"Eustress," or You Stress?

"Mental tensions, frustrations, insecurity, aimlessness are among the most damaging stressors, and psychosomatic studies have shown how often they cause migraine headache, peptic ulcers, heart attacks, hypertension, mental disease, suicide, or just hopeless unhappiness." - Hans Selye, endocrinologist (1907-1982)

It didn't kick in until about 12:30 or so on Sunday afternoon.  When it did it was like a mule.

One minute I was  listening to Jimmy Buffett tunes on the stereo and driving to the home of Aaron and Betsy Boudreaux...a tray or two of boiled crawfish and a couple of cold beers seemed to me to be the perfect ending to a long-awaited weekend with friends and loved ones.  Next thing I know, I felt like a bank of telephones were ringing and I had to answer them, while driving at the same time.

About two hours later I felt a little more normal.  As I peeled and pulled, I managed to figure out the source of what went so awry.  I again had taken on the demands I had set aside when I retired from day-to-day coaching.  I was dealing with an increased workload at the office.  On top of that my racing fitness was not coming along as quickly as I hoped; the Achilles' tendon injuries were healing but I could only manage a good 5K...on a 10K course.  While I was outwardly pragmatic, I was all stressed up with no place to blow.

"Charley, I was a little scared," I told my friend later that afternoon over a beer.  We had talked days before about mutual friends, pillars of the community, who transmogrify into a maelstrom of insanity during Easter weekend in New Orleans.  Excesses immediately following the Classic - a couple too-many brews during the five miles from City Park to the Quarter, or a couple extra drinks while spending the evening at one of my wife's favorite karaoke establishments, is one thing.  This particular couple's hotel passageway eruptions made mixed martial artists and WWE-types take a couple of steps toward the exits.

Sometimes stress can get to us.  But is stress one of those things, like former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart would have said, we know what it is when we experience it?  Selye described stress (in 1926) being not only (as Emanuel Kant might have said) the thing in itself, but also the cause and the result of the same thing.

So if stress is the thing, and the cause, and the result, then is it bad?  Not necessarily.  When we exercise we incur a certain degree of stress.  If we allow ourselves time to RECOVER from that physical (and sometimes mental - if you've ever gone into a workout with a sense of dread) stressor we benefit from what is known as supercompensation.  Selye would probably consider that stress "eustress," or good stress.  If we load more stress before we completely recover we begin the process of slowly grinding ourselves down.  That, in my humble opinion, is when the burnout and the overuse injuries arrive.

On the other hand, if we allow ourselves to dwell on the minutiae of life, the small stuff we cannot control, or the things which we cannot immediately remedy, we incur bad stress, what Selye considered "distress."  Sometimes we can use "eustress" to overcome some of our own "distress;" but sometimes it cannot all be remedied through physical effort or exercise.

Sometimes it takes a little "me-time."  Sometimes it takes a "crucial conversation." (another commonly-used term would be the "come-to-Jesus talk")  But the distress, like the carbonation in a soda or champagne bottle, needs to be released in a careful manner, lest the darned thing explode - usually in a hotel hallway on a Saturday night, or a patio bar on a Friday evening, with stunned onlookers all about.

Ticky Tacky and Toe Shoes

First, a very big tip of the running cap to Malvina Reynolds for her song, "Little Boxes." Those of you who have seen the Showtime series, Weeds, know this little song:

"Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky; little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same. There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one, and they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same."

I have a copy of Bill Squires' "Fast Tracks: A History of Distance Running Since 884 BC," and recently looked back at the shoes of distance runners of the late 19th and early 20th century. To look at the overwhelming majority of the pedestrians it's simple to understand why running might be looked upon as a frivolous pursuit. Most of the photos and lithographs show them in lightweight leather shoes or sneakers.

And when I talk sneakers, I'm not talking about the stuff I wore playing indoor volleyball in the mid-1990s, but Keds and Chuck Taylors, the shoes I played in as a youngster up until my first pair of tennies issued to me in the Air Force in 1980. Since running tracks were cinder or dirt in those days I bet there wasn't much of a demand for cushioned shoes. And I can guess most folks didn't do a lot of distance running because the shoes weren't all that supportive for their feet. My loving bride ran the Crescent City Classic ten-kilometer road race in a pair of hot pink Chuck Taylors. I bought that pair because they looked good with the costume she was wearing, not thinking she would get fed up with walking and decide to run the last two miles. Ten years later, she swears she'll never pull that sort of stunt ever again.

