Business Trippin'

Two weeks ago, I went on a five-day business trip to the Denver area.  I am quite a bit behind in my blogging, but I wanted to write about it before it fell completely out of mind.  It was definitely a business trip, with no time for sightseeing or fun. And business went well, and I would like to think I had something to do with that.  

I do try to keep myself entertained a little, though, and one of the ways I do that is to always bring my running gear and try to find a place to get out for a few miles.  Luckily, despite Lone Tree, CO being business parks, retail, and suburbs as far as the could see, I found a nice place to run very close to my hotel. 

The Willow Creek Trail, maintained by South Suburban Parks and recreation, winds along Willow Creek (duh) through parks, developments, abd some corporate parks to provide a safe, paved, pleasant place to run.  In many places, underpasses keep runners or bikers away from traffic.  The 2.5 mile portion of this trail I ran out and back for my five-miler was somewhat hilly, but no worse than I would find in PA.  I DEFINITELY felt the altitude difference, feeling much more fatigued on the way back, despite pleasant temperatures and an easy pace.  I only was able to get out once, but I am thankful to have found a nice place for a run if business takes me back.

I also try to sample some local brews when I am a business trip. One per day, mind you. This is not a vacation!  This was the best new one I tried. 

I also like to send my wife #businessporn. It is not really porn, unless my wife really does find selfies of an unimpressive male specimen in business clothes, accompanied by captions such as "Is this a business meeting...or a sexy party?" or "Your new issue of Businessman Magazine just arrived" to be exciting.  I suspect that she does not.  But I work from home most of the time, usually in shorts and a t-shirt,  so even at almost 40 it feels like I am playing dress up.  I'm just playing it VERY well.

 

Yeah, right.

The business trip consisted of three days of meetings and then, on Friday, a half day of debrief and action planning.  I left that last meeting feeling that I had businessed very well and texted my wife and a few work friends about how gangster I was.  I guess I was a little too cool for the Denver airport, because, after I passed through the full body scanner, security had me wait so they could give me a pass with the metal detecting wand. As I see my laptop, shoes, and Business Guy bag, with all my favorite in-flight electronic devices in it, sitting mournfully at the end of the conveyor belt, I was filled with a righteous indignation as the guy in front of me removed the 200 things he had in his pockets (Read the signs, people! ) one item at a time.  I will say the Rock Bottom Brewery location at the Denver Airport before my flight home was a most welcome site.

Race Report: 2013 KidsPeace Trick-or-Trot 5K, or "Preparation is for the Weak"

For all my many faults as a runner and a human being, I'm usually pretty good at preparation.  I have all my stuff laid out the night before the race; I've trained; and I get to the starting line early so I have plenty of time for extra, ahem, bathroom breaks.  

This morning, Chris and I ran the KidsPeace Trick-or-Trot 5K, which started at Camden Yards in Baltimore, MD.  Let's review my prep:

1. I had to stop for gas as we left, since I hadn't the night before.
2. I thought the race was at 9:00.  It was at 8:00.  We got there at 7:55.
3. I haven't run in a month, other than one or two 1-mile treadmill runs at PT.

We got there, picked up our bibs and shirts at approximately 7:55, thinking we had plenty of time to go back to the car and ditch my wallet and giveaway shirt.  Instead, the guy at the registration table said "Think of it this way, you're really early for a 9:00 race".  

So, I tied the shirt around my waist, zipped my car keys and wallet into the back pocket of my shorts, and set out for the start line.  Chris did the same, with the extra encumbrance of a zip-up hoody that she wasn't planning to run in.

The race started out adjacent to the Warehouse at Camden Yards, and within the first two minutes I knew I had a problem -- my shorts were going to fall down due to the bouncing of my keys and wallet.  Either I was going to have to keep one hand on my waistband at all times to keep hiking them up, or downtown Baltimore was going to see my ass.  I chose the annoying, but not quite as annoying, option of running the whole race with my phone in one hand and my wallet in the other hand, checking frequently to make sure I was holding it in a way that my debit card didn't go flying.

