Preschool Football

The runner's life requires discipline, sometimes the occasional denial of of life's more-pleasurable pursuits.  But when a Simon's football (you may call it soccer) match and a hash kennel (mis-)management meeting falls on the same afternoon as a workout, common sense states it's better to defer the task and make many (female) family members happy.  Because, like the old phrase says "when Mama (in this case, "Grammy" Suzanne...) ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." 

And this coach is all for happiness.

Four-year-old footballers, like Simon, do not naturally exhibit the same skills as the first-division professionals I've enjoyed watching for the past three decades, with the exception of the one kid who had the "crumpled on the turf" posture at the mouth of the goal down pat, which occurred immediately after the opposing team's score.  The match looked kind of like what happens when an order of french fries is dropped in the parking lot of a Burger King in Florida:  The french fries represent the soccer ball, the seagulls are the players.

So I laughed and cheered both sides for twenty minutes, and marveled at the fun the small fry were having; it was clear they were enjoying themselves.  What they were doing was - for their benefit - a simplified version of football, without corner kicks or offside rules.  Everybody played the entire game, and - save a few handball calls - no real fouls in spite of the two goal mouth dives from that one kid.

"You beat my husband up pretty good on Saturday," said the hash treasurer.

I explained that her husband was as much responsible for his own beating as I.  Suzanne concurred with my assessment of the situation, and suggested "hash cash" could keep him company at the next Saturday morning workout.

She said, "I just started a 'couch-to-five-kilometer' training program at the local running emporium, and all they do is tell us to 'go run.'  I was paired up with a guy who runs slower than I do, and I really don't feel like I'm getting any benefit out of it."

"You couldn't run any faster?"  I asked.

"No.  And what about nutrition?  What about core, stretching, and cross-training?  Sure, they gave us an information sheet, but I feel like I paid for something..."
"More prescriptive?"

"Yes."

"Tell you what I'll do." I said.  "Let's do dinner some Friday evening.  We can talk about all this and find out what you want to get out of a training program.  I'll try to answer your questions to the best of my ability, and point you in the right direction."

The "hash cash's" lament succeeded in winding me up in the manner of a cheap wristwatch, but, because I promised my wife I would not speak ill of local running impresari I made only weak comments.  It wasn't until the following morning as I was preparing for work - amazing what a hot shower (and Tina Turner's "Private Dancer...") can do for encouraging deep thoughts - that it all came to me.  The goal of a Cto5K program isn't that far removed from that of a recreational football program for four year-olds:  Minimize the hard stuff, maximize the fun.  So what if the other team beats you by two goals; everyone got to play, everyone got to chase after the ball, right?  And everybody on the sidelines were cheering for you, right?

In Kenny Moore's biography, Oregon coach Bill Bowerman considered running an act which was as easy as brushing ones' teeth.  Bowerman's protege' Bill Dellinger clarified that belief; running may have paralleled basic dental care, but training was like having ones' teeth cleaned for an hour each day.  It's bad enough that middle and high school physical education teachers, athletic coaches at all levels, and the military service have turned running from a joyous activity into punishment and drudgery.  Sometimes we need to take the activity and restore it back to it's most simple form of placing one foot in front of the other, repeatedly, for as long as we can enjoy it.  When a world record holder in the marathon (Alberto Salazar) recommends running no more than 30 minutes a day for five or six days out of the week, and adding other forms of exercise to build muscle strength and flexibility, there might be something to be said about why we run for longer than that duration.

We run because it makes us happy.  And if we aren't happy, and if we aren't running in a way that makes us happy...

The Coach's Role

"So, have you registered for Bushwacker?"

I asked this of Deena as we walked from the track after last Thursday's workout.

"Well, since there are four weeks until the race I think I'll wait until the last week. I don't mind paying a couple of extra dollars if I'm race-ready; it's better than early registration and then not racing," she said.

Such discipline, especially coming from the mouth of Deena, warmed my heart. Is this the same runner who went out through the first half of a marathon a solid two minutes-a-mile faster than she needed to - and paid for her indiscretion by losing not only the 26-minute cushion, but an additional seven, in the second half - just eight months ago? Who raced a 5K just because she "felt like it" during the last month of training for that first marathon? Who needed a complete pacing plan laid out for her when it was time for her rematch with the distance?

Surprisingly, I didn't feel the need to ask for her drivers' license, just to make certain I was talking to the same athlete. In the months since I've worked with Deena she's become more disciplined. I get a physical and mental status when I ask "how ya doing?" at the beginning of the workout.

Is it based on her own self-confidence? Most likely.

It makes a coach's job much more simple.