And the people in the houses all went to the university, where they were put in boxes and they came out all the same. And there's doctors and lawyers, and business executives, and they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

Frank Shorter's Olympic marathon victory in 1972 is heralded as the advent of the first running boom, which was aided by the mass-marketing of trainers by shoe manufacturers like adidas, Onitsuka (now Asics) and Nike. I had no clue whether the shoes I had for track my senior year in high school, a pair of Sears-Roebuck-branded joggers (I would have gladly traded, along with my step-mother, for a pair of adidas), were harmful to my feet. At least I was able to protect my tootsies from the myriad of thorns and stones I encountered on my training runs.

Fast-forward a quarter-century and technology has advanced to the point where our shoes can almost talk to us. Nike gave us air. Asics gave us gel. Saucony gave us grid. And we gave more of our hard-earned dough for more of their technology. Ever see a pair of shoes which looked so damned ugly you knew they were not meant for you? I have three words: Asics Gel Kinsei.

And they all play on the golf course and drink their martinis dry, and they all have pretty children, and the children go to school, and the children go to summer camp and then to the university, where they are put in boxes and they come out all the same.

The great monolith Nike waited until after the death of Bill Bowerman. Visionary, tinkerer, and curmudgeon, Bowerman eventually criticized his own initial creation and Nike's tendency to add too much to the shoe over time...for no other reason than to make money off the running public. Too much money for too much needless technology. Much to their horror, Nike also learned some their sponsored athletes (particularly under coach Vin Lanana) were training barefoot. How can you make money off the bare foot? Looks like a lot of the shoe manufacturers went back to making shoes which either were light and minimally-supportive like racing flats, or like reinforced socks.

You would think the "barefoot running" purists would rejoice at the market slowly turning back toward lightweight, minimally-supportive, minimally-cushioned shoes as a method of strengthening the lower extremities of runners while protecting from the most hazardous aspects of modern outdoor running. But no.

And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family in boxes made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same. There's a green one and a pink one, and a blue one and a yellow one, and they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

I thought I had seen parochialism and dogmatism in the world of training plans and coaching philosophies. The "barefoot" community makes almost any other pluralistic group seem, well, pluralist. Case in point: I purchased a pair of Fila Skele-Toes, partly because I wanted to try out a pair of "barefoot" shoes (I'm not certain what one would consider a foot covering for the "barefoot" running enthusiast, so "shoes" will have to do.), and partly because I did not want to spend the money on a more-expensive pair of Vibrams. To look at the comparison reviews, one would think they had inadvertently landed on the forum of "The Nation" or "The American Spectator".

The Fila Skele-Toes are definitely not as flexible in the sole area as the Vibrams. There are also versions of the Fila with soles which look much like the Nike Free, with a little more firmness. But, the Filas have less cushion than my K-Swiss K-Ona triathlon running shoes (a borderline minimalist shoe) and are narrower in the footbed, so it's a good step in the direction of a completely barefoot walking experience. Yes, I said walking. I have no intention to move in the general direction of barefoot running. I want to see if a minimalist shoe/modality enables me to develop enough lower extremity strength to protect the achilles tendons.

And if it works, I could care less what the Vibram/barefoot purists have to say.

Because we all don't have to be the same.

The Kindness of Strangers

"Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure." - Confucius (551-479 BCE)

I made a woman cry this weekend.

I told her something she didn't want to hear.

Before you consider me cold and heartless, let me tell you the front half of the story...

I was standing out in a grassy transition area with thousands of bicycles on racks all around me, watching athletes check in their bicycles for the Ochsner Ironman 70.3 New Orleans.

Many questions were asked of me: Where was the exit from the lake? Where would they enter the bike course? How would they return to transition? How would they start the half-marathon run? Most of the questions were not difficult, and it was my job to answer them, in the hope their race day would be less chaotic.

Two hours before transition was scheduled to close, the young lady showed up to check in her bicycle. Unfortunately, she forgot to place the number tag on the bike frame. "Sorry, we can't check in your bike," is the response she received from our crew.

