On Being Excepted by the Running Community

Recently, Runner’s World posted a little contest on Facebook where the entrants would post about the funniest time they finished last or almost last in a race.  This was my entry:

It was hilarious. First I was handed a t-shirt that was two sizes too small. I was told that they don't usually get runners of my size. The race started and I quickly fell behind. After a few minutes, I had to start dodging cars because after the main pack of runners, the "closed course" was open to motorists. At some point, the on-course volunteers were released. I guess they figured I was so slow, I didn't need to rehydrate like the "real" runners. Oh, also because the course markers were taken down, I got lost!!! Nothing funnier than trying to find your way on the course. By the time I finished they'd already taken down the Finish Line, so I didn't get an official time. Also, they'd run out of medals!!!! What a hoot. They told me they'd mail me one but never did. I guess they thought that might encourage me to sign up the next year.

Almost all of this has happened to me, although not all in one race.  I’ve never been in a race where they’ve taken down the finish although I have been the last person through.

Apparently, sarcasm was not what they were looking for.

After reading through a couple of entries, I narrowed in on what it seemed they were looking for.  They were all essentially “The night before the 10k, I ate at a new Indian-Mexican fusion restaurant in my town and I tried the chicken curry burrito.  The next day I redefined the meaning of the word ‘fartlek’” or “I had last run my local 5k two years ago and in the year I sat out, they changed the course.  I ran the old course thinking I was leading the way the entire time until I turned left at Main and re-joined the new course.  I ran a 5 Miler and still beat 3 people who only ran a 5k!”  They didn’t want “Back of the Pack” runners; they wanted fast runners who, for whatever reason (usually scatological), were in the back.  In other words, they didn’t live there, they were just visiting.  And pooping in my backyard.

I’m a Back of the Pack Runner; I’ve been the last finisher in races.  Finishing last isn’t fun and the people who finish last are not something to make fun of.

In an attempt to reach out to the disenfranchised, Runner’s World posted a blog a few days later where a runner wrote about going for a training run at the same park where runners were running a 24 Hour UltraMarathon (the runners ran for 24 hours straight and the runner covering the most miles tallied 155) and wondering if she “deserved” to be there.  Blah blah blah, Sister Sledge music, Sugar Hill Gang, the runner accepts water from the volunteer and accepts herself in the process.  Awwww.

I’ve been running with New York Road Runners since 2011 and from day 1, I knew I didn’t fit in.  First, I didn’t wear the right clothes.  I found a recent article titled “Don’t Be That Guy at the Race” or something like that.  Apparently, I violate two cardinal rules: 1) I wear baggy shorts (the shame), 2) I tuck my t-shirt in (the horror).  Everywhere around me, people were striking yoga poses.  I stretch by tying my shoes.  BTW, I wear the wrong shoes as well.  I opt for the running sneakers with the extra cushioning instead of the sneakers that weigh 4 ounces less.  I’ve never worn sneakers where each toe gets its own home and the idea of it skeeves me out.  In that first race, I didn’t have a PB (peanut butter?) or PR (public relations?) or know what either meant (I perked up when I thought someone mentioned PBR though). 

BTW, while I was writing this blog, the Don’t Be This Guy article was reposted on Facebook by Runner’s World.  I get it Runner’s World, there’s not enough room in your world for this runner!!

Then of course, there was the other issue.  My weight.  I was the only O in a land full of I’s.  In my last race, I followed a group of four girls who were slightly ahead of me for most of the course.  I was trying to figure out why they were able to stay ahead of me when I realized that to equal my weight, one of the four girls would have to travel around the course with two of her friends on her back.  I did end up finishing ahead of them for the record.

Whether I finished ahead of them or not doesn’t really matter to me.  I race against myself every time.  In my last race, I finished about 30 seconds per mile faster than my last time.  I had an ambitious goal of 2 and a half minutes less but wasn’t able to get the training in to achieve that goal.  I’ve been training hard since then and am planning on kicking ass at my next race. 

Here’s a secret about Back of the Pack runners: We are trying hard.  Some of us are trying harder than people who finish with times that are much faster than ours.  I didn’t pick up running because it was easy.  In high school and college, running was something I did before I hit someone.  I would never use the word runner to describe myself.  In the summer before my sophomore year of high school I was in probably the best cardio shape of my life (I ran a 6:07 mile), I made myself a mix tape to listen to called the Jogging/Walking/Crawling Mix.  I didn’t even call my mixtape a Running Tape.  It did have Cat Stevens on it which may have disqualified it.

There may be a couple of thousand people who register for the races I participate in but I’m only competing with myself.  Did I improve my time?  Was I able to push myself to run an extra lamppost or did I stop short of the mark I set for myself?  Did I finish strong?  In one of my first entries on the blog, I talked about how I got frustrated for being passed at the end of the Coogan’s Run.  It wasn’t the other runner at all.  It was me not having anything left in the tank to hold off her charge, it was me not having the pride in myself to not give in, it was me not working hard enough in the weeks coming into the race.  On those days, I don’t feel much like a runner at all.

