Runs With A Diaper

Race Report: "First Run" 5K

2011-01-01T12:53:00.001-08:00

A running life is one of unexpected contrasts.

Runners, seen often as lonely, pitiful and trudging along a side stretch of roadway clearly intended most especially for those encapsulated in their lavish comfortmobiles, I see myself differently and have in truth made lasting and meaningful relationships with new friends, and this sport has brought my family closer, through years of races which they have either supported, or occasionally, participated.

It was a couple weeks ago I sent a text to my sister to let her know that during the end of her holiday visit to us from Nashville, I was planning to run a 5K race at the stroke of midnight bringing in the new year. I just wanted to let her know right away that I was going to be party pooper and not be at whatever family get together was being planned.

A few days later she wrote back asking if she could join me. "Yah!" I answered. That would be awesome. Soon everyone she was traveling with wanted to run too and after that my boys and Lynda wanted to join us. What started off as the completion of a goal for myself, to do 5K, 10K and half-marathon before the end of the year (okay, I was technically over the self-imposed deadline by a second), this had turned into an EVENT!!

We gathered at our house and prepared in the traditional pre race manner--cheese crab fondue and pork ribs! Ugh! My indulgence of crap food, end of the year binge continued to the bitter end. That made about as much sense as eating a big bowl of clam chowder before going 3 miles out to sea in a small fishing boat the day before. Not too bright, but I never claimed to be.

It was below freezing outside so we decided not to arrive at the race too early. We parked in a garage and walked about 6 blocks to the World Trade Center in downtown Portland. The organizers had arranged about a half dozen "mushroom" heaters around the covered patio area so it was possible to huddle together and keep semi warm before lining up in the chute. About 20 minutes before midnight I excused myself and started jogging around the block to warm up a little.

I went to the start line in time to find the boys and we moved to the front of the pack. They had both been trash talkin' me all week, saying how any 15 or 18 year old could kill a 50 year old in a 3 mile race. No training required on their part, just utter youth. To prove it they wanted to be with me at the beginning. The race director moved some cones and we all shuffled forward to official start with about 2 minutes before 2011. I got my watch ready, wished the boys luck (they would need lots of it) and tried to remind myself of my race strategy as recommended by John Ellis: go out strong, hit a stride and race the last half mile or so. The countdown started and...

Happy 2011! Oh wait! RUN! And fast too. I knew I needed to run a 6'45" pace to meet my goal of a sub 21 minute finish. I really questioned my ability to pull this one off. My running had been inconsistent the last week and I had filled in the gaps in my exercise program with plenty of holiday eating and drinking. I just felt heavy and lethargic, not exactly where you want to be before lining up at the head of the pack at a 5K trying to set a PR. But there I was sprinting across the starting mat and running the half block of Salmon Street before turning north onto Naito Parkway.

Now trust me, I'm not an expert on what 6'45" feels like, and with my pace man (Randy) absent, I was on my own figure it out. Hmmm, that's where technology enters the scene. I had cleverly set my watch to display "average pace"so all I had to do was run like an idiot, check my results on the display, and adjust. First time I looked down at it it said 5'50" something. Good, I can slow down after completing the first section of my strategy--good aggressive start. Now just find a pace that felt 6'45"ish, or a little faster, if I could.

The boys were just ahead of me. They were wearing the same white long sleeved "First Run" T-shirt that all of us had put on. My sister and I had gotten them earlier that day at packet pick up and it was an easy thing to decide that we all wear them to show our unity. The boys also wore new running shoes that we had gotten at Fred Meyer a few days earlier. All they ever wear normally are the much in style high-top basketball shoes, and they don't work well with their flat bottoms on a road for running. So they got new running shoes for a 3 mile effort.

I passed the boys at about third of a mile out. It was a special delight to pick off the mouthy 15 year old who had been mixing in a plethora of condescending chuckles with his claims of assumed running superiority. I didn't say a word. I just pulled past and let my ever disappearing self do all the talking. G o o d b y e suckers!

I had no time to gloat. At this pace I was anaerobic before I had run the length of a football field, sucking wind almost right away and slobbering like Secretariat on the final stretch of the Preakness before I even saw my first illegal firework explode just a short distance ahead. Quick peak at my watch: 6'15" pace. I judged I might be able to hold this speed if I was lucky. After all, I'm tough and this was only 3 miles. Simple an exercise in mind over matter. I'll just beast my way to the finish. I came to a spot where they were separating 5K runners from 1.5 mile walkers and estimated I was about 1/4 through the route. That lifted me a bit because it seemed so soon. Maybe I would be okay? Hell yeah!

The road curves to the left a bit and leaves the high rise area of town and becomes an area of older brick buildings which have been restored into condos and quaint shops. It was about here that I got passed on the right by a guy in faded jeans, work boots and and yak hat. He ran just ahead of me for about a minute before abruptly turning hard left into my intended path going quickly to the sidewalk and shouting "screw this! you people are nuts!" and I realized I had just been had by a merry prankster. Good one! And that lifted my spirits too.

I was really working hard now and looking forward to the turn around point. The lead runners were coming back on my right side and I recognized some of the people I had lined up with and resigned that I probably should not have been so near at the start. Oh well. I made the turn myself and became curious how far back the boys were. I saw them in a few minutes, looking fine and still running together. Some of the New Years party goers made comments to us as we ran past their celebrations. All of the things I heard were good natured fun and it added to the atmosphere of the race. Things like "why don't you give that up and come in and have a drink?" Hmmm! You really mean it??

I heard Lynda yell at me and waved as we crossed each other. I was happy that she had wanted to do this race but now felt a little sorry that she was struggling "alone". I came once again to the split and felt some relief in assuming I was 3/4 finished but was also able to look down the straight road ahead and saw police car lights that marked the area near the end and that still looked very far away. I thought this would be a good place to employ the third stage of my strategy and push for the finish - but I was already to maxed out to push for the distance I could see before me. I'd have to hold off awhile longer. My ability to push harder just wasn't there.

A few times I caught myself starting to wander mentally, for just a few seconds here and there, but quickly pulled myself back and kept my focus on my pace. A street light came up and I used it to look at my watch again: 6'38" now. Damn, I'm slowing down! I checked again a minute later: 6'41"!! Dammit! Should have not been so cock sure earlier!

Okay, it was time to push for the end. I need to hold this pace to the end. It's going to hurt, but the opportunity is now. Go with everything that's left! There was an older guy just ahead of me and to the right. I used him as someone to pick off and so to find a new pace. After I went by him he tried to take me back but couldn't hold it and faded.

Ahead now I could barely see runners turning right and heading to the finish. To my delight I found that the police cars were actually blocking traffic several blocks beyond the end of the race so I had a shorter distance to run than I was expecting. That inspired me to find even a little bit speed and I added an extra step to my gait.

Back onto Salmon Street and all the hoopla, bright lights and arch just ahead. There were three mats laid out across the street and I wasn't sure which one was the finish line. I figured it best to consider the last one the true finish and just kept going to make sure. Stopped my watch at: 20 minutes 43 seconds.

A new PR, 43rd overall and 5th in my division. 2 seconds faster I would have been 3rd!

The boys came in together a short time later and I am so proud of them! They both want to do more races and maybe even train for them! Lynda did good too and the the girls from Tennessee completed their races with big smiles on their faces. My sister did the 1.5 mile walk with one her 67 year old friend Betty who had been an inspiration to me all week long. Betty went from sledding trips on Mt Hood to whale watching miles off the coast and everything in between and never slowed down. I gave her a big old hug when she got done.

It was a fun night. You see, running really isn't a lonely sport at all. It's a place where family and friends come together and sometimes do something extraordinary. Happy New Year!

Running For Boston

2010-12-09T22:33:00.000-08:00

How lucky am I anyway? My family puts up with my running schedule. I have wonderful running friends who support and inspire me with their own active lives. I have a best friend who can kick my ass on the road every day but instead stays back with me, setting the pace and helping me see the road ahead. And a coach, whom I have never met, who has for years never failed to send an email each Sunday night with his plan for me for the following week.

With all this help, all I have to do is... run.

My coach... I never take John's help for granted. The most meaningful thing I can give him in return for all his caring, dedication and rigor is running his plan with...well...caring, dedication and rigor. If he's going to take the time, so am I and with heart felt thanks.

So it was late last July when I sent him a quick note from my phone asking if he would help me get ready for Boston. I knew Patriots Day was still more than 8 months away but I just had to know if I was coaching myself or if John would want to make the huge sacrifice and start helping me again. If he said yes, I expected it would be sometime after the calendar clicked over to 2011. That would give us 3 1/2 months of training.

John did say yes and that was a huge relief. But what shocked me was that he wanted to get started not next year but right away! By the first of September we were in full training mode with weekly plans. John wanted me to sign up for a couple fall races, a 10K and a Half, and made two big changes to my running since qualifying for Boston the previous December--slow down but run more miles each week.

A magic number emerged, a heart rate of 140 beats per minute. Early on most runs needed to be run under this rate even if it meant walking. By the end of the month I was up from 20 miles a week to 25, and then to 35 miles and eventally up into the 40's in November. My average HR was 20 BPM slower than a typical run in the Spring and Summer.

The new year has brought with it an increase in quality runs, meaning a mix of tempo, speed, strength and long distance. The challenge of these workouts comes at me from two different directions. Not only do I have to commit to meeting the intent of the work but I also have to do it in the cold, wet and dark of winter.

Some of the toughest barriers in these workouts have been seeing my watch in the black of night while it poured rain. My Garmin has been irreplaceable during this training cycle but there are times when it gets so wet when it's raining that it cycles through its different screens every time a rain drop hits it or the bezel no longer responds at all. To avoid it going into this lock up condition I'll lock the bezel before it starts wigging out. But that limits it's function and doesn't allow me to use the light when I need it most.

The road to Boston. By the time I get there I'll be lean and mean and ready to run. Well, with a little luck.

Race Report: Give N' Gobble 10K

2010-11-26T10:21:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving morning was unusually cold for this part of the world, so close to the ocean that our temperature changes are very modest from one part of the year to another. But it had even snowed a tiny bit the night before! I wondered when I woke up if the course would have any slippery spots.

I had everything ready, or so I thought until I dug through my workout bag and couldn't find my gloves. It was 31 degrees outside and I really wanted to keep my hands warm. With less than 45 minutes before the start of the race, I got in my truck and headed back home just to get my darn gloves.

This diversion cut into my planned warm up time. It was my race strategy to start off the line rather aggressively so I wanted to warm up for about 10 minutes before. Warming up before a race isn't something I usually do, but with the cold weather and early fast pace planned, it seemed a good idea. That opportunity lost by being a dunderhead, instead did some jogging around the Sherwood High School where the race was starting and then headed to the start line.

Randy was running this race with me. Initially he wasn't going to be able to because his family was gathering out of town for the holiday, but his son's football team had made the playoffs so the two of them were staying home. We walked right past the line of runners already in the chute and boldly took a position right at the front of the group. I looked up and saw a sign that stated "5 to 7 min runners here" and backed up a full step. I looked behind and saw another sign for 8 minute milers and eased into an area between the two. Randy, true to form, never gave up his position in the very front. I turned on my Garmin and kept an eye on it as it acquired satellites just a moment before the start.

Off we went. Somehow, and this always happens, it seemed like there were way too many runners ahead of me. Didn't we just leave and I was at the front? Where did all these people come from? I told myself that the first 500 yards does not a race make and let these guys go out too fast. I had a plan. Stick to it.

I spent a lot of time watch watching in this race. It's a short race and if you fall asleep and don't track your pace the whole time there is little opportunity to make it up later. My overall pace needed to be 7'14" to meet my goal of a sub 45 minute race and in the early going, which was supposed to be aggressive, I did a 7'11" during mile 1 and 6'55" on mile 2. So far so good.

But the early speed and spirited downhills took their toll on my quads right away. Before mile 3 I felt my legs fade away on one of the last of the rolling hills on this back stretch. By the time I got through mile 4 I had used up nearly all of my early cushion of time. Later I would see that my heart rate was maxed out during almost the entire race, averaging 175 and hitting 185 at the end. I was working hard and I was conscious of my labored breathing. I had run with or ahead of Randy up to now but at 3 miles to go he was just ahead of me.

During my early exuberance I had shouted back at him "This is our house!" in an encouraging way of reminding him that other runners had come to run in our town and we were about to enter Brookman Road, our favorite training route in town. Defend our course. But that zeal had ebbed quickly and I struggled just to push on down the road. A road so familiar to me. I run it at least once a week and is my favorite route from my house. The horses, cows, goats, llamas, orchards and barns are all old friends. This was our place and we needed to run well.

The group I ran in remained constant nearly the entire race. There was a lanky guy about 30ish who seemed to lope along effortlessly and woman about the same age who seemed very fit and was able to rear back and hawk one off to the side with extreme confidence and skill. I'm always impressed by that, maybe because I'm so lousy at it.

The plan was to "race" the final mile and a half. It seemed reasonable before we started but now I wasn't so sure what was going to happen when I tried to push. I thought I might be able to pick it up just a bit but I was feeling pretty spent and was laboring to keep up. We made a right turn off the street and onto a bike path that runs along a green way.

That turn seemed to help. The narrower route, change of scenery, and knowing we had just one more mile to go gave me a boost. At one point, when I sense him drifting, I even managed to be able to ask Randy to speed up as we hugged the left side of the trail, walkers from the 5K now on our right. I was also finding inspiration from my watch that showed that we were a full second behind the pace. Doesn't sound like much, but it really does translate into meeting the goal or not. Not much route left to make up the lost time.

At the end of the path there are a couple of short but very steep pitches to be dealt with and then we popped back up onto the subdivision roads. The high school was just a few blocks away.

This confines of the path were gone and now had room to sprint to the finish. I gave it everything left...so did everyone else. We made one last turn back into the school yard where we had started and ran for it. I crossed the line and someone reached for me and tore a tag off my bib and handed it to the timekeeper as I clicked the stop button on my watch: 44'51". Nine whole seconds to spare!

I actually felt kinda sick after this one. Maybe I hadn't eaten very well beforehand, maybe I'm just not a speed guy, but I felt a little queasy and the right side of my face around my mouth felt sort of numb. It all went away quickly but this type of thing for me is more typical after a marathon, not a stinking 10K.

I wandered over to the football field area where the snacks and drinks were being given out and talked to some people that I knew about how I did. I walked back to my truck to get a bag of food I had brought and put it into the back of a U-Haul truck, this is a charity event after all, and headed for home.

The next day the results were posted on the website: 38th overall (ain't ever going to catch those kids), 31st man (got chicked 7 times!), 1st in my 50 to 54 division and set a 10K PR.

Not bad for an old guy on a cold Thanksgiving morning.

Race Report: Columbia Gorge Half Marathon

2010-11-14T00:30:00.000-08:00

I had no idea what to expect. One the one hand...I had been running over 30 miles a week for some time, but on the other hand I still had the memory of the torturous Helvetia Half swirling through my pea brain, but back on that first hand I had been concentrating on base work and lost some weight, but then back to the other, this was in the gorge and the course very hilly.

Lynda and I gotten up way before the sun and headed toward Hood River, which is over an hour away. I had my running clothes in a bag and a couple of Jimmy Dean "D~Lite" turkey sausage breakfast sandwiches wrapped in foil for the ride up as my pre race meal. I had eaten one of these before the CIM so now I fuel up with them before long runs and races, partly for the protein-salt combo, but partly for the superstition of it. I also ate a banana.

After dawn we arrived at the park where the race festivities were set up and were there in plenty of time. I wandered over to the big white tent on the grass and picked up my race packet and bought a shirt, a knit cap was the clothing that came with registration. I went back to the car and got dressed. I tried pinning my bib to several different spots, front of my shirt, front of my jacket, and eventually settled on the right leg of my shorts where it wouldn't matter if I shed an upper layer.

The full marathoners started to gather on the green a half hour before my own start. I got out and help see them off to a raucous ovation as they poured through the beginning gauntlet amid shouts and smiles. No sooner had they disappeared down the road then the half marathoners started filling the chute and I made a final short trip to the car to grab my water bottle and diaper. Not far to the west hung a drapery of dark clouds. They reached for the chop water of Columbia like dementors in a Harry Potter movie and they were moving our way. A thin rainbow suddenly appeared brilliantly nearby and added to the glory of the morning.

I got into the crowd and twisted and slithered my way closer to the start. I've gotten more aggressive about my placement at the start over the years. It's not my way to be pushy but if you're there to get some good numbers it just makes sense to get past slower runners before the clock starts ticking.

