Monday 19SEP2023 Blah blah blah woulda coulda shoulda

My mind has been scrambling with typical post race thoughts ... what went well, what I could have done better, what I want to do, what is realistic ... 

It is the same as it used to be, but perhaps tinged with quite a bit more of a realistic view.  It is sort of fun to watch the thoughts come in and out and my assessment of each of them.

I haven't raced in a long time.  Certainly not this year.  Doing a race creates its own weather patterns in my head.  Some good, some not so good, but probably none bad.  I haven't avoided races because I don't want to, but I haven't leaned into going to get any done either.  I should swing back to that a bit more ... it is a healthy thing for me ... as long as I am healthy about it.  

I was asked if Pikes is the hardest race I have ever done.  I think the hardest race you ever do is the one that you do the hardest.  I have done 800 meter races that have hurt pretty damn bad.  And there are 100 milers that sting pretty good too.  Both can be hard. 

The recovery however is different.  :)

I do love Pikes.  It is absolutely brutal.  I am a bit of a wreck today but I am on the mend.  My right ankle seems to be the worst of all of it, but its okay.  I am still somewhat pleasantly surprised that I didn't wipe out and rip skin.  

It is pretty clear to me that if I am going to approach this sort of thing at all with any degree of expected improvement from where I am at, I will need to ... uh, actually train on hills, get to altitude ... and get on leg weight work.  I have some sort of deficiency in the strengths of my hamstrings.  When I consider it, I could see that for years, maybe decades if I am honest ... but the degradation that comes with age has made it more obvious.  

I took Monday off.  

The weekdays of 05-08SEP2023

Each of these days were 8, 8 something miles.  Easy.  Hot.  Legs felt like crap.  I complained to GW on the start of one run - "can I ever have a day where I don't feel like complete ass?"

It doesn't set up well for running into Pikes.  I am 70-30 likely to do it.  

I'll get a taper for sure as I head to the Dominican Republic for the week on Sunday.  I get back Saturday mid day ... so the day before the race.  Not ideal, but I am not thinking I am set to run an ideal race anyway.  

There are a good number of reasons I could bail.  If my travel back is a complete shit storm, if I get some illness in traveling, if the weather for Pikes is like 2008 ... 

I don't want to bail because I am grumpy about the whole thing or my fitness is not where I want it to be.  

I don't have a hard goal other than to finish if I do start.  I have guessed it could be a 7 hour affair (4:20 up, 2:40 down).  That sounds ridiculous to me ... but frankly that is where I am at.  

Part of me is doing it because ... well, frankly, I am suddenly at that point where I am not sure how many more I can or will do.  And if I make that call now, it could be done.  So there is a bit of screw that mentality there, but not to a point of full on stupidity

Tuesday 02MAR2021 and actually ... a workout of sorts

Tuesday AM - the Eagles had some shorter hills and I decided I'd give a few of them a try.  I ended up doing 8 of them.  6.7 miles.  I managed to keep the Achilles ok, and actually my bigger issue was just general fitness.  It felt good to blow the rust out a bit, but it was also a basic reminder of laws of fitness.  That said, I need to be careful and not get overly greedy.  

I am totally digging the "Renegades" podcast with Obama and Springsteen.  It is beautiful story telling.  Very American.  Let me know what you think of it.  

Some of last night's practice.  

Was thinking this AM how I can't think of anyone I know that is not dealing with something.  Anxiety.  Depression.  Alcoholism.  Drugs.  Eating too much.  Not eating enough.  Divorce.  Relationships.  Angry about the election.  Too tied into social media.  COVID.  Cancer.  Taxes.  Racism.  Sexual assault.  Been betrayed.  Disappointed by friends or family.  Disappointed by themselves.  Emotional and mental disorders.  Loss of health and fitness.  Getting old.  Loss of loved ones.  Aging parents.  Too much of this, too little of that.  A victim of something.  Pain.  Demons.  And that ain't a comprehensive list.  It is all suffering.  It is real.  

I was also thinking about how I have told running athletes in competition that it is not how they feel in a race, but how they feel about how they feel.  This often gets me a confused look from high schoolers.  The point is that of course when you are racing at your best, 2/3 of the way into the race ought not to feel like a Sunday brunch.  It is going to hurt, and you chose that suffering.  And, if it is a fair race, the folks around you probably feel that way too.  So everyone is hurting.  How you then chose to feel about that can have a dramatic impact on how you respond to that pain.  If you feel that is horrible, and are overwhelmed by it, and mentally cave to it, you will almost certainly also physically cave.  But if you chose to embrace it and be with it, then maybe you can ride it out well.  

It is an analogy and so of course, it doesn't perfectly model how to address all types of sufferings.  But, well, this writing is more for me than for anyone reading it.  How I chose to chose to be and how to see, or how I craft the story ... that can often have more bearing on what is than what it actually is.  Not always of course, but a lot more than in the moment I wish to admit.  