Later in the weekend, as the sun encouraged a state of giddy delirium, the crew began to think unthinkable thoughts: What if a dishonest triathlete (A rhetorical question; I know of no dishonest triathletes...) were to peel the number off their less-expensive bike and place it on another, more-expensive bike? If volunteer workers weren't following instructions to the letter, or closely paying attention, there was the outside chance of a bike upgrade at the cost of a race entry. There was the method to our madness; we HAD to be certain the number on the athlete's wristband matched the number on the bike; no tag number on the bike meant we couldn't tell if the bike truly belonged in transition.

The crew asked her to see me.

She, an experienced triathlete, spent 20 dollars to bring her bike by taxi. Telling her "no" meant she had at least three 20-dollar cab rides on her evening agenda. (If I were a dishonest race volunteer, I would have asked for a kick-back from the cab company.) Was there any way possible for us to tag her bike frame and let her check the bike? She PROMISED she'd bring the tag in the morning.

Mind you, this was the tenth instance of "missing number" I encountered in six hours. If we had blank tags we might have been able to assist in this situation. But we didn't. I told her she had to go get her tag before I could check her bike.

The issue of pre-race preparation isn't strictly related to multisport athletes. Runners, too, can suffer the consequences of "transient brain flatus," "senior moments," or...more crudely put, "CRS." It's just that triathletes have so much more to "un-prepare" for than runners.

Or do they? Large road races like the Classic don't have expos ONLY because out-of-towners like my wife and I want to drink beer while picking up our race swag.

Race expos also exist because we leave our homes 15 minutes later than we originally planned, rushing to get to the race. We don't pack the night before. We don't use checklists. We don't prepare "the bag" with the extra socks, shorts, shirt, pins, number belt, hat, sunglasses, and so forth...much to our peril on race day. All I have to do is remember 2007's Classic, the wind and the cold in Tad Gormley Stadium, and the 20-dollar windbreaker...the picture becomes more clear.

Add to the sartorial preparation the physical, mental and emotional preparations (like previewing course maps, knowing terrain, training accordingly) which can mean the difference between success and failure, and Lord Baden-Powell's advice to the Boy Scouts rings more clearly. Be Prepared. Read the information on the race web site, the paperwork in the race packet, and the participant feedback from previous years, if it's available.

The individual racer can choose to slow down a little bit and prepare for race day (checklists, laying out items on the bed, dressing a stuffed animal, and so forth) so they don't have to pay a 300% "unprepared tax" and raise their blood pressure.

...So how does the story end?

Well, the young lady returned to transition with an hour to spare and her bike was checked in. She was in a much better mood, especially after I offered to give her a ride back to her hotel and we shared some of our "supplies" with her.

The next day, she ran through transition on her way onto the run course, yelling, smiling, and slapping me a high five.

What was that Tennessee Williams had Blanche Dubois say at the end of 'A Streetcar Named Desire?' "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers..."

Don't be forced to depend on the kindness. Be Prepared.

Making It Through

"If you're going through hell, keep going." - Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965)

I talk a great deal about New Orleans in this blog. My friends who grew up or spent a portion of their life there marvel at the unabashed affection my wife and I have for the city. My affair began in mid-February 1998, during the last years of my college studies. My significant other at the time was asked to attend a technical writing conference in NOLA. She thought it would be neat to spend the weekend together; she'd do her conference during the week, I'd fly back to Tampa in time to make it to classes.

After the initial shock I believe most out-of-town (conservative) visitors have once "airdropped" into the French Quarter, I found the area's attitude to be a refreshing change from other places I'd visited. There is nothing like a town - outside of the fact you can walk down the street with an open container in hand - with so much tolerance for the quirky, off-beat, and sometimes just plain unique. It grows on a person...kind of like a fungus. And I've never felt the need to look for "fungicide" in the 13 years since that weekend. When things became a little too wound around the axle, we would look at our respective bank accounts and reserve travel and lodging for the next three-day weekend. Time in New Orleans became (for us) the litmus test for the health of our relationship.

Suzanne and I were married the week before the 2004 Crescent City Classic; we had our wedding reception with a guest list numbering over 15 thousand - I'm still waiting for the donations from the "money dance." We both visited for the 2005 RRCA Convention; she went on a girls' weekend the week before the storm turned everything upside down. A.K. (After Katrina), I heard snippets of stories from friends, and marveled, slack-jawed, at the destruction as I drove through southern Mississippi, Slidell and New Orleans East. The piles of destroyed building materials in the neutral grounds near City Park, the "bathtub ring" on the houses which still stood - my closest NOLA friends were good to point them out to me. As a history guy, though, I wanted to know as much of the story as I could stand. My loving wife gave me a gift card for a national bookstore chain, with which I immediately purchased two texts which caught my eye during my last visit: Chris Rose's "1 Dead In Attic," and Douglas Brinkley's "The Great Deluge." I chose to read Rose first, because - like the young person was asked why she chose C. S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" - it was shorter. Well, and Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" episode made him more familiar to me.