On my computer, there is a podcast featuring triathlon coaches Jimmy Riccitello, Paul Huddle and Roch Frey. I listen to it on those days when I doubt my own methods, or when I need a good laugh on the way to work. In between the jokes about bike shorts I'm reminded the coach's role is teach the athlete to think for themselves; act as a sounding board for those times when the athlete is less than certain. Those very experienced coaches consider the first year of coaching an athlete as one where the athletic skills are taught along the side of self-knowledge.

It's the point in the coach-athlete collaborative relationship to this point in time I've rarely encountered. But it's definitely one I welcome.

Feeling Positive About The Negatives

(Sandy - 1st Female Overall, Chris - 1st Master's Male, & MB after the Jingle Bell 10K)

So the plan was for 14 miles this weekend. However, my friend Scott (a.k.a. Knaves) asked if I was going to come over to Ft. Walton Beach, FL for the Arthritis Foundation Jingle Bell 10K. The last time I ran this race - seven years ago - it was 30 degrees colder & 20 miles per hour windier on the day. My friend Sandy was trying to PR at the 10k; her boyfriend Chris, & Brian, another friend, were going to pace her. Chris & Brian left her hanging in the wind for the last two miles, so I ran her in. She got her PR, which lasted for seven years, (which she reminded me the other day!), & I had a great time strutting my stuff in the chill. Of course, I was very (5K & 10K) race-healthy then. Now, working toward a marathon, with questionable achilles' tendons, it might have been a tad stupid to race. But, Suzanne & I like Knaves, & the race was late enough in the morning, so...

Chris warmed up with Suzanne & me before Sandy, Brian, Chris & I jogged the first mile of the course. He said to me: 'you going to do 39 today?' Of course, my answer was, 'Not today. This is part of the long run for the weekend. Just going out to have some fun.' Once the race started, it definitely was fun, all right.

I normally blow past 90-percent of the field at the first mile, after which it's no-man's-land for the remainder of the race; the studs leave me way behind & I'm strung out in between the really good runners & the fairly good ones. But this time, I went easy the first mile with Knaves, then slowly started to ratchet up the pace. Amazingly, I picked off runners here & there on the course between mile three & four. One guy said to me as I went by at mile four, 'nice kick.' I wasn't too certain about the tactics of the day, even at that point; I smiled (Maybe that was a grimace; they both look alike from a distance.) & told him so.

Passing a couple of greyhounds (Real greyhounds - they had a dog walk at the same time.) at the fifth mile, & all I could think was 'how much longer can I do this?' It was probably good I couldn't read my heart rate monitor, only my pace; I probably would have backed off. Fortunately for me there was still about three runners hanging out in front of me; I couldn't tell how cute the female was, but she was definitely working the pace up there. By the time I got to her, & then the sixth mile, I was running a pace about five seconds per mile slower than my half-marathon performance time, & about 20 seconds per mile slower than my "healthy" 10K pace.

Even if I hadn't won my age group I was very pleased with the effort, especially three weeks after my half-marathon meltdown. To top it all off, Suzanne took second place in her age group. It's not often when two Bowens score hardware, so when we do it's cause for celebration.

Now for the rest the story:

I'm going to make a confession. I have a nasty tendency to look at things & see 'opportunities for improvement.' Rarely, if ever, have I said to myself while hanging out with friends, athletes, loved ones & assorted sweaty lunatic friends: 'dude, today you ran a perfect race.' Maybe all of twice in the past decade of racing the 'perfect race' has happened; a PR at the Azalea Trail Run 10K in Mobile, & a consistent pace at a hot, early summer 5K here at home.

While I've always sought out & valued consistency above almost any other quality in life, the only thing which I've considered more difficult (the negativity most every racer seeks!) to accomplish is negative split racing. Why is this so difficult to accomplish?

First, most runners don't exercise discipline & restraint while training. They're more likely to run EVERY workout at the same effort; so rather than following the hard day/easy day, or even the hard day/easy day/easier day dictum, it's (I kid you not, I have a friend who does this:) 5K, every day, all-out. At least until they become injured, but that's another story.

Second, many runners who have the physical fitness don't quite have the emotional or mental fitness to race negative. These are the friends who, when you ask to them about their goal time before the race, will tell you they want to go out at a particular pace. When the horn goes off, however, it's a completely different story. The first mile herd instinct & adrenaline pitches the best laid plans in the rubbish, leaving them to suffer for the last two (or more) miles of the race.

Third, the runners who are smart enough to go out easy early misjudge how much faster they should increase the pace over time; there's either too much 'gas in the tank' when they reach the finish, or they begin to fade in the last mile. Racing negative splits is a trial-and-error process; once you do it right it will be your Holy Grail of sorts.

What do you need to race negative splits?

