, but still being injured and recovering, I didn't want to sidetrack my slow progress back to running fitness.

So, I decided I'd hang out along the course for a while and cheer my wife on for once. After which point I could go to breakfast and get a little run of my own. I had two mysteries of the universe which needed solution, though:

How can a guy in a tiny storefront restaurant be overlooked by two servers at eight o'clock in the morning? I wanted my cortadito, damn it. I needed my cortadito.

When looking at marathon and half-marathon participants it's not so much a spectrum of fitness as it is a Venn diagram: There are two categories - the fit and the insane. Then you have the intersection of the two groups, making up the insanely fit. I can understand the fit and the insanely fit doing it, but why do thousands of people who would fall under the "insane" category see the need to run or walk - 13.10938 or 26.21876 miles?

I'm not the best of spectators, especially for live sports events. Especially for live sports which I can do. Little league baseball and middle school basketball might have much to do with this attitude. I couldn't throw a baseball for beans, and I didn't touch a basketball until I was age ten. So I spent more time picking splinters out of my baseball uniform pants during the summer. Basketball was worse; I was more practice squad material than benchwarmer. I didn't get to play during "garbage" time; the coach didn't realize until the last game of the season ended.

Once I hit high school I figured out I was a better musician and actor than an athlete.

But during the spring of my senior year I had too much free time on my hands and sure as hell didn't want to go home early to deal with...never mind. So I went out for track, specifically distance running; in my school that was the 800 meters, mile and two-mile. The coach focused more on the sprints and hurdles than the distance guys; their training was more 'go out and run, you'll figure out what you need' than doing technical stuff or sprints. So I'd go run, then walk home from school after track.

It was dusty and very anti-social. But I was not at home. I never knew anyone who was cut from the track team. They might have quit, but they didn't get cut.

That's the nice thing about road running. You can quit, but nobody can say you don't belong. As long as you know how to place one foot in front of the other repeatedly from point A to point B you have a place in the grand scheme of things.

Got a brain, heart, lungs and limbs which are capable of propelling you along? Good.

Got a pair of shoes? Good.

Got a trail, path, track or road? Good.

And perhaps that's the reason people do road races. Call it "Occupy the Road," if you like. I guess you could just as easily run that 21.0625 or 42.125 kilometers out on a wooded trail, a beach, a stretch of sidewalk, a grassy field, or whatever surface (including a treadmill in the privacy of your own home or local gym...) you desire.

And those who have done it enough have heard the catcalls, insults and spurious warnings from the world around them. So for that amount of time, anywhere from one to six hours, on those Miami/Miami Beach streets, those 25,000 people were saying: 'I can quit if I feel like it, but you cannot say I don't belong here.'

And standing on the side of the road, as a rehabilitating runner, I was reminded the entire population, including the subsets described by John "The Penguin" Bingham - the "very fast," the "pretty fast," the "sort of fast," and the "penguins" - all belonged out there.

A couple of them held out their hand to swat a high five with me. I recognized one of my Marathon Maniac friends from the Christmas holidays. About five minutes later, my wife came by. Usually she's the one on the sideline and I'm the one racing.

"Go, honey! Go, honey! Go, honey! Go, honey!" I called out.

She looked at me and smiled. Sure, it was insane of her to be doing this, but she was having a good time.

The two gentlemen near her marveled at her one-man fan club, to which she replied, "I guess we can all be 'honey' today..."

Running might be an insane act, but don't ever let anyone say you don't belong out there.

Sometimes You Just Have To Say...

...the statement I was going to use (borrowed from an old friend, Christian Beine) can have positive & negative connotations. This weekend, it's a little bit of both.

It is not often I go to New Orleans in a month which is not spelled with an "R" somewhere within or at the end. Sure, there's the August trip to do the NOH3 Red Dress thing...that's a situation where I kick myself while pulling funky, nasty sweaty red dresses out of the back of my car, asking the un-askable question: 'What in the world was I thinking when I registered for this?' Then I realize I added a few too many words to the front end of the sentence & should have started the question with: 'Was I thinking...?' Naturally, my wife reminds me it is all in good fun.