The clock started ticking. I swear the same guy announces every single race! It's like airline pilots, the same one flies every commercial jetliner and speaks over the intercom, or at least it sounds like the same guy to me. So no sooner does he get us started but the wall of rain slams into us as if on cue. Perfect! The wind whooped up and the skies just poured down with an icy rain. But it was awesome. Surrounded by fellow runners, amid a shared experience, I couldn't have wished for a better place to be in that moment. As we splashed into unavoidable mud puddles on the unpaved road through the park the guy in front of me shouted "[mother nature] is this all you've got!"

The downpour didn't last and in a way it was refreshing, even baptismal. For a moment I regretted not bringing gloves but that quickly faded as I warmed up. The path took a hard right and the pack pinched a bit as we began a short traverse over a small suspension bridge. Several of us commented to each other about the strange sensation of our feet not meeting the bridge surface in the same place they left it as the span undulated in response to a multitude of stomping.

We followed cones and the direction of volunteers as we snaked through the old buildings and shops of downtown Hood River, Oregon. This part of the course, like most of the early part, was mostly uphill as we ran away from the river and up into the foothills of the gorge. The road becomes so steep after leaving the town that it resorts to a series of sharp switchbacks to hasten it's ascent.

It was in this section that I had the most dread. I had bombed in Helevatia after the early hills there and I didn't want a repeat performance here. I started the climb remembering John Ellis's words "steady going up and attack going down." I found a good rhythm and a nice stride and got comfortable, enjoying the feeling of powering uphill and being able to stay into it. The road eventually leveled off some and then gave way completely to become the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail, always closed to vehicle traffic.

At this elevation the world I ran past changed from one of an open conifer forest to a drier one of scant pine and small oak with rock bluffs. The scene around me, and refreshing itself continually, was so amazing that I almost felt propelled through it. Even in that moment I was ever aware of the beauty of this place. The incredible vistas of the gorge and river, the iconic white guard rails of the old road and the fall colors. Everything was perfectly placed it seemed.

This is where I found my race pace. Here among my kindred and here in one of the most beautiful scenes imaginable, I found my rhythm and a grace. My legs had carried me up and now I was able to flow along the edge of the chasm with relative ease. Mindful that it was still early in the event, a sudden lower extremity failure was still a possibility as I contemplated the halfway mark, but for now I just motored ahead feeling great.

Just before the M6 marker the road pitched down and wound toward the turnaround cone 3/4 mile ahead. This gave me a huge lift. If I could climb this hill on the way back and feel good at the top, I should be golden. I attacked the down grade, got my first sight of the race leaders already heading back home, and after a few minutes could see the entrance to the tunnel ahead. Up to this point I had been using my Garmin to keep track of my overall pace. But as I went into the tunnel it gave me the loss of satellite alert and from that time on the pace data was no longer accurate. The autolap feature would still give me mile splits based on where the watch thought it was, but it no longer matched the mile markers along side the road. No matter, I still had a good idea of my pace and as it turned out I didn't really need to worry about pace much after the tunnels anyway.

The turn around point was just on the far side of the tunnel. It struck me that this was only the 1/4 point for the full marathoners, the race I had initially thought about entering. I rounded the cone, politely declined water from the volunteers at the table and headed back toward the tunnel. I glanced down at my watch: 52 minutes. I was on pace for a 1'44" finish. I started back up the only long steep grade left on the course and while I still felt fine, it was much longer than I expected. When I finally crested the top, I tried to remember-was there another hill later on? Could I recall any type of significant downhill on the way out? No, I don't think so. It just might be that that was it. It could be gentle hills and downhill all the way now! Awww man, let's do this! Stay steady and get ready for the downhill. Runners were still trudging up the hill in the other direction.

There was a little hill to climb at M9 and then IT hit. The road to Hood River bowed before me. Attack! Attack! Attack! I raced what was left of the course doing sub 7 minute miles on average all the rest of the way. I told myself that the only thing that could go wrong would be some type of stress fracture from hitting the black top so hard. I picked people off one by one occasionally giving an apologetic "sorry, gotta go" or just a "hey".

I flew through the switchbacks like a Ferrari and made the last sweeping turn before coming back to civilization and flats of town. Flaggers were stopping traffic for me at a four way stop when I saw Lynda on the corner with her camera. I smiled and waved my diaper as I ran across the road and coasted toward the final mile which would be winding through downtown once more.

Gone were all the other runners and now I had this sinking feeling that I might f--- up and take a wrong turn. Shirley, I mean surely, this was the way we had come from the under the Interstate? Wasn't it? Yes, I can see someone up ahead and they had to have come this way. Yeah, I remember this underpass with it's dripping water.

I went back across the suspension bridge which was much more stable this go around, took a hard left and pushed to pass a much older gentleman who I was quite shocked to see ahead of me. How? What? Where did he come from and how in the world could he be ahead of me and moving so slow now. No matter, he has to be passed and we'll sort that all out later.

At this point in the course you can look over just a short way and see the finish line, but the route takes you back out toward the river before doubling back and entering the chute. When I got there I gave it a little gas and crossed the line with my fingers on the stop button of my watch. Finishing time of 1'41". Not a PR but not bad either.

They handed me a finisher's medal while I stood there immersed in my post-race euphoria. Not a metal medal, like my others, but a ceramic one, brown and rectangular with a embossed imagine of the gorge, with a guard rail in front. I slipped it on and grabbed a bottle of water. I had worn my Ultimate bottle filled with a diluted Gatorade mix but only took a few sips during the race. I looked over and saw Lynda near the big white tent and walked over.

One of the advantages of finishing this early was being the first to eat the much touted food. No line yet for the Taco Del Mar meal and a hot bowl of home made black bean soup. Lynda wasn't hungry but she sat with me while I ate in the nearly deserted tent, steam rising from me and from the delightful soup. Afterwards we went back to the car while I discretely changed into dry warm clothes. It started to drizzle so I added a rain coat at the last minute.

We milled around for awhile watching the others come in. Eventually the first marathoner came across which brought about clapping and shouts. It started to get cool and we likely would have left had I not thought that I might have placed somewhere in my division. So we waited, standing mostly just inside the tent. Eventually they did post the results on a nearby wall and I patiently waited in a short line to take a look. And there I was...42nd overall, 36th male and 1st in the 50-54 age group. My first trophy!

Well not a trophy but a half-dollar sized blue disk framed with a funky bike chain with the race info etched on it. But my first one none-the-less. I waited around to get it by way of standing on the highest section of a podium-- which was kind of embarrassing. I shook hands with the second place guy but third place decided not to hang around to get his bike chain ribbon.

I hadn't known what to expect to be sure, but in the end it turned out to be a pretty good day.

Root, root, root!

2010-11-10T23:28:00.001-08:00

In 1984 I became a die-hard, life-long Chicago Cubs fan. It was easy. They were on TV every day when I took my lunch break, they wore all-American red, white and blue uniforms, were storied with an adorable history of mediocrity and they had a marble mouthed old announcer in WGN's Harry Carey. Their product marketing hooked me, I bit down hard and eventually passed the frustration of being a Cubs fan onto my own kids, you know, to make the suffering a family affair.

There was another team on TV every day back in the mid 1980's. The Braves were the other "Super Station" team forcing themselves into our living rooms and they even dubbed themselves "America's Team". I could have just as easily become an Atlanta fan I suppose, but I went the way of the Cubs and have successfully resisted the allure of closer baseball markets like the Mariners.

A few times each season the Cubs and Braves would play each other and of course the games were then available on both super channels. One day I decided to flip over and see what the game looked like on TBS. After all, Harry's son Skip was the announcer for the Braves.

Oh my god! What was this? I was shocked at how one sided the coverage was! The Braves this! The Braves that! The wonderful freaking Braves! And whenever there was a close play or anything that was at all controversial, these idiots always sided with the rotten Braves! It was so unfair, so biased and so blatantly pro-Atlanta I couldn't stand to watch. How could they be so stupid, so blind and never ever give credit to the Cubs? And their fans! Those mindless morons with their ridiculous tomahawk chop and incessant chant -- over and over again! I couldn't take any more and quickly flipped back to channel 9! Ahhh! There. All is right with the world again. Good old Harry. He understood. He saw things the way I did. He made it feel right, even when we were losing, even if we were wrong, Harry could show it to you through the eyes of a Cubs fan. But Harry, how could your own son be such an unreasonable and such an obvious purveyor of pure trash? How could your own flesh and blood see things so wrong?

This bias is worthy of some contemplation I think... but of course it is just baseball.

Medicare costs alone are going to bankrupt our country in less than 20 years and the damned libs want to e x p a n d it and make it bigger not smaller. Worse yet, they want to give it people who sit on their asses all day while I get mine up at 5 am and go to work -- and I still run out of money between pay days -- because these jackasses are better at pulling money out of my wallet than I am. Not only that but most of these lazy freeloaders they want to give my money to weren't even born in this country and probably came here just to hop aboard the run away government gravy train that is Obamacare.

Crack pot ex-lobbyist Tea Baggers were just installed by into the US house of representatives courtesy of an mass investment in huge big lie propaganda techniques funded by corporations with resources in the financial, insurance and oil industries. You see they stand to lose a great deal of that wealth of theirs if the current policies of eliminating their tax breaks, fucking with their insurance scam business practices and switching to alternative energy are allowed to continue. They are business MEN and putting out the big bucks to sway the ignorant masses was a simple investment. After all, that's why they bought up all the radio and TV media over the last many years, to control the message and perfect the delivery. C'mon guys repeat after me: "Laurie Dhue, we love you"! Oh wait, she's not on there anymore. Too bad. She was a good one.

Oh it's all so confusing! Which channel should I watch? It's so much work flipping back and forth and trying to figure out who's lying and who's telling the truth. It's so much easier to just pick one and leave it there. Look! There's breaking new flashing across the screen! My god, what's happened now? Another terrorist attack? Another pregnant woman killed? You know those women, the weaker sex after all, they're either getting pregnant and then come up missing or they're looking hot and reading news stories on TV.

They sure don't remind me of Walter Cronkite. Or Eric Sevareid or Daniel Shore or even Bob Scheiffer. Stuffy old white guys, which is a good thing, but when they reported the news back in the day, they at least tried to be objective. Didn't they? Now don't get me wrong, I don't believe for a second that at any time in our history the press has ever been totally objective. But I do believe that there was a time when reporters prided themselves on at least attempting that purpose. They felt a sense of honor and pride in trying to understand the news in Washington DC, and the rest of the world, and trying to explain it within the limits of a nightly half hour newscast.

Some of these guys even thought of themselves as the "fourth estate". A necessary overseer of the three branches of government. A free press as advocated for us by none other than Thomas Jefferson, to watch closely the doings of our elected representatives and report back. A responsibility to watch over those in power and provide yet another check - an independent check. This was the news our fathers listened to and after a lifetime of reporting, one these old time newsmen was even dubbed "the most trusted man in America". A TV news guy!

Well all those people are gone now and things are quite a bit different. Today the media creates the news and gives no pretense at objectivity and many times concocts the days talking points which are then read by their corresponding politico. The tail wagging the dog. No fourth estate and no trusted men.

So let's find someone to blame for this mess. How about the politicians! We know they all suck and have no real interest in truly representing us. They're going to go right along doing what they have always done and that's the work of those that installed them. Make no mistake, you gotta play the game back there or you're out. Think you can actually get to Washington and go rogue? Absolutely not. You'll never get on a committee and you'll certainly never get any financing unless you play ball with the big boys. You learn that on your first day. And we just keep going along with it because they sometimes call in the cameras and come out and one more time and give us the canned crap that we want to hear: they're for smaller government-- or they're going to stop the ice caps from melting. Whatever feels good to you. Whatever issue you want to adopt and rally around, they have plenty of them to choose from. Pick a side. Choose a team. Adopt a mascot.

We can also blame the so-called media. We all know that MSNBC and Fox News are nothing but 24 hour brainwashing machines funded by those with a lot to win or lose. They know exactly what graphics to put up on the screen, how long to stay on one story before your attention starts to wither, what type of stories to run and how to space them, who looks good reading them and which way they should part their hair, all so you'll keep watching and getting your daily dose of bullshit. It's all very calculated and it works very well.

But I'm not going to blame them either. I'm not going to blame the media-- or the politicians who work for them. I blame all of us. Because we're lazy, because we're too busy to pull out our own old tax returns and look for ourselves to so see if our taxes really do go up under one party or another. Or don't really want to admit to ourselves that we've been duped all these years and maybe our team doesn't really lower the deficit like it claims or produce more jobs or influence the stock market to help my retirement 401k. All that type of real information and more is readily available to us but how many of us take the time to look? How many have the guts to look? In the end all we have time for is watching a our little channel during dinner or maybe before going to bed at night.

But I'm counting on us being smarter than this in the long run. I'm sure that just about everyone, not just me, sees the futility in this pick a side, back and forth every 2 to 4 years, absurd cycle that we're in. I'm simple enough to think we can turn this whole thing around and stop all the wasted motion, while the fat cats sit on top of the fence and watch us fight amongst ourselves down in the alley and become poorer and poorer. Divide and conquer. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

But we have to have the courage. The courage to seek out our own truth, whatever the truth is, even if doesn't fit what we believe now. To become our own fourth estate. The courage to be the type of person that passes along that truth and doesn't take part in the spreading of lies. And if you don't want to know the truth and want to continue to be told what to think, why don't you at least stop spreading the propaganda? Whatever happened to self respect and your own honor? How can you be someones lying little email bitch? How can you stand being their monkey?

The real answers are there. No media outlet needed. No political ad required. Just real information that smart caring people have access to and can ponder and make real decisions. It takes a little effort. Now I'm not smart enough to know where a little truth could lead. Maybe it would just make our broken system better. Maybe it could lead a truly empowered party of the people. Because in the end, despite what we get told every day, we all pretty much want the same things. We just have to have the courage to find that out.

Because politics isn't baseball. Politics matters. But hey, I'm just a simple Cubs fan and as we all know the Sox suck and the Cardinals take it in their Pujols.

Lose It!

2010-08-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

I want to keep it real. And not to make excuses, but if I were living in a slightly different time, keeping it real would be a lot easier. In other words, I would like to do nothing more than put on my running shoes, have them transform me into something that I can not be, and then go for a run -- free on the earth.

But no, I am in this time and so surrounded by all these toys and gadgets. I'm typing on one right now. (An aside: I obviously have not been typing much on this gadget lately, especially for the purpose of adding to this blog, simply because I have not made it a priority. I find that with more time outside I have less time inside where the gadgets are, and by the time I do get in it's bed time. One of the reasons for this blog was to put myself "out there", as a motivation to run more consistently. I have been running anyway, so the only thing that has suffered is the exploration of my thoughts through the organization of them into a readable semi-readable form.)

So as much as I would like to keep it real (an expression I stole from Alice, a fellow runner at work), I am as addicted to this technology as anyone. But fear not, it's all part of my master plan to bump back down to books, postage stamps and sketch pads in my quickly approaching older years. We shall see. (Another aside: I haven't written in awhile so I'm enjoying all these nebulous digressions. Please bare with me.)

Other than Boston next spring, my running goals are fairly hazy. I have a yearning to run the Columbia Gorge Marathon this fall and I would like to take a real stab at breaking the 6 minute mile barrier. But neither of those things are concrete enough to give me real direction. I haven't yet plunked down any money on the race and my concentrated effort in meeting that single mile objective doesn't make sense until I drop the last few pounds of my muffin top. I've set a goal weight of 180 pounds before I start training for that.

Which leads me, f i n a l l y, to this entries topic. (I wanted to say this weeks topic but it has been too long since I have committed to a weekly entry for that to be proper.) I've said before in this blog and I still believe that we make maintaining weight and losing weight so much more complicated than it is. Now I understand some of the reasons for why this happens; people write books or make videos for profit and confuse the issue with a lot of imagined or soft science ideas and we, the over weight, buy them, especially when they tell us what we wanted to hear in the first place: "Forget low fat! The secret is low carb, high protein! Throw the steaks on the barbie!" Oh I like that diet.

I'm going to blog about this same idea sometime, parties telling people what they want to hear regardless of the actual product, especially as it applies to today's politics. But I am not going to take the time right now. Suffice it to say for now that I am very disappointed in our system and perhaps even more disheartened with our culture who seem to pick their politics like they do their sports team, more by locale and what color their f**cking slogan comes draped in. We blindly follow whatever these hired mouth pieces say when, just like a professional sports player, they could have just as easily played for the other team if that's where their money was coming from. But we the "fans" cheer for our side regardless of the realities, seeing every play and close call from our biased viewpoint. But.....I said I wouldn't get into that now. So where was I? Oh yeah...steaks on the barbie.

So like politics, you really already know what's right. You really already know how to lose weight. I don't need to tell you. Right? But okay, I'll just say it. Again. It's simply calories in versus calories out. Throw out all that crap about metabolism rates. Throw out all the confusion about insulin levels. Throw out everything you've been told about 65% of your lunch plate being protein but at dinner it can be as much as 72%.

