Paging "Diana Glampers"

One of my wife Suzanne's favorite short stories was written by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.:  Our society has been granted equality, meaning that nobody is stronger, smarter, better-looking, more-talented...or faster...than anyone else.  The persons who are found to have those traits are handicapped by a variety of technologies and modalities.  Think the exact opposite of braces, specialized shoes and all that.  Every so often we jokingly use the name of the person in charge of handicapping everyone, Diana Glampers, to speak about situations where we've felt unduly hindered.

Over the past month we - mostly my wife, with the addition of a handful of other persons, and me to a lesser degree - have been working to put a race together.  The event, an age-graded pursuit race, has runners starting times based on the World Masters' Athletics best times for age and sex.  That means a runner in an age group with a world best time of 18 minutes would have a five-minute head start over a runner in the open male (18-34) division.  In theory, the concept of an age-graded race isn't that far out of the box.  The practice of having runners pursue one another...where in a perfect world if every runner ran at the upper limits of their performance, the entire field would be leaning at the tape...what a concept.  Sure, there are running events which, based on the assumption we suffer from diminished performance as we age, award those persons who suffer the least diminution over time, based on mathematical formulas and number-crunching. 

And in a perfect world we'd all be able to stay fit, healthy and (at least in our mind) fleet until the day we decide to not wake up in the morning.  The best older runners have somehow learned to injure themselves least, recover most efficiently, train effectively, and choose their racing schedule wisely.

But what about other handicapping systems?  What other ways could we, in our deepest "Diana Glampers" mindset, make all runners "equal" on race day?  Some of the possibilities seemed common-sense; others a little less so.

Weight - I'm not necessarily talking about the seriously-flawed "Clydesdale" and "Athena" system in triathlon, where weights of 200 and 150 pounds, respectively, are used without regard to the height of the athlete.  I always wanted to ask race director Chuck George about his "Fat Boy 5K" event; I never got to the point of asking about specifics because I was too busy laughing at the event name.  Several coaches have written, or have been quoted in books, about the correlation between excess weight in pounds and pace per mile in seconds during a race.  A race director, given the height and weight of a participant, could use an actuarial chart and do their own adjustments based on the number of pounds an athlete weighed above an insurance company's definition of "is."  What would a weight-based handicap take into account?  A couple of researchers from the University of Dayton developed a model based on weight (to include the effect of aging on a person's body composition) and run time, the results of which ideally provide a weight-age-graded performance. 

The calculator (http://academic.udayton.edu/PaulVanderburgh/weight_age_grading_calculator.htm) is most likely the first of its kind:  No other calculator can make a 165-pound, 50-year-old male lose 20 pounds and half his age, at the cost of a 5K performance.

Inseam - My buddy Charley said, "there should be a performance handicapping system based on a runner's inseam.  Guys and gals with short legs have to take more strides than tall runners; they're woking harder to cover the same distance."  I come from a family with some serious height variations; my mother (on a tall day) is 4'11", my dad is a solid six-feet.  I'm a little taller than average at 5'10, but I am a little less flexibile than the average bear, especially notable in the past couple of years when I try to throw my leg over the top tube of my triathlon bike.  But where I lack in long strides I tend to make up for in a certain degree of efficiency; a footstrike of about 160 per minute, good endurance, and mental toughness...things which aren't easily measured in a runner.

Running is an egalitarian activity; anyone with the time, the physical desire and (in most cases) a pair of shoes can engage in the activity.  Racing, on the other hand, was never meant to be normed.  We have the choice of either calculating a lot of "all-things-being-equal" factors and spending a lot of time in the world of "what-ifs," or we can realize that the ultimate competition when we toe the line is not the person/s surrounding us, but the course.

And ourselves.

Sunrise, Sunset?

For those few readers old enough to have seen Zero Mostel as the milkman Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof," this doesn't have anything to do with how we age. Not unless you want it to.

Until about a year ago, I trained twice a day in the three disciplines of triathlon. I would get up before the (butt-) crack of dawn two-to-three times a week and engage in what I jokingly called "creative drowning," something which might have appeared to be (if the light was right and you squinted just so) masters' swimming sessions.

On the days when I wasn't being thrashed by some 80-year-old little old lady (who just so happened to be a national age-group champion) I'd either be on the elliptical trainer or in a spinning class. However, after a disastrous day in Panama City Beach which included an (expensive) emergency room visit, and a less-than-happy day at NOLA 70.3 five months later, I figured it was time to scale back and focus on being mediocre in one sport.

Until three weeks ago, however, I was happy to limit the sessions to an hour in the afternoon, once I arrived home from work. 'Why,' I asked myself, 'should I infringe upon my sleep for something which is only going to make me be more humid once I get into my (semi-)air-conditioned office?' I like sweat, but not so much when I'm sitting in front of my computer. There are only so many excuses you can provide before people start to think you're getting in touch with your inner "Pig-Pen."