This time we went, not to commemorate a hasher hook-up (I never knew that was the story behind the RDR!) but to take part in a variation of a ritual steeped in lore & tradition, immortalized by Papa Ernest Hemingway in the last three chapters of his novel, The Sun Also Rises. Seems someone felt like there was a need for another reason to party in New Orleans & the Fiesta de San Fermin seemed like as good a reason as any. I never knew the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona was part of a religious festival, but I guess when you're in a nation as Catholic (with a capital "C") as Spain, nearly everything has religious undertones.

And when you have the amount of spare time to research stuff I do...in between doing real work...you do have the opportunity to learn the history & significance of things. I think it makes the experience that much more meaningful, personally. The San Fermin web site, http://www.sanfermin.com/, not only had photos & commentary about the history, but even a little bit about Hemingway's visits there through his middle age. Even better, the site was set up in Spanish, Basque & English...with links to an on-line store for shirts & stuff. Hey, even the Euros feel the need to be capitalistic. Every so often.

But I digress.

Bulls are deeply tied into Spanish culture, long before even the Umayyad (sic?) Caliphate took over the Iberian peninsula. That much I recall from some multimedia thing I watched while I was studying Spanish in college. Somehow, I guess there was some machismo thing going on in the ability to avoid getting stomped or gored by some bull being taken down the main drag to it's eventual death in the bull ring. Not quite certain where San Fermin falls in there, save for the fact he's the patron saint of Pamplona, in the province of Navarre.

I guess during the seven or eight days of the festival these bull breeders in the region send eight of their fighting bulls to die for the pleasure of Spanish aficionados. And the last 800 meters or so of the trip is through the center of town to the bull ring. Barricades abound. Oh, & did I mention the very slippery cobblestone surface & the hard ninety-degree turn near the end? First time I had the chance to see this was not long after I first moved to Pensacola; Outdoor Life Network (now called Versus) would show it in the afternoons...guess Craig Hummer & Al Trautwig needed something stranger than cycle racing to commentate upon, huh? Bizarre thing to watch a ton of angry hamburger try to take a hard right on cobblestones...slide like he's on ice, & BANG! Into the barrera.

All right, so New Orleans' San Fermin is a little more kind & genteel. At least for New Orleans. First year's encierro had a few hundred participants & maybe a dozen "bulls," well, roller derby chicks with horned helmets & whiffle ball bats. This year, the third, had around five thousand participants & probably a hundred "bulls" from all over the southeastern U.S. And the blend of tradition & whimsy is perfect.

The start of the encierro is at the northern end of the Vieux Carre', winds through the Quarter, and finishes in the Warehouse District. The event started officially at eight o'clock, but if you weren't at the corner near the balcony at 7:05 the odds were good you were not going to have a good spot for the beginning of the festivities.

At (probably...I haven't worn a watch in six months, so time is relative!) 7:55, the caretakers of San Fermin's statue marched up Rue Conti, led by a squad of drummers. San Fermin was then followed by a flight of rolling Elvi on mini-motorized scooters. Once San Fermin was installed in his proper place, the Padron stepped out onto the balcony of the Three-Legged Dog & gave his welcoming speech. This was immediately followed by the kneeling & invocation of the participants to (who else?) San Fermin, asking him to guide them safely ahead of the bulls. Immediately afterward, unlike the real encierro where a rocket is launched to send off the runners, we were sent down the course.

The pace for the run was closer to a dawdle. Enough for us to think, 'heck, no worries...this is going to be an easy little Saturday morning jog in the FQ.' No sooner did that thought cross my mind than we made a left-hand turn through what appeared to be a barrier of spectators standing in the middle of the street. At that point I looked to the right.

Ever watch those old movies where Godzilla, or some fifty-foot tall, radioactivity-enhanced thing rises out of a body of water and begins to stomp its way into a major metropolitan area? Think about the people (who have screams of terror dubbed in) as they look back at the creature about ready to turn them into a grease spot on the sidewalk. That's the look we all had. Why? We just turned onto the point of the course where the "bulls" were waiting to be released. Screaming? Absolutely. Like a seven-year-old girl, I was.