This year, I haven’t had any races that I finished thinking “I’m a Runner.”  I am coming up on the Portugal Run on June 15^th which is a race that I always mark off on my calendar every year.  The first time I ran it, Farrington Racing showed up crazy late and were being yelled at to start the race in the next 30 seconds or our times wouldn’t count.  I was wearing a heavy Under Armour long sleeve shirt and the weather was really hot.  In my haste to start, I tied my shoes too tight and started losing feeling in my feet.  Finally, due to drinking a dairy-based Atkins shake before the race (MILK WAS A BAD CHOICE!), I was puking in the first quarter mile.  My race was actually so bad, I didn’t run Portugal the following year.  I was hiding.

Last year, I had been training seriously and wanted to run the race for two reasons.  First, I dedicated the race to my Dad as it was Father’s Day and my Dad has always been my best coach.  Second, I had a score to settle with the race.  I prepared well and ran a great race.  I pushed myself every chance that I could and set PB’s for per mile pace and 5 mile time.  My per mile time was 13:23. 

Your time is only important because it is a way to measure how hard you’ve been preparing.  If it’s a faster time than your last race, you trained well.  If it’s slower, you need to work a little harder.  13:23 was a good time for me although I finished 5154 out of 5279.  There wasn’t anything funny about it but I was smiling after the race.  I was a runner.

So, some people are wondering why I’m writing proudly about a time that many runners would be embarrassed by.  Is it that I’m an idiot?  Have I gotten soft?  To answer those questions, I went back to the beginning.  Why did I start running again?  To prove to myself that I could.  To myself. 

So look for me when they are about to break down the finish line.  I’ll be wearing baggy shorts and a tucked in t-shirt that’s covered in sweat.  I’ll be breathing hard; my muscles will be burning because I will be giving it all that I have left.  If it doesn’t impress you, I don’t care.

72 to San Francisco and Finding My Motivation

If you’ve been reading my posts or talking to me in real life (if that’s a thing), you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been having a tough time with my workouts.  I am fighting them every step of the way.  Here’s how it works:

J: I am going to the gym (knees, lower back immediately flare up).

J: Great, I’m at the gym but that dude is using the squat rack for curls (Just skip squats, you don’t want to wait for this clown).

J: I’m doing squats but they are heavy (you should probably cut this set short because you don’t want to hurt yourself and not be able to work out tomorrow).

J: Now I’m on the treadmill and am short of breath and my legs hurt (you’ve done weights already and some cardio, you can cut back.  You should probably stop now and not overexert yourself).

Sometimes it just goes like this:

J: I am going to the gym (knees, lower back immediately flare up). 

J: Eh, I could take another day to rest, there is a race Saturday.  I mean, I’m unprepared for it already, what difference is one workout going to make?

So for those of you who read this blog for inspiration, that beginning part might not be what you were looking for.  If anything, the take away is that even people who have finished a marathon struggle to get their daily workouts in.

For me, this issue with working out has become increasingly frustrating.  Why is it that I find it hard to motivate myself and even stranger, hard to keep motivating myself while working out.  I used to have issues getting to the gym sometimes but once I walked in I was fine.  I would think that being as I’m here anyway, might as well get my sweat on.

I found an article online where the author talks about how at the end of marathons, she would let up on herself and made the 3:30 marathon mark elusive.  I identified with her, the idea of “You have done a lot already.  You can take it easy here” really sounded familiar.  There was a bunch of sports-psychology wrapped up in the article that I didn’t understand.  I took the article to my wife who is a psychologist for clarification regarding what process goals are and what performance goals are.

We started speaking about the article and then quickly diverted.  I could tell that Maryclare was torn between being a wife and being a psychologist.  She recommended that maybe we could set up a behavior chart for me.  She also recommended that I start some sort of signal to myself when I start having negative thoughts and that might help me head them off before they result in me going home.  I recognize the negative thoughts as they are happening.  I just can’t stop them.

We continued talking and then my wife asked me an important question: Why are you running the marathon?  I asked if she expected an answer or if it was rhetorical.  She said, “You don’t have to answer me necessarily but it’s not rhetorical.  You have to know what your motivation is.”

Cue Wonder Boys:

Vernon: If you didn’t know what it was about, why were you writing it?

Grady: I couldn’t stop.

I thought about why I was registered for San Francisco and came up with four reasons:

1)      I really wanted to go to San Francisco

2)      I had run a marathon before

3)      I enjoy the look on people’s faces when I tell them I am running

4)      I signed up when it first opened because there was an “Early Bird” Special.

When I finally came up with this list, I knew that if someone told me that was their motivation to run, I’d tell them to run.  In the opposite direction.  Far and fast.

My biggest motivation for running the New York City Marathon was to prove to myself that I could set a long term goal and reach it.  I wanted to know if I could push myself.  I wanted to know that I could rise to the challenge.  Was there anything left in the tank or did I use all my gas in High School and College?  Those are good reasons for running a marathon.