All those things might be true, or maybe none of them are, it doesn't matter because your weight is no more complicated than the amount of fuel you shove down your pie hole (I love the movie "Fever Pitch"!!) in relation to how much of it you use up during the day. As my friend Alice might say, that's as real as it gets.

Which is where I want to introduce my new little gadget and get a little...well...unreal. I was browsing my phones app store when I came across one that does little more than track your calorie balance. It's called Lose It! and it's been very helpful to me in keeping track of intake and out flow of calories. Here is how it works:

After initially entering your vital stats and setting a goal, you start recording your food and your exercise. For example I entered my age, height and weight and that I wanted to lose 1 pound a week. The app gives me a budget of just over 2000 calories a day. It makes the assumption of a base daily calorie use. If I don't exercise that day, my goal can be rather tight. If I run for an hour, I have lots of breathing room. It's pretty easy.

At first I was looking up a lot of new foods on the programs built in database (it's not getting things off the Internet). But after awhile they are collected in an alphabetized list which you can spin to from a wheel you flick with your finger. Exercise is easily entered too. I just enter how long I ran and about how fast and it subtracts the calories from my daily total. You see right away where you are in relation to your budget goal for the day. You can also see all kinds of reports: graphs of your progress, a list of favorite foods, even a nutrients break down if you just can't let go of that low fat vs low carb debate.

I'm more than half way from my starting weight of 198 to my 180 target, so I can be ready for race training. This simple app has kept me honest and given me the information to manage the only number that count. Calories. And it can't help but work because it's just keeps track of the simple math equation. In and out. It just doesn't get any more real than that.

Mitchell Part 1 "Camel Humps" (Part 2 below)

2010-07-02T13:28:00.001-07:00

A modern Google Earth view shows a school which has not changed much in 37 years

I didn't much like P.E. class back in 1973. I was a 7th grader at W.E. Mitchell Junior High in Rancho Cordova, California and WE JUST DIDN'T HAVE ANY FUN. What did do was run. Run for punishment. And we ran on a hot, dry, dusty, pumice dirt track.

The school itself was intimidating, especially to a kid who had just left a small grade school. Mitchell was more of a campus, resembling a small college more than a public school. It featured an outdoor area called "the quad". The modern bunker like buildings were laid out symmetrically, one side the mirror image of the other, and lunch was served not in a cafeteria but at series of windows where you stood in line and picked things off a menu like at a snack bar.

The three P.E. teachers, one was named Doherty and another Stephenson, were sadistic evil men. You could see the cruelty in their small bloodshot eyes. I'm not sure how they rationalized to themselves the heritage of negative experience to exercise and an active lifestyle that they were promoting year after year, but somehow it was allowed to continue.

After dressing down it all started with lining up on the tarmac outside the locker room for attendance and uniform inspection (A). Mitchell did have cool P.E. clothes. The shirts were reversible so potentially, if we should ever have time to play a game against each other, half of us could turn our shirts inside out. Unfortunately, I don't remember this ever being done. In fact the only time I ever saw the blue inside of the shirt was when I brought it home on Fridays to be washed. Everyone would roll the uniform up by putting their shorts on the shirt and roll it from the bottom up and pull the sleeves over the whole thing locking it in place. This made a type of crude football that we would play with while waiting for the bus and exposed the blue color that we otherwise would never have seen.

The outside of the shirt and pants were white with the blue logo of our school mascot, a lavish Marauder straight out of a pirate movie.

So we left the locker room and lined up alphabetically outside on the black top on our assigned number. I still remember being number 8. It was easy to take attendance that way, your number wouldn't have anybody standing on it if you were absent. The coach, usually Doherty, would start at number one, dressed in his navy blue mesh outfit and hairy bull legs, and start on down the line making notes about who knows what and having some comment about your appearance or said nothing. The whole ritual took a good 10 minutes and seemed such a waste of time. Then the fun started. He'd step back from the line and we'd all wait for the announcement:

"Three laps!"

"Ah crap" and off we'd go heading for the track. In those days there was a water fountain on the edge of the track and to make sure we didn't short him a full lap we had to begin and end by going around it (B). I was dreadfully slow, and like today, melted in the Sacramento valley heat. The track seemed endless and having to circumnavigate it two, three of four times seemed as if it would never end. I hated it not just because I was slow and dorky but because it was meant to be punitive.

You see when we got done running we reassembled back on the tarmac (C) , now panting with hands on our hips, in rows and columns for some seventies-style "calisthenics"; push ups, sit ups, windmills, up-downs and squat thrusts (and I was hoping to save myself for marriage!) we would knock them out in a cadence we screamed out as "one-two-three-four, two-two-three-four, three-two-three-four" etc... A couple of the suck up stud kids were made "squad leaders" to lead the rest of us each day.

It was hoot. But we weren't done yet. Hell there was war on and in five short years we might all be heading over to Nam kill someone or something.

All the jumping jacks being done we next moved over to the obstacle course (D). This consisted of a series of parallel bars, monkey bars, tires, rings hanging from chains and other galvanized contraptions which you negotiated or tried to. But the worst part was saved for last and we unofficially called the camel humps. This was a set of parallel bars in the shape of a camels back. You would jump up on the bars holding on with your hands and locking your arms so you were perfectly upright, use your knees and legs to kick your way up the first hump, down the other side and then repeat on hump number two.

Needless to say most of us couldn't do it, at least not early in the school year. Some kids never did do it. In fact some bigger kids never got more than a couple of feet up the first hump and then would just drop off. We all knew it was coming but we went through the ritual every single day. The same humiliation for the same kids over and over and over.

And this is where the punishment part came in. The "coaches" would take the number of boys who could not complete the obstacle course, divide that number in half and that's how many laps we started off with the next day.

"Four laps!"

By the time we got done with all this there was generally 5 or 10 minutes left to play whatever activity had been planned. Yee-haw!

It was all different after we packed up and moved to Oregon halfway through my 8th grade year and thank goodness gym class is different for my kids today. They have a love for being active. But back at Mitchell Junior High it just wasn't much fun and worse it buried the only athletic chance I chance I had-being a runner.

But there was a positive note that evolved out of this whole experience and I'll explain all of it in the second part of this story which I'll call "Two Stripes"...

Mitchell Part 2 "Two Stripes"

2010-07-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

I never accepted the challenge 36 years ago. It seemed so unattainable, yet I never forgot it.

The physical education curriculum that so turned me off of physical activity did throw down a gauntlet of sorts and it has been laying there on the ground at my feet for all this time. I'd have to say that it was the only honest challenge of the entire P.E. program that could have caught my interest, but because of the poor delivery it not only was wasted on me, but I don't remember anyone else attempting it.

It was extremely simple: adding one or two blue bars made of cloth to the leg of your white gym shorts. Just how did you earn a bar for your shorts at Mitchell Junior High School? You might have guessed it...run around that damned track.

The rules were very simple too; run a mile. One blue bar if you completed the mile in less than 8 minutes. Two blue bars if you could do it in under 6.

I didn't get either one.

But... I want it now. Not the stupid single stripe either. Heck, I've already earned the single stripe lots of times. Fact is, I ran eight minute miles 26 times in a row just last December. What I want are those two blue bars. And if I can do it, if I can someday run a mile under 6 minutes, I'm going to buy a pair of while gym shorts with navy piping, just like the ones I had

so many years ago, and put those darn two bars on the pant leg and what I should do is call Mitchell and insist that they make good on the deal by looking around the old coaches office, seeing if they can find one of those patch sitting back on an old dusty shelf and send it to me.

But first I have to accomplish the feat. I can probably do a 6'30" right now if I push, but that's still a long ways to go. My plan is too lose a little more weight and start doing some training to work those fast twitch muscles. And then go for it!

It's going on forty years and I'm finally going to pick up the gauntlet.

Race Report: 2010 Helvetia Half Marathon

2010-06-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

Dan, John and Randy with me after the race.

John and Randy wear their ribbons.

A baseball player can stand at the plate, having done nothing to prepare for the game, and get damned lucky. Maybe the pitcher is serving up meatballs for lunch. Maybe the coach has the outfield shifted to the left and the batter gets and outside pitch. Maybe he simply closes his eyes, sticks his bat out into the the strike zone and something good happens; bloops one over the shortstop's head, right fielder loses the ball in the sun, gets hit by a pitch.

In baseball, as in most sports, the phrase "it's better to be lucky than good" has a place. But in running there is no luck. It's the most honest sport around.

It was with this known fact in the back of wee brain that I arrived at Hillsboro Stadium yesterday morning. It was a glorious morning, cloudless after a late spring of incessant rains. I had ridden with Randy and a group of his buddies that he does the Hood to Coast with each year. These are good people to hang with, the most inspiring is John who weighs about 130 pounds, runs a sub 3 hour marathon and would finish this day the winner of my division. Yeah, my class winner drove me the race!

John winning wasn't that great of a surprise, even in a big race of this size with over 5000 runners. The surprise came in that Randy earned a third place finish for his group! Man, I was hangin with the big boys!

I milled around with the other guys inside the stadium until about 15 minutes before the race when they moved us out onto the street to line up for the start. This was my third Helvetia so I knew the routine. Once in place I got my watch ready, pressing "Training" and letting it lock onto a couple of satellites and making sure it was reset to zero's. I also went to the "Virtual Partner" screen and dialed in pace of 8 minutes thinking I would be happy to maintain that speed.

I had been looking for Alice from work all morning knowing that she was also running, but in a swarm of that many people it's far from a sure thing. She's tall so it helps that you can scan the crowd a head above most of the others. Standing in line waiting for the start I knew my odds would be better since we were lined up more or less by intended pace. Our race times, all things being even, are very similar, her marathon PR is just a minute faster than mine. But she's in much better shape than me right now so I scanned the queue toward the start and sure enough I found her making small talk with the people around her, but too far away for me to shout a hello.

The race started and I pushed my start button when I crossed the mat. The roads around the stadium are pretty wide and despite the number of runners it's fairly easy to find a lane to run in. We crossed the bridge over the freeway and glided into countryside on the other side.

I was starting out with Randy and that means going out fast. I've run enough races with him now to know the pattern, disregarding the conventional wisdom for an endurance race he doesn't waste any time. But I had no serious goals for this race or master plan of my own. If I went out too fast too early, as I suspected we were, no big deal. I was running with my buddy and that was fine with me. We averaged 7m 45s's through the first three miles. The virtual partner on my watch had a nice bright screen.

But this is where the hills start, climbing hundreds of feet for the next two miles. At first I thought I might be okay but then reality slapped me in the face. I was feeling weak in the quads, not winded or tight, just weak. The fifth mile is the steepest on the course and I took 8 minutes and 46 seconds to climb to the top. Randy was probably 75 ahead of me now and I was already ready to be done - but I still had 8 miles to go.

I did take advantage of the downhills. Purposely taking myself out of gear, shortening my stride and careful not to use any brake, I made up some ground on these all to infrequent reprieves. I thought about keeping my same slow uphill pace on the downs and using the added time to recover but decided instead to use the opportunity to practice doing the right thing. It was about this time that I noticed something else about the day. Mentally I was taking myself out of the game.

My smile was gone and my tired legs wanted nothing more than to pull over into the gravel and walk for a while. It's funny but one of the things that kept me from doing just that was seeing other runners who had succumbed to the temptation. "No, keep going. See how you feel in a mile or two. Just keep pushing for now." I knew the course and if I could just get past all the hills in the front half maybe the road back to the start would be more manageable. "Keep going and let's find out."

I made the right turn onto the road that leads to the turn around cone. I recognized an encouraging sign right away. The other times I had run this race the elite runners were already streaming by heading back in the other directions. But this time the left lane was still empty. That did give me a little bit of a lift. Yes, I was tired and wanted to be anywhere else, but for a few seconds I saw the bigger picture.

Over the years I continue to get stronger and faster as a runner for the most part and this was an sure signs that I ran with faster runners now. I tried to hang onto that thought for as long as I could. Any encouragement at this point was all I had.

I rolled along more small hills and past some lavish homes. The lead runners did appear, to shouts by some of us commoners, but the words were ignored as they strode on by, rhythmic and stone-faced. It occurred to me that Alice would be coming past soon and that I should look for her. The thought had no sooner entered my head than I saw her coming at me. I managed get her attention by shouting her name and she turned and smiled and shouted back "good job" as she went sailing by.

The route enters an area where the road twists and turns and is more tree covered. I knew the turn around was just around one of the bends ahead. As I approached it I saw Randy and guessed he was now more than a full minute ahead of me.

I rounded the traffic cone and doubled back. Again, I grappled for the positive and found a small comfort in knowing I was about half way. Every step now was taking me closer to finish and not farther away. I had been running more or less in the same pack of runners, several becoming very familiar as we took turns trading places on the hills.

But now I was fading and they seemed to be maintaining their same pace. I went from my hoped for 8 minute pace to an 8'15 and then to an 8'30". The virtual partner window on the Garmin had been dark for several miles now. Worse ye,t I was already starting to get twinges of cramping in my left leg. I tried to put my focus on the scenery and get some cheer from the farm owners who had come out to drink their Saturday morning coffee while giving encouragement at the edge of the road, but I did not feel much lifted. I just wanted to stop and join them.

I continued on. Then I noticed something else at this race. Nearly no one was carrying their own water except me. It's true that this race is very well supported, they have HEED and water stations every two miles, but I expected to see more people taking care of their own hydration needs on such a long run. Maybe this was a another difference having joined the ranks of faster runners, certainly elites did not pack their own. But I have gotten so used to hydrating myself for anything over 8 miles and I don't like slowing at water stops, gagging and only getting such a small amount of liquid anyway. The only time I broke stride was near the end of the race when I did stopped for a sip of Heed after drinking everything from my Ultimate Direction bottle.

The hills on the first half of the course had taken their toll. My legs were totally gone. This was a feeling I really had never felt before. Even in the last few miles of a marathon I had legs at the end. I may have been cramping and may have been exhausted but without those problems I was still plenty capable of running. But now my legs were heavy and weak. Runner after runner picked me off in the last few miles and I had no answer for them. It was not a matter of will or mind over matter, I was going as fast as I could and 8'35" was about it. I turned south and hit the gravel road seeing the freeway in the distance.

I thought briefly of Bob when I saw the Port-a-potty he had ducked into for several minutes many years ago when Helvetia was my very first running race. It seemed like a long time ago and back then waiting for him for several minutes was no big deal.

The gravel on the road forces the racers to run in one of the two rock free ruts created by the normal car traffic. I stayed to the right rut unless passing someone, which didn't happen very often. A left hand turn now and back onto the pavement, running parallel to the freeway which gave occassional toots of car horns from friendly motorists.

This stretch is where I really started to see other runners falter. Several decided to walk and one pulled over to the right and nearly stumbled to the ground. But most just kept slowly making their way past me. One girl offered encouragement to me as we approached the overpass that goes back over the freeway and her words did help me power over to the other side. I ran slightly ahead of her for another half mile but after turning left and running back toward the stadium, she passed me and I was powerless to stay up.

Now we were back among the modern warehouse buildings separated by patches of green fields. A mile to go. That's all that was left, less that nine more minutes. A twist in the course and I could hear a small band playing some up-beat music. A good sign that this was nearly over. Another turn and now more people on the side lines shouting encouragement. The white stadium spires were plainly visible now and finally a more concentrated group along the road and the din of the loud speaker at the finish started to be apparent.

Suddenly I felt some lift in the my legs as I turn toward the finish area. I dodge my last pair of walkers from the 10K race and entered a ski fenced area in the stadium. I found a little something left in my legs in this last 50 yards that allowed me to look stronger than I was in the end. I powered forward, crossed the last mat under the blow up arch and remembered to press the stop button on my watch.

DONE! Thank gawd! I walked and over and get a medal from one of the volunteers and slipped it over my head. I looked up and to my surprise saw Randy still just a head in the finishing area. We talked about how tough the race was with our lack of preparation. We collected bags from the check area and headed up the stairs to the adult beverage station. After beers we stood in line to make a burger and sat at a picnic table in the warm sun to eat it. It was really a relaxing time.

When we finished they were beginning to announce the winner of the race divisions. We strongly suspected that John had done well and I as I said, we were right -- FIRST PLACE. But the surprise was that Randy came in third in his division and without really doing anything special for it. So I was really inspired by the accomplished company I was hanging around!

As for me, I finished in 1 hour 48 minutes which I think is about an 8 minute 15 second per mile pace. That's six minutes slower than the last time I ran Helvetia back in 2007. But I got out of it what I was able to put into it. You can't cheat a road race. You can't do better than you have trained. There is no way to simply get lucky in this sport by showing up unprepared and hope everything simply works out.