I cannot over-stress the benefit of training runs at different intensity levels, with & without the aid of GPS, heart rate monitors & running watches. Why do I say 'without' as well as 'with?' You never know when you're going to show up on race day WITHOUT your running watch or your GPS (which almost happened this weekend!), or your battery dies, or the course is marked poorly...so know how a particular pace on the road or track 'feels' to the legs, heart & lungs.

Here's an interesting idea: Toe the line with a solid racing plan - this particular intensity or pace for a particular section of the course, pick up the pace to a higher intensity after this point, & then begin to really push at this point, etc. - follow it as much as possible. Trust your plan; don't go out with the herd. If your plan is solid the odds are very high you're going to catch & probably pass them before it's all over.

And, most importantly: Don't place any stressful or unrealistic expectations on yourself. Face it, the vast majority of us are paying money to terrorize squirrels & cats (followed by socializing!) on a weekend morning when most of our co-workers are still sleeping. For a very small, less-than-one-percent of the population, what SHOULD BE fun & games for you is BIG PRESENTATION DAY at the office for them.

If it's not fun, you probably should be looking for something else to do, right?

The Big Plan B

*BEEP*

That was the low battery warning signal from my (formerly) trusty Garmin 310XT GPS receiver. The sound was immediately followed by a slight buzz, silence as the receiver shut itself off, & an unprintable comment from my mouth. I guess it wouldn't have been such a bad thing if not for the fact I was driving out to run a tempo run with a group on a Wednesday evening.

My wife asked, 'do you have a charger in the car?'

'My charger, unfortunately, is attached to my computer back at the house,' was my reply. As we continued the 20-minute drive I was stewing in my own juices of stupidity. I know I put the receiver on the charger the previous evening, so how could this be? I resigned myself to the thought of going out for what former triathlete (now triathlon coach) Chuck "Chuckie V" Veylupek calls a 'caveman run.' This would be an acceptable compromise. I took a deep breath, let it out, & returned to conversing with my wife about life, the universe, & everything. You know, the kind of stuff married couples talk about when there's nothing else to do...wink, wink, nudge, nudge...

My wife then pulled out her new smart phone to check her voicemail & realized her phone had been off all day. She had a little trouble turning the phone on & assumed the battery was dead. I managed to reset it, & then realized, 'hey, these smart phones have GPS. If I download a run mapping program (like iMapMyRun) I should be able to keep track of the pace I'm supposed to do for this tempo run.' So, with precious few minutes left before the group was scheduled to leave on the run I tried to download the software. However, I couldn't get WiFi or set up the phone in time to download. That's where the ability to "Plan B" a workout is a valuable skill.

When talking about training I repeatedly have borrowed the John Lennon song line: 'life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.' This is so true as a runner or as a coach. I can lay out a training schedule in macro for 16, 18, 20 weeks out from a race, but more often than not it's going to get adapted, truncated, or...worst of all...pitched in the wastebasket as life takes hold of the stick & throttle. Even the micro level of an evening's (scheduled) track workout gets adapted; heavy cranes & lighting equipment, soccer matches & "facility fascists" can take up part or all of the track & leave an inexperienced (or unprepared) runner - or coach - wondering what to do as a "Plan B."

While in a two-year internship with the Navy I spent periods of time ranging from two weeks to two months at training commands. The assignments had the obvious drawbacks of living out of a suitcase, with access to hotel treadmills, & so on. But I learned how to adapt my training to the conditions. During a two-week assignment to Orlando I learned that light poles along this nice long stretch of road near my hotel were set at approximately 50 yards. So, all I had to do was count the number of light poles for my interval workouts; run three at 5K pace, walk one to recover, repeat six times, jog eight poles...I'm certain you get the message.

Frank Shorter once was quoted as saying 'hills are speed work in disguise.' So, running up a section of hill or bridge for a period of time (or distance, if you know it!), then jogging easy or walking down can provide a great workout. A 300-yard hill near the track facility where we train has three points marked on it; if a soccer match is going to keep us off the track for most or our entire workout I can always go down the hill. Sometimes the soccer matches are not interrupting; I'll do a set on the hill just to break up the monotony.

Training by perceived effort for a long enough period can help a runner develop a sense of pace; after a while you know what a nine-minute per mile pace feels like, as well as an eight-minute pace, & so forth. The most important thing in understanding pace sense is to know how a particular pace FEELS. I always marveled at my coach's pace sense when we would go out on easy runs during the weekend. I had purchased my first heart rate monitor/foot pod combination & was geeking out checking our pace during one run. He asked me at one point what my heart rate was; I looked at my wrist, then told him, to which he replied, 'yeah, I figured that. We're at the right pace.' Sometimes, it is safer to not ask how they do it. They just do it. I've got a few paces pretty well nailed down after eight years of training by perceived effort, so I can tell how hard I'm working give or take a few seconds now.