I leisurely strolled through 300 pages or so of "1 Dead In Attic," when I was suddenly struck: what I originally considered an eyewitness history of the first days of NOLA A.K. was also a travelogue of Rose's Orpheus-like descent into the dark underworld of depression. Only three other books have forced me to struggle for equilibrium by its end: Hemingway's "For Whom The Bell Tolls," Josten Gaarder's "Sophie's World," and Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum." At the end of the book, I was thankful Rose is a journalist, and that he is not Umberto Eco.

A training cycle or plan, especially for an endurance event, can leave an athlete in the same predicament. When written in macro form, it's clean, neat and readily achievable. Arrive at the mid-point, when the training miles seem endless and conditions team up with mileage to make even the simplest workouts daunting... The athlete suddenly realizes that making it to the starting line healthy is an accomplishment in and of itself. Getting up (some mornings) to do the tasks for which we earn our keep, maintaining open and mutually-satisfying relationships with the people closest to us, and meeting the other commitments (religious, civic, athletic, business, and so on) which round out our lives; these are things which should be the most important. Especially since the vast majority of athletes are not making a living by running, swimming or bicycling.

The previous day's Wall Street Journal on-line (which I passed on to a coaching friend of mine) had an article about the strains endured by families who have a family member training for an endurance event, like marathons or a long-distance triathlons. Some are able to communicate during the struggle to make it to the start line; others can never get a message through. And something as daunting as endurance sport is never accomplished alone. Not if it's going to be satisfying at the finish line.

Because when you feel like you're going through hell you have little choice but to keep going. And it's always more tolerable when you're not going it alone.

Thee, Me, And 15,000 Of Our Closest Friends

"I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life." - Rita Rudner, comedienne

I talk much about my wife Suzanne because she is an integral part of my life as coach, as athlete, & as (hack) writer. She's taught me a great deal about myself as well as the world around me. I don't always agree with her; she persists in seemingly-innocuous habits which drive me up the wall, but I would be in a dull, dreary world of funky socks & take-out Chinese if not for her.

When I proposed to her in December 2003, I knew I wanted the socially-accepted & state-sanctioned binding of us together as husband-&-wife to be simple, meaningful, & most especially, in the presence of people we loved most. If you heard me recommend April Fool's Day 2004 as the tentative date for the wedding, I'm certain you would have thought otherwise...but I suggested it mainly for the reason neither one of us would forget the date, & we could have a few laughs in the process. However, Suzanne's cool head prevailed & I moved the date one day to the right, April 2nd.

Okay, we have a date. Now we need to figure out who to invite.

As this would be the second time into the breach for us both, we agreed & longed for minimum drama. Our closest friends, no more than twenty, would be invited; the rest will have to grin & bear it. Unfortunately, the list kept mushrooming. Isn't that like every darn fungus with which you get to deal?

We kept pruning the list back: Okay, only my closest mate from the internship & his wife. My running coach & his wife. My friend George (who took me to my first Crescent City Classic) & his girlfriend (now wife) Dianne. Still, we couldn't get down to twenty. Not only was money an issue, but the running community here in Pensacola is so closely-knit it was impossible to leave some off the guest list.

Finally, in one of those "bolt from the blue" moments, I asked Suzanne: 'what if we just go down to the courthouse & have a simple civil ceremony, then have our wedding reception at Tad Gormley Stadium in City Park, right after we run Crescent City? The Capt'n Fun Runners from Pensacola will all be there; there will be food & a keg, not to mention the post-race feed, & we can always ask Glenn (also known as the "Capt'n") if he'll hold space for a big ice chest of champagne & a ton of beads. They'll understand we're trying to keep this simple & inexpensive, since we're planning to do the Classic.'