And with that, we should, as much as we can look to create "lollipop moments" for as many as we can with each other.  To lift each other up, and help us be equipped to deal when the suffering comes.  I have also observed that it seems most of us are more likely to do this for strangers than those closest to us.  There is no real cost or baggage in doing it with an unknown.  But with the ones we are connected with, we create the suffering story of chess over checkers.  It is just another story.  

Nothing definitive to close this. This is not meant to be a dissertation.  It is more just babbling as I sort through this thinking.  

Inch it forward

When this blog when "quiet" I was asked by someone why.  My reply was that I had nothing really to say and so it seemed unnecessary just to blog that I had run some short slow amount that day.  

However, events like yesterday's in D.C. have often made me think I have something to say.  I hesitate to say much because I am fairly sure what I have to say is not unique, and I don't believe it has the merit to change anything.  And unfortunately, such statements seem to only create strife and more division. And so, I have tried to seek to reset my focus to the circles I can influence.  This typically means smaller and more local focused efforts vs. being concerned about what is outside that.  

This does not mean I seek to ignore what is occurring in our nation or world, but instead I have a goal to channel my energies and efforts towards the people and communities that I think I can help versus being disproportionately spending that limited time and energy what I can't, or at least what I think I can't.  By way of example, I think my involvement with young people on the local XC team or in Scouts is time better spent than restating on some obscure blog or other social media how ineffective a leader our current president is (or how our Congress has abdicated much of their authority to the executive branch and the judicial branch over at least the last two decades).  

This is not a judgement of anyone that does spend their time on those things.  Generally, I am glad there are those who do.  Arguably, in the right setting, I am likely to challenge those I know who seem more concerned about that if they can name their mayor, or ward representative, or  even their own state senators.  As you may guess, more times than not, people cannot.  

Part of the "re-start" of the blog after the recent short hiatus was that I recognized that by writing on whatever, is somehow helpful to me.  It was not so important that I had something thought provoking or life changing to say to anyone else in as much that leveraging this process of typing thoughts moves my ball forward in some way.  Of course, any interaction it might create with others also helps that, but that dialogue is an additional benefit - and not as necessary.  

I saw it stated yesterday, "sorry, I can't talk today, I am watching the season finale of United States."  Indeed.  Obviously that is a joke, but events as they are at our country's federal level are more impactful to our minds and hearts than I can ever recall.  My light reading of history makes me believe this is not the only time it has been like this, but I speak of my half century of life.  Perhaps it was before and I was just not paying as much attention, or perhaps my attention was not grabbed as effectively as before.  

So yeah, all that ... I guess I am saying a way too long fashion that I am likely to blog more here about these things.  

I recently was watching a David Chapelle comedy show.  In it, he describes how the tragic murder of a young black man helped spawn the Civil Rights movement.  I hold hope that yesterday's events, a set of events that are clearly traceable to the words and actions of single man, can in a similar fashion move us to recognize or re-recognize our short comings and what we strive to what we can be, and therefore lift us.  While I hold that hope, I recognize it is unlikely in a day or a week, or even come January 21.  But I'll look to keep inching my ball forward in that way.  

Monday 27AUG2019

No running today.  I am sore in the typical places - the legs, the arse, my feet are bit beat up, and the always interesting odd soreness in the arms and neck that one can get from a long race like Pikes.  I'll probably start jogging in the next day or two.  Not because I am training for anything but just because it is that space I seek.  I'll justify it as some sort of movement to help recovery, but really, I just like to do it.  It gives me a space.  Sometimes to think about things, and other times to think about nothing.

In past years I have been particularly contemplative post this race.  As there was little mental fanfare leading up to this one for me, I am not overly thoughtful about this one either.  Of course, there is some consideration of "hmm, so if next year ... " sort of stuff.  But plenty of time for that later.

I have been giving some thought to how my head floated around on this trip.  Early on I had lots of feelings of doubt, considering how many tacos I had ate in Tijuana the week before, the lack of specific training, how I was older now, blah, blah, blah.  In other words, a lot of excuses, a lot of negative crap.  The Q word even floated in there.  Of course, you just grind on.  You push those thoughts aside and try to focus on getting to that next aide station, that next course marker or sometimes even that next tree or rock. 

For significant periods of time in the race, I found myself in a bit of a dark space - face to face with a lot of me that I am not happy with, and struggle with ... not even in running races like this but as a person and choices I have made.  I mean, I do contemplate this sort of stuff in regular life anyway, but this came at me in more clear and undeniable sort of fashion.'