But I don't have a good sense of time, with the exception of swimming in a pool. I can tell you exactly how long it takes me to swim 50 or 100 yards, even though it feels like forever, give or take a second. (It must have to do with that love of oxygen.). So when it comes to running a particular period of time at a particular pace I'm doomed if I don't have a watch. So rather than the planned tempo workout of eight minutes at the pace I need to run a half marathon, two minutes easy, eight minutes at threshold, two minutes easy - repeated twice - I had to adapt. I decided to count telephone poles; eight at moderate effort, two easy, eight at hard effort, two easy, repeat until the end.

Adapting a workout to meet life's demands: So simple, even a caveman - or a smart runner - can do it.

An "Ask Coach" Moment - Can You Hear Me Now?

I usually take a week off or so after running a half-marathon, then start another training plan from the beginning. I was thinking on the long drive home yesterday from the Surf City Half it would make more sense to take off a few days & start where the training plan ended. I think I've told you I had used Hal Higdon's beginner plan, just increasing the speed at which I train.

What if I started back in at week eight or nine instead of going back to week one & starting over? That way I can do more long runs &, most likely, be in even better shape when event time comes around? I also thought about trying the Hanson's training plan you showed me.

Oh yeah, I need to really make an effort to quit going out so fast & burning myself out. I planned to go out at a consistent 9:00/mile pace at Surf City. I looked at my watch at 5 miles & noted I was running 8:15-8:20/mile. Naturally, I felt like $#!+ when I got to mile 10, 11, 12. The "rule of thumb" usually is a day of no running for every hour, & a day of no hard training for every mile for the event. So, a couple of days of walking or elliptical after a half, followed by the next eight to ten days of easy running is usually a good recovery. After the recovery period I would look at what the next target event is going to be & structure your plan accordingly...working from the end backward. If you don't have an event planned, then I would either use the sixth week of a training plan as a baseline, or figure out how much time you can commit to run training without adversely affecting the rest of your life. I bet if you look at all the other aspects of your life you've probably let some work things slide, some family things slide and some other responsibilities go on the back burner. This would be the time to go back and mend those fences. The good thing is that you trained for a half-marathon, which doesn't take nearly the time/effort a good marathon training cycle does.

Reverting to a baseline training week, even at a lower intensity, will allow your body to recover from the past 10-to-12 weeks of training. Remember, racing (especially racing long) is NOT natural; you're putting damage on your body above & beyond normal fitness running. The hardest thing to learn - I've dealt with it way too many times over the past seven years of coaching myself & others - is pace discipline. For an example, I went out 6:05/6:07 for the first two miles of the last half-marathon I raced in Dayton, OH. When I hit mile two I knew it was a choice between backing off a notch or dying a horrible death at mile 10. I managed to back off the pace for the next four-to-five miles. If not for the fact I was just outside of the top-20 I would have maintained that pace & "mailed it in." However, I wanted to finish in the top-20; I hammered (suffered!) the next six miles to catch a couple of guys in front of me - at mile 12 - & stayed strong until the last mile (actually entering the stadium parking lot) where everything went to hell...but I ran a personal best of 1:23:45.

A good way to deal with the "go out hard early, feel like $#!+ late" syndrome would be to do something like the Yasso 800 workout once every couple of weeks...but cut the distance in half for the sake of half-marathoning:

Go out & do the typical warm-up for your workout. I have my folks do a mile easy, recover for a couple of minutes, then another easy mile, recover a minute, then 10x100 striders to warm-up.

The workout is 10 x 400, with 400 jog recovery - goal pace for the 400s should be the target time for your half. So if you want to go 1hr 50min for the half, do the 400 in 1:50. If you go out too hard you're probably going to feel really good for the first five, then friggin' DIE by eight or nine. Jog an easy 400 after, with 10x100 striders to cool down.
You'll learn your lesson after a couple of those workouts. I had one of my guys do a few Yasso 800 workouts in the last month leading up to the FirstLight Marathon in Mobile. The first time he ran them he went 10-15 seconds too fast for the first 800, & everything fell off after that...to the point where his last one was barely on time & he was hurting big. The next time I told him to remain on his goal pace; he felt like the first ones were too easy, but managed to keep all of them on goal. He developed the patience & pace discipline to go out comfortably in the first 10K, & subsequently ran a Boston Qualifying time.

The workouts weren't the key, only part of a good training plan...and a well-executed race plan.

Things A Real New Orleans Runner Will Never Tell You

As my wife Suzanne & I have "matured" in our running lives we've slowly, steadily progressed out of the comfort zone we see in many of our running friends. It's difficult to maintain the joy of the sport, or realize just how good you have it (or how much better you can have it) in your home town until you travel somewhere else and run or race. Runners who race only in their home town, or don't take their running gear with them when they travel, miss the boat. Representing the northern half of Florida has allowed me to see cities like Chicago, Cincinnati, San Francisco & New Orleans, to name a few burgs, at a pace & perspective most business or pleasure travelers never get.