So once I accepted the fact that I didn’t want to run the San Francisco Marathon, I wondered what I should do.  I still wanted to go out there and I still wanted to go out that night wearing the medal, so I still planned on running it.  This doesn’t really make a lot of sense I know.

I thought about the New York City Marathon and I know that finishing a marathon requires toughness.  Do I still have any toughness left?  I wasn’t even getting through half hour work outs or even working out consistently during the week.  I decided that I was tough in the way that I could endure the pain and punishment of running the marathon and that I would show that by enduring San Francisco.

Then I decided that I didn’t want to endure it.  I wanted to enjoy it.

I had planned on hurting after the marathon.  I still will.  I had planned on it so much that I had booked an extra day stay in town in case my Monday was shot.  But I don’t want to waste a day lying in a hotel bed wishing I had trained harder.  So rather than get all the pain on Marathon Sunday, I figured I’d spread it out over time taking a little each day rather than facing its full strength all at once.

This is not a technique you will read in any books or magazines about running.  No one ever says, “Go as a tourist; work out beforehand so the marathon does not interfere with your sightseeing. ”

So while I still may not be in the perfect headspace right now, I’m definitely in a better place.  I earned a night off tonight but got “Wins” on Tuesday and Wednesday after a blowout loss on Monday. 

Last night I was running hills in White Plains.  After finishing enough trips up the hill to constitute a “Win” for the workout, I was standing at the top of the hill looking down the street.  I told myself that I could go home with my win or I could run another hill.  I turned off my head and let my body decide.  Next thing I knew, I was walking back down to do another rep.

My thought is that right now any reason to run is a good one.  The desire to run the Marathon will come to me but I have to earn it first.

75 Days to SF/173 to NYC

I ran a 10k at Central Park on Saturday.  I had set a goal for myself of running the 10k in under 1:30 or a per mile time of about 14:30.  This would have been a 2 minute per mile improvement over the Scotland Run which was very ambitious.  I think that goals should be realistic but ambitious.  If I had set a goal to run 5 seconds a mile faster, I doubt the elation over reaching my goal would be worth the effort.  I did not reach my goal of 14:30, finishing up around 16 minutes for an improvement of about 30 seconds.

I'm looking at my race to think about where I could improve:

1) Train more.  Last week, I only trained 3 times including the race.  I think I should be training 5 days a week.

2) Don't fight.  Win.  Prior to starting the race while we were still stuck in the corrals, the "Emcee" of the race was telling us to "run don't jog" through the corrals or we'd get "run over by the elite pace car."  As this was a race for Healthy Kidneys, there were a lot of people participating because the race means something to them and for a lot of those folks walk the races.  The Emcee yelled, "Even if you are planning on walking the race, run through the corrals."  Rows of workers lined the corral yelling at us to run or run faster.  Idiots.  Anyway, this really annoyed me and for the first mile and a half or so, I was thinking about what I might say in an angry letter instead of focusing on running or the course in front of me.  I need to pay more attention to what I'm doing and stop getting distracted by stupidity.  It's hard though because stupidity is everywhere.
3) It was much more humid out Saturday Morning than I thought it would be.  I can't really change the weather but I do need to run outside more.  The good news is that it won't be humid for San Francisco (never really humid there) or New York (happens in November, last year the temperature was around 50).  Regardless, I do need to run outside more.

Long story short, pretty disappointed with my race and I know I need to get myself together in the next 33 days.  In 33 days, I really start the race season, running the Portugal 5M and starting a 14 day stretch where I'm running 4 races including a half.

I need to be confident that I have enough time to train but I definitely don't have time to dawdle.  This post may seem disjointed because I started writing it on Sunday and finished it Tuesday afternoon but also because I have started a new post which should go up tonight, so I am cutting this one a bit short. 

81 Days to SF/179 to NYC

The marathons continue to draw closer.  Friends of mine are having successes in their training and I envy them.  I feel that I am falling further and further behind.  If I speak about this, people are quick to point out that raising two babies is difficult, work is stressful and so is trying to sell a co-op (which at this price is a steal!).  These are valid points BUT the marathons are lining up to kick my ass.  They don’t care what else is going on in my life. 

My sister, who is my “go-to” in terms of running Marathons always says that “Pain is inevitable.  Suffering is optional.”  Basically, you’ll hurt but how much is up to you and how much you train.  I, apparently, am opting for the suffering.   

Last week has reminded me to get back to one of my philosophies in life.  I saw it happen to someone else today but I won’t tell their story because it’s their story.  I’ll tell mine because it’s my story and I’m egotistical.  So the theory is this:

Don’t fight.  Win.

This seems to fly in the face of common knowledge.  You need to fight to get what you want, right?