We began to run like Kenyans at the Classic. And behind us we could hear the plastic 'whonk' sound of whiffle ball bat meeting body part, which only made us more panicky. My wife took the smarter plan of action, and stepped off the course onto the sidewalk. She told me while she thought this was all in good fun she was not in the mood to be whacked in the fanny with a plastic bat. So, she managed to come through the day un-bruised.

On the other hand, I received the beating of a lifetime, the sort I hadn't received since nearly failing middle school English grammar so long ago. It could have been a grounding, but noooo... These hits weren't just gentle 'whacks.' Some of these girls were out to make up for ex-boyfriends or something...one of them had a forehand which would make Serena Williams proud. I still have the mark.

Of course, with all that humidity & sweat flying around someone's going to lose a bat, & someone's going to lose control. One bull & I ended up in the San Fermin in Nueva Orleans version of a Mexican Standoff; she lost grip of her bat, which fell to the ground at my feet. I picked it up: Any other situation would call for payback. However, the second rule of the run, 'Do Not Touch The Bulls,' applied. So, I shook the bat at her with a small amount of menace, then smiled and handed it back to her. No good deed goes unpunished; she responded with a swat in the keister & a blown kiss for my reward.

While some of the NOLA roller girls were probably familiar with the terrain, it's hard to say whether the imported "bulls" were as well-prepared. The pavement can be rather unforgiving if you don't keep your wits about you...while the cobblestoned last two blocks of the encierro provided payback to the "bulls," there were a few places on the course where I watched "bulls" succumb to the laws of physics or crash into "innocent bystanders." If you're standing on the side of the road for the express purpose of watching this particular spectacle, the term "innocent" does not apply, in my humble opinion. Some guy complained about a bull causing him to spill his drink all over his shirt. Neither bull, nor runner, nor fellow spectator felt the least sympathetic.

The bulls quickly realized trying to roll over cobblestones would lead to accidents which could put this years' Tour de France to shame, so they lined up in a gauntlet formation & proceeded to beat upon the runners who had the temerity to run behind them on the course. The sound of whiffle ball bats could on that block from Tchopitoulas to Julia leading to Ernst Cafe' for blocks around. I rejoined my wife, who was standing at the entrance of Ernst Cafe cooling off. We watched for a few minutes the spectacle of runners staging photographed whacks with imported & domestic bulls, then retired, like Hemingway & his companions once did, to our hotel room to prepare for the next stage of our Fiesta experience.

Multisport as a Metaphor for Life

Just back from a long (and often seemingly-lost) weekend in New Orleans. I don't go to NOLA for no special reason; nearly every time (like almost any trip away from home) has something to do with running or multisport. Nice way to go through life, in my humble opinion.

While I'd love to say the weekend was a complete & utter success it was not. I'm still dealing with a serious fear of open water swimming, something which has affected me since last year in Panama City. I had the strangest feeling of panic earlier in the week as we were discussing swim courses & initially attributed it to one-too-many cups of Starbucks. Unlike a twelve-step program, realizing you have a problem is probably not the hardest step.

A couple of things I learned this weekend which might even parallel life:

Bargaining does not work with every adversary. I went out to do the traditional Saturday morning run along Lakeshore with New Orleans' 5:20 club. At the 3.5-mile point, I backed off my 7:30-per-mile pace, looked out toward the calm (at that moment!) waters of Lake Ponchartrain & began to make peace with her. The next morning's conditions were (supposedly) as placid as the day before...but conditions became more challenging in the two hours between arriving at transition & the wave start. I remember someone saying a phrase some time back about running being eighty percent mental & the other half physical. Triathlon, however, is not running. It's one-hundred percent mental & the other half physical. If your head isn't all there it's not going to be a good day.