We've tried to encourage some of our close friends to toddle along with us on occasion to Key West, Jacksonville, Nashville, San Diego, Honolulu, and even outside the country...especially if there were cool places to see/be or cool races to do/get through. It didn't hurt to have: a) coaches who told sea stories about their favorite running places and partners, trying (like a parent does to a stubborn three-year-old) to diversify our running taste buds, and b) jobs which have required varying degrees of travel at diffferent times of the year.

And it doesn't necessarily take a convention trip to get us out the door. The challenge in our district is what I like to call the "Jumpy Two Equation." A friend of mine (her e-mail address includes "jumpy two") told me once she will travel to events as long as the event duration is longer than the drive. My district, from end-to end, is a nearly-eight hour drive. Since I don't like to race events longer than the half-marathon distance (a distance I can truly race & still feel semi-all right the next day), that kind of limits me to a two-hour window of opportunity...unless we (read: my wife) have business travel which can be tied in to justify such a junket, er, journey.

For Suzanne & me, a jaunt to New Orleans has progressed from being "strictly tourism" (Vieux Carre' all the way) to "race-related tourism" (run 10K, then Vieux Carre'), to "business & pleasure" (plug & pray, run 10K, Vieux Carre') to "checking in with the extended family." (5:20, Snooie Bread, Community Cafe', Speedo jokes, etc.) The more we run in NOLA, and with NOLA people when they come to see us, the more we find out what a real NOLA runner will - and will not - say.

We'll wait until after sunrise. This goes without regard to the season or climate conditions. A real NOLA runner knows to start a long training run early. Starting a run after sunrise during the summer is considered by local emergency room doctors to be an act of near-suicidal proportions. During winter, however, starting the run at the scheduled time is a sign of real NOLA runner discipline. For example, if you're running with 5:20 & your run is going longer than ten, it's better that you start earlier than you not show up to breakfast at the appointed hour.

Watch out for ice on the road. Okay, after Jackson Day weekend that might not be so correct. And the odds of seeing ice on the roadway - away from the Quarter - is fairly slim. Of course, this last weekend, Slim did show for 5:20. In fact, I saw Slim in a couple of locations. There are other hazards to running on NOLA roads which I've chalked up as normal state of affairs (usually treated with very comfortable shoes & ibuprofen for the next few days) after nearly ten years, but ice is one of those one-off things. No real NOLA runner will think to warn you about ice on the road. It just isn't all that common.

We can run on the median. Silly me, the social studies/history major. Why didn't they teach me this tidbit of information at the University of Tampa? Like anything else in NOLA, there are things which are said/done a little differently in NOLA than we highlanders know. I heard (NOTC president Aaron, & RRCA LA rep Betsy) Boudreaux talk about neutral ground when talking courses in the past. Didn't put two-and-two together until jogging up Esplanade & we got on that nice, wide, tree/grass/bush strip I called a median. You'd have thought I'd hit a canine land mine up there and kicked it into the face of a local. I was quickly corrected on that faux pas. 'Dude,' I was icily informed, 'we call those neutral ground.' I swear it's all the fault of the French & Spanish. Not me.

This is a hilly course. Unless a real NOLA runner leaves NOLA they never race on a really hilly course. Thing is, even the slightest positive elevation change is a negative to a real NOLA runner. Real NOLA runners have the most sensitive internal inclinometers known to man. Forget about taking them on an easy, slightly hilly 8.2-mile loop run. The real NOLA runner will not be looking at the scenery or the houses, but looking for the flattest route to the finish...or asking how many more climbs there are. One of the courses I've measured, a point-to-point from downtown Pensacola to Pensacola Beach, goes over two spans of water. Oh, there is a viaduct probably the height of the bridge on Wisner, which some have taken to call a bridge. So, rather than call that event the Double Bridge Run, I will recommend to the race organization, on behalf of all real NOLA runners, it be renamed "Two and a Half Bridges." Fair enough?

I've got other things to catch up on. The run is not over until you've had breakfast, or lunch, or adult beverage of choice. Usually this is where side bets, wagers or dares are paid in full, & roll is taken to determine whether you were really there. Ask 5:20. Once you've checked in & been duly chastened because of the shirt or hat you were forced to wear because your team lost, or you got 'chicked,' then you know the love of the real NOLA runner.

In towns where the act of running can be hazardous to one's health, it's nice to know there are other like-minded lunatics evading homicidal hack handlers, defusing "canine land mines" & enduring (or returning) pithy one-liners at street-corner orthopedic practitioners. It's our reality, & we take comfort in the common bond. See you guys in about six weeks, unless we can justify coming sooner...our bosses are beginning to get suspicious.