And oddly, I found this is exactly where I wanted to be.  The race had set up a mirror for me for a short period to consider these and how I want to deal with them.  I recognized that it was not what I expected to happen while climbing this mountain, but it was exactly what I wanted at that time.  I got what I signed up for.  As silly and cheesy as it sounds, I wanted to grip it a bit, because it felt true and transparent with myself, perhaps adult more than child.

I have had a few inquiries in the last couple of days as to why I do this -- specifically, why do you feel compelled to beat yourself up that way?  Couldn't you just run this thing and just keep it fun?  How many more years before you stop doing this? 

In some ways I struggle with these questions as much now as I did when I was asked by fellow students in high school, "why do you run?"  I can still give those same answers of how it makes me feel strong and healthy and the runners high and how I get to enjoy the outdoors.  And they are true of course, but there are answers I still can't describe even after doing this for 40 years. 

I don't know.  No answers on that really. Sometimes I feel the answer is just that I do it because I can.  And to not do it would be a waste. 

 I'm glad I have it.

I'll try not to complain

I recognize with my latest injury - what I think now is a Morton's Neuroma - and my other recent posts about sickness, challenges with fitness, lacking performance, a shift to coaching youth ... well, this blog has often become a grumbling of a somewhat broken down runner well past his prime is heading off into a sunset of life. 

As I attended the Dave Mackey session at In Motion last night, I realized it would have been pretty easy for Dave to have "walked away" from his stellar career (handful of course records, FKTs and 2x UROY) because of his accident.  Instead, he has come to terms with what happened to him, and sees a blessing in it ("that rock could have landed on my head or my chest and I'd be dead").  He recognizes that he is not competing for podium places anymore but instead to see what he can do. 

People leave running for a variety of reasons, but one of those I have seen is are when they cannot compete for that podium or some other perceived level of excellence.  I get it.  The miles I used to split along the way for a 10k are faster than any one mile I can accomplish today in its own right.  There are plenty of other places I could place focus and energy in my life and see improvement or results versus running, where Father Time will continue to win regardless of the levels of effort I put forward. 

So I could leave.  Focus more on this band effort thing.  Or just be a daily hobby jogger to remain fit and to get my daily fix of hard breathing.  And I might do that someday.

But not yet.  I won't PR at 5k or 10k and probably not at Pikes, but I am interested in seeing what I can do.  It comes down to really seeing if I am willing to truly be disciplined in the days, weeks and months leading up to an event and then translating that into a performance that reflects that.  Performance and execution.  That is really no different than what it was 20 years ago, even if the time is significantly greater (maybe watches run faster?).

When I first did the PPM in 2007, I recall quoting Steve Jones - "if  I am still standing at the finish, hit me with a board, because I did not run hard enough."  I sort of came to regret that comment as I became a pin cushion in the med tent at the finish as they tried to give me an IV, but the spirit of the thought is still there.  What can I get out this bag of meat that I walk around in ...

To that end, I'll try to keep the posts here as recognizing of what issues I am facing - like the neuroma - but not complaining on them.  And not complaining about aging.  Aging is something we all do.  Complaining on it is similar to complaining about being left handed or 5'8" or that we breathe air.  Whatever.   Yes, it sucks that eye sight goes, hair comes in at weird places on your body while other stuff falls out, hearing starts to fail, muscles get weaker, meh.  Complaining doesn't do anything to address that or make it better. 

Call me out when I am complaining on it.

Friday 04JAN2018

AM – got out with the Eagle crew and Jeremy P on the Ridgeview loop around to the ditch, running with the new kid from Cali.  Easy, sub 8 jogging.  My hammies are bit sore still from the weight work on Wednesday but not nearly as bad as yesterday.  Finished with four strides.  6.2 miles

Hit the weight room afterwards and saw some of the kids from other sports doing overhead weighted lunges and so I did some of that.  I talked to the weight coach (he is awesome) Jimmy Z and asked him about some stuff I could do for quad strength, and we ended up talking about front loaded squats as being more effective for that than back squats.  Got in a few sets of pull ups too. 

It was not my best gym session but I want to keep at poking at this even if only in small amounts when I can, not traveling so that I can make some strength progress.

Last night I participated in an Eagle Scout Court of Honor.  I still am active with the Troop JZ was a part of, and seeing kids achieve this rank is a special moment for them.  I recognize Scouts are not everyone’s thing – but I find value in the program in its development of young people through outdoor experiences and its focus on character and skill development. 

At the Court – which is the “celebration” ceremony where a Scout receives their rank award – and hence is a combination of serious awarding and recognition of the Scout and his family and some good natured heckling (usually by sharing a story or two of something from the recipient Scout’s history) – there is also typically a point where the Scout provides a “thank you” back to certain people that have helped him on his Scouting journey.  On occasion he may provide a “Eagle Mentor Pin” as a memento of the occasion.. 