Always have an eighty-percent solution. Since the IM70.3 NOLA event has attracted many first-time triathletes, the race director left an opt-out option. A great idea, in my humble opinion, especially when nearly 30 persons were either taken from the water or bailed on the swim before the finish of the 1.2-mile leg. I'm not certain how many took the opt-out, but in hindsight, I might have felt worse about the day if I had. Getting in the water & getting my butt kicked was better than not getting in at all.

Attitude is everything. After the obligatory 30 seconds of oh, cr*p, not another day like Panama City...the race staff told me I could still do the opt out. Suh-weet! I hadn't ridden my Softride time trial bike since IM week in Panama City, & really wanted to know how much benefit my new (F.I.S.T.) set-up & new (Gray) aero helmet would provide on what I initially perceived as a wicked good bike course. I was half correct; the bike course definitely had its share of wickedness, two bridges to climb - one right after the other - within the first ten kilometers...this course is an out-and-back, so the same challenges in the first ten would be there for the last ten, when we were fatigued. At first, the wind on the course was relatively light & in our face, but began to increase in strength & shift in direction, leaving few places on the course where a racer would benefit from it. I noted after a slight sluggishness in the bike's handling after the 50-kilometer mark, just a few miles after the mid-point. As the ride progressed, the sluggishness increased, & I knew from looking down at the tire patch that a flat was in my near future. Finally, at 48 miles, I realized the road conditions of the next eight miles plus the mushy tire could possibly lead to a very bad day. So, I stopped to try & repair the leak. After attempting to refill the tire, I found the issue was, er, something deeper...a cracked valve stem extender, literally something I could not repair. Fortunately, the trooper protecting the course was able to call bike technical support...who didn't show for an hour & a half.

When you're in a situation like that you can either become Eeyore & bemoan your fate with a face long enough to eat corn out of a pop bottle, or you can channel Normann Stadler in Kona, circa 2005 ("another flat $&#*^% tire!"). But since I was feeling fairly good to be alive & not in an emergency department, I decided to laugh at my fate. Come on, how many guys run the risk of pulling what I would call a "double DNF" in one days' racing? Not many. Of course, if I had been more smart about the issue I would have pulled off the road at the overpass where there was shade, but I was thinking more along the lines of communication & not so much speed of response at the moment. If I had known it was going to take at least 90 minutes for tech to show, I probably would have ridden up to the overpass & taken advantage of the shade. So, silly me, I stood in the sun & nearly dehydrated myself. Tech, once they caught up with me, got me back on the chain gang again very quickly, with a couple of bottles of water to boot. My buddy Dixie came past about five minutes before tech did, so my goal was to catch him some time before the finish line.

Patience IS a virtue. The one thing I did not want to have on the run was a repeat of Augusta, where I hammered the first three miles & struggled the next ten. I knew if I was aggressive with my hydration & electrolytes during the bike & continued with it as far into the run as possible I might not have a bad day, or at least wouldn't have the kick me to the curb cramping I had from mile seven to the finish at Augusta. The plan was to run ten light poles, followed by walking one, plus I would walk as I took fluid at the aid stations on the course. Since there were stations every mile I did not wear my hydration belt, but took hits from my gel/electrolyte flask every second aid station.

I encountered Dixie at the only bridge on the run course, somewhere between the second or third mile, & passed him like he was tied to a tree. However, he was close enough behind throughout the run we saw each other on every switchback through City Park. Nothing like unadulterated fear a buddy is going to catch up with your butt to make you keep moving as quickly as possible. After the ninth mile there was just about nothing left in the tank, which seemed to be a good a time as any to engage in a brisk walk & see what strength I could recover. Amazingly, I was able to get back on the groove at mile ten, just before the exit of City Park...and just in time for the roughest patch of pavement on the entire run, Esplanade Avenue. I've run up & down Esplanade many times in the past ten years or so; knowing the best of the worst conditioned road I've ever raced upon was going to be a benefit. Again, it was the ten-to-one ratio, & things seemed to work fairly well until mile 13 when whatever reserves I might have had in store were depleted. Of course, by that time you have a new fuel source, namely loud music & cheering spectators. Most of them don't have a clue how bad you feel by that time, & I think they'd gladly give the functioning half of their liver to you if they could.