Fighting is a strange concept.  In some circumstances, it’s advised: Fight the Power, Fight Gingivitis, Fight…for your right…to paaaaaaarty.  Sometimes it’s mandated: If it’s your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.  Other times, it’s not allowable: Don’t fight with your brother.  It’s a warning: You can’t fight City Hall.  Sometimes, it’s an impossibility: I can’t fight this feeling anymore, I’ve forgotten what I’ve started fighting for.

My story is this.  When I was studying for the Bar, I needed to pay a fee as part of my application and when I went to my bank, the teller tried to charge me $12 dollars for a bank check.  I knew she was wrong but the teller was unwavering.  I tried to explain to her that she was wrong, tried to get her to call a manager but the only thing she did was tell me that if I didn’t like it, I should go to the post office where bank checks only cost $4.  If anyone has studied for the Bar Exam or studied for any other test that consumes your soul, you know that anything can set you off.  Normal things are annoying, annoying things are infuriating and people trying to steal 12 bucks from you push you to a level where a murder charge would be mitigated by a “Heat of Passion” defense.  Rather than scream at this teller who wasn’t going to help me, I walked out of the bank.  The Win was passing the Bar, which I ended up doing.  Fighting with this teller was getting me nowhere. 

At the same time in my life, I was trying to watch my weight.  My energy was low and I felt like crap.  I knew that a solid exercise plan was impossible so I needed to try to eat healthier.  While studying for the bar, you will eat anything, particularly if it’s easy to prepare.  Most junk food is easy.  You’ll use excuses—it’s because of stress, it’s only until the test is over, this bag of candy provides me with energy, the Twinkie is the reason they invented the Rule against Perpetuities!!!  I planned to get sushi after obtaining my bank check but once the bank check attempt went wrong, I thought “screw it, too much stress, at least eat something you like.”  First, I thought chicken parm wedge, then General Tso’s Chicken, then General Tso’s on a wedge.  Plus pork fried rice.  Wonton Soup (it’s healthy, it’s mostly chicken soup).  Egg rolls have vegetables.  And eggs are good for you. 

Then it dawned on me.  I had lost my focus.  I was allowing a stupid incident make me lose my focus.  I ended up getting the sushi and taking a few steps to get that bank check for free.  I didn’t fight.  I won.   I didn’t let that little setback distract me from what I really wanted to do. 

There are always things that will happen in our lives that cause emotions that generally distract us.  I know in my situation mentioned above, I was feeling bad, would have felt momentarily better eating and then much worse because I had let the situation get the best of me.  In the end, it’s not worth it.

So tonight I ran hills in White Plains in preparation for San Francisco.  They suck.  I completely avoided hills while training last year for NYC because NYC is a relatively flat race.  There are some hills but they are mostly on the bridges.  The Harry Chapin Race that I wrote about previously was hilly and it beat me up to the point of almost withdrawing from the Marathon.  San Francisco will be hillier and 4 times as long.  I’m getting ready for the pain.  Hoping to minimize the suffering.  

Running a Mile in My Shoes: 1st Time Half-Marathon Finisher Scott Riecke Guest Blogs His Experience

Hi Everyone,

Please allow me to introduce you to Scott Riecke.  Scott graduated from Siena College a few years ahead of me and was Quarterback on the Football Team.  If you think all football players are alike, you've never met Scott.  He's definitely a different type of dude.  And I mean that in the best way.

For a while, Scott's been joking about running on Facebook and finally decided to do something about.  He started training and proudly finished his first Half-Marathon on Sunday.  Here is his experience:

First Half Marathon?  Check.

Mile ten was where things started to change.  My pace slowed noticeably.  “Previous mile… Eleven minutes, fifteen seconds,” the voice on my MapMyRun iPhone app said.  I felt as though I had been slowing, but this seemed a bit drastic.

The first nine had gone so smoothly.  I was clocking 10-minute miles, which had been my pace in a recent 5k and I was shocked that I had been keeping it up for so long.  Mentally I felt great, and there were just four more miles to go.  But I could sense that my legs weren’t working as well as they had been, and the rolling hills were something new and a bit challenging.

“Running long distance is 80% mental and 20% physical,” a friend once told me.  This must be where the mental part came in.  That’s okay… I got this.

Mile eleven.  “Eleven minutes, thirty seconds.”  That was even slower.

Even worse, GPS doesn’t map exactly to the course specifications.  In the beginning of the race, when the lady told me I had reached a mile, it was only a few seconds before I would see the official “1 Mile” sign posted on the course.  By mile 10, whether it is the accruing factor of the hills or not cutting the corners efficiently, her announcement was about a quarter mile ahead of the actual course marker.  There’s nothing like thinking you had hit the eleventh mile, only to run another for another song or two before seeing the official “11 Mile” sign.

The pain in my legs was starting to build and I thought, “Ugh… how did I get here?”  That’s a good story… maybe some background is necessary.