Living and Learning

"Let's call all the fun we've had living, living; Let's call all mistakes we've made learning, learning..." - "Living and Learning," Mel Tillis (1971)

(Note: Today's weblog title & the reference lyrics are in honor of my late grandfather, who used to sing & play little ditties like this one, so long ago.)In the business world, perhaps in the last decade...maybe a little longer back than that, there was a focus on transforming businesses into "learning organizations." Training & education managers, formerly the red-headed stepchild forced to share a bedroom with human resources, suddenly became a C-level (or sea level, if you wish to look at it that way, especially if you're at the water's edge...) entity all its own. It was one of the important disciplines in business, especially if you believed what you read in Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline.

Ah, those were the good old days. Now, in the age of shrinking (shrunken?) budgets, training & education, as well as the CLO (Chief Learning Officer) have been forced to come back home & share the room with manpower & personnel...human resources. But, it doesn't make learning any less important a part of living. John Dewey once said: 'training is not preparation for life. Training is life...' or something to that extent (shame on me, an education guy, for not knowing the exact quote).

That's the most fun about coaching & training, I think. In order to be as efficient with my training as I possibly can...even more important as I become older & less efficient in recovering from races and workouts as I used to be...I have to read, research, re-read, & re-research what coaches, scientists, & even athletes have found to be the most effective means of training, fortifying, supplementing, recovering, & so on. I like it, it fits well with my personality. It provides me the opportunity to try something a little bit different, or adapt to what I'm already doing, before I try it on any of my athletes.

Doing this involves what I guess the Zen masters might call beginners' mind. You have to wipe out any preconception about a particular topic in order to listen clearly, lest your Charlie Brown filter be engaged. We all have that filter; the one that turns plain, simple language into waah, waah, waah-waah, waah...waah in less than 3.2 seconds, leaving us stupider than before. Turning on that filter not only makes you more stupid, but makes your life much less enriched.

I've kicked myself in the butt on many an occasion for not listening more closely to friends who read an article in Runners' World, Triathlete, Geezerjock, & wanted to share their insights with me. Usually that kick in the butt came after remembering, 'hey, didn't so-and-so tell you about a particular piece of equipment, or a particular exercise that would have kept you from crashing & burning in that event?' Then I have to go back, reclaim beginners' mind, & listen to what I should have listened to before. Well, C.S. Lewis once wrote, 'pain is the megaphone of God,' so maybe it was the Almighty's way of telling me...'(WHACK!) Stoopid...what were you thinking!? Wait, were you thinking!?'

So, there I was, standing in my local running emporium, sweating my behind off, listening to one of my advisors talk to a marathon training group about hydration & nutrition. Normally, I would have shrugged off the vast majority of the information; turned on the Charlie Brown filter. But this time, well, you can blame it on Nikki...she handed me an outline of the lecture. What else could I do but stand at the back of the store and listen in. 'Who knows, dude...' I said to myself, 'you might even learn something.'Since the marathon has been my weakest running event, & the one which will probably determine how well or poorly I do in November, I figured it couldn't hurt. No worse than doing the walk of shame for ten kilometers to keep from blowing up my achilles, which I did in 2007.

It was no surprise to hear the obvious: 'we are in two states...training & preparing for training.' But it never really clicked until then. I learned a good possible root cause for my weight plateau & a few other nutrition specifics. Gee. What a concept.

So, by allowing myself to go to beginners' mind I was able to learn a few things which could make the difference between a bad day & a good day, or a good day & a very good day...both now & in the near future.

"And we'll go on through life together living and learning..."

One Excuse...

"...is as good as another on any given day." - Coach Fox, multiple times between 2002-05

Every once in a while I have athletes who decide to engage in 'summer,' a strange season of the earthly year, a time filled with many outdoor entertainment activities, including a very strange concept called vacation. During this vacation, the athlete gets into an automobile & drives for several hours to a place where they spend the majority of the money they saved over the previous year on lodging, food & the exact same outdoor entertainment opportunities which they could have enjoyed at home had they decided to stay.

Also, during this vacation, the athlete usually makes a conscious decision to do NOTHING. As a result, they return back to the track on a Tuesday evening after one of these vacations having lost every bit of the hard-won fitness we attempted to develop from their previous vacation, during the period between the autumnal equinox & two weeks after the winter solstice. Following that vacation, they stepped on their bathroom scale & realized they weighed much more than they suspected...as if their jeans couldn't have told them the same message some time in late November.
How these athletes became conditioned to believe a vacation was meant to exclude exercise is beyond my understanding. If you were to ask every single one of them what they used to do throughout their summer vacation as a child, I would wager nine of every ten would tell you they were involved in some sort of unstructured physical activity, like swimming, bicycling, walking, hiking, climbing, & all that good stuff...on a daily basis.