So, all you can do is suck it up & look like you're really STRONG when all you want to do is sit by the side of the road on the curb & drink two or three beers. Repeating as tolerated.

There's NOTHING like a finish line. But you want to look good for the photographers & the friends who finished hours before you did, so you tighten up the loose fasteners & set yourself up for a strong finishing kick which tells people: 'yeah, I did this, & if they asked me to do it tomorrow I probably would...as long as you're out here waiting for me again.'

What A Difference A Day Makes, 24 Little Hours...

After Saturday morning's race, where three of my athletes ran personal bests and two (or three) earned age group awards, I was a fairly happy guy. Winning hardware in my age group or running a personal best isn't bad, but I'm enjoying it more from the outside looking in. The only thing I dislike about spectating at local running events is the inevitable question of whether I'm injured. Having an arm in a sling is usually a low-stress clue of injury, but the personal decision not to race (because of an upcoming event - a marathon) seems harder for folks to swallow. (I'm a little bummed, though - my videotape was f.u.b.a.r., so no training video for the team folks.)

I only have a few truly good races in me each year. Even in this, a "selective" year (not counting a practice race) I've run ten events, with one more to go. I cannot say I've performed to my satisfaction in all of them; one or two, actually, three...were efforts which made me unhappy.

But, if you hang out at the post-race and you haven't run, you feel like the kid with the banana saddle, butterfly handlebars and coaster brakes when all of your friends have the motocross-style bikes with caliper brakes...a little bit out of place. I take the time to stand by, chat with a few friends, cheer for the ones I know who won awards...and then it's time to get out of there. Sometimes the sooner the better. Sometimes the friends who ran will come by and shake a hand, other times they'll stay clear. I don't think it's personal.

Talk about an unhealthy time of the year. The stretch beginning the week before Hallowe'en and going right into New Years' Day...and perhaps even into St. Valentine's Day, are probably the worst time to be an athlete. Well, maybe it's just me, an athlete with a sweet tooth. From the office candy dish at Hallowe'en (which around here is restocked by my supervisor the day after) to the Thanksgiving pot luck (some offices are noted for the quality of their confections), it's like walking through downtown Beirut during the 1980s...you don't know what's going to get you. After Thanksgiving, though, it's a World War I-style no-man's land, with a barrage of everything fattening, sweet and addictive.

I used to marvel at the restraint of my coach, who worked out of his home, until I learned of his love for chocolate-covered Oreo cookies. Of course, he also had the option of jumping on the treadmill in his garage for an hour during the day should the need arise. My wife has the option of getting up and going for a quick trot around the park with our dog. I manage somehow to shoehorn 45 minutes of exercise in most mornings before I go in to work and feel like I'm cheating myself.

After I looked at the times for my particular age group, I did briefly kick myself in the butt. The chances of earning hardware were quite good, even if I had run comfortably. The race director for last weekend's race has a flair for doing something a little different (printed towels instead of t-shirts), even along side the comfortable and familiar (such as the turkey chili and light beer). The overall, masters, grandmasters, senior grandmasters still received their Butterballs to stuff, but the age groupers received their own stuffed turkey. How cute.

One more long run (16 miles, next weekend) to prepare for the marathon. If it feels anywhere as bad as I felt during the front end of this weekend's ten-miler, I'm not going to be looking forward to it. Every time I looked down at my heart rate, it seemed to be at least ten beats higher than I would have liked. Even if the pace was closer to 30 seconds slower than I estimated, that either means I've been working too hard or I'm overtraining. One of my athletes intimated that St. Nicholas may be showing up with a gift of increased fitness just in time for December 16. I certainly hope so. This week will be one of those where the work will be just hard enough to keep the body recovering.

I cannot wait to take the time over the holidays and dig through my training logs to figure out what worked and what didn't so I can start laying out what I want to do for the spring. Now that I'm done here I'll get the coffee started. I need more of these three-day weeks.