Sometime around Thanksgiving, when many people surrender to the gluttonous allure of the winter holidays, I had a bit of an epiphany.  Simply put, I was too fat and I was sick of it.  I wasn’t proud of the way I looked in photos, and when you have a 4-year old who you love dearly, a number of things come into play – like not having the energy to play ball with her for more than 10 minutes at a clip, or not being able to teach her how to ski, or even the general health risks that come along with obesity.

Two hundred and seventy four pounds.

It was the most I had ever been, and I just didn’t want to be that way anymore.  In prior years I might have said, “I’m just putting on weight for the winter,” or maybe, “Let me just get through the holidays and I’ll make a New Year’s Resolution,” but this was different.  I asked myself… Why wait?

So, I didn’t.

In early December I hopped on a treadmill and threw it on low speed.  “Let’s just see how far I can make it,” I said, and started jogging.  I jogged and jogged, my feet pounding on the tread, sweat pouring from my face, and my lungs wheezing from the exertion.  I pushed on for as long as I could before I just couldn’t do it any longer and returned the speed to a more comfortable walking pace.

I looked at the display in disbelief… 0.28 miles.

You have got to be kidding me.  I couldn’t even run a half-mile.  I was upset and embarrassed, but I knew I had two choices.  I could feel sorry for myself and give up, or I could do something about it.  I chose the latter.

The next few months are a bit of a blur.  I spent December on my exercise bike – a typical day would find me on the bike both before and after work.  My doctor asked me how many times a week I worked out.  I said, “Twelve,” and I wasn’t lying. 

Come January, I was down close to 15 pounds and I braved another duel with the treadmill.  This time I got up to a mile and a half.  The effort on the bike had been somewhat successful.

By the end of the month, I would slowly work my way up to about three miles.  Then, on February 1, I woke up, went to Forest Park, and ran my first official 5k.  It was pretty tough – all of my running had been indoors and I really had trouble with the hills.  But I crossed the finish line and after fighting off an initial wave of nausea, I felt accomplished – even with the 8-year old kid passing me right at the end.

“You’ll never be able to run a 10k by St. Patty’s Day,” my wife had told me back in December when I declared I wanted to run the Holyoke Road Race.  I don’t know that she was trying to be mean; rather I think she was trying to be realistic.  But those words drove me, and a few weeks after my first 5k, I legged out a 6.2 mile run on the treadmill, or the equivalent of a 10k.  It wasn’t easy, but I snapped a photo of the screen and sent it to her, with the repeat of her quote.

On March 22^nd, I found myself at the starting line of the Holyoke St. Patty’s Day Road Race.

The Holyoke course is very hilly and challenging.  But I finished that, too, and crossing that line felt so good – from barely being able to run a quarter mile in December, to finishing all 6.2 miles of a difficult 10k in March.  I couldn’t help myself and the next day when I got to work, I registered for the Hartford Half Marathon.

I thought it would prove to be a motivating force for me to continue training through the summer, but that wound up being the problem – the race wasn’t until October, which was just a long ways away.

The week of April 20 ended a long streak for me.  After 21 straight weeks of losing weight, it was the first week I actually gained weight, albeit just a pound.  I was upset at myself – my exercise routine was still going strong, but my diet had been slipping.  A few bad days here and there add up and though it was only a pound, to me it signified the end of a streak and the potential beginning of a downtrend.

One of the great things about losing weight is when other people notice.  So, even though I was a bit down on myself for gaining a pound, when a co-worker came up to me and asked me how I had lost so much weight, it was very timely for my own peace of mind.

“Running, mostly,” I answered.

Turns out my co-worker competes in triathlons and was very interested in my running progress.  “You know, I usually start off my running season with the Cheshire Half Marathon, but I can’t run it this year,” she said.  “You should look into it – it’s a pretty easy course.  It’s very flat.”

“When is the race?” I asked.

“Usually the last weekend in April,” she answered.

I looked it up… it was five days away.  I had logged a few six mile runs in recent weeks and another seven-miler that made me feel as though I could somehow finish a half-marathon without really training for it.

“It’s 80% mental,” I remembered my friend telling me.  Then I went through the progression.  In January I ran my first mile.  February brought my first 5k, and March was the 10k.  Why should I wait until October to take the next step?  An April half-marathon seemed a natural progression, so three days before the race, I registered.  Screw it.

“Alone whether you like it or not, alone is something you’ll be quite a lot,” I read to my daughter from Dr. Seuss’s “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” the night before the race.  The next morning I jumped in the car, alone, and headed for my first half-marathon.

Strangely, I wasn’t nervous at all.  “Are you excited?” my wife texted me an hour before the race.  “I’m really excited,” I answered.  “But I feel really naïve about being really excited.”

“You got this,” she wrote.  It seemed she had come very far from telling me, “You can’t run a 10k by St. Patty’s Day.”  Her support was very meaningful to me.

I was a bit early for the race and it was somewhat chilly outside, so I sat in the car and waited.  If I hit a wall, I thought, I can draw energy from a lot of different sources – my wife, my daughter, and my neighbor Tammy who requested I add “Eye of the Tiger,” to my half-marathon mix because it was her daughter Brielle’s favorite song.  I obliged, and put it towards the end – in case I really needed it for motivation.