In running you can't just stand at the plate and pray you get a walk.

Memorial Day Weekend

2010-06-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

THREE SHORT RUNS

One of the things I plan to do when visiting a place is to go run in it. What better way to experience somewhere than to open yourself up to it by pushing yourself through it's space? Most of the time that works very well. I get out it at least what I had hoped and usually more.

Consider where I have run recently and you can see what I mean; along the rugged Oregon coastline, skirting the rim of the Grand Canyon at dusk, completing a point to point marathon in my childhood town, scrambling across the arid Arizona landscape, encircling the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol and passing everything in between. My experience of those places is different and better for having taken the time to simply run through them.

So I was excited to find that there was a bike and pedestrian trail near the hotel where were staying in Medford during the long holiday weekend. The Bear Creek Greenway runs roughly north-south, hugging the banks of it's namesake, reaching from Ashland to Central Point.

The trail was easy enough to find, just down a block from the hotel, past the Ford dealership and onto the two lane blacktop path. Sure enough the path does follow "Bear Creek" but what was not in the brochure (remember that line from City Slickers when Billy Crystal has his arm way up that cows backside?) something else also follows the creek-- the I-5 freeway.

There are places where the space between the Interstate and the next tract of private property is wide enough for the path to move away, and give some measure of nature and peacefulness, but mostly you hear and see a lot of cars and trucks whizzing by.

THE GIRLS WENT RUNNING TOO

Side trails divert off and connect to the neighborhoods and business areas, old spray paint writings that once marked mileage and turn around points for past 5K or 10K races occasionally gave hints to busier days on the trail and of course I sometimes saw other runners or cyclists going in the other direction.

I ran all three days while we were there, struggling to find the motivation to do 3 miles the first time, followed by 5 and then a 4 miler. This lull I continue to muddle through is a product of my knee pain, feeling slow and fat and just not having a clear goal that I'm excited about. In a way, training for anything less than a marathon now just seems not worth really training for.

It was different when I had a more open schedule. I could plan to do a run, like up at Forest Park, and make a big deal about it. I mean that I could plan it, set pace goals, push myself and get it done. Now I barely have time to get out, and when I do I just try to "get something done". How fun is that?

So I know I'll work through this and get back to my happy place, but for now running has become just a meaningless grind. No discovery. No new layers revealed. Hard to get out there.

And running along the freeway in Medford is no Grand Canyon.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/35098962

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/35098972

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/35287704

Race Report: Bridge to Brews

2010-04-22T18:03:00.001-07:00

The website made it plain that driving a car to this race was a bad idea-no good parking it said. So I had thought about using the prescribed method, that of riding the train. Trouble was that I would still need to drive for 15 minutes just to reach the light rail station, so it just added a lot of time and complexity to something that could be very easy if parking were actually available. I just couldn't believe that parking on the street would be a prob and as it turned out, I was right. No big deal.

So once out of the car, it was time to do some moving under my own power. Randy and I had plenty of time to walk around the brewery blocks and
scope things out before the race. We stood in a line to get our packets and then another for a pink bracelet which proved we were over 21 (duh) and could drink beer later. Then I checked my jacket to be held until later, which meant that I had to find some warming slivers of sun to try to keep comfortable until we started to exercise.

Some of the organization of this pre-race time gave me a feeling of amused coziness. There was some comfort in the quaint aire here and a casualness not found in bigger races. I thought it was funny that a beer sponsored event started off with a kids race, wondered why the main events were similarly sized 8k and 10k distances and really got a kick out of the announcer guy who kept giving directions such as "line up just to my left" as if more than 10 people knew where he was, could see him and knew which was his left and which was his right. If this had been a more elaborate race some folks may have been annoyed, but as it was it just added to the fun.

Finally we did start running, but after getting re-corralled at the last minute Randy and I ended up in the back of the pack as we crossed the start line. This meant the first mile or so was extremely slow as we chugged up a short hill in a huge clog of fellow runners and twisted through a series of street changes. Some people, myself included, cut corners on the sidewalks in an attempt to get past the wall of slower runners. The last minute shuffling had reversed the order and faster runners were now stuck behind the slower. Not to mention the walkers who see no problem lining up 5 or 6 abreast. This situation lasted long enough that many of us hopped up on the sidewalks once in awhile when the predicated pace was so slow we could find no other way around. It was the type of start where runners are side stepping through parked cars leaping and zooming ahead when the smallest of seams appeared. But again, it was all part of the small race experience.

But things did straighten out and the crowd did thin eventually as we headed west toward the Fremont Bridge.

Wait a minute! Time out!! Did I mention Fremont? I just can't let this opportunity pass. All two or three people who read this blog with any regularity know that I have tendency toward some things historical and one of my all time favorite figures is John Charles Fremont. Here is the short version of the story.

Randy about to cross the Fremont Bridge

When I was 14 my family moved to a house on Huntington Road in the small berg of LaPine. Not all of this long road through the woods and along the Deschutes River was modern at the time but the section in front of our house was at least paved. This road we lived along had been the major north-south path for humans for a long time. Native Americans used this trail for maybe hundreds and hundreds of years before whites eventually turned it into a road and we got there and put up a mailbox.

It was just a fluke that I stumbled upon the book about Fremont at the old Bend Public Library but was amazed to find that his 1843 expedition had come down our very street back when it was no more than a trail. The "Pathfinder of the West" had just left Ft. Vancouver and it's host John Mcloughlin and was heading home using a different southern route. He was accompanied by the notable Kit Carson and escorted by local Billy Chinook. But the thing that sparked my imagination wasn't the famous names but a piece of hardware--Fremont's cannon.

I would stare out at our road and picture them moving from right to left just inside the trees from the rivers meadow beyond. The trail was well placed; the trees offered some protection from the December weather but the water in the river was just a moment away as needed. Bringing up the rear of the party was the howitzer and it's crew.

Fremont wasn't even supposed to have the "12 pounder" which he sweet talked from a friend before leaving St. Louis. This wasn't a trip that was supposed to have the appearance of a military operation. Tensions with Mexico were high and heading toward California with a big gun was not something that helped the delicate balance of power. Fremont's intentions were otherwise, he just wanted to intimidate the natives, which he did a few days after passing our house when he approached the Klamath area. He had been warned about by the trappers back at the fort of their poor relationship with the whites so when he saw campfire smoke rising on the far side of the Klamath marsh he had the gun fired. The smoke quickly disappeared and he never did have any encounters with the locals--at least not this time.

From here Fremont turned east and the cannon was towed through three feet of snow toward the dessert where at one point it's route was blocked by a steep drop off. Snow swirled around them. Below in the dessert, the sun was shining brightly on an inviting lake and a enticing campsite. Fremont dubbed the landmarks Winter Ridge and Summer Lake, names that are still used to this day.

The party continued east and south passing the area of modern Reno, and at one resting point the official artist of the group actually sketched the cannon while it sat at the shores of Pyramid Lake, Nevada. Little did he know that the days for the little cannon were dwindling fast.

It may have been at this very camp when Fremont changed his plans. The expedition would not be heading east toward home but instead would cross the Sierra Nevada mountains in mid winter to hunker down at Sutter's Fort in Sacramento. The group barely survived the experience but the cannon was abandoned in the hills after days of struggling to get it through the snow and terrain. It was probably cached in hopes of retrieving it in the spring, but they never did go back for it. It's fate became a fascination of mine as I pictured it still buried where he left it some 150 years earlier.

The cannon that rattled past my home and it's story didn't stop there in the mountains south of Lake Tahoe. In 1856, Fremont ran for President of the United States as the first candidate of the new anti-slavery party...the Republicans. He was a national hero with ton's of name recognition so his opponents looked for things to tarnish the image. The malicious requisition and subsequent loss of the cannon made the newspapers and the debates and in the end Fremont lost the election. He didn't lose because of the cannon issue, but it didn't help.

Four years later a different candidate represented the Republicans, and he won; yeah Abraham Lincoln and the great Civil War. A small twist of fate and everything would have been so different.

Now the Fremont Bridge loomed ahead me. Approaching one of Portland's most familiar landmarks, I was just about to be mildly disappointed and then slightly annoyed. First, I had assumed that we would be running over the top deck of the bridge, going with the traffic, dwarfed and humbled by the enormous arches which support the road deck. But I was thinking like a motorist, not a pedestrian. The southern most lane of the lower deck had been coned off and we were now obliged to run through the cavernous innards of the bridge while cars came streaming at us. Yeah, the view was okay out the sides but it wasn't what I had expected.

The annoying part was that my watch needs to see some satellites to get a fix on where I'm at and how slow I'm running. By mid span I realized that the GPS was all over the place trying to get a signal, huge spikes showing up on my downloaded route map later. No accurate run data for this race, but as it turned out that wasn't such a bad thing anyway.

We shifted gears and coasted down the ramp on the west side and entered downtown Portland, familiar ground to me when road racing. Many of the roads we used now were the same ones I had seen twice before while running the Portland Marathon. The route we followed however was ever turning, reminding me of the pattern of a Egg Scrambler ride at a carnival. Eventually we spun ourselves onto Naito Parkway, the former Front Avenue, but renamed a few years back to honor a champion of Portland business who, coincidentally enough, was not Caucasoid.

The Broadway Bridge with the Fremont behind

We made a few more turns to line us up to cross the Willamette River again, this time on the red trestled Broadway Bridge. Half way across I pulled out my phone again and stepped aside so to have Randy take a picture of me with the Fremont in the background, but the photo didn't turn out.

Back on the route and having long given up on any notion of such silly things as PR's, we chugged past the Rose Garden arena and back up the hill toward the Widmer Brewery. I just stayed consistent and followed the crowd for the last mile. We ended strong, sprinting across the same line where we had started, this time aided by the down grade.

My attention now turned to my race bib. It had three tear away tabs on the bottom of it, one marked with the word "FOOD" and two with "BEVERAGE" which to me meant just one thing: Widmer Hefeweizen.

I may not have run very fast but I still got in soon enough that lines had

not yet formed for the beer.

The Fremont from the Widmer Brewery

Later, some people would not even bother getting in the long lines, or got so frustrated at the slow going that they threw their beer tickets on the ground. This was a fact that Randy and I noted and took advantage of, each of use easily finding one extra tab and got in line for another round.

The drink was good but the food was a vegetarian wrap that was a bit blah. Still the music was loud and the weather warm and the day was a good one. We walked the few blocks back to where we had wisely parked that morning and headed for home.

Still On The Blue Bubble

2010-04-03T10:31:00.001-07:00

Hello planet! I'm still here and still running...and behind the scenes, still blogging. I have been working on an entry that has to do with some abstract ideas and I want to get it right. I remember reading a response from Hemingway when asked what he found most challenging about writing. He answered very simply, "the words". That's where I have been. Trying to get the words right. Uh, did I just compare myself to Ernest Hemingway? Eeek.

Running has been going pretty good. Despite being less consistent than I would prefer, I have had some good strong runs recently. At least my perception of the efforts has been positive. The other night for example Randy and I ran late in the evening just to get something done and it quickly became apparent that we were both feeling especially spirited and had a good rhythm going. To me, I felt the middle miles were about an 8'15" pace and after years of doing this I like to think that I have reasonable guesstimate of how fast I'm going. But when I got back and looked at the numbers, we were really running much slower than that, closer to 9 minute miles.

Yesterday I went down to the track to do a speed workout. I was supposed to do two 1-mile repeats with a half mile jog in between but, as is my style, I procrastinated for so long that I only had time for a single mile at the goal pace of 6'50", plus the warm up/cool down miles. I'll do it right next week, but again I felt pretty good.

Oh, I forget to mention that as of last week I am training for the Helvetia Half Marathon in Hillsboro in mid-June. To give me some semblance of a training program I printed up the free plan from the Runnersworld website using my CIM finishing time, a 30 mile/week average and a desire to work "very hard" as the criteria. So that's where that speed workout came from yesterday. I have nine weeks to train but doubt I can PR there because Helvetia is very hilly in the early going.

Tomorrow morning I going to run the Bridge to Brews 10k. No expectations--just going to go have fun. The name of this race seems wrong to me. There are two bridges and you get one complimentary beverage at the end, so shouldn't it be "Bridges to Brew"? No matter. I'll just have to have two Hef's so it will all make more sense. Should be a good time. Still not clear if I'm driving and finding parking or taking the train.

Both of the websites I use to log my miles have had big upgrades recently. Garmin Connect has a lot more data and options now, and has the cool toy of seeing your run in the "3D" using a Google Earth viewing choice. And over at Buckeye Outdoors, which is my "official" log because I can adjust the mileage if my watch doesn't capture it correctly for one reason or another, Ben has given his site a huge upgrade. It includes a faster and easier download of data from my watch that I can even get on Garmins own site!! Not only that, but his doesn't even require using an antenna plugged into the computers USB port. And not only that but it automatically lists all my mile splits, which I didn't even bother recording on Buckeye before because it took so long. Really cool! All that shows up in the right sidebar on this blog automatically too. Now if he could just find a way of filling in the comments section without me having to type them in, I'd be REALLY impressed.

So yes, to my single "follower" (THANKS TONI!!) after years of adding to this awesome blog, I am still here and I still have lots of ideas for things to write about. Just caught in a little backwater at present. But things are good and all is well.

4-17-2010

Gateway Loop Trail

2010-03-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

I think self-videos of someone running are silly but since I went to the trouble of taking my phone out on the trail and risked damaging it in this rugged country, I'm going to waste another blog entry here this week.

As it shows, running uphill even at this modest elevation of 2000 ft is an aerobically taxing experience. Cruising down the other side is a lot easier and much quieter.

Never did find out the name of the mountain this trail circumnavigates. The times I thought to ask a volunteer at the trailhead, they were either gone or already talking to someone.

Ran out on these tough trails three times during the trip and luckily didn't get hurt, although I had a few close calls when I nearly rolled an ankle but caught myself just in time.

I think it will be awhile before I post another running video. It's just not that interesting. But just the same, here is the last one from Scottsdale, Arizona:

The Horseshoe Trail

2010-03-21T09:05:00.001-07:00

I'm a trail runner now, I know because I bought trail running shoes yesterday! To prove it I've put a video at the top of this weeks entry. That's me running on the Horseshoe Trail, which is a part of the Gateway Loop in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve outside Scottsdale. Last year I ran in this system of trails too, a little more to the south.

I knew the parking lot was a big one at the Gateway Trailhead. It's home to more than just parking, there is a new service building there too which the people there are quite proud of because of it's green innovations. Even the building itself is made of what could be called recycled material. Some walls were built from the dirt excavated from the building site.

There are always volunteers at McDowell trailheads to give the users, which have all levels of experience and ability, an idea of which trails are appropriate for them and those vols were busy because as Lynda and I pulled into the parking lot we saw something unexpected. The lot was completely full.

It wasn't long before a spot opened up and we headed toward the trails. Under the gathering area awning we found printed maps and one of those Plexiglas covered 3D relief maps. Since we didn't have a ton of time and we needed to get our trail feet under us, we decided to go for a short run along a flatter trail. Also the main trail was packed with the owners of the those cars out in the lot. I estimated from the relief map that the Horseshoe trail would give me most of the 3 miles I was after if I did an up and back.

The night before I had stopped at Sports Authority and bought a pair of trail shoes. I choose another pair of Nike's, a pair of Air Alvord VII. Hey, they have stoneguard technology!! Whatever that is. So I was anxious to see how they handled. BTW, I am so sorry to the Nike workers in Indonesia who work in slave like conditions for nearly no pay. I really am.

Down the Horseshoe trail I started, which begins close to the parking lot and away from the main trail. It started out gently and then headed for the hills. In the course of a just a mile I nearly rolled my ankles twice. Not the shoes fault but it scared the hell out of me. This area is much more rugged than the Dog Wash trail I ran on last year. Every step is loaded with rocks to negotiate and I had to pay attention the entire time.

Eventually I got to a section of more popular trail and had to share the it several times with hikers and few other runners. The trail is so narrow that I came to a walk while we passed each other. I kept thinking about the brochure I read earlier about the trail and how it was so negative about trail runners, saying they are generally rude and only being worried about their run time.

I got to the 1 and a half mile point on my watch and stopped for a moment before heading back down the same route. I made it back to the Trailhead Building before Lynda so I got a sip of water and waited for her while sitting on a bench in the shade. It was just a short run. But I do own the shoes now so... I must be a trail runner.

The Cook Park Route

2010-03-09T22:32:00.001-08:00

Just the other day Alice at work asked me if I had any favorite 20 mile running routes that I could recommend. Now there's a question that you don't get every day. And for her that's a question that you really can ask of only a tiny number of people that you see in your every day life.