Still, despite our lack of prep and my complete slackerage as a runner over the past month, I think we did ok.  We stuck to Chris' run-walk plan of walking for a minute after every half mile.  I could tell I was out-of-shape, but except for two steep hills, we stuck the plan the whole way, instead of taking much more frequent walk breaks like we did at our last 5K, Boordy Vineyards in August (which, in our defense, was much hillier!).  I'm as heavy as I've ever been in my life, and I get winded chasing our cute kittens around the house, but my legs felt great during the race, with no trace of my compartment syndrome, so I think the PT I've been doing since the summer has really helped.

Race Report
As much as I sucked in preparation, the race organizers were the complete opposite.  I thought this was one of the best marked and best organized races I've ever run.  There were plenty of volunteers or police marking every turn; there was ample food and drink at the finish line (I love hot dogs, but not at 9am!  I had a delicious cinnamon roll, though); and there was a very nice presentation about the KidsPeace organization (which helps place kids in foster homes) that then continued into the awards ceremony.  And, the race finishes on the field at Camden Yards?  How can you beat that if you're a huge Orioles fan?  And how can you not take the opportunity to crash into the padded outfield wall as if you're Adam Jones robbing some Red Sox or Yankees jerk like David Ortiz or A-Rod of a steroid-assisted home run?

Really, really great job on this one by KidsPeace, the race directors and volunteers, Baltimore City Police, and the Orioles on this one.  This is definitely a race I'd come back to.

(The guy in all black in the middle is O's Manager Buck Showalter.  

The big bird on the right is the Oriole Bird.)

 

Fifteen Weeks

On September 22, I stopped running.  It had been a tough September, with lots of pain in my left ankle and shins.  Two weeks earlier, I'd had to stop a run when the pain in my left leg just became too much.  I'd come back with a decent five miles and thought nothing of it, but after running my last race, the Sasquatch 5K (my wife reviewed it at "Never Trade", but I never bothered), it just been bonk after bonk after bonk. On September 22, I went down to the rail trail, knowing that if I was going to have any shot at all at the Atlantic City Half Marathon, which I was going to run with no expectation of PR, anyway, I had to have a good run.  I labored through 5 miles, getting only that far because I had to in order to get back to my car.

I called my orthopedist, I deferred from the race, and most significantly, I just quit. In January, when I couldn't run, I did everything I could to stay in shape and I got right back out there and made some quick progress in my spring races.  This time, I gave into my depression and did I ate and drank a lot and did a lot of sofa exercises (like sitting on a sofa.)  In early November, when my doctor got my MRI results back (diagnosis is shinsplits, or something similar, since the placement on the leg isn't the classic case of shinsplits) and said I could start running again, I took that as "Wow. I need a couple weeks at the gym to get myself back in shape a little."  And I tried, but in the meantime I'd gotten heavier than I'd ever been. 

I started doing the elliptical at the gym, doing 45 minutes with different inclines to work different muscles, but we all know that's not the same.  When I joined my wife for a session with her personal trainer on Monday, which I'm signed on for for the next 10 weeks, I got the rude awakening of out-of-shape I'd let myself get.

My long-overdue Day of Reckoning had come at last, and I ran again.  Two miles on Thursday and three miles today, which felt like 10 and 20 miles, respectively, but it was good to be out there again.  I have 15 weeks to get ready for my third -- and let's face it, quite possibly last -- marathon, and from here on out I'm going give it everything I've got, even if it's probably too late.  I know if I can get myself up to 6-7 miles by the end of December, I'll be at the place in which my 2011 Shamrock plan began (I was ahead of schedule then!).  I can't let fatigue, work stress, or fear of failure stop me.  If I CAN run, I have to do it.  There's just not time to slack off.  I'll need to work harder than I've worked before at running, and I suspect that the next three months will my make IT band rehab look like a walk in the park.

There's a chance.  Probably not a good chance.  But there's a still a chance a chance for the revenge I've sought all year.  And I'm going to take it. 

Monkeying Around

Signing up for the Spartan Race was definitely a bad idea.  I definitely won't be ready for it, but I am trying to make sure I'm not completely unready.  Chris and I headed over to the local park at lunchtime on Tuesday, since she has Tuesdays off and I, as usual, was working from home. 

We ran approximately a half-mile from her car to the playground, where there were some pieces of playground equipment that we hoped would simulate some of the Spartan Race obstacles.