People eventually began lining up at the starting line and I couldn’t help but notice all the runners with belts carrying water bottles and packets of gel.  I laughed to myself… who are these people kidding with their over-preparedness?  It’s just 13.1 miles – only 6.1 more than what I had run on the treadmill with no water breaks or gel packs.  “Pussies,” I thought.

The race began, and I started my half-marathon setlist of 37 songs, not thinking I’d ever get to hear the last few.  I got right into a good pace, the music helping me along.  Water stations every two miles – I mean really, who needs water at the 2-mile mark?  I took one anyway and tried to drink it while running, spilling it all over my shirt.  Fearing cramps, I swished the few drops of water that made it in my mouth and spit it out.

And for nine miles, I thought this was going to be a breeze.  I was wondering if I had placed “Eye of the Tiger “too far down the setlist and worried I might not hear it.  But then Mile 10 happened.  And Mile 11.  Things were slowing and my legs were really starting to hurt.

Mile 12.  “Twelve minutes, thirteen seconds.”  Would the staggered steps I was taking really even qualify as “running” at this point?  The worst part was that by now I wasn’t really just 1.1 miles away from the finish.  Thanks to the discrepancy between my GPS and the actual course markers, I was closer to 1.5 miles away.

“One foot in front of the other,” I told myself.  “Just keep moving, you’re not too far.”

“Keep it up,” a supportive voice from a passing runner resonated.  I guess it was obvious how much trouble I was in.  “You’re almost there,” he said.

“Fuck you,” I said.  Ok, I didn’t say that.  I thought it, but I didn’t say it.  I think I said something like, “Thanks, man.  I got it.”

The twelve mile marker was so far away from when the MapMyRun lady announced it, I thought I must have run past it without noticing.  So it was extra disappointing when I eventually reached it and realized that I had a full 1.1 miles left to run, though with “Eye of the Tiger” finally kicking on, I found myself immediately reinvigorated.

Brielle’s favorite song.  Sadly, Brielle had passed away from cancer not so long ago.  My family had only known her for a year or two, but she left such an impression on all of us.  Specifically, I remember a picnic where Brielle sat there smiling and laughing while she put a temporary butterfly tattoo on my daughter’s ankle.  Here was this girl with very pale skin and no hair on her head, smiling and laughing and just enjoying the moment of making my 3-year old daughter happy.  I prepared for the innocent way kids can be mean without realizing they’re being mean.  I pictured my daughter saying, “Why do you have no hair?” or maybe worse.  “Why do you look so different?’

But she didn’t ask, and that is my Brielle-moment that I will always hang onto.  In the face of such a horrible disease and clearly uncomfortable, Brielle managed to project such a positive and joyful personality that my 3-year old daughter never even noticed that she looked different.  I contemplated that moment as I ran, and it quickened my pace as Eye of the Tiger continued to play.  But the song doesn’t last forever, and the pain was still too great and it caused me to pull back to my uneasy jog.  I wanted to keep up the pace so badly, but the pain was searing and there was just nothing more I could do.

I pressed on with a slow, awkward jog.  The best I can describe the pain was that it felt as though my legs were eating themselves from the inside.  The final left-hand turn, about a half-mile from the finish, brought a fairly steep uphill run towards the high school, where a half-lap around the track led to the finish line.

I turned off the music.  I wasn’t even listening to it at that point anyway – I was too focused on the pain.  I could see the high school ahead, and thought I could make it, but I was overcome with the pain.  At some point within that last half-mile, the pain won, and I walked.

I expected it to subside once I began walking, but it didn’t at all.  Even my walk was slow.  I shuffled to the track and made it on the rubberized surface.  “Run,” I told myself.  But I couldn’t.  I just couldn’t.  My focus turned to the next-best goal.  “Finish.”

There were moments where I thought I might not.  But I kept walking.  It was so painful.  I realized in that moment what running is all about.  Running is about you and the road and nothing else.  You can try to draw motivation from other sources – your family, your friends, your music, or maybe people who told you that you couldn’t do it.  But when it comes down to it and when the pain is beyond anything you thought you would ever feel, only you can tell yourself to take that next step, and the next, and the next.

I vaguely remembered them announcing my name as I crossed the finish.  A nice lady placed a medal around my neck, though I barely noticed.  I wasn’t as jubilant as I had been crossing the finish at the St. Patty’s Day 10k.  This was harder.  This was way more challenging than I had ever thought when I got out of my car that morning.  I walked through the gate towards a field where tents were set up.  The water station was about 50 feet away… that was too far.  I couldn’t make it and I didn’t have the humility to ask someone for help.  Instead, I sat down on the ground next to the fence and, in a perverse sort of way, enjoyed the pain still resonating through my legs.

I did it.

