Showing posts with label Marathon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marathon. Show all posts

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Injured reserve

THE MISSION
I am in week 3 of training for a marathon in November, although I have been running all year in preparation for this training and completed a 10K in June. This blog will serve as the lasting record of all of my steps, and mis-steps toward making that goal happen.

THE STORY
When I first started these crazy shenanigans, I set about trying to read up as much as I could about successfully running a marathon.

Most of my reading was done online, which means I’d start to read an article on “The 25 things you must do without question in order to complete 26.2 miles,” get distracted after Tip No. 4 and spend the next two hours watching funny pet clips on YouTube. 

Spotty as most of my information was, the one thing on which everyone seemed to agree was simply this: During the course of training for a marathon, one has to come to terms with the idea that at one point or another, they are going to get hurt.

Get hurt, I say? I can deal with that. 

I once nearly hacked off the tip of my finger with a … well, a hacksaw. I’ve chipped teeth, did my best to walk straight through a Plexiglas window thinking it was a door, shredded some cartilage in my knee, stepped on a nail, fit my whole fist in my mouth on multiple occasions and even fell off a pile of crates and used the corner of one such crate to cushion the fall with my forehead.

I can deal with getting hurt. That’s what I said at least.

I mean, what are we really talking about  -- Shin splints? Hip flexors? Plantar Fasciitis? Pulled hamstrings? ITB Syndrome? Stress fractures? Sprained ankles? Contusions of the male ego? Carpal tunnel?

Child’s play. All of it, it turns out.

What no one was willing to talk about, at least not before Tip No. 8 in the “100 Easiest Ways to Avoid Getting Injured While Taking On An Ill-Advised Running Program” article, was that when you get hurt, it’s not something you’re going to be willing to talk about either. At least in mixed company.

I’ve fallen victim to chronic bloody nipples. 

Seriously. Stop laughing.

It’s actually a surprisingly common affliction, particularly among those of us men with upper bodies shaped much more with Jell-O molds than granite chisels and who wear cotton or other “textured” clothing during long, decently warm runs.

What happens is, the moisture from the heat of the run (a.k.a. sweat, but I don’t want to gross anyone out, especially while writing anything about bloody nipples) gives some extra weight to the fabric. As the miles add up, the fabric repeatedly brushes across the skin and, particularly in sensitive areas, begins to wear a raw, bloody wound on your chest.

Gross, right?

The thing is, it really hurts.

There’s really no way to compensate during the actual run, like one might be able to do after rolling an ankle or tweaking a hamstring.

Once your nipples start bleeding, you either stick your chest out and run proudly with red circles growing on the front of your shirt or you more or less tuck your wrists in toward your body, flare your elbows out and run like you’ve got chicken wings for the remainder of the run. 

The pain doesn't really set in until after you're done. 

But it’s not like a sprain or a pull, where you can just stretch it out real well before the next run, wrap it up and hope for the best. It’s just kind of there, and it only gets worse.

I mentioned what "excruciating" pain I was feeling to my wife, who’d just recently finished breast-feeding our second child through his first eight months.

She laughed.

And she laughed. 

A couple days later, when she’d finished laughing, she offered me the use of her leftover nipple shields -- which basically look like the top of a baby bottle. I gave it some honest consideration …

In the end, I turned back to the internet for help and read about wonderful inventions like athletic body glide, which is basically some sort of Teflon-infused substance you apply with something resembling a stick of deodorant and your clothes just slide freely over the sensitive areas. 

Apparently, some people go the cheaper route and just use generic petroleum jelly. Others just go without wearing a shirt (an option I declined because of the above-mentioned Jell-O mold defect) while others still buy shirts made of special anti-chaffing materials. 

One guy out there said he bought a ladies’ training bra and began wearing it during long races. He said it easily hides under a T-shirt and stops the chaffing.

 My first thought was, “But, dude, you’re wearing a bra!” Plus, can it really hide that well under a T-shirt? He closed his statement by saying “Go ahead, laugh it up. I‘ll see you at the finish line bloody nipple free” So I did. I laughed it up. For a long time.

A couple days later, when I’d finished laughing, I decided to buy a big roll of waterproof super-adhesive tape. I read that there are some who put a square of tape over the sensitive areas and that takes care of the problem. Because it’s waterproof, you don’t have to worry about it coming off once you get all sweaty.