The first thing we tried was the rock climb.  It's really made of plastic...a mini version of a climbing wall.  Getting up it is pretty easy, getting over it to climb down is not so easy, especially because there's the possibility of discomfort to one's...well...you know.  Anyway, I did pretty well at this.

I was also able to make three successful crossings on the monkey bars while we were there, so I hope that bodes well, since I'm sure there will be some similar thing at Spartan Race.  Hopefully it's not too much longer than these, or I'm probably falling in water, mud, fire, spikes, alligators, or whatever.

I think the idea of monkey bars it to really brachiate like a monkey, swinging by the arms and shoulders.  I'm not every good at this.  As seen in the picture above, I'm holding most of my weight with my upper arms and just kind of going hand over hand rather than really swinging.  On my third attempt, I tried to swing a little bit more:

We also tried some of the other obstacles, as well as climbing up the sliding boards (and then sliding down, just for fun!) just kind of running around like idiots that would sign up for an obstacle race. 

The above obstacle was one we tried several times.  It's challenging because it's curved, you go up a concave side and climb down the convex side, or vice versa, which makes getting over the top a challenge, but we both did well in this.  I think we're probably more likely to encounter a standard rope laddery thing, anyway.  

Chris excelled at these, I did not:

I think the Spartan Race equivalent is just round wooden posts that are driven into the ground.  They'll probably be smaller than these, but some of these bounced up and down and others spun, which usually caused me to fall off.

We'll head back a couple more times to practice.  It was fun and tiring, but I'll probably still fall to my bloody and embarrasing death during the race.

I've done ok in running this week:  a kind of disappointing 5 miles on Tuesday morning when it was cool and beautiful, but I think I was probably still sore from Dreaded Druid Hills.  I'm also going to shelve the Brooks Adrenalines for a few weeks until I get back into a little bit more consistency.  I think they're more comfortable overall than the Adidas, but until I get some strength back, the lightness of the AdiZero Tempos seems to be helping. I'm having all my best runs in them, lately.  I ran six hilly miles on Thursday morning, which I'll probably count as my "long" run for the week because it is supposed to 1000F tomorrow.

Sunrise or Sunset?

I snapped this photo at mile 5 of a 6-mile run, and I was reminded of a story about Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention n Philadelphia in 1787. George Washington, who presided over the convention, sat at the front of the room in a chair that depicted half of a golden sun. Throughout the convention, Franklin, one of the elder statesmen of the the fledgling nation, pondered whether the sun was rising or setting (on the new nation). He concluded that the sun was rising, and 235 years later, it seems as if he was correct.

I feel like my running "career" is at a turning point. It's frustrating that distances that were easy for me a few months ago are now a struggle, and the six miles I ran tonight -- my second run of this distance -- seems in hindsight to be too much too soon. On weak-feeling legs, I ran a very well-paced 10K training run two weeks ago, and felt very good about it. Tonight, I ran the same distance, a little slower, and with less creakiness during the run, but lots of problems with my left calf afterwards. Though I've been stretching and foam rolling, it feels like it's cramping every time I sit. The cramps don't seem severe -- I don't have pain while sitting, but feel the soreness when I stand.

I'm wondering if I have an injury, though I'm starting to lean toward dehydration. It was a very warm day (for March), in the mid 60s as I ran tonight, and I probably haven't drank enough water over the last several days. Still, even if that's all it is, it was frustrating to feel this bad right after the Kelly 5K, in which I felt better and stronger than I have for any run since the Celtic Solstice 5-mile in December.

Of course, I was also stupid and forgot to wear my new shoes.

Motivation is also lacking a bit lately. While I do want to be a marathoner again and I am committed to getting back to Virginia Beach for the 41st running of the Shamrock Marathon in 2013, I admit it's been really nice to only have to squeeze in a 30 or 40-minute run, or find time for 50 or 60-minute long run, instead of 2-3 hours on Saturday morning.

But even without pressure for really time-consuming runs, I've taken every lame excuse I can find to not get enough runs in. I actually got myself up this morning for a change for a 3-miler (what I had time for before work), but there was some construction at the end of the path that leads down into York Haven. I'm sure I could have just gone around it, but instead I put my run off until after work (when I can run in Manchester w/o all the school traffic and pedestrians), when it was quite a bit warmer. Today, at least, I got out there! Last week, I ran on Tuesday, but found lame-o excuses to skip on Thursday or Friday.