I have had the honor of receiving these pins in the past.  I don’t take it lightly.  I view it as one of the highest forms of recognition I can achieve at this point in my life – in that I have impacted someone in a positive way, to the point where they want to highlight that. 

When I have received these in the past, I have heard the Scout say something about how I made them laugh or I helped them in their project, but last night I heard the Scout say something different.  This Scout said that I had challenged them at one of their earlier rank advancements as not necessarily being ready for that rank because they had not really performed their best.

I was sort of surprised as I had no recollection of that.  The Scout went on to say how while he was not happy about it initially, he had really thought about it afterwards, and recognized that if he was honest with himself, he knew he was capable of more and that he would strive for that. 

Whoa.

Well, I’ll say this … that is going get me to strive to do the same sir.  Thank you for the reminder. 

PM – easy four miles, with strides.  I had considered not doing this but it was so dang beautiful out after the colder temps this past week I could not pass it up. 

First day of winter resolutions

cookie decorating last night:


I am not one for New Year’s resolutions, with the primary reason being that I see no need to wait – resolve to do it now and get on it.  That said, I find this time of year tends to drive a level of self review and contemplation that comes with the business down time of the holidays.  That “quiet” and the arbitrary nature of it being a year end and year beginning seem to drive a bit of “resolution making” – even if that is a set of race goals or business goals or some other project (like 50 burgers in 50 different burger joints).

I have few projects I have been considering for a bit and I am not sure if I will do them or not.  In part I am not sure if I will do them because there is a cost in terms of actual dollars and actual effort to make them happen – and frankly I am not sure if I will be willing to unravel enough to do that.  But probably the bigger issue is that they scare me a bit – which is also part of the draw.

One is to get a few songs under my belt that I’d have confidence enough to perform at an open mic.  I have little concern about the guitar part – but a voice thing is likely to not be pretty. 

Another is to try BJJ.  This gets expensive quick, but the issue of having my face mashed into a mat as I pass out from getting choked out ain’t real attractive, but I can see the process of learning through that (so that I eventually don’t get choked out and maybe I can get someone else to tap out) as valuable.  It is also about 150 bucks a month – a dollar amount I have yet to put out for a running coach so it is hard to get my head around that.  And I have had other near quinquagenarians telling me I am out of my effing mind and I’d get hurt. 

Maybe just the 20 pages a day and the race schedule is the way to go.

More on this sort of thing in upcoming posts (and probably related to a reboot of my perceived character as a curmudgeon). 

3250 plus miles on the year. 

The Board

About 15 years ago (or 10 or 20, I don’t really know on these time things any more it seems), I was on a run with a friend of mine – David.  David shared a concept with me that I have come to make part of my thinking – the idea of your own personal board of directors. 

A company has a board of directors to – well – to do that:  set direction.  By way of this, the resolve issues at the highest level and thus, optimally, make the company better.  In the concept that David described to me, an individual’s personal board of directors were those people they could go to for important input to their life … work, family, personal, physical, emotional and spiritual growth.  Different people could serve different purposes on the board, and the board could change quickly of course – but the concept was pretty clear to me:  a set of voices that set the direction for you, the people you could count on when considering a weighty choice or dilemma, and people who could be your friend but also would not just feed you happy day horse dung all the time but would call BS on you when they saw it.

I believe the Japanese word for this is kenjinkai which I believe roughly translates to “committee of wise men” (which I don’t believe has to be specific to a single gender). 

I have a kenjinkai or a board.  It’s membership has changed slightly over the years, as people come into my life and fade away.  I have made a task of late to share the concept of the board to those people who are members.  I have some I still need to reveal this to them.   I feel there is some degree of importance in sharing this with them because it reveals to them how much I value their presence in my life, their feedback, and how I think they make me a better person. 

My board members are diverse in age, gender and their input to my life.  Some are related to work.  Some are related to running.  Or how to be a better father or husband.  Some are related to some other aspect of my life.  All are inputs to my character – or what I strive to be. 

As I consider it, there are members of my board that could be considered emeritus members.  They have left my life, but their voice still sings loudly somewhere in my consciousness.  I have been lucky to have had so many wonderful people in my life in this way. 

Enough with the “I’m old” thing

JZ seems to have enshrined his NXR SW experience.
I am trying to make it a thing where I don’t do the “I’m old” thing.  It seems to me that in almost every circle I cross through there is some quip or statement about how old we are.  “Well, I ain’t what I used to be.”  “I don’t sleep well now that I am old.”  “I don’t recover the way I did when I was a kid.”  “Youth is wasted on the young”  All that sort of stuff.

Ok, yeah I get it.  But we don’t need to drum on it because a.) it ain’t gonna change that time moves forward and b.)  it might actually be problematic in that you are creating excuses for something that you don’t need an excuse for.  Yes, I’m older than yesterday and I will be older tomorrow and Father Time wins all races but talking about it as a curse of some sort if just a waste of time, calories and air. 