What no one said is that this is not the option to use if A) your bloody nipples are still healing or B) you, like most men susceptible to bloody nipples, are exceptionally hairy. I know, I know, common sense, right?

First time out, the tape worked like a charm. No blood, no chaffing. 

But the problem with waterproof super-adhesive tape is that it lives up to its billing, particularly when it comes to chest hair. I found a little disclaimer in the fine print later that read “WARNING: This compound may form a symbiotic relationship with whatever it comes into contact with. It’s highly likely this will never come off. Just so you know.”
 
So, logically, I hopped in the shower because surely the best way to remove waterproof tape is to get it wet. 

The water didn’t help with the actual removal, but it did help mask my shrieks of pain..

In the time since, I have seriously reconsidered keeping the windows open in the evening, because I secretly dread a conversation like this drifting out into the neighborhood air:

---

Me: (unintelligible whimpering)

Wife: Honey, are you watching YouTube again?

Me: No … I’m in the shower.

Wife: Are you OK?

Me: I’m fine. I’m just …  (incoherent mumbling)

Wife: Can you speak up? I can’t hear you over the water.

Me: I’m pulling the tape off my nipples. 

Wife: A bullying ape coughed on your nickles?

Me: No, I’M PULLING THE TAPE OFF MY NIPPLES.

Wife: Why in the world did you tape your nipples?

Me: BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT TO BUY A BRA.

Wife: WHAT?

--- 


You get the picture, although I’m not sure the neighbors would.

So I stuck with the tape. I’m slowly developing a tolerance to the pain of taking it off, which in the grand scheme of things is about the same as the actual bloody nipples. 

Either way, I feel like I’ve now logged my proper battle scars for this journey. I won’t complain again until the shin splints set in -- or the roll of tape runs out. Whichever comes first.

I’m in the middle of a 15-mile week and it’s going well. Things start to pick up quickly in the next three or four weeks, so I’ll be able to tell by the end of August if this is actually going to happen or not.   

Friday, July 16, 2010

9 down, 453 to go

For those of you keeping track (because I know you’ve all really been waiting on pins and needles), this is officially week 1 of the marathon training program.

Over the next 18 weeks, I’m supposed to run more miles (453) than I have run over the last three years combined (431.2). 

Thankfully -- because this is a novice training program after all -- I don’t have to run them all in one day.

Right now, that’s about the only positive thing going for me in this whole ill-advised plan (and when I say ill-advised, I’m taking a jab at that fool who was looking back at me in the mirror eight months ago when this idea first took root in my head. If I recall correctly, he said ‘Yeah, you should totally do that. It’s better than swimming with sharks.)

Since the end of stage one (the 10K in early June), I’ve done some running, but not nearly as much as I would’ve hoped. On one hand, I know I am woefully under-prepared for the next four months. On the other, it’s probably best that my legs got one last stretch of rest before I wear them into oblivion. 

What I have developed in the last couple of weeks, though, is a better feel and appreciation for the neighborhood we recently moved into. It’s grown on me quickly, to the point where I much prefer running here to our old neighborhood. 

It’s not nearly as polished, quiet or clean, but it has boatloads more character, which can make an hour-long run seem much, much faster.

This is a place where more people hang out at the 7-11 than the bowling alley. It’s a place where some people still say “Yo”, while others erupt into violent bouts of tourettes. 

Most of the men in the area are acutely allergic to wearing shirts while every dog allowed out of its house boasts an allergy to wearing leashes.

It seems there are enough feral cats to have one for every house in the area, although most of them hang out at that one house with the refrigerator on the porch and the boat parked in the garage. 

Toddlers clad solely in diapers ride industrial hand trucks around like box cars and fledgling biker gangs ride around on, well, bicycles.

The air hums with the sound of dirt bikes in the afternoon and pops with the sound of firecrackers at night. 

Everyone barbecues. All the time. I think I saw someone grilling a breakfast burrito the other day. 

There are people who call their kids “Spike” and their dogs “Matty.” There’s an unspoken code that anything piled up in front of the house is free for the taking, unless of course, it’s affixed with a sign reading “Not Free.”

One man offered me all the bedroom furniture on his front lawn. For free. I politely declined, explaining I wouldn’t  be able to carry it home with me. Fearing I was about to trigger one of those sudden bouts mentioned above, I sped away at a brisk walk-jog.