The Classic was not my first trip to New Orleans, but rather the first trip in my "reconstructed" life as a working professional. The entire weekend - Friday night's first-ever encounter with crawfish at Acme Oyster Bar, the race on Saturday, closing down the post-race party by limboing on the grass, up to the mildly-boozy little-bit-beyond-hangover breakfast at Camellia Grill in Carrollton before the long drive back to Pensacola - all this left an indelible mark on me. I raved about the experience - from claw-to-coffee - to Suzanne the next night; she had out-of-town business to accomplish & couldn't change her schedule. So, I knew my second Classic - Suzanne's first - would be something memorable. It's always great to introduce a tradition to a friend.

So, every Friday, from Christmas to Good Friday, we would walk across the street to the market across from our little apartment. We'd get a six-pack of Abita & a bottle of champagne. The Abita went into the fridge - for a little while. The champagne was tucked away into a large ice chest. I think we had at least a dozen bottles by the time we rolled into the Chateau Sonesta on Good Friday. Add to that stash enough beads to encourage the entire French Quarter to doff their tops, & we knew we were ready to go.

The race experience was unquestionably memorable. Suzanne & I spent the better part of the post-race in matching aloha shirts, handing out beads & cups of bubbly to anyone who came close to the Capt'n Fun Runners' encampment...it's never been difficult to find it; look for the toucan flags.

Our local running friends sometimes still talk about the wedding reception at the Classic, with fondness. We've told the "How To Hold An Intimate Wedding Reception With 15 Thousand Of Your Closest Friends" story to friends & acquaintances around the country, usually during a group runs at a Road Runners Club of America convention, or while hanging out after a road race. The married running couples find it cute. The unmarried running couples file it for future reference.

Every couple has places, times, & songs which are iconic in their relationship. For Suzanne & me, there's nothing like the warm sunlight of a New Orleans morning - especially during the post-race party at the Crescent City Classic - to remind us how blessed we are to be in love with someone who is passionate about running...and life.

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.

The Warmth of a Few Good Friends

This weekend marks three years since Hurricane Katrina slapped the living daylights out of New Orleans, something I would not have known if not for my fine friends at National Public Radio. I guess the more painful irony might be the fact (at the time of this writing) a tropical storm is in the south Caribbean, with forecast models pointing anywhere from up the eastern coast of Florida to the central Gulf coast of Texas. Of course, both New Orleans and Pensacola are smack dab in the center of that particular cone o' bad things.

I truly don't want any bad things to befall either me and mine or my NOLA friends. During the period of time since our respective cities have been slapped about by cyclonic visitors without so much as a have a nice day, we've been able to compare recovery notes and what-not. Of course, we took the equivalent of a standing-eight count. NOLA got d*mned-near TKO'ed. The city is still not completely back; believe me, you can tell when you go through NOLA East or take a long gander at the watermarks on the exterior of houses near City Park...but it's a step in the right direction.

The first trip back into NOLA for the Crescent City Classic 10K, a little less than a year following Katrina, was like going into Sarajevo. I don't think many of my local friends got a good look at the neighborhoods surrounding the City Park, such as the Lower Ninth Ward, but the sheer expanse of devastation at that time was downright depressing. The hotel I stayed in downtown was serviceable (I'm pleased to say they looked fantastic two years later.) but a little rough on the edges. While racing, you're focusing on the task at hand; that continuous calculus between speed and comfort. That meant my focus was not much beyond the roadway, my fellow competitors and the crowd along the curbside. However, the next day's easy jog on the same course was much the same as seeing a hockey player's mouth during game time; lots of gaps where things normally once had been.
Each year, as I have gone back for one reason or another, I've been blessed with the opportunity to spend time with some resilient, and sometimes just plain tough people. I think James Taylor sang a song (Ananas, French for pineapple) about those folks: Sweet on the inside, rough on the outside. So, NOLA for me is an opportunity to meet new friends and see a side that most turistas don't want or don't care to see.

Take, for example, the 5:20 club. This group meets twice a week to run out along the canal and the shore of Lake Ponchartrain at 5:20 a.m. Sharp. You may consider that particular time (when I went it was before the butt-crack of dawn) to be the height of insanity, but keep in mind that in a city where the elevation is less than sea level, humidity of less than 100 percent is a dry day, and heat can be downright oppressive, running five-to-ten miles without an ambulance trip to Charity Hospital can only be accomplished at 5:20 a.m. The 5:20-ers make the experience as hospitable as possible by providing sports drink, a makeshift shower and dressing facility, as well as space at the table for a post-run breakfast at a NOLA west eatery (I must admit the breakfast was fantastic!).
I never had seen the shore of Ponch, so rolling along at 7:40-to-7:50 pace as the sun was rising was an absolute treat. Sure, there were lake houses in varied states of repair, and you could feel the humidity rise as the sun did, but there is nothing (in my humble opinion) like spending time enjoying nature - and breakfast - with a few good friends.
Here's hoping and praying Gustav decides to take a vacation somewhere very, very south.