Thanksgiving Day race tomorrow so I kept the run light and easy today with a few strides at the end. 

The pursuit of nothing

We got the whole famn damily  out last to go see Free Solo, the National Geographic movie about Alex Honnold and his climb on El Capitan.

The cinematography in it is truly incredible.  Really.  That alone is worth mentioning – the subject matter aside.

And the film was definitely thought provoking as it follows Honnold over a near two year period as he becomes the first to climb the entirety of the three thousand foot plus granite wall without any ropes or gear to protect him from falling. 

In the film, Honnold has lived in a van and been working on this project in some regard for eight years.  The movie takes steps to paint Honnold as someone who is wired different.  He has to be different, right?  How else is he to not freak out and seize up in fear when he is 2500 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor and his only connection with the rock is between his thumbs, his toes in climbing shoes in an area totaling about the size of a postage stamp?

But they also make Honnold seem unaware of relationships and broken in connection to others – even described by film director Jimmy Chin as “Spock” at a point in the film.  His relationship with his girlfriend is portrayed as the best relationship he has ever had but also as something he is casual and flippant about when compared to his love of climbing. 

It seemed to me that perhaps some of this is true to some level, but as you’d expect from a movie, it only captures part of the story. 

It is worth celebrating the exploration of such boundaries.  The accomplishment is amazing.   Free solo-ing El Cap is its own Bannister breaking the four minute mile or walking on the moon sort of thing in that it shifts what we think is possible. 

At the same time, there is a small voice in me that struggles with the glorification of such things.  Is it really that important?  Did it make a difference in the world really?  And if he fell to become a puddle at the bottom, would we care any differently?   Should we take delight in the pursuits of Honnold over the accomplishments of a someone who is punching the clock at some 9-5 to make it a better future for their kid?   Do we want to create a society where people have great physical feats like this but at the cost of eroding the ability to love?

I recognize the deep hypocrisy in me when I state all that.   Running every day or running four laps around the track as hard as I can or 100 miles in the trails outside of Leadville or even encouraging others to do so as well are equivalent pursuit of nothing sort of activities as well.  Or maybe/probably worse, just the pursuit of some feeding of the ego. 

If the some of the intent of Chin was to pose such questions and thought exercises, it is a great success.  I don’t have solutions or a treatise as to how I consider this conundrum, other than I am glad that we live in a place and time where we can freely chase and glorify such endeavors.   That itself is divine and a gift that we should forget.  Nor should we forget what what it has taken to get to such a place.

a’retirement

I went through 2900 miles on the year today.  There have been 11 days I did not run for whatever reason, but usually it is about travel kicking me in the tail enough that I fail to get out at the end of the day.  So yeah, flight delays weigh in there.  I’m at 64 miles a week on average, and coincidentally, I have also had 64 nights of business travel. 

I complete a half century of Sol laps next year and so the drum beat of retirement planning seems to be slowly growing louder in the distance.  It is natural of course … what to do with the retirement investment accounts, where do we want to live, how do we want to live, what about the kids, what about the aging parents, etc. 

I have long seen work retirement not necessarily as being done with work and just going off to play golf, fish or nap but instead working on more of the things that I want to work on.  I think some call this financial independence but that seems to be a weighty term.  It could be construed as a business owner I am financially independent and it could also be construed that I am doing what I want to do right now.  So maybe my definition makes me retired at this very moment.  I sort of think of it as being financially stable enough that we can be more active and dedicate more of our time in the community developments and efforts that we enjoy and make a direct positive impact. 

Of course, my views on this “retirement” thing might change.  Maybe I will just want to nap a lot more.

Anyway, all that said, someone recently mentioned to me that both he and I were “retired racers.”  It is true that our best of best days are behind us given the basic biology of age, but it got me wondering if my psuedo-definition for work has some applicability in running and racing. 

I still want to run, pin on a number for races, and chase that elusive feeling of the perfect race.  I want to do that silly ass Ass thing in Fairplay the last weekend in July.  And I want to play on that big hill in Manitou or the big hills in Leadville every August.  I want to see kids realize that they are more in control of their life through the process of running, and to have some of the best times of their life by throwing down on a track under the lights on a spring evening.  I want to run roads, trails, and tracks sometimes with no one but the noise of my own heartbeat and over labored breathing and sometimes I want to do it with friends where we discuss nothing and everything. 

Racing retirement?  Okay,  I can go with that.  I’ll have to work on the work one being as “fuzzy: I guess.

“Inch the ball forward”

Something that has been spilling out of my pie hole as of late is the term, “inch the ball forward.”

I use it to drive an attitude of “hey, let’s get something done versus nothing.”   Rather than look at the clock and think “I only have 20 minutes to get xyz done, that won’t get it done” - so I won’t do it, I am trying to get a something done.  A couple of slides on that presentation, some exercise, some connecting with someone.