“Yeah, well if you know anyone else who needs some furniture, you just have them come on by to see me,” he shouted after me.

The thing of it is, I enjoy this neighborhood. The people are well-intentioned, if not outright friendly and for all of its quirks and idiosyncrasies, I feel strangely safer running out here than when I lived in town. 

And that’s a good thing, because running is just about the only thing I’m going to be doing out here for a while. 

So with that, I seal week one in the books. I’ve got a six-miler on Saturday, which leads into a 16-mile week next week. Wish me luck!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Race Day

THE MISSION
I am training for a 10K in June and a marathon in November. The 10K is in two days. From there I’ll launch into marathon training.

Stats for the week : Baseline 5K: 32:13. Baseline 10K: 1:11:00 (roughly). Best time since I last wrote: 30:24 (5K); 1:00:34 (10K). Best overall time: 26:57 (5K, June 7, 2009); 1:00:34 (10K, May 26, 2010). Miles within the last week: 6.2. Total miles for 2010: 104.4. Total miles since 2008: 401.4

RUNNING MP3 OF THE WEEK (That song that for whatever reason has a cadence that exactly matches the speed I was running this week.)
"Tryouts" From the original motion picture soundtrack for "Rudy". Best musical theme for a sports movie ever.



The last time I ran in an organized race, I was in the eighth grade.

My whole running career (At that point all of two seasons spent running the 1,600 and the 3,200 because in the head of a middle-schooler, aside from the first and last lap of the race, no one can really tell what place you're in, or how far behind the guy in last place really is. After 10 years of covering high school sports, I realize now that one can definitely tell. Definitely.) came to a close in the conference championships in, of all things, a relay race.

With middle school track being what it was, any number of things (i.e., Little League baseball, spring music concerts, softball practice and family emergencies like the two-for-one deal at Round Table Pizza or the season finale of Seinfeld) took precedence over any meet, regardless of what kind of championship it was.

As a result, both the crowd of spectators and field of participants tended to rapidly evaporate as the meet went on. What I mean is, generally after the 100 meter dash everyone was gone.

Now this caused problems for coaches, as all track meets end with the running of the 4x400 meter relay. That means you need four live bodies able to make one lap around the track each in order to field a team.

On this particular day, back in May of 1994, as the 4x400 started to approach, our coach discovered a member of his relay squad had left to, I don't really know, go patch things up with his girlfriend? Try those tacos Shaq and Hakeem Olajuwon kept fighting about? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnyWar8uOTI

So our coach looked at what he had left. There was me, and there was Nicole Holt, who was one of the better female distance runners in the conference.

I have to believe, as he watched me still wheezing from my last-place finish in the 3,200 (I passed some kid on the home stretch, but I think he may have just been warming up for the long jump on the infield and accidentally drifted out into the lane), that he gave some honest thought toward tacking a girl on to the boys' team and hoping no one filed a protest.

Nonetheless, he gave me a shot.


They set me up as the third leg, with the thinking being that the first two guys could hopefully build a big enough lead that the anchor leg would have enough room to make up for any damage I caused.

As we staged for the event, we learned that only three other schools had managed to assemble squads, so worst-case scenario, we were going to get fourth.

The race went as well as could be expected.

Our opening leg built a lead of about 50 meters and the second added another 10 or so.

One school dropped the baton and was disqualified on the first exchange, narrowing the field to three.

I grabbed the baton with a 60-meter lead and thought, 'just don't fall down.'

And, in that, I succeeded.


In every other facet of the race, though, not so much.

Before I could round the first turn, both other schools passed me. It was at that point I realized someone had replaced my running shoes with lead boots.

For a period of time, everything went into slow-er motion.

Two kids sitting in the bleachers on the back stretch shouted "Hey kid, you could just give up now!"

I gave it some serious thought.

Our anchor leg made it close at the end, but we took third.

Our school, I was later told, had not lost that particular relay in two or three years.

My teammates were encouraging though saying things like:
"If you didn't run, we wouldn't have even been able to run in the race"

And,"Dude, my mom said it looked like you were dead."


So that brings us to this weekend.

I'll attempt to run the Carson Valley Days 10K and I don't expect spectacular results.

I compared my times to the results from last year and if every person from last year's event shows up in the exact same shape they were in last year, I'll finish last out of all the males of any age.