The Eighty-Percent Solution

Of course, the only caption I could probably think of at this particular time is a rip-off of an old James Taylor tune, Hey, Buddy, That's Me On The Jukebox...or something like that. Once again I decided to join up with 17,500 of my closest friends in order to partake in what might be considered (lightly) the sacrament of sweat on the day before Easter.
After running one of my strongest 10K races last year, followed by probably what has been the most challenging training years I've ever had as a runner, I harbored no unrealistic expectations for the day. All I wanted to do was:
1) Run well enough (top 500 finishers) to earn my fifth Crescent City Classic poster in five tries.
2) Finish in under 40 minutes.
3) Not injure myself.
This years' trip had more of an Emerald Coast Racing Team focus to it, since seven of us stayed in the same hotel just blocks from the starting line. What it lacked in pure amenities it made up for in location, location, location. (Editorial comment: Probably not worth a repeat next year, but the price was reasonable enough to merit one.) I had to take care of some RRCA business earlier in the day - promised the LA state rep I would support her meeting and provide a brief presentation on measurement and certification - hope it was good enough. CCC always has that sort of work hard, play hard attitude around it; the volunteers from the New Orleans Track Club and other local sporting organizations really bust their chops to make our experience each year a memorable one.
We didn't push any particular itinerary, allowing the laissez faire, laissez passe mentality to go on. Suzanne and I knew what we wanted/needed to get accomplished; everything else was gravy. It kind of made for a smaller group dynamic, but we managed to hook up at least once through the weekend.
Enough about them. Back to me.
Great conditions for racing, especially when compared to last year's near freezing temperatures. We had temps in the high 50s at the start with a gentle breeze coming from the north, if I rightly recall. Since we were so close to the start I completely overlooked the need for a warm-up jog; usually the Pensacola contingent all meets at the Chateau Sonesta for a quick photo-op, then makes their way toward the starting corrals, about half a mile away. Being as close as we were, I had to walk no more than three blocks, maybe four, to the corral and porta-johns. (I worried more about the potty stop than the warm-up. Both are just as important; I could have jogged a couple of corrals back and hit a porta-john with a much smaller waiting line...achieving the desired or necessary results - empty bladder/bowel and loose limbs.)
As usual, the NOLA military contingent seems to find a new way to screw around with athlete access every year. This year there was no division of corrals, so we found more than our share of persons who were about two corrals out of their league, up with the elites, near-elites and pretty darn good runners.
No warm-up and lots of nervous tension doesn't do well when you're standing in a crowd of 17,500 waiting for a cannon to shoot you down Decatur Street. I looked at the readout on my HR monitor and found it registering somewhere in the high 190s. Probably a good thing I didn't take more than a swig of Suzanne's coffee to go along with my bottle of orange juice.
Mile 1 & 2 were run in 6:15 and 6:10 pace. Right from the start of the race I didn't feel like I was running with the option of an extra gear. (There's the consequence of undertraining and insufficient warm-up) I also noticed my left shoelace flopping about after the first mile split. I knew it would mean the difference between a bad day and a very bad day; stopping to retie would lead to a bad day, ignoring it in the presence of all these knuckleheads could cause a very bad day. Stopped for about 20 seconds just before the left turn onto Esplanade Avenue and did a quick double knot...something I should have done a couple of hours earlier.
Mile 3 & 4 felt closer to a typical day on this course. I hit the three-mile mark at about the time I normally would have run a 5K (if racing fit). While I wasn't too worried I didn't have the confidence of rolling through the rest of the race like I wanted to. Sure, I was still passing runners in ones and twos, but I couldn't tell whether these were good runners, knuckleheads who went out too hard and were starting to pay for their mistakes, or jumpers, folks who were not seeded and decided to jump in on the course after the starting line.
I used to have evil things to say about bandits, but I am learning to dislike jumpers more so. If you're not seeded in a race and you decide to jump onto the course after the starting line, wait until you begin to see a lot of people at your pace...not at the pace you wish you could run.
Okay, there's my cranky moment for the blog. I'm back now.
Mile 5 & 6 is always the worst part of this race. You're away from the packs of spectators on Esplanade and far off from the packs near the finish under the oak trees. This is the part of the course where if I'm not racing fit or haven't run smart I end up Gallowalking. This year was no exception. All I could hear during this particular stretch was my mind telling my body how badly it (my body!) sucked. Once I turned into the park, over by the tennis courts, and saw the time clock (32 minutes at 5 miles) I resigned myself to the fact I would have to have a super last mile and two tenths to make it in under 40 minutes...and that at this point it wasn't going to happen without a lot of hurt. When you get to the 5.2 mile point on the course, at this little bridge, there's a guy who stands and counts the runners coming through. He's usually pretty accurate, give or take ten runners - well, at least up to the first hundred or so. After the pack thickens up it's probably a SWAG (serious wild-@$$ guess). Counter-Guy has me at 190-195, which is the lowest I've been on the food chain in five years. At that point I make the decision to turn and burn the last mile and see how many people I can pick off, regardless of how badly I'm hurting (Note: Bev Fair's "what would Coach do?" comment again). I lost count of how many persons I passed once I got to the circle around the museum, but I suspect somewhere around 15-20.
At .2 to go is the boom where the Marathon Foto folks take some of the best photos during the race. It's usually my favorite part of the course because there's not that many persons near me when I get here. However, some knucklehead who is barely ahead of me decides he's going to have his moment of exultation, raising his arms skyward for the camera. Thanks, dude. Now it's going to take some serious Photoshop work for me to get a good photo of this race. I guess I'll pass you now.
I can hear a guy coming up on my left and working it hard. I have nothing left in the tank. Zero. He's going to pass me, so I might as well keep pushing and make him work a little longer.
Finished in 40:18, 136th overall. For the first 30 minutes after the race I'm disappointed with myself, especially for not having the guts to maintain the effort in the fourth and fifth miles. However, looking back, I did meet at least two of my three goals for the day. I knew I was under-trained; needed more long runs, and more quality speedwork. Forgoing a decent warm-up also prevented me from being more comfortable at the start (sometimes you need to release a little of the excess energy before you go to the starting line) and making necessary equipment adjustments (I normally use a lightweight trainer with elastic laces, but the last two races have been in either a lightweight trainer without elastics or a medium weight trainer without elastics).
We're not there, but we're doing fine getting there.
The rest of the group ran well - one was in the top-100, another two besides myself finished in the top-500, and my senior guy barely missed top-500 by less than a minute.