So, how did we go from doing stuff on vacation to not doing a thing on vacation? Mind you, one or two of my athletes actually perform physical labor during the week, so for them, physical exercise is probably more fun than chore. A vacation for them would probably not be harmful. However, the rest of you (myself included) are still on the hook. If you're going to go on one of those vacation things, there's a very good reason for the "take half the clothes and twice the money" advice provided by every travel consultant...it's so you can add at least one pair of running shoes & three outfits, silly. Your employer will thank you. Your co-workers will thank you. And yes, your coach will definitely thank you...not nearly as much as you will, though.

During this time of the year, it's difficult to get fired up about food. Well, unless it's fired up on a grill & sitting beside a cold beverage of choice. Otherwise, most indoor dining is boring. Hardest part about being a person in training at this time of the year is this: You need to get nourishment back into your body, at the least some nourishment within 30 minutes of finishing a workout, but other times during the day, too.

But when the day is divided up into workout, clean-up, commute, work, commute, workout, clean-up, sleep (with a few other small pieces in between), it's a challenge to get the right food in the right amounts into you...especially if you're one of those people who hate eating first thing in the morning, or don't have a stable enough work schedule during the day, or don't have access to a kitchen/refrigerator, or have knucklehead co-workers who raid the fridge. The key is to get what your body needs. Keep it simple.My wife recommended I take a big ol' salad into the office so I could scarf on throughout the day. Nice, but there are days when I'm not exactly sitting in front of my desk doing office things. I could have something a little smaller every so often, though. She made a salad the other morning, which was sitting on the stove next to a couple of bagel halves. I couldn't tell at first what the contents were, so I opened up the lid. Instantly I smelled onions & knew there was no way I could take that in to work.

I don't eat (raw) onions, period. End of story. I can tell if there's one on a sandwich or in someone's lunch across a crowded room.So, I try to get a little something on the way in, but balance it with the wisdom of knowing that eating McBarfle's five days a week is going to make me fat as a pig. My recent screaming about weight & the need to get back down to fit weight made the cartoon above stand out. For those of you who don't know me too well, my dog is below:
...I think you can guess who represents me in the cartoon above. Ah, but it's a temporary phase, one which can be remedied by smarter eating, judicious workouts, & resting as needed.

See you at the track.

For A Few Dollars More

This past week, my loving wife closed our membership to the local YMCA & opened an account with the local World Gym franchise. Our reasons for the change-over were more for practical reasons and less for economic ones, despite the nearly-equivalent charges. Well, we got a good deal because she's marketing-savvy & I'm willing to provide coaching services to runners. When you take away my wife's tanning it was only a few dollars more than the Y.We gained 24-hour, seven-day access to the facility; definitely outweighing any economic disadvantage. While it's been a solid decade or more since I felt the irrational desire to work out at 1:30 in the morning, there are stretches when my wife would rather put her infrequent insomnia to good use. It also takes away any of the weather-related excuses I could use (to quote my coach, one excuse is as good as another...) on those recovery run or track workout days. Even the beat-up days, when I'd be better off working on the elliptical trainer or the stairmaster, are easier to fit in the schedule...even more so when you live four blocks from the joint.

Okay, I do miss the spectator aspect of working out at the Y near my home; mamas & chitlins playing around on the weight equipment or pedaling at slow/no speed on the exercise bikes. The unattended kids were more of a hassle. I do not miss the little booger whose father was watching the other kiddo wrestle...decided to have a little Eddie Murphy-esque Let's See What We Can (Mess) With Next moment with the weight-assisted pull-up machine. The crash of metal parts summoned the father back into the room, where he proceeded to give my wife & me the stink-eye. Hey, buddy, not my d*mned kid, but yours. If he was mine his @$$ would be sitting down on the floor, or whooped on by now.Of course, at WG I have the privilege of working out on good quality equipment. Well, most of the time. I've learned which exercise machines are useless as breasts on a boar hog in the past week...which would include nearly anything aerobic in nature built by Cybex. There are certain bells & whistles every athlete or fitness enthusiast loves, there are others which are nice to have. Sometimes there's too many bells & whistles, which invariably ring/honk every time you turn around. Not so good. And, regrettably, there is a right way & a wrong way to display exercise data for the enthusiast. Scrolling through data is never a good thing. And the Cybex treadmill I used last night had that particular function. Worse yet, it would not allow me to hold the scrolling on the total distance, but kept jumping back to my heart rate, calories, METs, etc., etc., & so forth. As I mentioned to my running friends in my daily missive to them: Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, Oscar?
So everything works itself out, or seems to. I'm certain to rave about how nice it is to have all that equipment once the rainy season kicks into full force.