That's OK, though.

The goal is to finish and to hopefully do so in under an hour.

At this time last year, I never would have even considered running six miles in one shot, so in that sense, I'm ahead of the game.

After this, it's on to marathon training. At this point, it still seems like a joke (and really, still kind of is). But, assuming my left leg doesn't fall off, it's not an impossibility just yet.

We'll just have to see.

So for anyone who's going to be at the parade on Saturday, the 10K is supposed to finish before 9 a.m. just in front of Lampe Park.


I expect to finish anywhere between 8:45 and 8:55, so if you see me, try not to point and laugh!


Thursday, April 22, 2010

Strolling on the river

THE MISSION
I am training for a 10K in June and a marathon in November. I’m currently running twice a week. Eventually, I will  ramp up the training routine until I’m running about 15-18 miles a week in June. From there I’ll launch into marathon training.

Stats for the week : Baseline 5K: 32:13. Baseline 10K: 1:11:00 (roughly). Best time of the week: 32:03 (5K); 1:06:31 (10K). Best overall time: 26:57 (5K, June 7, 2009); 1:04:05 (10K, April 10, 2010). Miles within the last week: 9.3. Total miles for 2010: 64.7.  Total miles since 2008: 361.4

RUNNING MP3 OF THE WEEK (That song that for whatever reason has a cadence that exactly matches the speed I was running this week.)
"As I lift You Up" by Jeff Deyo. One of my favorite worship songs from Jeff Deyo. It's upbeat and uplifting, hence the title. 




It’s hard to rock the jogging stroller look.

You know what I’m talking about.

There are just certain things in life that weren’t naturally meant to be. Trying to look at something over your shoulder, for instance. Or hanging curtain rods. While we’re talking about it, you might as well add Keanu Reeves comedies, mullets, pineapple milkshakes, leg cramps, chocolate-covered bacon, fried Coca-Cola, the Montreal Expos and Stefan Ur-kel to the list.

Back to the strollers, though.

I have a great stroller that my parents gave me for my birthday the summer before my daughter was born. The only complaint (and this is true of most jogging strollers I’ve ever seen), is that it was designed for runners in the 5-5 to 5-8 height range (i.e. women ... who are short).

Those of us on the taller side have to kind of stoop down to grasp the handlebars. Your center of gravity pushes about a foot behind you and your legs end up kind of flailing behind.

It’s like those cartoons where the little mouse starts trying to run away from the cat, but the carpet underneath its feet just keeps sliding out in a big flowing ribbon of chaos.  

Plus, if you are somehow able to make the whole act look natural, there’s still that matter of your cargo.

For as well as you might be able to adjust to the stroller, your run takes on a completely different character with a kid along for the ride.

Runs without strollers are when you get work done. Runs with strollers are for fun, nothing else.

You have to be prepared to make stops to look at dogs, ducks, trucks and basketball hoops.

You have to be on the alert for shoes, hats and shirts tossed overboard.

And, you have to be aware of their extremities as feet tend to end up dragging on the top of the front wheel or swaying off to the sides and fingers tend to end up planted in little noses.

Nevada weather adds another layer to the whole endeavor as you can leave in sweatshirts and knit hats and come back in short sleeves and sandals.

Plus, you’re much more prone to draw conversation from fellow pedestrians and yard-workers, which can be awkward for those of us pre-disposed to wheezing while jogging.

“How old is she?”

“(Wheeze) Nine (Wheeze) months ...”

Or ...

“Hey, what are you doing running around with a pink blanket?”

“(Wheeze) Have (wheeze) a nice (wheeze) day.”

Unfortunately, my severe lack of speed also allows most inquirers time for two, if not three, questions. After the first, I point to my headphones, shake my head and shrug my shoulders.

You’re also at the mercy of your child’s attention span. In that under-one-year range, they basically ride around with a look evenly balanced between awe, bewilderment and panic spread across their face. It's that look that seems to say, “I’ve apparently learned how to fly, and I don’t know how long I have until I have to learn how to land this thing.”

After one year, they start to exercise their free will, which is generally to be anywhere else besides that stroller.

My daughter went through a stage one summer where she’d wait until we were a mile and a half away from home before going into meltdown mode.

This prompted casual onlookers to say, “Hey look! That slow, deaf asthmatic is cruel to children.”