Between last Tuesday's frustrating 3-miles and Saturday's frustrating 5, I just didn't care. It almost felt like when I "took a break" from lifting -- for a whole year. Luckily, I was signed up for the 5K, and wanted to get some miles in (on Saturday) before that or I was probably a couple days away from "I'm taking a break" from running. That's just how it felt. I'd been more frustrated, more disappointed at times over the past five years, but I just felt like I was closer to just giving it up than I'd ever been. The good 5K got me fired back up, and then this one just frustrated me again.

I need to re-establish consistency. Go back to the basics. Embrace the short distances that are in my wheelhouse right now, and like I said in one of last week's whiny blog entries, not get too high or too low.

I think, as long as my calf isn't really injured, that I can get through the TowneBank 8K on Saturday. I'm going to try for a good race, but I know even on that flat course it would be foolish to try for a PR right now. I'll then have a little more than a month until the Sole of the City 10K. I probably need to just take the first couple weeks of that month to get back into an every-other-day running routine and see if I can get myself back to being really comfortable with 3-4 miles. There's not time to build as gradually to 6 miles as I did the first time around (over months!) in 2009, but right now it just seems like I'm biting off a little more than I can chew at that distance.

I have to realize and accept that this year's best-case scenario for me is to mirror 2009, when I built my long run distance from 4 miles to 13.1, and I have to learn to be happy with the little victories: a good effort in a 5K (even if the times don't necessary match last years'), hopefully a great Harrisburg Mile, and slowly building my base mileage and long runs back up. I didn't run 6 miles until Memorial Day that year, and by fall I'd trained up to run a first half marathon that I'm still very happy with. If I slow things down a bit and try to match that schedule, I think I can stay healthy and get myself to where I need to be to start marathon training at the end of the year.

I want the sun to be rising, but I'm not certain yet that it is...



Here's a crappy cell phone pic of George Washington's Rising Sun chair at the front of the room in Independence Hall. To see better pictures and learn more, you can go here.

Lacking Perspective

I'm trying to explain and thus move toward changing my negative mindset, not just be excessively pessimistic or whiny here. You've been warned.

I was coming off a very good 10K training run on Saturday, wishing I'd signed up for Broad Street, thinking perhaps a fall marathon was a good idea after all. Tired, sore, but feeling like I was ready to chase some PRs at my upcoming 5K, 8K, and 10K.

Just a few days later, it's hit me in the face what a shadow of my former running self I am right now. I had easily the worst run of the comeback tour, a 28-minute 3 mile where you name it, it probably hurt. Sore calves, like I was having before my layoff, trouble breathing, creaky knees, aching lower back and even a hitch in my stride (dragging the left foot on the ground too much) that I don't think is usually there.

I'm prone to excessive self-doubt and criticism after a bad run, which really doesn't make sense with my rather casual approach to training. So even as one side of my brain is thinking "You couldn't have gotten 5 miles tonight, you're in trouble" another part knows "you always do this after a bad run, it's never as bad as you think it is (you dummy)." As much as I am critical of Andy Reid in his coaching of my favorite football team, one of his mantras that I need to re-appropriate in my running is to "never let yourself get too high after a win or too low after a loss."

I had a bad run; but the Garmin gets set back to zero and I have a clean slate either way when I hit the road on Thursday or Friday. Knowing something is nothing to worry about is easy for me; making the transition to actually not worrying about it has always been a challenge. The easy workaround is to probably avoid the night running -- in which I don't use a music player -- until I'm feeling consistently stronger and more comfortable at 5-6 mile distances. Let Van Halen drown out the negative thoughts.

I think it's going to be a challenge for me to main perspective this year. Last year was far and away the best year of my career: first two marathons, a very good season of 5Ks, a significant mile PR within striking distance of 6:00; and one of 2 or 3 best races I've ever run to cap the year. I'll achieve much less this year it looks like, and even though I'm pretty sure I don't love the marathon, I don't think I'll feel like I'm all the way back until I finish another one.