Single Is Free Verse, Married Are Sonnets, Animals Are Tech Manuals

Suzanne's in Boston this week, taking care of more business at VON 2008. While I hate the thought of being alone in the house, every so often it's kind of nice to not have to worry about whether we have everything we need to go out for a long run, track practice or race.

Before she or any of you think I don't love my wife, please understand what I mean by this. I only have to make certain I have one water bottle, one towel, one spare shirt, etc. When the workout is over, I can leave or stick around as long as I want. No need to close a conversation in order to get back to the car/house and clean up a little before a bite and a beer. While being single truly sucks bilge, it's a simple, one-hose form of suck. Being married has it's share of suck, too, but (in the words of Jimmy Red Dust, one of Jimmy Buffett's characters from A Salty Piece of Land) it 'sucks less.' It's a more complicated form of suck; a multifaceted, multidirectional, multi-flow version that varies in quality over time. When you're young it's emotional, when you're middle-aged it's physical, when you're older you toddle away from the hoses and say 'to heck with it.'

My wife has taken on the role of primary caregiver to our five-and-a-half year-old greyhound. So when she goes on the road, whatever temporary respite I might have received from the multi/multi/multi suck goes right out the window. I feel so guilty leaving him home during the workday (he usually serves as security for my wife's office) I do my afternoon running near the house and come immediately home to keep him company. He still wants/needs attention, food, biscuits, walks, and to be let outside (especially while I have my dinner in hand!), above and beyond the amount Suzanne normally gives him.

Rubin's not one to buy the 'oh, Dad's going out for an easy six-miler, after which he'll take you for a walk around the park' line. He knows:

1) Dad's NEVER gone out for an easy six-miler.

2) When Dad comes back, all he'll want to do is rest on the couch, watch television/movies and sip on one or more beers.

So...he'll stand in front of the front door and stare into the wood in the hope of boring a 'hound-sized hole through it with his doe eyes. And it doesn't matter whether you already took him on a three-lap jaunt around the park (well, two laps would make him sleep all day!); he wants more. Doesn't matter, just more. I have not figured out more what, either. In spite of my best efforts to try and understand the d-a-w-g (and his best efforts to communicate with me without pawing my leg off), we're as uncertain as we were the last time I looked at a technical manual, like the ones written in the Far East for those pre-fabricated office furnishings.

So, dear, if you read this. . . your dog is fine. I am surviving, thanks to Wolfgang Puck and Anheuser-Busch. And we both look forward to you coming home. P.S. Don't mind the remains of the wing delivery guy you'll find in the driveway. He mistook our address for someone who ordered from his shop. The dog decided to eat him. . . Okay, so I let him. It was 11:30 p.m., and nobody should beat on our door at that hour.

Sleep, Definitely NOT Overrated...

Certain days of the week are etched in stone. Mondays, Wednesdays...these are days I can't screw around with staying up after 9:30. Thursday through Sunday, and Tuesday are a little more flexible, but you're more likely to see me hitting the rack no later than 10. Gone are the days of staying up until all hours of the night and waking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed eight hours later. While I'm religious on my seven-to-nine hours a night, I'm truly affected by anything that affects my pattern. My wife, God bless her, calls it discipline. I tend to think it's closer to obsessive-compulsive behavior.

I've joked about this once before, but I believe that everything you ever need to know about being an athlete you can learn from your dog...especially if they're a greyhound. My 'hound, Rubin, is up (like a jack-in-the-box, I might add) at the stroke of five every morning. He's excited at the beginning of a new day...another bowl of kibble...another romp in the yard...another walk around the park...another day of napping on the cool tile of my wife's office.

Dogs are masters at the art of energy conservation. Why run when you can walk? Why walk when you can stand and sniff butts? Why stand when you can sit and scratch yourself? Why sit when you can lay down? I never hear Rubin complain about going for a jog around the park, or that he's tired and sore when he gets up in the morning. He tolerates the same kibble, twice a day, with a daily Milk-Bone supplement when he can "talk" his "mom" and "dad" out of one.

There have been Friday or Saturday evenings where my wife have been sitting on the couch, drinking beer and watching Monty Python...Rubin will get up from his blanket on the floor in front of the couch and stand between us and the television. I'll get a little perturbed at first, then realize what the time says on the clock. "It's 9 or 9:30," he 'says' with his big brown 'hound eyes. "You have to train in the morning." Sometimes he'll walk off to the bedroom and his large sleeping pillow, other times (if we ignore him) he'll stand directly in front of us until we get up to go to bed.

There's nothing like the sigh of the 'hound as he settles into his pillow..."mission accomplished. Dad'll thank me when he PR's."