After trying to ride out the screaming while casually waving and pointing to my headphones to anyone who asked “Hey, what’s wrong with your kid?”, I would finally give up and get her out of the stroller.

The problem, though, since she’d already gotten rid of her shoes, was there was no place to put her.
I’d carry her in one arm and drag the stroller behind me with the other the entire mile and a half back home. The girl always seemed to find it enormously entertaining. Daddy, however, did not.

All the same, that ended up being a decent workout in itself. So we kept at it. She eventually got used to the stroller and actually pleads to go out on runs with me now. I’m always glad to oblige.

So I had this brilliant idea last Thursday that since I run two 3.2-mile laps on my 10K runs, I could take the 2-year-old on the first half, switch kids and grab a drink of water halfway through and take the 9-month-old for the second half.

Along the way, it occurred to me that anyone who happened to see me both times through saw the same wheezy oaf pushing the same stroller with a drastically younger kid than they saw 40 minutes prior.

“Hey, just working out my own personal Benjamin Button here,” I’d say.

At least, that’s what I’d say if I weren’t slouched over the handle bars panting and having oxygen-deprived delusions of anyone actually paying enough attention to have noticed that we’d already been by.

All things considered, the run wasn’t that bad. I finished in an hour and 6 minutes (plus some change).

I had every intention of running another 10K on Saturday, but we were under time constraints with a busy schedule. I was only able to run 5K, which was probably for the best, because I felt awful the entire time.

I’ll try for two 10Ks this week (third time is the charm, right?). We’ll see. 

Monday, April 12, 2010

The wheel, sliced bread ... and other modern marvels

THE MISSION
I am training for a 10K in June and a marathon in November. I’m currently running twice a week ... in that semi-regular sort of way. Eventually, I will  ramp up the training routine until I’m running about 15-18 miles a week in June. From there I’ll launch into marathon training.

Stats for the week : Baseline 5K: 32:13. Baseline 10K: 1:11:00 (roughly). Best time of the week: 33:31 (5K); 1:04:05 (10K). Best overall time: 26:57 (5K, June 7, 2009); 1:04:05 (10K, April 10, 2010). Miles within the last week: 9.3. Total miles for 2010: 55.4.  Total miles since 2008: 352.1

RUNNING MP3 OF THE WEEK (That song that for whatever reason has a cadence that exactly matches the speed I was running this week.)
"Stole My Heart" by Little and Ashley. I was going to go with a different song this week, but after hearing this on the Amazon Kindle commercial and then seeing it was free on Amazon.com, I chose this one instead. Free music, enjoy!


News flash: Stretching actually works.

It turns out every P.E. teacher I ever had really wasn't just trying to burn 15 minutes of class every day before sending us to our early deaths on the dodgeball courts.

No really, I know. It's common sense. You need to stretch before performing any extended physical activity, just the same as you need to not put non-microwavable bowls in the microwave and leave the flammability tags on mattresses. I also floss every day and throw out most foods after they've reached their expiration dates.

But seriously, it can be hard enough carving out the time to exercise, much less making sure I'm loose and limber before starting.

Normally, I settle for pulling each foot up toward my back for 20 seconds, which must do something, because it hurts -- So that's what I do.

But after an atrocious run last Wednesday (33-plus minutes for a 5K), I deciced to change things up.

Granted, the run was with the stroller, but I felt awful the whole time. The boy, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed his first time out on a run — meaning he didn't scream.

Anyway, before heading out for a 10K on Saturday, I thought I'd try out some stretches, most of which I learned in college while in the ... um, marching band. We stretched. You know, so we wouldn't get any cramps while scattering into the block "N" formation.

I gave it a good 20 minutes, in part because I was in no hurry to run six miles again.

But the crazy thing is, it worked. Kind of.

I cut nearly seven minutes off my time from the week before, despite keeping the same generally poor diet during the week and not really adding anything resembling a fitness routine.

Even not considering the drop in time, I felt better during the run, instead of feeling like I was running on a pair of rusty, overwound springs.

So in addition to the training runs, I'm going to take up this novel new stretching routine on a regular basis and pretend like it'll keep shaving seven minutes off my times every week.

Also, the Run for the River Marathon in Folsom has been set for November 13. This is my target marathon. If I really wanted to dedicate myself to this, I'd stick my chin up and register for it now. But I'm not going to. Not yet.