Amazing what Mother Nature - and her 90-to-100-degree afternoons - will do to gain a guy's attention. The drive to my office in the morning illustrated a simple mathematics problem and got me to thinking: 75 degrees is still less than 100 degrees.

Like shoe brands, short lengths and training plans, the persons who love running first thing in the morning are not wrong in their decision, only a little different in their preference. To ask some of my close friends why they run in the morning rather than the evening, many consider it to be one "check in the box" out of the way on the seemingly-endless "to-do" list. Some also consider the morning run a (brief) respite from the demands of child-rearing, especially the ones with children engaged in organized sport/activity. Morning runners also figured if they didn't get the run in the morning something during the day or afternoon would infringe upon that time. My southern-tier-dwelling friends also laud more reasonable conditions early in the day.

As much as those particular qualities sounded enticing (save for the non-affect from child-rearing, since I'm only" a grandfather!) I've never been able to put together enough time in the morning to run as long as I preferred. I've always felt rushed to get back to the house by a particular time in order to cool-off, shower, and have a cup of coffee. Sleep, to me, is a guilty pleasure. I only can get so much because of my dog gets up an hour later than I would need to.

Besides, I have my half of the year when I feel rushed to get my run over with...before it's too late. Early sunsets of winter and those countless social occasions between October and February regularly place the kibosh on the evening-loving runners. I love the evening runs because I've usually built up a fairly good head of steam over something which happened at work. Yes, anger is a lousy fuel source, but it's like lighter fluid; only there to get the charcoal glowing. I would much rather stay up a little later in the evening after a run or workout in order to socialize (or relax) than track sweat through the kitchen as I'm grabbing for a slice of toast and coffee.

Sunsets and sunrises are both things of beauty to see on a run, and I've had the opportunity to experience them both with friends. And perhaps it's all in the mind of the individual runner what they prefer. Right now I'm an evening runner. But there are the occasional mornings when I love to prove myself wrong.

Be. Here. Now.

"The message of rock n' roll? Be. Here. Now." - John Lennon (ca. 1973)

Word of warning, this might be a little too cosmic for the average runner. So, top off your coffee & take a couple of deep breaths before you read on.

Okay, I guess I can continue: So, I was running late, as usual, to work his morning. One of the last things I passed on the way out, after telling my wife & dog I loved them, was a little plastic & stone trophy. This little turkey with backward-turned baseball cap & tennis sneakers was the newest addition to what people employed by my (other) employer call an "I Love Me Wall." If you've run consistently enough for long enough you probably have your fair share of gadgets, ribbons, mugs, glasses & plaques. Some of the road race awards I've earned don't have as much meaning as others do; because of the story behind the race, one or two cheap fourth-place ribbons tacked up over the doorway mean more to me than one or two of my heaviest first masters' male plaques sitting on the corner shelf of my "man-cave".

This turkey is one of those emotionally-significant awards, & not just another tchotchke: It's an age group high point trophy from a masters' swim meet. I had the sneaking suspicion my chances of doing well in my age group were good when I looked at the heat sheets. However, you never can tell until the scores are tallied & the results are posted. Actually, my friend - who was the meet director - told me I was going to win my age group just before my second-to-last event for the day. Was I pleased? If you are as swim-challenged as I, you would say "absolutely!"

My friend Brett Hollowell can explain this same feeling. Eight years ago, almost to the day, we ran a 5,000-meter road race together at Great Lakes Naval Station, just north of Chicago. Several things made the experience memorable: First, it was Brett's first (or perhaps second) 5K road race. Second, it was bitterly cold & overcast. Sleet & snow were falling. These were probably perfect conditions for Waukegan, Illinois, but the temperature was definitely thirty degrees to the south of comfortable for two southern-US-based educators-turned-trainees. When the race was all said & done, I finished high in my age group. It turns out Brett won his age group, much to our mutual delight.

As we drove back to our quarters, Brett grabbed his cell phone to call Meredith, his wife. He started to tell her he won his age group, as he was the only participant his age. I immediately stopped him: "Dude, don't tell her - or anyone - how many people were in your age group. You only tell them you won."

I think it was Steve Jones who said something about the difference between winning a race & running a world record: "To win a race, you only have to beat everybody who shows up on the day. To run a world record, you have to beat everybody who's ever run the race." All too often we downplay our accomplishments as a pre-emptive first strike of humility so others won't make light in an effort to bring forth humiliation. Personally, I think adding asterisks to our own results is wrong-headed. It's as silly as looking at results the day after a race you decide not to run & to say, "heck, I would have finished ahead of...'

If you aren't "here," where ever "here" is at that "now" moment; if you decide to sit & let life pass you by, you don't have the right to complain (like the realtor doing an open house in an otherwise-empty subdivision last Saturday, who called the local constabulary). In the case of the realtor, nobody's coming to visit because everyone decided their "here" was not-here (including Survivor H3, who were two blocks away) now.

Find where your "here" is, no matter what it is, & "be" there. Now.