She started working in our office a few months ago and it wasn't long after that I over heard her talking to someone about a run she had been on. Not really having said anything to her before, I now had an icebreaker to get to know the new person. "So I heard you say that you run sometimes..." I says. "Oh more than sometimes" says Alice, "it's what I do--when I'm not here at work". Good answer!

I found out that she qualified for Boston for the first time this year too, but because her qualifier was Portland, which occurred before Boston stopped taking new entrants in mid-November, she actually gets to reap the rewards and run next month. Being at the peak of her training cycle, the question about a favorite 20 mile route made some sense. Runners keeps a mental recipe file of routes that we like and choose from them depending on our needs for a certain workout. When I want a mid-length route thats nice and flat and I can start from home, I run to Cook Park and back.

I've been using this route almost every week during the winter, usually as my Sunday long run. On Fridays I've been running Brookman, which I have already written about in this blog, because of it's series on undulating hills and for that feeling of being further out in the country than I actually am. On Saturdays I've been hitting the track. But on Sundays I just want to put in some long slow miles on a level route that is safe from traffic and has a destination as a turn around point. Cook Park.

Now if I leave from my front door and make the out and back, it's almost exactly a half-marathon: 13 miles. But most of the time I'm too lazy to put in those extra three miles and because I live at the top of a hill, I have to finish those miles with a steep climb. Since I'm not training for anything, I usually opt out of the longer harder option and drive down to the bottom of the hill making the route flat and an even 10 miles.

I park at my dentists office, he doesn't know or care because it's Sunday, and head out usually listening to Fdip and sipping on some Gatorade. The first mile is really noisy as I run down Tualatin-Sherwood Rd to 124th. That's how we name a lot of our roads around here. They just get the name of the two towns that the road connects. Go figure. Anyway, once I start north on 124th the rest of the run is pretty quiet as I navigate thru open warehouse and big office building areas surrounded by lots green space. Last week as I was going along one of these roads I startled a Great Gray Heron who took off right next to me and coasted to a landing a short ways away. It was cool.

After a few miles I get into what is left of the historic area of Tualatin. Of course it's hard to tell because they really have done nothing to preserve any of the old part of town. It's a town that's very unique in that it has no core area where it began. It's all gone. But I run thru the area where it used to be which includes a skate park, ball field and boat launch. I head north along the Tualatin River sometimes taking the old trail thru the woods and other times the new paved walkway. It depends on weather and how much light there is.

Pretty soon both trails converge and then rise slightly to cross the river using the new Ki-a-kuts bike and pedestrian bridge. The bridge is named in honor of the last Chief of the Atfalati (pronounced AT-FALL-i-TEE) indians who lived in this area before we got here and "improved" it. The indian tribe name is actually the source for the name of the town. Atfalati became "Twality" which became Tualatin. Again, go figure. But I like the new bridge. Just bikes and people walking their dogs. Lots and lots of people walking their dogs.

On the far side of the bridge is a turn in the path that leads to Cook Park, which is just a few minutes away-when you run as fast as I do. I run along the other side of the river now, go thru a little area that is supposed to be a butterfly garden and then hit the parking lot to the park. From here I usually run deeper into the park just to get to the proper halfway point according to the Garmin and then make the about face. There are restrooms here which I usually visit. Ya know, I was sipping on that Gatorade.

I gave Alice a short list of some of my 20 mile routes. Honestly I don't have that many and the ones I do have, most everyone else uses too-Forest Park, two laps around the Waterfront Park/Esplanade/Sellwood loop. I mentioned Champoeg which I used several times when I was doing the big numbers last fall, but she didn't seem that interested. Running routes are like that I guess. They're kinda personal.

Here's a video I took with my phone last time I ran across the Ki-a-kuts Bridge:

Froggie Went a Courtin

2010-03-03T17:30:00.001-08:00

Spring comes early to my house this year

It's the first of March and I've already mowed the lawn a few times. Except for a one time fling with some un-forecasted snow one afternoon back in December, this winter has been amazingly warm and dry here in Pacific NW.

Most years it's the crocus and daffodil's poking their heads out that catches my attention and gives me the first clue that we're returning toward the light. But this year it was the tree frogs with their chorus of kreck-ek, kreck-ek. Yah, just as soon as it stays warm enough at night the males break out into song to attract that special...uh...mate. One of them will start, and then not to be out done, or out romanced, soon the entire pond is... umm...krecking. And I say good for them.

http://www.uoregon.edu/~titus/herp/chorus.wav

Toni's Mug

2010-02-26T17:04:00.001-08:00

A simple brown box arrived in the mailbox today with nary a numeral used in it's return address. That's the first thing I did as I stood beside the mailbox, to look to see who had sent it.

Inside was a coffee mug from Toni. And in her part of the U.K. folks don't receive their mail with a string of numbers, but instead go by whose barn you live near on a lonesome country lane.

It isn't the first box I've gotten from her either. After my Eugene marathon in 2008 she had sent me two mugs with my finishing time nicely engraved on the side of each. She had made two and couldn't decide which to send and so packaged up both to let me choose; which I did...one I keep at home and the other is my at work mug.

I get comments and questions about it all the time, which is really fun. It admittedly doesn't get washed very often and frequently will sit overnight or the entire weekend with a cold thick sludge of once proud brew in it, which gives it an ever increasing mottled patina on the inside. This melds well with what I see as it's wonderful uniqueness and handmade charm, but Toni would only refer to as "ugly", which it most certainly is not.

So this third mug has arrived and I can see from it the stylish artistic evolution that Toni has made on the potters wheel. This newer cup is taller with a more substantial feel in my hand. Like the others it has my marathon PR on one side, this time 3:30:03, but this one also has the letters BQ on the other.

I can't begin to say how much this gift means to me, not just because of the generosity, but because of who it is from. Another person who sees the world a lot like I see it; on a journey of exploration and giving, reaching out from a good heart to someone so far away and virtually unknown, but with a shared love of running and living. She began her own blog a little while before mine with a wish to chronicle her progress in running and pottery and this gift is a reminder to me of both of those things about her. It's become my mug of choice after whipping up a thick steamy hazelnut latte on a cool winter afternoon.

She kidded me that I had better not set a new PR or she'll have to throw yet another mug on the potters wheel, and I assured her that that is not very likely. My current time just might be my high water mark, and that's okay with me. I guess race times are sort of like Toni's street address on that little brown box. Numbers just aren't important.

Gat-Glenn-Burg, 10-Uh-C

2010-02-19T19:03:00.001-08:00

When we go on a trip my huge suitcase is packed full. It doesn't get that way until I throw in my red duffel (Lynda calls it my diaper bag) with all my running gear in it. I take a lot of running clothes.

Let's face it, if you don't pack the gear, you ain't gonna get any while you're away from home (pause...while Josh walks through the door I just opened up WIDE for him. Are you in yet Josh? Okay good, let's continue). Not only that but if you don't take your running stuff with you, you can't run either! So after everything else goes in the suitcase, the duffel full of shoes, socks, shorts, water bottle, Garmin, hat, and of course-diapers, goes on top and then I try to zip it all closed.

Which is cool except that the entire time we were in Tennessee to visit my sister this week, I ran for a grand total of one time and four miles. Was it worth it?

HECK YES! I really like running in the places I visit. I guess it like a dog stopping to pee on every fence post he passes when you take him for a walk outside his neighborhood. But beyond marking new territory, I like using the run as a way of experiencing the new surroundings.

How better to more intimately absorb a new place than to get into nothing more than a pair of running shoes, some shorts and a tech shirt and start trodding down it's pathways? Oh, I suppose you could get down and roll around in it (I'm continuing my comparison to the dog here if you hadn't caught that) but if you don't want to embarrass your kids any more than you already do, running around the new place is likely a much more acceptable option. Plus you get all those other benefits like fitness and so forth.

So to add to my list of spectacular vacation destinations of which I have ran in the last year, which include the rim of the Grand Canyon and the Capitol Mall in Washington DC, I give you (drum roll please) Gatlinburg, Tennessee!

Yes, gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains (shouldn't they spell that with an "E" in there somewhere - like the bear?), home of the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum, Hillybilly Golf and Fannie Farkle's Restaurant (they claim to have the cleanest restrooms in town), I can now boast Gatlinburg.

And experience it on the run I did. Laced up around 10:30 on Valentines Day morning and stepped out into the cool Tennessee air outside our resort cabin. It's a beautiful little resort with new cabins overlooking the hills and a valley below. The cabin we stayed in for two nights had a huge game room in the lower level with a pool table and real arcade type video games. So the boys were totally entertained and happy. Out on the back deck was a hot tub where I was able to relax and talk with my sister while it snowed all around us. Yeah, who would have guessed we'd have to go to Tennessee to get some winter this year? But that's how it turned out.

The cabin was up a steep hill so my run started with a long downhill and winding grade until I reach a street where we would later go to get a belated breakfast. The place is called "Flapjack's" and the wait staff dress up like forest rangers. Are you getting a picture of Gatlinburg yet? I ran along the little commercial strip and then up and over a wee hill which has left a more natural undeveloped section before dropping back down the other side into the main tourist area of town.

As I ran there I thought about home and of Oregon where a "Ripley's Believe It or Not" museum visible from the entrance booth of our National Park would be unthinkable. I turned right onto the strip and started running past all the fun and games. I paused once to take my own picture and then proceeded on. I made another right, this time onto Dudley Creek road, and started up the other side of the hill to the cabin, my pace slowing from a comfortable 8:45 per mile to a sluggish 11:00 as I chugged slowly up.

It was good to see my sister and her adopted state. It's a place where "you" has become "y'all" and when they mean to include everyone with you it's "all y'all" which is different and kinda fun. Before heading to the airport I struggled to close the suitcase around the barely used gear in my over stuffed diaper bag. But it was worth the extra baggage because I did go for a nice little run in Tennessee. http://connect.garmin.com/player/24665803

The Lady in the Window

2010-02-13T08:34:00.001-08:00

This is not a story about what happened to me. But I was there and a part of it and while it isn't something that I really ever talk about, fourteen years later I still think about it during some part of every day.

It all started at the fire station where I worked with a couple of firefighters I'll call Mark and Brad. Mark and I had become pretty good friends. We were the two youngest firefighters in the station, lived just a few miles apart when off duty and were in the same stage of life; both raising a young family with little kids. We had a lot in common. We had worked together on the same twenty-four hour shift for a couple of years already and so knew each other really well. We were comfortable with each other and could confide openly, enjoyed good natured banter during the day and knew what to expect from each during emergency calls. I trusted him.

I knew the other two guys on the crew pretty well too. Both had worked at a nearby fire station where I had spent a bunch of time earlier in my career. The officer was also a paramedic and had spent most of his work life on the medical side of things. Brad, the other firefighter, resembled Mark somewhat, both dark haired and stocky, but was much drier and just a hint of attitude at having been recently uprooted from the other station and moved to ours. But it was a good crew and we all got along well together.

It was my turn to ride in what we call the hydrant position on the fire engine, which meant that as we approached a building on fire it would be my job to jump off at the nearest fire hydrant before we arrived, grab the hoses that would supply the water between the hydrant and the engine, hook them up and race back to find the rest of the crew. All three of us firefighters on the rig changed job assignments on the engine every pay period, or every two weeks, rotating to a different position. Mark was the engineer this time around which meant that he was driving the engine and operating the pump. Brad was sitting in the back with me but on the left side in the spot that we called the nozzleman's seat. If everything went according to plan during the fire, which it rarely did, he would be the guy to take one of the hoses off the engine and attack the fire.

I don't really remember much about the bulk of that particular shift when this whole thing happened. I think it was fairly routine, maybe a small fire here or there but most likely just a slug of medical calls. I do remember that it was the Monday before election day and so we had brought up the polling booths which were stored in the stations basement and set up them up for the election folks who use them the next day. We put the finishing touches on the metal booths by installing the canvas privacy flaps on each one, setting up some long folding tables and chairs and then going to bed.

I have never really slept very well at the fire station. Which isn't to say that I didn't ever not fall asleep between calls there, but my body or my brain somehow never really totally let go and allowed me to achieve that deep REM level. Mark and Brad slept in the same dorm room with me, an very stark place with high ceilings, tile floor and a handful of metal framed twin beds of the type you would picture being used in a prison. Each had a night stand and a reading lamp.

At the foot of each bed that night we had placed what we call our bunker gear or turnout pants, heavy heat resistant pants fitted over the rubber boots in such a way that by putting the on the boots, the pants are simply pulled up and secured in place with a snap and the infamous firefighter suspenders. We had gotten up once for a medical call around 2 a.m. and had been back in bed for about an hour when the lights came on again.

That's what wakes you up first--the great blaring white lights. Banks of ceiling mounted fluorescents come on all over the building when the emergency call is sent the station. If it's just a medical call the next thing that happens is a single set of tones over the speaker followed by the dispatchers voice giving all the details. But if the call is a fire there is a short delay between the lights coming on and the tones while the computer "taps out" all the other stations needed. It is a pause in which your heart drops into your stomach as you brace for what you are about to hear. It could be anything, a small house on fire, a high rise building, a ship down at the port, you just don't know, and in those few seconds while you hear the other stations getting rousted out of bed, you brace for impact. What's it going to be and are we going to be the first ones there?

I threw on a sweatshirt before putting on the bunkers and then made my way to the engine bay. As I walked, adjusting my suspenders, the information was read out over the speakers. An apartment house was on fire. It was in our response area so I knew we would be the first crew to arrive. I got to the rig, opened the door to the hydrantman's seat and pulled on the heavy turnout coat I had left sitting on the floorboard. There are really two seats for each position in the back of the engine. One is a forward facing flip down chair used for driving around and going on routine calls. But the other faces backwards and the back rest is replaced with an air bottle in a backpack, or SCBA, that we can put on while driving to a fire, this to save time. I put on the black ear muff headset that allows the four us to talk to each other while driving and then slipped on the SCBA and put the strap that held my face mask around my neck.

We had pulled out of the station and into a foggy early morning. It would still be nearly two hours before the sun would start to come up. As we turned onto a main street we ran with our emergency lights on, which spun red and white shafts from us in all directions as we cut through the fog. The siren was not needed because the street was nearly deserted and so we drove quickly but quietly except for the surging of the diesel motor as we sped toward the fire.

I spent most of the time while we drove getting myself together; pulling a hood over my head, buttoning up the collar on my coat, getting my helmet on and pulling my thick leather gloves out of my coat pocket and holding them in one hand. We took a hard left, nearly doubling back on ourselves, and started looking for evidence of the fire as we came down the road and drew closer to the apartments. Nothing. No orange glow in the sky. No smoke drifting across the street. None of the tell-tale signs of an active fire. But it was foggy and so hard to see. As we approached the last fire hydrant before turning into the driveway to the apartments none of us had seen anything. I leaned forward and pulled out of the bracket that held my air bottle into the back of my seat and spun around to sit in the forward facing chair to get a better view. Still nothing. The officer's voice came across the headset as he decided to bypass the hydrant and go straight to the apartments without stopping to hook up to water. The fire was likely small if we couldn't see it and for a small fire we could use the 500 gallons of tank water we carried on the fire engine. We turned off the street and into the driveway.

As soon as we made the turn we knew we were wrong. The apartment house was set back down the long driveway, on the other side of the managers house. Straight ahead now sat the two story apartment building- nearly 200 feet long. Thick dark smoke was pouring from the windows and sliding glass door of a ground floor apartment directly in front of us. Mark turned left from the driveway and into the main parking lot coming to a stop parallel with apartments. This positioning, which might seem insignificant, was actually a quite important for me. I was now the firefighter on the fire side of the engine which meant, since we had not dropped me off at the hydrant, I was now the primary nozzleman. I would now shoulder the 150 foot fire hose which was already connected to the engine and try to get a quick "knock" on the fire. I had put on my air mask as soon as we saw smoke so I was ready to go.

I had been on tons of similar fires before. This seemed no big deal. I would push into the apartment with Brad as my back up and we'd quickly black out the fire. The rest of the fire engines and ladder trucks would be right behind us and start helping with the building evacuation and getting the smoke out. I'd done this so many times before and was confident that it would work that way again.

I got out of the cab of the engine and took a quick look at the tan colored building. There were two sets of double doors, one at each end of the building that gave access to a central interior hallway that ran the entire length. Outside I could see that the ground floor units had small patios and the upstairs had little balconies. I unhooked the straps that held the hose in it's tray on the engine, grabbed a handful of it and turned around and pulled a load of fire hose onto my right shoulder. I took a step away and pulled the rest of the hose out onto the ground. Now I could see the apartment where the smoke had been coming from was filled with the orange glow of fire. The double hallway door to the right, where I was about to go, was now pouring smoke too. This was extremely bad news for anyone using the hall to get out of the building, especially those on the upper floor who would now have to go back through their apartment to their balcony and wait for a ladder if they had not already gotten out.