Plan this week is for a 10K on Wednesday (we'll see) and a 10K on Saturday.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Slowly getting there ... and I mean slowly

THE MISSION
I am training for a 10K in June and a marathon in November. I’m currently running twice a week ... in that semi-regular sort of way. Eventually, I will  ramp up the training routine until I’m running about 15-18 miles a week in June. From there I’ll launch into marathon training.

Stats for the week : Baseline 5K: 32:13. Baseline 10K: 1:11:00 (roughly). Best time of the week: 31:12 (5K); 1:11:00 (10K). Best overall time: 26:57 (5K, June 7, 2009); 1:11:00 (10K, April 3, 2010). Miles within the last week: 9.3. Total miles for 2010: 46.2.  Total miles since 2008: 342.9

RUNNING MP3 OF THE WEEK (That song that for whatever reason has a cadence that exactly matches the speed I was running this week.): "Tessie" by Dropkick Murphys, in honor of Major League Baseball's opening day this week.





As you can see by my stats for the week, I ran 10 kilometers. In one try. In one day, no less.

I set it in my mind after writing my last post that I was going to run all of 10 kilometers on Saturday. If I couldn't do it, I was going to drop the whole thing right there. Luckily, no such steps were necessary. 

The biggest surprise to me was that it didn't really go that badly. I had visions of crawling back home with the help of a friendly duck from the fishing hole down the street, but it didn't come to that

I was slower than molasses, which was to be expected, but I didn't bring a stopwatch with me, so I wasn't reminded of the fact every 10 seconds or so. I checked the clock when I left and when I came back, and an hour and 11 minutes elapsed in between. 

Also, I had a minor victory in that the next day a friend of mine mentioned having seen me "jogging" — the victory being that they could tell I was attempting to run, and they didn't pull over to the side of the road, set up hazard flares and call 911.

I really had no idea what to expect, so I took the first 5K (my normal 3.1-mile loop) very easy and very slow, like a warm-up jog. I was tired and ready to go home after the first three miles, but kept at it (not really wanting to give up the blog just yet).

Somewhere in the middle of mile 4, tiny little elves with hydraulic wrenches climbed up my legs and started driving twin lug nuts into my outer thighs. 

By the start of mile 5, another elf,  with disproportionately big arms, started repeatedly whacking me in the shins with a 2x4. The physical beating my legs were taking left that fake limp I wrote about in the previous post no longer so fake. Or even really a limp. 

I'd call it more of a hobble. Think: Cross between Gollum and Quasimodo only without the makeup, computer animation and  raw fish.

About the middle a the fifth mile was when my entire lower half went numb. It was a welcome feeling because I'd just caught sight of a fifth elf carrying a buzz saw and a grammar school slate gaining ground quickly and I had no intention of finding out what he was planning to use those for.

Being unable to feel my legs, I quickly discovered that the rest of me actually felt pretty good. So I started running faster and harder (to the casual observer at this point, it probably appeared that I was no longer walking while in the midst of an asthma attack.).

I finished the fifth and sixth miles in relatively good order, running as well as I have this year, which was an encouraging sign for me.

There was soreness later that afternoon, and the next day, but by Monday I felt good to go again. So after two months of basically sitting on the couch thinking about running, I'm right back to it. 

The plan this week is 5K on Wednesday and another 10K on Saturday. Next week I think I'll try for two 10Ks. We'll see what the elves say about that.



Thursday, January 7, 2010

Sure there are reasons, but they aren’t as fun as the possibilities

Why do I want to run a marathon?

I read something on a Web site that you need to have a specific reason for running a marathon, because it will greatly increase your chances of actually doing it. 

Fact is, I don’t really know why.

The idea first popped into my mind when I was in college and still in reasonable shape. At the time, it seemed like one of those grand life adventures college kids plan out -- traveling to Europe, road trip to the College World Series, swimming with dolphins. eating the burrito special at Big Mike’s Mexican Cantina …

But, like most college adventures, the marathon never materialized.

There’s nothing missing from my life that running 26 miles would suddenly replace and while I hope to improve my overall fitness, I feel like I made the hard change several years ago when I started running.

At the end of the day, I think I really just want to see if I can do it. 

But in the interest of having a concrete reason, I’ve decided to run to raise awareness of clumsiness.

Clumsiness is a reality.