World Dominance Thwarted By Lack Of Thumbs

(Editor's note: Lengthy period of silence placed here.)

There was an article about three months ago; some researcher had developed a means of understanding dog barks with a certain degree of accuracy. I am not buying it. If anyone tells me they can tell what my dog is saying when he barks, I'm going to offer them another beer and then kick them out the door. Well, edit that...I'm going to keep the beer.
There are days when I feel like I can tell exactly what my dog is thinking about...then there are days when I can narrow it down to three things: food, walks, and space on the couch. However, IMHO it's gazing through a glass darkly. If Rubin had opposable thumbs and human speech, however, the world would be a much more dangerous place...I know he's try to take over as supreme ruler and stern, unwavering-but-beneficient master of the world as soon as he could. I can see it in his eyes, especially when I've informed him there are no dog biscuits available and he will have to suck it up and drive on.

Res Ipsa Loquitur.

My American Express bill came in yesterday afternoon, or at least the dispute notification I lost. That's going to take care of my stimulus check. Well, I'll have enough left to buy a round of beer when we go to the Crescent City Classic in New Orleans. My friend mentioned the other weekend about beer mileage; I guess the average American beer, 12-ounces, has 82 calories...which is (at the least) equal to the number of calories an adult burns running a mile. So, she thinks, a 6.2-mile race warrants the consumption of a six-pack of beer. Wow, that means a marathon is worth (at least) a case.

Yeah, I know it's not a healthy point of view for an athlete. If you do something foolish once every six months it's not so bad. Just make certain one foolish thing (like a beer mile, or rehydrating with a beer for each mile you ran) is not compounded with another, like driving a car or operating heavy machinery. While there aren't many of us who will run a 5K, slug down too many beers and then think hey, perhaps I should cut down that dead tree in the backyard, there are folks who would do exactly that. I know. I usually get to read the synopsis of their accident report each Friday. Makes ya shudder to think.