But I can't let myself think like this -- and there's no reason to. Throwing out for a second that I'm missing Shamrock, I'll probably finish March at about the same place that I did last year, 6-7 mile training runs and no long races on the immediate horizon. With that in mind, this really is a minor setback and I just need to be more positive. My goal, totally unquantifiable of course, for the rest of March is to just try to enjoy each and every run for its own sake, without any concern for where it fits into a larger training plan or how they compare to each other or to last year.

Rediscover the fun.

I know...this post definitely requires at least one adorable kitty picture.

(Higgy, back in his chubbier days, was obsessed with climbing in the dryer and staring demonically at us.)

Keepin' it Real

On Sunday, I was at the second of my four free personal training sessions at the Y, and I made an offhand remark that, in hindsight, I think was kind of dickish. It wasn't really directed at anyone other than myself, but as I thought about it later, it was insulting to a lot of runners, including myself, and also completely dishonest.

My trainer asked how my run on Saturday had gone. I replied that it had been fine except that I was still feeling the effect of being sick, but that:

"I'm going to try for five miles this Saturday. Then I'll feel like a real runner again."

Bullshit.

The fall of 2006 is a long time ago, but not so long ago that I don't remember how cool I felt when I was doing the Couch to 5K plan and could first run five minutes without a walk break, then 10 minutes, then 15 etc. And my feeling of accomplishment at crossing the finish line of my first 5K in 2007 was probably equal to that at the end of the first marathon. I definitely felt like a real runner, whatever that even means.

It was a cool feeling the first time I ran 5 miles, and added new personal distance records after that, but I ran two full seasons of 5Ks before ever running, much less racing, any distance longer than 3.1 and I definitely thought of myself a real runner during those two years.

Sure, I'm frustrated right now that some pretty minor injuries have given me a pretty big setback. I'm looking forward to getting back to miles 5 and above. But there's no reason to be an elitist jerk about it.

I didn't mean any ill-intent by my remark and I don't think anyone was offended (and none of you would have known about it if I hadn't told you!), so I don't write this as an apology, but just because it made me think as I considered what I'd said.

So, I ask you, my readers, how far or how much did you have to run before you thought of yourself as a runner? In my case, I'd say it wasn't yet when I first started the Couch to 5K, when the one-minute intervals of running were really, really awful, but I would say it was at a point before I'd ever ran my first 5K (which was also the first time I'd run three miles).

There are probably people who would say there are right and wrong answers to these questions. Despite my stupid remark on Sunday, I'm not one of them. I think that if someone thinks of him/herself as a runner, they are one. There's no speed or mileage requirements for this club.

Safety First! (And Second!)

I've accumulated a lot of running gear over the past 5 years. One of my favorite and potentially one of the most important pieces was one that I hoped I'd never really need, the RoadID ("Wrist ID Sport" model to be exact) that Chris bought me last Christmas.

RoadID, and may similar products, keep your identification, emergency contact info, and brief medical information if necessary, available to EMTs should something happen to you while you're on the run. Potentially life saving, but also convenient; my Wrist ID Sport has kept me from feeling the need to carry my drivers' license with me on my runs, which meant my license stayed in my wallet rather than forgotten in my hydration belt while I drove around without a license for days. And it looked cool, too.

Well, as you may have gathered from all the past tense, I lost it. When I didn't find it for over a month, I started to worry that either it had fallen out of my car as I de-geared after a long run or that I had accidentally thrown it out with empty sports beans packets, or lost it in some other stupid fashion. I held off of ordering a new one though, still assuming that it was somewhere in the house or car and that it would turn up.

Two weeks ago, I ran in the Philadelphia Marathon, in which two people tragically passed away. One was a college student who collapsed just after finishing the half, and another was a 40 year-old multiple Ironman finisher who fell within sight of the finish line. For both, the cause of death was listed as a heart attack, and both would have had emergency contact and ID info on their race bibs. But while ID likely wouldn't have made a difference in these cases, it made me think about how stupid it was to be out there on the roads without taking this small but easy and potentially important precaution -- disaster really can strike at any time.

So, I broke down and ordered myself a new RoadID on Monday. I liked the old one, so I got the same model.

Today, while getting ready for my run, I found this:

This afternoon, this arrived in the mail:


Well, at least if my body is somehow bisected vertically in some bizarre marathon accident, authorities will be able to identify either half.