I was about to move to the door when I heard the sound of the ladder rack going down just behind me. Our ladders are mounted on a hydraulic rack that stores them up and out of the way over the equipment compartments, and when it's lowered a loud warning alarm sounds. Mark came to me and yelled in my ear "there's a women in that window and Brad's going to get her with a ladder". "Okay" I thought and nodded. He'll be delayed in helping me but I can put out a lot of fire in the mean time until he catches up. I stretched hose up to the double doors, dumped the shoulder load on the ground and gave it a couple of quick flings to spread it out so it wouldn't kink when Mark opened a valve and charged it with water in just a second.

Fire was now filling the foyer in front of me and through the doors and I could see fire going up the stairwell to the second floor. Not good. I heard the clicking of Brad raising the extension ladder up to the window. "Shit! C'mon Mark charge the fricken line" I muttered to myself. But no water came. I looked over to my left and saw Brad going up the ladder. The fire continued to grow like crazy in front of me and was pouring out of the double doors just above my head. And then I saw two things that really made my heart sink. Mark was at the base of the ladder helping brace it for Brad who was obviously struggling with someone at the top. And beyond them I could see fire shooting out of the double doors like a blow torch at the far end of the building. The interior hall was acting like a horizontal chimney and fire now ran the entire length of the apartment house. Things were going to hell in rapid fashion and I was holding a fire hose with no water.

"Screw this!" Mark wasn't in a position to let go of the ladder so I threw the nozzle on the ground and ran to the engine to charge the hose with water myself. What we needed was to get some water on this thing and now. The fire was big but I knew that it was still burning pretty light fuel, carpet in the hallway and the contents of the apartment that it was coming from. If I could just get the hoseline charged I could get in quick and get this damned thing out. I ran around to the far side of the fire engine and reached for the valve that would release the flow of water when Mark came around from the other side. "Brad needs help. He can't get her out!"

Crap. I looked behind me. Still no other fire companies had arrived to help. There was too much to do and nobody to do it. Well, I had no choice. The fire needed to be put out and for I all I knew there were people trapped all over the building that needed that to happen, but now I had a trapped person that needed help for sure. I left the hose sitting there and headed to the ladder. The fire continued to grow, shooting from both ends the building and boiling inside the apartment on the first floor just beneath the window I was about to go to.

Brad was coming down the ladder as I ran up. "She's too big. I can't get her out! I'm going to change bottles." The bottles of air we use will last 20 minutes during normal work but Brad had been working so hard he was already nearly empty and the low air bell on his SCBA was ringing loudly. "Okay, I'll get her" I said and started climbing up. The window was open and thick choking smoke was gushing from it. "Are you there?" I screamed as I stuck my head in the opening. "I can't get out" came a sweet female voice from inside the darkness and smoke. A sound of worry was in her voice but it was rational and matter of fact. "I'm coming in" I said. I brought my right shoulder through the window and dropped into the room. The main part of the fire was in the apartment below but our problem was the toxic super heated smoke. I reached around in the blackness to find something quickly for her to step on but found nothing within the swing of my arms. I got up behind her and gave a lift from behind but she said "he tried that already". She was right, that wouldn't work.

I had to do something fast. A few more breaths of this shit and she'd be gone. I stuck my left leg out the window thinking that I could use it for leverage and use my whole body to pull her out. Even if all I did was get her head hanging out the window at least that would buy us some time. I just had to get her head out of the smoke, we'd figure the rest out later. I stuck my leg out and reached down and grabbed her as low as possible and heaved her up toward the opening. "PUSH" I yelled, "Help me. PUSH!" She came up a little bit, close enough that I thought maybe we she was at the break over point, but she just slipped back down. Again I tried and again I thought she was going to stay but instead slipped back down. "C'mon try!" I yelled not really thinking about where I would go if she did take my place on the ledge. "I can't" came a much weaker reply from the smoke, "I'm too big".

Alright. I had to try something different. I thought of the bed which had to be somewhere in the small room. If I could get her out of the way of the window, maybe I could find the bed and scoot it for her to climb up on. I wasn't sure if it would work but it was all I could think of. I'd have to work fast because now I had a brand new problem. My low air alarm bell was ringing too. I'd have less than 5 minutes before I was out of air.

And that's when she collapsed and fell out of my grasp. I knew it was probably going to happen but when it actually did I just couldn't believe it. The bed plan was out, she had to be conscious to climb up on it. I needed to get myself another air bottle and I'd also use that time to figure out what to do next. I was truly on autopilot now. Fight or flight mode. I don't even remember how I got out the window. I just remember getting down to the ground thinking about how I had to get back up there as soon as I could, rapidly considering shortcuts to getting a fresh air bottle. I ran toward the engine and that's when I saw the next group of firefighters finally arrive.

The ladder truck from downtown Portland, four miles away, was the second arriving fire company. As it turned out, awful luck was on our side. The other two other fire engine companies in our area, normally available to help us within a few minutes, were on emergency calls when this fire was reported and so the next help had to come from that downtown station several miles away. To make matters worse the fire engines taking their place were from neighboring fire departments, not Portland, which added an additional delay in dispatching them. We were on the fire scene for over seven minutes, struggling to save this woman, before "Truck 4" pulled up, unheard of in a city the size of Portland.

I knew the guys who bailed off the truck. They had no idea what had just happened so I ripped off my mask and panted to them "a women just went down behind that window" pointing to the window and ladder. "She's on the floor right behind the window." They grabbed their axes and immediately headed for the ladder. I was glad to see these two guys, they were two of the strongest guys in the department. True "truckmen", big powerful guys who got things done. I blew off the idea of taking time to change my bottle. If they were going up there now I was going with them. I had to.

They went up and took out the center frame of the window with their axes to make a bigger hole for climbing through and disappeared through the opening. When I got to the top I realized I wouldn't be able to go all the way in now. I had put my mask back on but now the air hose dangled from my face like an elephants trunk. I could work, but the end of the tube was hanging free and I would have to hang out in the fresher air below the level of the window. Both of the truck guys were fully inside and working their asses off to try and lift her limp body up to the window ledge. I got a hold of her arms at the wrists and pulled from the ledge while they pushed from below -- but it was of no use. With her being unconscious and unable to help us it just wasn't going to happen. The truck guys used up their own bottles of air, struggling until their alarms sounded, but in the end she stayed just where I had first met her. And that's where she died that day.

I climbed back down that ladder for the last time, was reassigned to other tasks, including putting out fire with the hose I had stretched to the double doors earlier. But I did so in a daze. A detached emotionless daze.

From that time on, and including every day since, I think about what I could have done differently for her. A hundred different scenarios have run through my mind and a never ending stream of second guessing about the way things played out during those crucial few minutes on that terrible morning when I could have made a difference but didn't.

I write about this now because my blog is about who I am, and a part of who I am now was changed forever on that awful November day so many years ago. But like I said, this isn't a story about what happened to me-- because my life was allowed to go on.

This is the story about what happened to the lady in the window.

Losing it!

2010-01-30T10:34:00.000-08:00

Well despite my little plan the inevitable is happening. I'm getting lazy fat and less fit. The tummy is pooching and I just feel like a pig. But I had no where to go but down I suppose and that's exactly where I'm headed. Going to have to step it up--soon (but not today).

Workout update

2010-01-26T11:51:00.001-08:00

I have been spending the last few weeks running a sort of "maintenance" fitness routine. This is the first time that I have actually gotten back out running consistently after recovering from a marathon. I'd considered a couple of options for what to do now that the big race was over; one was just to do some more base building. Lots of long slow miles. But that just sounded really boring and too similar to what I had been doing. So it was really a very easy and natural decision to go with my initial idea which was to spice things up with a "routine of variety". An oxymoron if ever there was one.

Trouble is most of my running would have to be lumped together on my three days off, Friday thru Sunday. Ten hour days make it tough to add a run on either end of my time at work and that is especially true in the evenings when there is usually some type of commitment to the boys in addition to making and eating dinner. Plus most of the time I'm too stinking tired anyway. So Friday, Saturday and Sunday are the days I can count on to run.

I had read somewhere, likely Runnersworld, that if you only had three days to run each week a combination of hills, speed and distance was the best use of your time. Sounded good to me. I especially liked the part of incorporating a weekly speed workout into the mix. In my early running days a few years back, speedwork was my staple. That's pretty much all I did, I think because that's all I knew how to do. Any distance was a totally foreign idea.

The rest of the weekly just kinda fell into place after that. Work offers a 45 minute spin class twice a week during my lunch hour (15 minutes to shower up) and so it made sense to take advantage of that opportunity. The classes are short but intense and I like the idea of cross training and doing something "no impact" while not race training. So Tuesday and Thursday I can get my workout in during the day - which is sweet. The only drawback has been staying consistent with it. Between my work conflicts and the instructors, I probably only attend half the scheduled sessions. I need to work on my end and try to do a better job scheduling around the class but that might be tough. As the days get longer it may be easier to go for a short evening run on days I was not able to spin.

That leaves me with Monday and Wednesday as rest days with the possibility of some easy runs when the chance comes up and I feel the need. But days off are a good thing too.

I've been looking at some races coming up. If I actually sign up for one I would need to give up on the current plan and adjust to race training. Not sure what distance that would be. Ran into Justin today and he mentioned wanting to do the Newport Marathon in June. that would be ambitious. Randy and I had talked about during the Helvetia Half since he has never done it. And I would really like to do that Bridges to Brew, just because it finishes with an ice cold chewy Hefeweizen. So those are some good possibilities. Until then, I'll just keep with my little plan.

Team Point Two... Point Five

2010-01-18T17:34:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how many people John Ellis has coached by email before me but I suspect not many, so his invitation meant a lot to me. Not long after the time we spent together working toward my spring marathon in 2008 he came up with the idea of coaching a small group of people who had already run a marathon and see if he could improve their performance. He called the idea "Team Point Two".

The meaning of the name mostly came from the miles in a marathon. The forgotten and oft overlooked two tenths of a mile at it's end. Ask someone who has never run a marathon how long it is and the most accurate answer you will get is "26 miles". Ask the same question to someone who has actually run one and they are sure to include that 1/5 of a mile or 26 point 2.

So when John was looking to put the "team" together I was one of the first he asked, and I accepted. The only condition was that I be willing to document my training and experience via a blog, a podcast or some other social media thing. The only thing I really lacked was a Twitter or Facebook account. Easy enough to rectify.

But then we hit a leee-ttle bump in the road because John also wanted the "2" to represent a second try at a marathon. Sacramento would be my fourth, as I reminded him, and so he came back to me with "oh too bad, you would have been perfect". So I was out before I was ever in. But John graciously agreed to coach me anyway, which I have written about often here.

So the training cycle came and went and frankly I think I would have added something to the whole concept. The people who were eventually asked were great, the group became close and goals were met, but I sense as an outsider that despite the successes, the potential of the project was never really met. The team's website (http://teampointtwo.blogspot.com/) hasn't been updated since last spring and many of the runners have dropped off updating their logs since running their events in the fall. I honestly think I would have brought something to the team if I would have had the chance-at least from a promotional sense. As I have stated here so many times, running and training is less about the numbers and more about living the life of someone on a journey of self exploration.

But after my qualifying at the CIM John was suddenly keen on the idea of me being involved in the wrap up podcast for the team! Hmm, imagine that! Suddenly I'd become "team worthy" to borrow an idea from Seinfeld. So I agreed, thinking it would be fun to tell my marathon story.

So last Wednesday night after work I did the show called "Runner's Roundtable". Steve, who sometimes hosts the show (he hosts Phedippidations all the time) had said during the our set up when the team members were phoning into the conference call that I would tell my story after the rest of the team. When John Ellis called into the "room" just moments before it started he changed it up and asked me to go first. No problem really, I wouldn't have any chance to "warm up", but that was okay. The only thing was I had no idea how the "conversation" would work and instead of asking about the marathon, John asked me about the running relationship with Randy. Totally not prepared for that!!!

I had thought about what I would say regarding John's help with training and about the race itself, but had not given any brain cells to talking about running with Randy. So I babbled, hemmed and hawed and eventually crashed and burned, and Steve, sensing that I'm a shitty interview, just moved on quickly. Smart man. I sucked.

Towards the end they came back to me, briefly asking about future plans, and I did better the second time working with a question I had anticipated would be asked. All in all it worked out but I would have liked to told my race story.

John will likely form another team later this year and if he does maybe I'll be asked to join it and, if it even happens, maybe I'll make the cut! It would be kinda fun and I would have an excuse to get Twitter or Facebook accounts. We'll see.

http://runnersroundtablepodcast.blogspot.com/

Pursuit

2010-01-09T00:10:00.001-08:00

Kids in Oyugis

If anyone were to actually read this blog, and why would they, they might see that since July a certain pattern is vaguely apparent. The first paragraph or two of each weekly entry are more or less developed and then I finish off the rest of the theme in haste without so much as a proofread. The misspelled words and bad grammar I can live with, but I feel bad that my idea is not developed the way I would have liked. Yeah, I could write less often and so have more time for each theme but a major incentive for writing the blog was to add another type of motivation to keep me running. Writing less could eventually lead to less running and since only a few people read this anyway the content in only a secondary concern.

I bring this up because there were some ideas that I didn't really get into last week when I wrote about running in 2009. One of these was the whole idea of creating goals and challenges and living a more meaningful, and indeed a more happy life. My thought, the one that I did not make very well and it occurs to me may fail just a miserably this week, is that all of us are actually more fulfilled and satisfied during periods of challenge. We can see examples of this all around us.

My brother Chris took a trip with some of his work mates on a "mission" of sorts to Oyugis, Kenya a few years ago. When he returned and told the story of the villagers lives and showed the pictures of the people there, I was shocked. Poor living conditions I expected. People with very few things and a dismal future, I was braced for. But what shocked me were the faces of the children (and children are what you see in Oyugis, very few people live long enough to get old there). Their faces were the brightest and most beautiful I had ever seen. Not sad and crying as I had expected, but smiling and full of... life. Bursting with the pleasure and simple happiness of the visitors and the serendipity of their picture being taken. The most genuine and luminous smiles you could ever imagine.

I can't help but compare this image to my own kids. By contrast, they have no want. They can eat to excess any time they choose. Our house is pretty nice and always within a degree of the ideal temperature. They will have all the educational opportunities that are offered with their almost certain academic scholarships(they had better) . Statistically they can expect to live for a good long time, and yet given all this they still can easily fall into a funk, complain about that which they do not have and all too easily, it seems to me, seem unhappy.

And when we take their picture they have to be reminded to smile.

Why the difference? It seems so backwards, and yet I can see other examples of this all around me. A little girl of the couple that mows the lawns and trims the bushes in my neighbors yards dances around with much more glee and playful abandon than the children who actually live in those houses. Their beat up old pickup truck sits in the center of our cul-de-sac in grating contrast to the SUV's which swing wide to avoid it. But they seem so happy.

During my firefighting career, my fire station family would slowly, surely and predictably slip in a routine induced sulk until some shared work tragedy pulled us together. Struggle and co-experienced hardship made us closer and in a strange way, which is difficult to explain to others, improved our collective mood. Again, not what you would expect.

Happiness doesn't come in a gift wrapped box and left for you on your door step. Instead it comes from the conflict and grind of everyday life; it's a product of the contest. This is an idea known by every schoolchild in my country, who learns that one of our earliest notions was to link the words pursuit and happiness in eternal wedlock. Pursuit comes first. An idea forgotten by most adults and one that must be relearned.

This is yet another reason that I run; setting contrived goals, establishing a self-proclaimed struggle in a world made far too easy for me. Setting a target of qualifying for Boston and working toward that end in 2009 was really a way of simply having fun and staying happy.

Anyway, I could on about this....but I'm out of time for this week and need to work on my next entry.

2009: The running year in review

2009-12-30T18:43:00.000-08:00

My passionate year of running reduced to a cold bar graph. It shows nothing of the living I did during each of these runs nor the experience of each foot step.

First the numbers:

Days I went running: 227
Hours of running: 210
Miles: 1,431
Average time per run: 59 minutes
Average distance per run: 6.3 miles
Average pace: 9:05 per mile
Calories burned: 208,334
Busiest month: November (22 runs for 207 miles)
A close second: October (23 runs for 203 miles)

But to heck with the numbers. You use them and then you throw them away. So be gone.

This year was really about a continuation of the long journey. A trip started several years ago and culminating by qualifying for Boston in my hometown of Sacramento. It's a journey of exploration and reflection, of desire and fulfillment, of self-determination and the beauty of the support of your friends; both those that are familiar and just around the corner and those that live far way and I have never actually met.