It affects 100 percent of the population, usually at the worst time, and it is, to date, incurable.  

I have it. My wife has it. My daughter has it and we’ve noticed early signs of it  in our six-month-old son (just yesterday he was sitting normally in the living room and did a face plant right onto his stuffed monkey). 

I read that the symptoms (Dropping things, biting your tongue, stabbing yourself with pens, dribbling food on your shirt, walking into pane-glass doors, falling down stairs, falling down on flat ground, falling out of chairs, falling out of bed, tripping over your own feet, throwing aimed objects errantly, knocking full water glasses over, shooting food across the table after trying to hard to cut it, stubbing your toes, bashing elbows and shins on sharp corners, bumping your head on static objects, writing on yourself, talking to people who have left the room, spilling whole cartons of eggs, calling longtime acquaintances repeatedly by the wrong name, mistaking strangers for longtime acquaintances, waving at random oncoming traffic from your car, voting for the wrong person during election season even with the new user-friendly touch screens and back-up vote verification, writing blogs and accidentally calling your teachers “Grandma”) are ultimately treatable.

"We're all clumsy to some extent,” assistant professor of clinical neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Robert Slater, M.D. told www.mothernature.com. “It just varies from person to person.

“For the average person, a normal amount of clumsiness might be one or two awkward incidents a day. You might tip over a glass or bump into a doorway on any given day."

Ah, good. I am only six to seven awkward incidents below (or above?) average.

Slater goes on to suggest several methods of symptom relief.

First, don’t dwell on it (This will never happen for me).

Second, take a nap (Generally, after falling down in front of someone, I’d much rather just crawl under a rock). 

Third, take time to relax (Hard to relax under rocks -- too lumpy).

Fourth, exercise. (Now we’re getting somewhere). But they recommend tennis or ping pong  to improve hand-eye coordination. After two years on the high school tennis team, I can safely say the sport only enhanced my clumsiness.

Fifth, imagine your worst nightmare (Yeah, I do that. All the time. My worst nightmare would be getting chased across the slippery decks of a cruise ship by a puppet-wielding clown. I’d slide off the side of the boat, into the choppy waves below and get swallowed whole by a humpback whale. Inside the whale, the only form of entertainment is Grover Monster the Muppet who sings “It‘s a Small World” six hours a day.  I‘d be spit up days later only to discover the world supply of pizza had been entirely consumed.).

This process is supposed to help you in that imagining the worst-case scenario helps take the bite off the fear of clumsiness. But who’s going to help me with the clown, the puppet and the cruise ship?

Finally (and I’m not kidding). They recommend you bring out the animal in yourself. Imagining animals in motion, apparently, helps people be less clumsy. You imagine yourself as an animal, how every muscle in your body works together as you feel the wind your face as you run. You’re supposed to imagine these things for five to 10 minutes after an episode of clumsiness.

Got it. I see a hedgehog bumbling over the forest floor with a wolf in hot pursuit. The Wolf closes, the hedgehog rolls into a spiny ball and  … Oh.

This isn’t working. 

I guess I’ll have to give it some more time. 

Klutzes of the world, unite! I run this marathon for you. And the hedgehog.

JUST TO RECAP
I am training for a 10K in June and a marathon in November. I’m currently only running once a week while the freezing temperatures in town stick around, while subsidizing with exercises in the house. I’ll gradually ramp up the training routine until I’m running about 22 miles a week in June. From there I’ll launch into marathon training. I recommend you read the past entries to get a better idea of what I’m trying to do.

Stats for Week 2: Baseline 5K: 32:13. Baseline 10K: --. Best time of the week: 30:58 (5K). Best overall time: 26:57 (5K, June 7, 2009); -:-- (10K). Miles within the last week: 3.1. Total miles for 2010: 3.1. 

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Not exactly a resolution ...

I run. It's really more like rhythmic wheezing.

But, for the better part of the last three years, I've been a semi-regular "wheezer" around my hometown. 

I'm also a sportswriter. Ever since I was little, I knew I wanted to be around sports. I grew up shooting endless free throws in our driveway and throwing footballs to myself in our backyard.

There was even a period of time after the movie "Cool Runnings," that I would push a wagon down the street in front of our house, hop on and pretend it was a bobsled (Don't try this at home, turns out wagons need someone steering while being pushed).  I even attempted to grow dreadlocks, which after a month just left me with a hefty grease slick on the top of my head, but that's another story.