I stayed put for about five minutes.  The post-race celebration was in full effect, but I was in no mood.  I got up and hobbled to my car, not sure if I’d make it without needing another break.  Trudging through the parking lot, I was glad that I got there early enough to get a great spot.  It made the walk that much shorter.  Once in the car, I downed two Poland Spring waters that I had tossed in my bag at the last moment before leaving home.  I wish I had brought about five more.

The water picked up the salt from my sweaty upper lip and tasted like the ocean.  When I thought about it, throughout the whole race I hardly drank any water.  Big mistake.

I started the car, but realized I was in no condition to drive.  I was afraid my feet would seize up on the pedals.  So I reclined the driver’s seat, took my sneakers off and put my feet up on the dash.  It would be about 20 minutes before I felt strong enough to drive.  Even then, as I exited the crowded parking lot I made sure to throw the car into Park anytime I stopped because I was afraid my foot might not have the strength to hold down the brake pedal.

A quarter-mile down the road was a Dunkin Donuts.  I had been wanting a Boston Kreme donut for months, but never wanted to cheat on my diet.  This seemed like the proper occasion.  I prayed for a drive-thru, only it didn’t exist at this location.  So I struggled to put my sneakers back on and hobbled into the store.

The guy in front of me was by himself and ordered $17 worth of food.  I normally wouldn’t have minded all that much, but it was so hard to stand in one place without anything to lean on while I waited for him to finish ordering.  When it was finally my turn, I was just glad to get the chance to lean against the counter.

The donut lasted about 30 seconds once it hit my hands.  The large iced coffee was finished before my car’s front tires left the parking lot.  Maybe I should have ordered two, but they gave me just enough energy to focus on the drive home.

And then it really started to sink in.  I finished a half marathon.  Five months ago, I couldn’t run a half-mile, and now I did something that I thought I’d never do.  Had you told me on Thanksgiving that I’d complete a half-marathon by Memorial Day, I would have had to laugh.  Yet here I was.  Strangely, the fact that it was so difficult to finish made it feel like an even more fulfilling accomplishment.  13.1 miles was a daunting task.  Had the race been 13.2 miles, I’m not so sure I could have finished.  Yet, had I jogged it all the way in, I might not have appreciated it as much.

I’m left wondering why I broke down so harshly after cruising in the early going.  I researched it and found that my type of debilitating condition is typically brought on by a glycogen deficiency that could have been overcome by eating throughout the race.

“Those pussies with the gel packs were right,” I thought.  Boy was I wrong.

I am left wondering how much of my leg pain was from lack of conditioning and training and how much was from not preparing, not drinking enough water or eating anything on the course.  For that, there’s only one way I’ll find out for sure, and I’m already researching to find my next half-marathon.

Something about the experience was just so self-empowering, whether it was the act of finishing, fighting through the pain, or simply having the guts to go for it in the first place.  Officially, I finished the race in 2 hours, 27 minutes and 18 seconds and that was good enough to place 1,241^stout of 1,429 runners.

As I hobbled into the house on my return home, my daughter ran over and gave me a great big hug and a kiss.  I was so happy to see her and she always makes me smile.  She immediately noticed and took hold of the shiny medal still dangling around my neck.

“Daddy, you won the race!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, sweetie.  I did.  I sure did.”

189 Days Left

We take this break from your regularly scheduled broadcast to present a special news bulletin:

In 2011 after taking the New York and New Jersey Bar, my wife and I finally took a long overdue honeymoon and for the first time, I went to California.  Prior to landing there, I thought that California was a collective lie that the country was telling me.  I had no real proof that I wasn’t Jim Carrey in the Truman show.  Everywhere I had been to felt like it could be part of New York.  I’m not sure what it was about San Francisco, the laid back attitude, the cool ocean air, the funky smell or the Bush Man but it was the first place I’d been to that didn’t feel like New York.  In three short days, I’d fallen in love.

By a funny coincidence, I was in San Francisco the same weekend as its marathon.  Sunday Night while waiting to dine at the House of Prime Rib, I saw a number of people shuffling around, proudly displaying their SF Marathon Medals.  I was doing the races for the 9+1 to qualify for New York in 2012, so I remember thinking I’ll be there.  It would be a New York Medal but still.  I also realized that even though my prime rib tasted good, theirs tasted great.  BTW, the chicken parm wedge after the NY Marathon was torture.  If you’ve been running all day, don’t try to eat anything on a bulky wedge.  They don’t talk about that in any of the training books.

I’ve talked to a few people who had aspirations to run a marathon in each state which I’ve always thought was pretty cool.  However, when I was researching, I started to like that idea less and less.  I mean sure, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois would be great marathons.  But did I really want to run in the Minot, North Dakota 26.2 Below Zero Marathon?  Of course not.  So I decided instead to run marathons in cities that I love.  If you didn’t read the paragraph above, I love San Francisco.