The journey of 2009 really began several years before when I wandered away from the my boys baseball game to run a single lap around the adjoining track. A lap that I did not finish but one that propelled me into vowing to start running again. A promise to myself that I likely would not have kept had Bob not helped me to make the connection between running and...being. It changed my values and so mybehavior . It made me find the courage to let go of the life I had and to run toward the one that was waiting for me. To give myself the time to play each day. To run a few races.

Those races stand along this new journey like mile markers along a highway, While they don't at all give a glimpse into the very real moments spent in this life of running, they do rise above to show the physical progress that accompanies the other benefits. The races themselves give no measure of the internal quest, the search for one's self or the innate need to become a good person. But the race numbers are a reflection of heart and determination. A quantitative measure of your mettle.

2009 is better understood when I look back at what came before. In 2006 I ran my first marathon and barely I finished. Huge cramps gripped my ill prepared legs causing me to stop frequently to stretch them out so I could run a little further. I finished in 4 hours 47 minutes. A year later I ran the Portland marathon again, but this time with at least a simple training regimen. I printed and used the online plan at runnersworld.com and I went out with the Portland marathon training group a couple of times for some long runs. I was beginning to understand the concept of base, LT and V02 but still suffered cramps in the last few miles, crossing in 3 hours 53 minutes. In 2008 I chose to run the recently resurrected Eugene marathon. I had two huge advantages going into this race, a training partner in Randy and weekly email coaching from John. All was going well until I hurt my back a few weeks before the race and I was only able to do a 3 hour 44 minute effort. An improvement to be sure but the injury cost me a few minutes I'm sure. After Eugene, I took a break from running every day.

Which brings me to January 1st, 2009. Although I didn't have John's indispensible advice until later in the year, his counsel was never far from me, "you're fast but not strong. Stay consistent." I needed to log a lot of miles. Which meant LSD: long, slow, distance. It would help change my anatomy and keep me from getting hurt. During the spring and early summer I did get a lot done and had a nice mix of strength, speed and endurance runs. I ran the plan. Running along the rim of the Grand Canyon as the sun set and the colors changed all around me was a wonderful chance to have taken.

Then it got hot outside. When most people shy away from the rain and only emerge to run during the more fair weather, I am closer to the opposite. During the last part of July and most of August I ran less than I should. The only highlight of this time was running around the Capitol Mall in Washington DC . But as the summer cooled I started increasing the miles to make a run at the California International Marathon.

In the fall during the peak of my specific marathon training I really tried to run everything John Ellis sent me out to do. I trusted him and his advice although I knew it puts me on the the brink of breaking something. But we got away with it this time...BARELY.

The year really wasn't about that race. It really only became important after I did I unexpectedly did well at it. It's the experience, not the markers along the road. A road that keeps going long after 2009 has ended.

Change is good for Sam Cook

2009-12-22T17:47:00.001-08:00

Sam Cook talks during a time out last season. Brandon is on the far right

It was a comment made in passing and one that he probably would not have even remembered, but it meant a lot to me. We stood together in the loading dock of the Sherwood Senior Center among bulk commercial kitchen supplies and Rubbermaid containers smelling of old lettuce. I had told Sam that some day soon I would be changing jobs to a more traditional work schedule and when I did would no longer be able to drive my Thursday Meals-On-Wheels route. Sam shrugged and not in a way that suggested indifference or even acknowledgement of the impending inconvenience of filling my spot. Sam was too blunt for such a subtle gesture. Sam shrugged and said simply "change is good".

I thought of his words often over the next few months. I was making a change in my life for the first time in a long time and that simple phrase became my mantra and gave me comfort. Anytime doubt snuck into my head I beat it back with Sam's words. This new job would be good, it was something that I needed.

Sam wasn't just the guy I went to when I ran low on milk on my M.O.W. route. I really knew him as Brandon's basketball coach for the last few years. Small in stature but large in authority he instantly had the support of the parents and the respect of the kids. He yelled at them, called them out in disgust when they did something dumb, and frequently stopped a practice session with a shout of LISTEN, LISTENNN! But the boys never took it wrong and more surprisingly there were never any complaints from the parents. Sam didn't have a kid on the team, he was just a hyper guy who believed in being involved in the community and he knew basketball. All of us looked up to him for that.

One morning during a tournament in Canby, Sam sat with our family when the team went out for breakfast between games. For some reason I had ordered my eggs "over easy" with my biscuits and gravy. When our food arrived and I chopped into the runny eggs and it started mixing with the gravy. Sam, who is at least a vegetarian and maybe a full out vegan, didn't hold back. "I gotta tell you" he says, "that is really disgusting!" I looked down at it and had to agree. What the hell was I thinking? Yuck. Sam was blunt but he was usually right on.

Sam was just one of those busy guys you saw all over town. I found that he lived in the same block as the fire station where I worked in southwest Portland. When I went for runs around the neighborhood while at work I would sometimes see him outside and just last week when the boys and I were doing some last minute Christmas shopping at REI in Tualatin we were surprised to hear Sam's voice call to us as he approached wearing an employee vest. He was working there part time during the holidays. You just never knew where he was going to pop up.

Last summer when we stood on that loading dock Sam confided to me, out of the corner of his mouth because he didn't want anyone at the Senior Center to know yet, that he was quitting there to accept a short term job as a teacher at the Sherwood High School. The position was only for the first trimester of the school but he hoped that it might open the door to something more permanent.

But a position never became available and now Sam and his wife have decided to move back to Kansas City where they grew up and she has found a good paying job. Sam called all the boys on the basketball team together after a practice and let them know that he wouldn't be able to finish the season with them as their coach. Everyone was disappointed and sad. But I think he left them, and certainly left me, as an example of an honest somebody who gets involved to make his part of the world a better place.

But now it's time for Sam to move on and we'll all need to try to remember his words. Change is good.

November 13, 2009

2009-12-11T19:54:00.000-08:00

I could have written most of this story a month ago when I first found out. But I waited for a couple of reasons. First because I was in denial and thought that somehow it would all just work itself out. The second reason I held this to myself is that it probably wouldn't matter anyway. But now it does.

November 13th, 2009. Rain pelting my bedroom window woke me up that morning, a gust of wind slapping it up against the pane, it was so early that there was not yet even a hint of dawn attempting to push through the clouds and darkness. I finally had a day off from work and the all too familiar 5 a.m. ringing of my alarm clock. It was tempting to just pull the blankets up tight around my head and enjoy the storm from inside the covers.

But I was training for a marathon and for me that means having to get my training runs in whenever I can find the time. This day was going to be busy and the only time I had available for this run which would take over an hour was now. Later I wrote in my Buckeye Outdoors log:

Was supposed to run this last night but I just ran out of time after work. It was POURING while I ran this and the wind was blowing hard so---I had a good time! Only thing was that my long running pants got so water logged that they started adhering to the front of my legs which made a pulling effect with the still loose back part causing the zipper at the bottom of each leg to open and start flapping around. Never saw that one coming. Got back just in time to shower up and drive down for my 9am dental appointment. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/18652262

This was a 7 mile run in the middle of a week in which I would record a total of over 54 miles, including the longest of the training cycle, a 22.7 miler on Sunday morning. Just another in a long string of weekend mornings where I was up before the sun preparing for the CIM just three weeks later.

The preparation for that December race had started on the first day of the new year when I ecstatically proclaimed myself "back" and dedicated to a goal that I saw as only remotely possible. A runner rededicated and spending the next year preparing for either the Portland or California International Marathon and maybe, just maybe, transforming myself from a tub of goo into a person capable of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. The year would be full of obstacles I was sure, but if I could find a plan, stay consistent, avoid injury and have a little luck, maybe I would get close. It was a big maybe.

In January, the month I committed to this, I ran 27 times for a total of 131 miles. Most of that time I felt bloated and out of shape but I kept working, knowing that underneath I still had a base of training from the last few years to build upon.

Over the next months I was pretty consistent. I did melt some during the peak summer months and purposely ran less than I should-- but right up to that rainy morning in mid November I had put in a lot of time and logged a lot of miles: over 200 runs averaging nearly an hour each for a total of 1255 miles. That's a ton of miles but it didn't do it all by myself.

Long distance running is an individual sport but for an average guy like me it would be impossible to set a goal like Boston without a lot of help. My role around the house as dad and husband was changed by my running schedule but once again I got support from Lynda and the boys. And where would I have been without Randy who sacrificed much of his own family time to be with me on the weekends and evenings. How many different ways can you say thank you to a person that gives so much to you?

But the turning point in this whole odyssey came when John Ellis contacted me to help me once again with my training. After September 25th when I was once again under his fine tutelage I ran an average of 9 miles each time I laced up and committed over an hour and 20 minutes on average to each workout. I know I would not have done so much without him and certainly would not have had expert coaching. John kept the miles coming, keeping me on the edge of my ability. There were often times when I would get off work, after spending 10 hour there, come home and immediately dress down for a two hour run in the dark with a flashlight.

It was my sacrifice and so my reward if I could do it. I ran nearly ever workout John suggested, fought through some injuries and found compromises with the other parts of my life that also demanded my attention.

November 13th, 2009. I didn't pull the blankets back up that morning and didn't stay in my comfortable bed. Instead I got out and went for a run in the rain. Not because I had to but because that's who I am right now. And once I was out there I had a good time just like I always do.

But something else happened on that day. The Boston Athletic Association suddenly and without any warning closed all the entries for QUALIFIED runners. Just 3 weeks away from my qualifying race and my legs were cut out from under me. Those of us who had just spent the last year preparing for this moment suddenly had no where to go in April-- even if we qualified. It was by far the earliest the BAA had ever closed the race and certainly the first time that California International Marathon qualifiers would not be accepted.

I knew all of this during the last part of my training, my taper, the CIM and when I wrote my race report for this blog. But I didn't want the news of it to detract from everything I had done. Which sometimes just doesn't matter.

The California International Marathon

2009-12-07T08:15:00.001-08:00

The Boston Athletic Association requires a time of 3 hours, 30 minutes for my gender and age group in order to qualify for the Boston Marathon. What they really mean is that you must finish within that minute; a time of 3:30:59 will work but 3:31:00 will not.

Race day was clear and crisp. I had shed my long warm up pants moments before the start and thrown them into what had been my goodie bag from the race expo and tossed the bag at the truck which would take them to the finish. I bobbed and weaved to a spot within striking distance of the 3:30 pace sign and nervously bent down and retied my shoes with double knots.

Randy stood nearby and we wished each other good luck one last time. Inside the mass of runners there was a palpable warmth. A degree or two warmer than the advertised 31F. We all took turns bouncing up and down, adjusting our running stuff and getting our watches set. There was a count down, the gun went off and a moment later we trotted toward the starting arch amidst cheers of anticipation.

Three days earlier I was admittedly under a lot of pressure and not handling it very well. That day, Thursday, I took the last of my three certification tests for work, the end of a nearly five month process. I had been studying for weeks for the last one and the pressure to pass it was heavy. I drove out to the testing center in east Vancouver and emerged two hours later drained but successful. I should have felt some relief but instead now had a new weight and no time to waste in dealing with it.

The old calf pull that had been bugging me since the 22 miler was still nagging at me. A three week old injury, there was no reason to think it would heal in the next three days. So much had been committed to this race, time from my family, plane tickets and Randy's support. And now I probably wasn't going to even run a competitive race. I couldn't wait for a miracle any longer, I had to make one. The plane was flying out of town in the next morning with me on it.

Randy was pleading for me to try acupuncture. I'm a skeptic on such alternative medicine type things but now I was literally in the last few minutes of being able to act and with a left leg that surely was not going to be able to run 5 miles, let alone 26, I got back to my office after the test and started making phone calls. It was nearly 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

Each time I explained the situation to the person on the other end of the phone there was pause of sufficient length to make me wonder if they were still there. The duration of time was no doubt a sequence in their mind that included the thoughts "dude, are you freaking kidding me? The day is over!" Next they had to muster the ability to dispense a professional and sarcasm-free "I'm sorry but we are full for today, but we do have an opening on Tuesday next week." Determined, I made one more call and it paid off. The guy was open until six and if I could get out to Newberg in the next hour he could see me.

All right, good, but what kind of acupuncturist has a wide open schedule like that? I walked into the little rented space in the old part of Newberg and saw what I expected. Last year when I had done this it was lovely modern building with that new ubiquitous paint combo of sage green and a shade of brown that peanut butter turns when it sits on a spoon in some water in the kitchen sink. This place had midnight blue walls with chiffon stripes. C'mon man! Last year I had "Amy" sticking needles in me, a pretty young woman in a room that was warm, well decorated and with a table top sculpture with water flowing down it, and soothing music. "Would I enjoy a pillow" Amy had asked " and warm towel before we got started?" Why yes I would. That sounds delightful. Stick needles in me Amy! Make it hurt! I don't care.

This room was bare save the table, a heat lamp and some gauze-like cloth thumb tacked to the ceiling. The guys name was "Kev" and he parted his red hair down the middle and had one of those little mud flaps under his lower lip. I laid face down and Kev started by rubbing some smelly crap into my lower legs. Okay maybe I have a little homo-phobe action going on but I just don't dig some guy rubbing my leg. He starts by putting a few needles in the back of my right arm. You see these meridians, quote unquote, cross from one side of the body to the other. "Sure they do." Then he does my right leg. Something about keeping the energy in balance. "Whatever." And finally he needles up the left calf muscle, turns on the heat lamp, aims it at the needles in my legs and leaves saying he'll be back in about 30 minutes. Fine.

After about 15 minutes the heat lamp is starting to feel damn warm and a short time after that it's getting plain uncomfortable. "Uh, yoo-hoo. Kev?" I thought about rapping on the wall but it's just out of reach. When I can take it no more and it feel as if blisters may be forming I go for my only option, scoot my legs away from the lamp as far as possible. I'm trying to remember the inverse square law from physics class many years ago. When I do move them it's obvious I have red hot needles in both legs. Kev comes in a short time later and doesn't ask about why I'm not in the same place as when he left. Soon I'm driving home after a long day but now with two sore legs. That night I notice that my calf muscle which is usually rock hard is loose like a bag of mush. Maybe Randy was right. Maybe it will work.

But now the race had started. I was running free in the sun and feeling great. Please let the voodoo work, please let the my good luck continue.

My race plan couldn't have been simpler. Stay within a short distance of the 3:30 pace leader for as long as possible. He knew the course, he knew when to speed up and when to conserve. All I had to do was concentrate on me. The crowd was chatty at first, almost gleeful. For all of us at this pace group, today was the pay off for months of hard work. This was finally it, a chance to take all the training, miles and final taper out for a spin to see what it could do. You don't line up here, with this group, unless you have devoted much of your recent life to the moment. Now it was happening and for a short time, because we all knew what was coming soon, the mood was light and friendly. The pace felt comfortable and at least for now very achievable. My calf was holding in there.

The plan lasted for less than two miles. Randy, true to his aggressive early race nature, kept creeping closer and closer to the pace guy until we were lock step right with him. It was so early and there was NO WAY I was going faster than my planned 8 minute miles. I was committed to the strategy but Randy kept pulling away until I could no longer see his green fluorescent hat bobbing atop his tall slender frame. I settled back into place about fifty feet behind the pace leader and kept an occasional look out for Randy, but we would never run together again on this day.

This is the part of the race when I start to notice some of the runners around and just ahead of me. It's the back of their shirts that catches my notice the most. People run marathons for many reasons but those that have simple messages such as "For Ryan", usually with handwritten letters across their back, make me wonder about their story. A story that has taken them to this improbable place but one that I will never know beyond their simple gesture.

While running I overheard some of the others talking about the mile markers. Those of us with GPS watches had noticed something in these early miles-the course markers were a little longer than those shown by all of our watches. At first the difference was slight but by the end of the race it was up to .13 miles .... or a entire half lap on a track. When I got warm enough I pulled off my middle layer, a long sleeve cotton race shirt from years ago, and tossed it near a water station.

Just past mile 6 I heard Lynda shout out my name I turned my head quickly to the right in time to see her, Matthew and Brandon all smiles. They were not sure what to expect of me even this soon into the race. Actually to be honest they expected to see me at this point later, limping along, favoring my left leg. It was a relief to them to see my smile and ease of running and it was good to see their smiles too. As they left my view I heard Lynda yell at me "GO GLENN!!" as loud as she could and that really gave me a lift.

Twenty minutes later the course turned to the south in a wide commercial area of strip malls parking lots. A strong cold headwind greeted us and although the grade was level or even a slight down hill in some spots, the wind used up some early energy for those of us needing to stay the pace. I moved more into the center of the lane to use the crowd as a wind break and tucked my chin into my chest. The road would turn west again after awhile, I just had to ride this out. The worst part of this wind was a woman just ahead of me who was always hocking one up, turning her head and hurling it to her port side. I moved a foot to the right and hoped she wouldn't switch one up on me.