These are not complete substitutes for full or dedicated bodies of effort of course, but I can do something rather than nothing in these little periods of time.

I have a notebook.  It is a series of notebooks actually.  I started them the summer than I ventured into my own business.  I mark each page with a page number and as of today I am on page 1060.   Some days there is no entry into a page.  Some days there are many entries.  Most days get a page.  Most of the days, it is the simple list of things to do.  Cut hair, cut lawn, pay bills, run, walk dogs, talk to TZ about healthcare premiums, vote, call Shad, register for race, do these work tasks, prep this presentation, submit invoices, etc. 

I rarely get it all done.  So if you looked from day to day, page to page, you’d see some things repeat many times.  Sometimes for months at a time.  Replace the mailbox post has been on there as a long term project for a while (it is functioning, I just don’t like it).  But I look to get some of it done.  Inch the ball forward, dig the ditch with the spoon sometimes, with the shovel other times. 

Be better.  A better husband, father, friend, athlete, coach, co-worker, community member, student, leader.  It is not an overnight transformation but a lot of little steps. 

Never satisfied

I am getting ready to head over to the Boulder Road Runner track meet.  These meets have been occurring for nearly as long as I can remember being here in the Boulder area.  For years, the cost of doing an event was 2 bucks.  Now it is 7 bucks for non-BRR members and 5 for members.  It is still a great buy.

The BRR Summer Track Meet results site is fun to look at … there are results there going back to 2004!  And I can look at those results in many cases I can remember the specific race … and not just my races, but the races of guys like Hegelbach, Denning, Ames, Geldean, Funke, Durden … I mean I can still visualize and remember those races they ran. 

Looking at the results from way back, I am struck by few things … first I am sort of stunned at how good some of these performances are.   There are races where dudes are running 8:30 and change for 3k.  But more than that … on top of that … I see performances that I sort of shrugged as unimpressive or even may have had some ego in looking down at that I hold in with a very different perspective now – and those are the performances of the masters guys.  Yes, seeing late 40 something year olds breaking five for the mile or a 41 year old Andy Ames running 16 flat for 5k … I’ll admit I have a hugely different appreciation for that.

Finally, when I look at my results from back then I have to sort of laugh.  I used to do the 1500 (or mile as they alternate) and 800 double.  The events are usually about 15 minutes apart so the 800 was always pretty tough.  Here are some results from a night in 2004.  

I remember being dissatisfied to some degree with the result in the 1500 and thus signing back up for some level of punishment in the 800.  Ah, good old days that I can both smile and shake my head at (as a reference I ran 16:28 for 5k in another meet that summer). 

I hold my dissatisfaction as both a strength and a weakness.  I don’t want to be satisfied because it can lead to lethargy, an ease and a contentment with being good enough … and with that you are closer to death.  I want to be satisfied with it enough to know that I did what I could and I have earned what I have earned. 

Off to the track …

Segments and plane respect

I was in the Fairfax area this week and got in some running around the work day (Larry can you see these photos?)

Sometimes my Garmin loses its mind and won’t boot (so I have to wait until it battery is completely discharged before bringing it back to life) or I have forgotten to charge it.  In these cases, I can use my iPhone as a GPS tracker using the Strava app.  This choice is not my favorite to use because it chews battery on the phone a bit more quickly and it shows only a time run, the distance and the average pace (vs. a near real time pace).  It does the job in any case.   

One thing the phone Strava app does do however that the watch doesn’t is inform me when I am approaching some established Strava segment.  Almost without fail when I am traveling in some town for business, when this comes up … it becomes some sort of dare that I cannot ignore.  The phone will inform me that I am approaching the “hairy horocrux hill climb of Hallow Haven” and I feel obliged to at least give the segment a spurt of some pace.  If I already know the segment, then I may well ignore it, but when it is new to me, I feel obliged to bite.  The problem / neat thing about this is that I really have no idea if the segment is 100 yards or several miles (unless of course it is named something like “Sisters of the Holy Hand Grenade 5k” or “Marriott Parking Lot Quarter Mile”).  I can sort of see on the phone the general path and make a guess as to what the length might be but I really don’t know (although most segments in suburban settings are somewhere between 0.1 and 1.2 miles in length. 

There is also a clock gauge that appears when you are in the segment letting you know how much time you have taken on the segment.  You can sort of judge how much of the segment you have done as this meter fills the length of the gauge. 

Of course, when I complete the run, I am curious to see how well or poorly I have stacked up in the mix.  Usually in larger cities, I end up somewhere ranked in the couple hundreds (but then I note that the top performances are almost done at 3:28 per mile pace), and if I am in a bit more isolated area, I might crack the top ten, or even snare an FKT for my efforts between two ash trees. 