I signed up for this marathon way back in April of last year when the registration first opened.  My wife was trying to get pregnant around that time and if she became pregnant, the marathon would probably be off.  Essentially, the marathon would be the consolation prize if things didn’t work out for us.  However, we were fortunate enough to find out she did become pregnant, then pregnant with twins and we were blessed with Jackson and Whitney in January.  The marathon had gone from my mind.

My sister and her boyfriend were planning on running the marathon regardless of what I was doing (Thanks, Sis).  As we were getting closer to the date, I was getting more and more ads on Facebook reminding me that the marathon was around the corner.  After talking it over with Maryclare, I am running San Francisco on my sister’s birthday in honor of her 29^th.

I’m interested to see the differences between the New York and San Francisco Marathons.  From talking to my sister, New York ruins you for every other marathon.   New York clears the route and it stays like that for the whole day pretty much.  San Francisco starts at the butt crack of dawn and they seem to want you to be finished before the city wakes up.  Of course this isn’t a concern in New York as it never sleeps.  I don’t mind getting pushed to the sidewalks to finish but the website says I’m an “Official Finisher” only if I finish in 6 hours.  I’m not changing this to the Under 6 Club because that’s not my goal.  6 is just on the way to 5.  

http://www.thesfmarathon.com/

194 Days/Easter

Yesterday was Easter Sunday.  I’m not going to speak much on religious beliefs because that’s not what the blog is about and I think that religion is a personal thing and your belief is as valid as mine.  However, I am still going to write about Easter.

The basics of Easter are that Jesus was put to death on a Friday.  On Sunday Morning, Mary Magdalene ran to the tomb and saw it was empty.  There was an angel there who told her to “Have no fear.”  She told Peter, so Peter and another disciple ran to the tomb and the other disciple out ran Peter, most likely because the other disciple was a Kenyan.  The stone that covered the opening to the tomb was rolled away.  This is believed to be the first example of cross training.  Long story short, Jesus had risen from the dead. 

The significance is that you can have new life.  I’ve been not dieting, I’ve been not exercising.  The good news is that today is a re-start.  I will rise again off my couch.  Thinking about what I haven’t been doing is just a waste of time.  I can't change what I have or haven't done.  It doesn’t matter where you are in terms of your training or lack thereof, declare today a “Re-Birth” and begin again.  It’s never too late.

The second significance is the phrase “Have no fear.”  In our lives, we find so many things that we are afraid of but what is fear?  Most people will use the word or a similar word to define the word, like saying “Fear is when you are afraid of something.”  Everyone accepts the circular definition but really it means nothing.  I’ve tried to define fear; I know that I’ve certainly felt it at various times in my life.  During my “Orientation to the Bar” CLE program, the speaker finally defined fear in a way that was useful and obviously impactful:

Fear is merely a lack of preparation. 

And that’s it.  It’s very simple.  We are afraid of things only because we are not ready for them.  We are doubly afraid of things in the dark because we don’t even know what it is that we aren’t ready for.  There is still time to prepare.  I make that statement confidently regarding the marathon.  It is going fast though.

A second thought on fear: Last year while prepping for the marathon, I posted an article about how I wasn’t as concerned with my time, just concerned with finishing and someone commented on me being “fearless.”  I thought about that statement and thought I was a pretty big badass.  The more I thought about it though, I was wondering what it was exactly that I was expected to fear.  I assume (although I know how much trouble we get in with that word) that the person meant that I wasn’t afraid to fail.  I’ve failed things before.  I'll fail again.

This leads me to what I think was the most important run I participated in last year, the Harry Chapin Run Against Hunger on October 20th, about two weeks before the Marathon.  It was a 10k in Croton which was a lot hillier than I thought it would be.  I almost got bit by a dog, I got lost twice, I got into an argument with a motorist and was suffering from runner's knee.  I found myself listening for Harry's music over the speakers near the finish line and using that as a guide to pick which turns I would make.  The entire time I was racing, I was cursing out my sister for making me participate and planning on withdrawing from the marathon.  Between my runner's knee and the hilly terrain, I decided that there was no way I could possibly finish the marathon.  What really cemented it was an older woman who passed me while she was speedwalking telling me I was doing a great job "just being out there."

When I got to the end, I was literally the last person through before they broke down the Finish Line.  The music had stopped playing and the other people had gone home.  It was only my sister and a guy asking me if I knew if there were any other stragglers still out there.

Since I had been accepted into the washed out Marathon in 2012 I had been posting that I was going to run the NYC Marathon.  So while on the course for the Harry Chapin Race I began crafting the post on Facebook telling people that I would be withdrawing from the race.  As I was working on it in my head, I came to the realization that it wouldn't be telling people that I didn't have the strength to finish that would be embarrassing, it would be telling them that I didn't even have the courage to start.

Today, I have the courage to start my training again.  I wish everyone reading this (all 8 of you) the audacity to believe that you can accomplish something great.  Erase the word fear from your vocabulary.  Get ahead of what is coming up on the horizon.  The journey of 26.2 begins with a single step.