For as much as I loved sports, I wasn't blessed with any God-given athletic talent. I wasn't big, tall, fast or quick and I was the last kid you'd want with the ball in his hands and the game on the line. 

I also had an incredible knack for falling down at crucial moments in the game.

A couple years ago,  out of college, married with one kid and well into my professional career, I had that middle-of-the-night revelation that all of those little-kid dreams of winning the big game with my favorite team were long gone.

It wasn't sad, or bittersweet, or even shocking. It just was what it was. I was not, and never would be, an athlete. 

In fact, after a number of years in a desk job, I'd begun to resemble the ball much more than the players I wrote about.

It was in January of 2008, though, that I noticed I could no longer make it to the top of the high school gymnasium's bleachers without losing my breath. I was only 27 at the time. I'd gained 60 pounds since leaving college and I knew if something didn't change drastically, it was a trend that would only continue until it was no longer solvable.

So I started wheez, er ... , running.

It was grotesque. I think my first time out I made it about 200 yards. A couple weeks later, I encountered an elderly couple out for an evening walk and, after about a block, realized they were keeping pace with me.

But I kept at it. After a couple months, I set a goal for myself -- to run in an all-comers track meet that summer -- in the hopes that it would keep me committed to running. I started an item in my weekly online column at the paper on my progress and quickly drew a surprising following.

A national running Web site posted one of my entries, which brought a minor flood of e-mails with tips, advice and encouragement.

After about a month of training (on a schedule I created, which might explain the result) I was A) not getting any faster and B) not losing any weight. 

So I greatly changed up my routine, running 5K distances twice a week, subsidizing with exercises around the house and forgetting about the track meet altogether (because, let's face it: I was terrified at the idea of running in front of real, live people). Consequently, I stopped writing the weekly item.

But, by the summer's end, I'd gone from running the 5K in 40 minutes (not joking) to 27:36-- an improvement of nearly 13 minutes. I also lost 30 pounds.

I kept at it over the following year, starting up 2009 where I'd been in July of 2008 and gradually improving to a best of 26:57 before our second child was born and the whole running thing basically went out the window.

That is, until a couple weeks ago. I got the crazy idea in my head that I would run a marathon. Like a real, 26.2-mile marathon. 

I spent a couple days trying to brush it out of my mind, because it really is a crazy idea -- me, the non-athlete, attempting to do what only ultra-athletes have the determination, discipline and stamina to do.

But then I let the idea slip to my wife. And my friends. Then I mentioned it at my office. People got behind the idea and I started thinking there might be just enough time to pull it off.

My plan is two-fold. I'll train for a 10K in June, where I'll have to confront my fear of people watching me wheeze. From there, I'll bump up the training schedule in the following five months before running a marathon in November.

I've been doing some prep work in the past several weeks, doing pushups, squats, lunges, calf raises and crunches around the house and going for 5K runs on Saturdays. 

This past Saturday, with a stuffy nose and Christmas dinner still rolling around in my belly, I managed a 32:13 5K, which isn't impressive, but it is where I was last March, so I haven't fallen back to badly.

I'll keep up with the weekly runs through the freeze in January, run twice a week in February and gradually ramp up my routine until I'm running 21.7 miles a week leading into the June 10K.

I have a goal, which is a little outlandish (the 7-minute mile range), but would put me around a 42- to 44-minute 10K. What's a goal if you don't stand a chance of failing? Besides, I'll be thrilled to just finish the race which, incidentally, would be my only goal for the marathon. Forget time goals, or style points. If I can just put one foot in front of the other long enough to push through, I'll have accomplished what I set out to accomplish. 

I haven't selected a marathon yet, but I'm eyeing the "Run the River Marathon" in Folsom, Calif., which was on Nov. 14 (Saturday) this past year. We'll have to wait to see how it plays out. 

I plan on updating this blog weekly. It'll be some about running, some about my athletic misfortune. My hope is that whoever reads this finds a little laughter, a little encouragement and a little drive to effect a positive change in their lives as well. So check back, and don't let me back out on this. 


Stats for Week 1: Baseline 5KL: 32:13. Baseline 10K: --. Best time of the week: 32.13 (5K). Best overall time: 32:13 (5K), -:-- (10K). Miles within the last week: 3.1. Total miles for 2010: 0.