===================================================================Things to remember when you travel on a plane that you don’t own (an list in progress):

- help someone who needs their bag put into / taken out of overhead storage
- give the person in the middle seat the right of way to the two arm rests
- don’t assume that you can sit in any seat other than the one you have purchased or reserved.  There are the increasingly rare occasions where there are indeed seats open if the flight is not fully booked, and you can switch seats, but don’t take the seats that are not your reserved seats until you know that seat won’t be occupied. 
- this is not the place to take off your shoes
- when standing up, do so under your own power and try not to use the seat in front of you as a gym bar to get up.   Only under extenuating circumstances should you use the body of an unknown person to prop yourself up into a standing position.
- if you elect to listen to something (like a movie), you should do so through headphones
- I too am a fan of many foods with strong odors but this not the place to enjoy such fare (also true of strong perfumes, colognes, body washes, etc).
- there are people who truly need a service animal.  We all know who they are.  Let’s not mix up a desire to travel with our pet as an expected service.
- don’t drink alcohol to excess
- stay in your seat when you sleep (meaning don’t move your sleeping self into the seat next to you)
- don’t read, view, etc the stuff on the computer or device of someone else.
- use the rest room as if you are an adult and not at frat party.  If you must fart, use the rest room.
- if you are creating an incident, expect that everyone on the plane will take video of every second of it
- when leaving the aircraft under normal circumstances, we unload it from front to back

I have some for the airlines as well, but that is probably of little use.

Journeys and Destinations

Let’s say someone had a running career that included PRs of 3:56 for the mile, 13:15 for the 5k, and 27:30 for the 10k.  Let’s also say that  this person never won a national championship, or made an Olympic team or set any records – as unlikely as you might think that outcome would be if you run that fast. 

Would that be considered a successful career?

Such a set of times would not be accomplished without significant focus, training and commitment and arguably with a goal of wins and scoring team slots.  So it is likely that this imaginary person could face a frustration of not “making it.”

In a similar regard, those of us with more modest goals – break some time barrier for the local 5k, get in the next faster wave for the big annual road race in town, make the varsity squad, win an age group, etc … are likely to face coming up short.  And with that is the question as to if we were successful or not. 

It has been my observation that the more energy we put towards the goal, the more that the actual outcome is perceived as important.  As a result, we see things like the happiness of coming in second trailing to coming in third. 

It is hard to really absorb that it was the process of what you put into it that determines some portion of that success, even if we know it is true.  I often hear people say “the quality of the process dictates the quality of the outcome.”  I am not sure I agree with that, or at least it is not wholly accurate. 

It is also interesting to me where we place this consideration of success.  We see a PR in a race as a point of success, but we’d scoff at the idea of someone claiming they set a PR in their parenting.  And that is because we consider that a single outcome there does not matter – and that it is the overall process that is important. 

Yeah, so classic “journey v. destination” stuff. 

There are stories …

The three days of the State meet left me exhausted, emotionally, mentally and even physically but I didn’t even run a step on two of those days.  It was a binge watching of competitive track that I loved, but it impacted me significantly in a variety of ways.  In some ways, not unlike a hard race.   

This ride all starts well before the State meet.  The path that each kid takes, be the kid who is just starting to run, or the kid trying to break 8 for the mile, or the kid trying to be a state champion, is its own epic amazing story.   For some of these kids, it has been an on-going journey for four years. 

There are kids who are “all in" and the kids that are doing this to prepare for another sport. There are kids who are incredibly talented versus those that are less so.  There are desires and goals, different backgrounds, different stories of how their day went, and whatever else they are dealing with.  Each is an amazing story. 

It is an amazing privilege to not only have a front row seat to there story, but to be in some part on that roller coaster of ups and downs with them.  I am not just reading or watching the story, I am in it.

They are thrilling and heartbreaking.  They are exhilarating and exhausting.  The sharing of the training runs, the workouts, and the races with these young athletes is just as profound and incredible as my own running was and has been to me.  And these days, it is even more. 

The dichotomy of the personal record

In the UK they call it the PB.  In the US, we call it a PR, or a personal record.  In other words, whatever your best performance is for a distance you race. 

It is your own “world record” or a measure of how you have performed your best for some measured distance in your whole life.  Or some segment of your life if you consider things like “the master’s PR” or some other significant to you milestone.

PRs are important to all of us, but it is pretty clear to me that they are very important to the kids I work with on the local HS team.   Some of this is driven by the so called information age we live in.  Every officially timed track meet ends up in a web database somewhere, and it becomes your own personal brand of performance.  If you are a kid that is vying for a state track meet spot, you have to put up a performance that is one of the top 18 in the state to make it to that meet in Colorado (for most divisions).  You become very aware as to where you stack, what your performance means, and if you are “good enough.” 

Even for the kid who is not a state level athlete, they naturally want to have objective evidence that they are improving.  They put in a dozen or so hours a week on the roads, track and trails in training to run as fast as they can around a track for two or four or eight laps.  With that sort of investment, it is appropriate that they want to see a return.

I encourage a focus on PRs too.  When a kid PRs, it is a big deal and I congratulate them as such.  They have done something they have never done before, and at some point in their life may never do again. 

Inevitably when speaking to a runner the topic of PRs comes up.  What was your best mile, 10k or marathon?  What was your best performance at Leadville or Pikes?  How fast were you in high school or college or as a master?  In fact, when a runner says to me that they were a serious runner at some point in their life and they can’t recall their PRs, they tend to lose some degree of credibility.  Remember when US House Speaker Paul Ryan claimed a PR for the marathon that was inaccurate?  The back lash, especially in the running community, was pretty negative.

But the focus on numbers, and PRs can be a problem. 

When kids show up to a race and it is too windy, too cold, too hot, too whatever … in other words the conditions are not ideal, and not “PR weather” they can take a dim or less than positive view of how they are expected to perform.  Or they don’t “feel” good and hence begin to think that because things are not perfect, they won’t perform perfectly. 

So while there is a consideration of PRs (or splits, or other numbers), it is not the whole consideration.  In fact PRs are not even the most important factor.  It is how you have performed for you on that day.  How did you compete?  How did you react to that competitor making a move in the race?  How did you respond on lap three?  What did you do when the pace went out too fast?  How did you overcome the weather or your less than snappy feeling legs?  How did you feel about how you felt?

This seems hard because it is less tangible to measure than a very objective number.  But we completely understand it. 

These pics above are samples from races where the finish time either didn’t matter and/or are significantly less than what would normally be expected.  But arguably, those races are pinnacle moments for each of the athletes careers and how they are considered as competitors.  Their PR is not what is considered most important when the body of their competitive work is reviewed – but rather performances where they overcame the odds, the weather, their competitors, and … themselves. 

Competere in Latin means "strive in common, strive after something in company with or together or to seek together.”  We seek a greater self than a PR in our competition, and so while a PR is likely to be an outcome from that, it should not be the only or most important outcome we seek. 

For me as a coach, I will continue to seek how to motivate and compel student athletes to these outcomes over a focus on the PR outcome, but it is clearly not a one or the other affair.

It is an oval

It is 400 meters.  And a second is a second.

While I believe there is a great amount of life that takes place on the tracks, the oval is not alive.  And hence it does not care.  It is a measured object, like a ruler or a gallon of milk.  It is just a thing.  It can’t care.

It does not care if you have trained well or not.  It does not care if you slept well or not.  It does not care if you got likes on Facebook or Insta or someone dumped you on Snap.  It does not care if you are 14 or 49 years of age.  It does not care if it is snowing or hot and humid.

The track is a measuring stick that you measure against.  You can’t outcry it, debate it, manipulate it, or force it to do something.  It is you and the clock when it comes to measuring performance.  You can’t create a different standard for you because you don’t like the standard.   Just because you don’t like what it tells you, doesn’t mean the message can be changed. 

Of course, you can ignore that standard, or walk away from it.  Maybe that is right or maybe not.  But that is you.  Not the track. 

Sure, we – that is people – we can say what we think it means when we perform on the oval.  If it was good or if it was bad.  If we felt good or if we felt bad.  If we think we left it all out there or if we had too much left.  But the track doesn’t really care.  You can make of it what you want.  But it is just a big measured loop.  It is an oval. 

Put in the reps

I was able to put in another week where I eeked out 70 plus miles, finishing it off with a 17 plus miler today with Greg and Jen.  TZ asked if I felt like I was getting stronger and I replied that I really was not sure.  It is good that I am getting in the mileage, but I am not sure it translates into me getting stronger or faster.  Certainly, it is helpful to get me better prepared for a longer race but I can’t see it necessarily translating into a faster mile or 5k at this point.  Some days the runs come easy, some days they sort of slog on. 

But I recognize the need for some level of consistency. 

TZ and I recently had our 22nd anniversary.  Some friends asked if we did anything special or if we got each other any special gifts.  While we certainly recognized the day and what it represented, and toasted each other with a beverage, the day itself was pretty similar to most days.  We worked, with exercised, we connected with each other, we did stuff to support the family, we made dinner, we walked the dogs …

So I replied that it was another day where we “put in the reps.”  My friend scoffed and asked if that was what I put in the card.  

Putting in the reps ain’t necessarily made for Hollywood and might not be romantic, but it is necessary.  You show up, you do the work, you build on it and inch the ball forward.  Marriages, relationships, work efforts and running.  Put in the reps.  Some days you might seem to go nowhere or even backwards.  But with efforts over time, you build something.