There was another woman who ran between me and the pace guy for the entire race and she drove me nuts. Not because of anything she did but because she reminded me from the back (that's the only view you really have of anyone when you're running a race!) of someone I knew back in Sherwood whose first name is Julie but I can never remember her last name. Every time I looked up and saw her it forced me to agonize over this memory lapse. It really bugged the heck out of me and I never did figure it out during the race although it did came to me later.

The halfway point was a true measuring point. I told myself all I had to do was run back to the start and I asked myself if I could do it. My first instinct was to answer yes, but then the logic and experience and truth came pouring back in to me....the first 20 miles set you up for the last 6 and that was still 7 miles away! Feeling good here didn't mean a thing. I should be feeling good here! The real race was still ahead. But so far no real aches or pains. Thank you for that baby Jesus! Thank you John Ellis!

Some place around this part of the race the family saw me again but I was on the other side of the road and did not see them. They did take a few pictures of me and I have to say that I didn't look to good at that point. I felt okay but my smile was gone and white salt was already caked on my cheeks. I did see them about mile 16 and managed to get to the side of the road in time to slap hands as I went by. I shouted "see you at mile 20" and merged back into the pack.

At mile 20, my uncle for whom I was named, saw me run past but again I did not see him. It meant so much to me to be running in the town where I was raised as a kid and much of my extended family still calls home. Thanks for coming out Uncle Glenn!! But I did not see Lynda here at mile 20 as we had planned and that posed the greatest threat to the success of the race plan yet.

I had a hydration and fueling plan. I had trained on 50/50 Gatorade and cube Shot Blocks and was carrying enough of the later to last the race. I was eating one about every 15 to 20 minutes. But my hydration bottle was not going to last me past this point. Ultima was offered on the course and it has always given me heartburn so I brought my own drink. I had carefully rationed my bottle, a quarter of it gone at mile 5, half at mile 10....but now it was bone dry. I had a gut feeling that they had got caught in traffic and missed me and by mile 21 I knew I was right.

I switched to the back up plan-use water on the course. I have to admit, I suck at drinking out of a little paper cup while running 7.5 MPH-- but at the next watering table I moved over to give it a try.

WHOA! Big wake up call. As I slowed just a bit to take the cup a huge jolt grabbed my right hamstring. Cramps right on the verge of taking me down hard! Oh yeah, wake up G. I'm at mile 21. It's the second race. I need to focus and keep this pace at all costs. If I slow down, even a little bit, it's all over. Please legs don't get any worse! There was still so much farther to go! I was really starting to doubt myself a bit. But just then I heard my name called out from behind again.

It was Randy. He was pulled over to the sidewalk and trying to rip the top off a goo. "I'll see you at the end" he yelled. "You just need to run 5 more - like we do at home all the time. This is YOUR day!!"

I can't begin to tell you how much I needed my old running buddy right then and with the perfect words. It was only only 5 more miles. This was something I could do. It was happening. This was my day. It just seemed to all suddenly make sense and became so clear. If I could keep this going for another 40 minutes I was going to make it.

But you know the day had not started off on the best foot. Everything was laid out the night before and we had a good breakfast of banana, yogurt and frozen breakfast sandwiches that Lynda had taken to the front desk at 4:30 am to microwave for us. We had decided to go the "sausage McMuffin" route when it had worked so well during our 22 miler up at Forest Park weeks before. Protein and salt.

But when we got to the shuttle bus pick up point at 5 o'clock there was only one school bus for over 100 runners. Not good. We waited in the hotel lobby for another bus but there was a lot of confusion and rumors as organizers talked to each other on two way radios, but no one was sure what was going on. Eventually Randy and I squeezed onto the only bus but had to stand in the aisle. Having flash backs to junior high bus riding days is no way to start marathon day. Neither is standing on a moving school bus. About half way to Folsom I asked the guy sitting next to me if he could please make a little room and he moved over about 4 inches and I got half a cheek on the dark green seat. It was better than nothing.

The H street bridge at mile 22 reminded me of running at home and the crossing of the bridge meant the end was getting near. Getting to the top of it's rise was the last real pitch left in the course and it felt good to come down the other side knowing that we were flat the rest of the way.

It was here that I started to pay more attention to the pace leader. Or I should say to the fact that he was far less obvious now and so I spent more time looking for him. At the start of the race his orange 3:30 sign was almost always up and all I had to do to see where I was, was look up. There he was. Towards the middle of the race his sign was usually down but I could just look out ahead and within a few minutes he would raise it. "Okay, there he is. I'm still good." It was reassuring to see him even though we were from the very beginning consistently behind our ideal pace as called out by volunteers at each mile marker. I heard from them that we were behind by a few seconds and so must he must have also heard. He didn't seem worried so I wasn't either. "What's a few seconds with all these miles ahead of us?" I mused. The man is a genius with a major in marathon pacing and a minor in energy conservation. Stay the course, a thousand points of light!

But now his pace sign never went up, and in order to keep tabs on him I needed to close the ranks and get closer. Soon the orange pace sign was being held in his armpit and the pace dude wasn't looking so hot. I looked down at my watch to see how we were doing. Hmmmm, we're still a little slow. I thought to myself, "f__ the pace dude, if he doesn't snap of it soon, I'm outta here."

All the time now I kept getting these little twinges shooting through my legs. They felt like mini shots of electricity or like a rubber band spinning in one of those wind up balsa wood airplanes. I knew it meant my legs were on the verge. Please just a little bit more! I can't be this close and lose it all now! Keep running. Don't slow down. Luckily this is the part of the marathon that comes just in time; more people and encouragement. Thank you cheering spectators and people with big stereos! I told myself "just keep doing what you're doing and everything will be alright. Less than 2 miles now! It's right there, just keep it up."

We came into downtown and I ran past the hospital where I was born and Sutter's Fort where I had field trips as a kid. The crowd got louder now and more of them. Less than a mile. Another check of my watch. Nope, we're not going to make it. The pace group is not going to come in under 3:30! I had hung with them for too long already. I took off with whatever was left in the tank-which wasn't much. Later at home my Garmin would tell me that my last half mile was run at a 7:25 mile. Thanks again John Ellis!!

I could see the Capitol building a block away on my left as we went passed it, we made a left hand turn, ran another block and then yet another left and into the chute - now running right at the Capitol. I looked down at my watch one last time, gulped and legged it out for the finish giving up on the idea of an arms up in victory photo op. I crossed the mat, caught a glimpse of the family out of my right eye and hit the stop button on my watch...

My time in the California International Marathon: 3 hours 30 minutes and 03 seconds. I qualified for Boston.

Randy came in right behind me. He qualified for his second time!

http://connect.garmin.com/splits/20179691

http://www.kcra.com/video/21880708/index.html

(the 3:30 pace leader runs past the reporter right after she comes on camera)

Pacific City

2009-11-25T14:22:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving dinner still bulging in my tum, we left the little beach house on the hill over Neskowin and drove up "the 101" to the sand swept parking lot outside the Pelican Pub. My goal for the morning was to run two sets of 4 miles each at 8 minute/mile pace. My hoped for race pace. Lynda and the dog were going to stay on the beach while I headed up Sand Lake Rd.

Got warmed up for a mile over some gentle hills and taking it very easy. It was cool out but the sun was shining and it was just a perfect morning on the coast. The mile over, it was time for the first set of four miles. I had my watch set for manual laps so I could record everything the way I wanted but it also meant I had to pay attention and mark each mile. This wasn't tough because I was looking at it a lot to stay on pace. It was a huge advantage to be running 8 minute miles because it's so easy to stay on pace, for example at .25 miles I needed to be at 2 minutes.

Soon I was past the Thousand Trails RV park and heading north along a cliff overlooking the ocean, the mighty Pacific. As the road curves and clings to the edge of the continent it couldn't help but rise and fall like a an ocean swell. But I felt good and strong and kept a good pace. I used the down hills to purposefully shorten my stride and increase my turnover and try to get rid of my habit of chomping down the hills and hitting the brakes.

When I got to Sand Lake I was no longer sure where I had determined from Google maps where I needed to turn around. I had imagined there to be a road that ran west just south of the lake but I never saw it. So I ran a little farther and eventually just felt I had gone far enough. I crossed to the other side of the road and started back south.

After the first set I used the 1/2 walk break to shed my light jacket and get some water. Actually it was a 50/50 mix of water and gatorade. My layers adjusted and a new playlist on the iPod, I started the second set feeling pretty good. When I got back to the RV park I took the inland road just to see something different and follow my plan. This road was a little less traveled but did go past a small lake and crossed a bridge as it entered town. My GPS showed that at the end of the set and one mile cool down I was still quite a ways south of my destination. I ended with 11 miles by the time I jogged into the Pelican's lot.

Nearly every mile during the pacework was done faster than I needed.

My calf muscle did fine during this entire run and was never a problem. But the next day it was tight and I might even say a bit painful. In hindsight I wouldn't have run this at all knowing that now I'm probably not going to be 100% for the marathon. But this is a game of risk and reward. I have pushed myself to the edge and perhaps have gone just a bit too far.

On Sunday I'll find out.

The Pits

2009-11-20T23:13:00.001-08:00

It's a beautiful place to run and that's why I go there. The land is gently rolling or flat, except near the creeks which are few, so you can keep an even pace during a long run.

Champoeg Park is a natural starting and stopping point with lots of safe parking, restrooms and water. But the park is only good for a shorter run and so when high mileage is called for, a loop outside its boundaries is easy to do and enough roads exist that you can tailor a route to nearly any distance. And so it was a few week ago on a Sunday morning. Perfect cool weather, the open road and....

....I first saw them from the corner of my eye, dual blurs shooting past a low hedge and some shrubs and obviously coming in my direction. Dogs I could tell were medium size, these were in full attack mode, a sinister growl attached to each of them but only as a hapless product of their intent, not as warning for me.

Their instinct to attack whatever ran past their territory was met by my own impulse. In an instant they turned and crossed the road and were at me. With no options I met them face on and screamed "STOP!" It worked for a second. They both did halt but regrouped and charged me again. "STOP!" I repeated as I backed away and again the Pit Bulls halted just a foot away.

(This isn't the same fellow, but it is what I saw, except that there were two of them)

The owner of the 60's vintage green single level farm home appeared from the front door and called for the dogs by name. They made another menacing move toward me and then seemed to notice Randy who had so far escaped their wrath and had been slowly walking away. Now they ran up to him and he followed my lead either through example or following his own reflex by bending toward the duo and blasting them with another “STOP!”

The owner was now on the edge of the road and she oh--so--slowly brought the dogs under control and toward the house. We continued to walk, a bit rattled and muttering under our breath, until we felt safe to run once more.

You might think it an exaggeration or an embellishment if I told you that not ten minutes later we encountered a pair of German Shepherds with nearly identical circumstances. But we really did. Desensitized by the magnitude of a full out Pit Bull attack so fresh on our psyches, to be run down by these dudes was almost a let down. I felt like saying “you call yourselves bad asses; you should see your neighbors!”

Now you might really think I was yankin your chain if I said ten minutes after that we ran up on another pair of Pit Bulls-- these guys natural degree of being pissed exacerbated by the fact they were restrained from killing us immediately by a wire fence. But we really did. Again we slowed to a walk and continued along the far side of the two lane country road while avoiding eye contact but using plenty of side vision to help get a split second warning should the twin devils hop the wall. They followed us along, going berserk as they went and I hoped and prayed that the fence was not open at the edge of the yard which we were approaching now. It wasn’t open and we finished our long run without any more dog problems.

Champoeg is a beautiful area to run and I will go back there many more times. But I’m sure as heck not running along that road with all those gell-dern dogs!!

Top Ten List: Uses for my diaper

2009-11-15T15:21:00.000-08:00

Top 10 uses for my diaper while I'm running:

10. Filter out the stench of a dead skunk or other vermin.

9. Use as a hand cushion while stretching on the side of rough tree trunk.

8. Provide lashing material for impromptu splint, or use as a trauma dressing in case of big boo-boo.

7. Wipe off over spray from a passing car with a smirking driver.

6. Wrap alternately around my hands when it's cold outside and I've forgotten my gloves.

5. Wipe sweat or rain from my forehead.

4. Clean the back of my muddy legs after running along a puddle strewn forest road.

3. Blow my drippy nose.

2. Wave as a flag, a white flag, at oncoming cars and motor bikes during periods of darkness or other poor visibility.

And the number one use for my diaper while running:

WARNING: The following number 1 response contains material of an adult nature. If you are among the meek, the squeamish, the faint of heart or are otherwise sensitive to matters which some may consider unpleasant, please stop reading and subscribe to the "starrynight" blog (over at http://starrynightsstables.blogspot.com)

And once again, the the number one use for my diaper while running:

1. Use as a diaper.

Yes, long distance runners are prone to a condition I hesitate to call EIBM or Exercised Induced Bowel Movements. If you combine the healthy benefits of eating a Mediterranean style diet rich in fruits and vegetables and then lace your morning oatmeal with a heaping spoonful of ground flax seed-and then go for a long run of say... mmm 20 miles, every once in awhile you might come home smelling like shit. Hey, it could happen! Grow up!

How I got here: Henry Geiger

2009-11-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

His folks safely pulling out of the driveway my dad waited in the family room while his burly German grandfather Robert emerged from the guest room clutching a black leather satchel. Unbelting it he opened the two halves and laid it flat on the table before the wide and curious eyes of my 9 years old dad. Neatly held within the case were rows of egg sized leather hoods and curved glittering knife blades with short leather straps tied to one end.

My great grandfather had come to visit Sacramento from Florida not only to sell insurance as he told everyone else. Dad's grandpa Robert was a dirty rotten cock fighter. Talk about skeletons.

Family stories don't get passed down through the generations the way they used to. The old oral traditions were an important way of not only honoring our family past, they served as a kind of entertainment in a time before electronics and other distractions. Has anyone else had the chance to play a "parlor game" emceed by their grandmother before the term completely faded away? I did.

My dad was thoroughly entranced by this near stranger from a far away land, and now he was the sole keeper of the old man's great secret. He was ripe for believing whatever grandpa had to offer next. And what followed was a whopper.

We were descendants of pirates, Grandpa Robert said. Yes, the real types of pirates who took treasure from the ships of others and then buried it on an exotic isle that was named nothing less than the "Geiger Keys" somewhere off the Florida coast. The treasure was still there, he promised, hidden beneath trees planted long ago to conceal it's location. My dad's eyes must have been bugged out of his head.

Naturally this story got passed on to me when I was young, but it seemed so far away and so long ago that any search would be futile--assuming that the story was true at all. And of course it wasn't true, or at least not entirely.

The truth was Captain John Geiger did live in Key West, but he wasn't a pirate. He was the regions first marine pilot and a wrecker in the early and mid-1800's. Which meant if you didn't hire him as guide through the shallow ports and reefs you risked running aground and wrecking your ship, where he would salvage the mess. Sort of a pay me now or pay me later type of business. Smart guy and he got rich doing this.

Captain John was good friends with John Audubon, the famous studier and painter of birds. It was local myth that each time Audubon returned to visit the Geiger house, fresh from some exotic port, he would gift his host some type of tree or shrub. With each new planting, or so the legend goes, the good Captain used the occasion to conceal booty, much more than he ever claimed in his accounting books. Today the trees and garden still thrive behind the old mansion, although the place now carries the misnomer "Audubon House" in Key West. Weddings and other social events take place there and I have to wonder if anyone knows enough to consider what might be just below their feet.

Good story. Real good story. Too bad I'm not related to Captain John Geiger.

No, but I am a descendant of his poor brother Henry! You might say the forgotten Geiger of south Florida. So forgotten in fact that the Geiger Keys (they really do exist) of Boca Chica are now incorrectly attributed to John who lived more than 10 miles away.

Henry moved to Key West as a part of the "Armed Occupation Act", which was the governments way of driving out the Seminole Indians. He cleared the land, raised crops and tanned animal hides for the Key West markets, signaling passing ships with a long pole set up on the beach outside his small gabled house. Henry also sold firewood at $3.50 a cord to his more local clients. He lived in the small place and worked it's 160 acres for nearly 30 years and although he probably never married--he did have a son. And thank goodness for that or my kids wouldn't have me to teach them how to shave when they get older.

Someday I'm going to take my boys to the Geiger Key Marina and Smokehouse which sits on the site of the old farm and we'll drink a toast to old Henry!

Henry's line stayed in Florida until my grandfather moved from there to California with his family in the early 30's. Which is one reason Robert Geiger came to visit his son and my dad years later during that illicit "sales trip".

He brought with him his family tales, both real and...not so real.

http://www.geigerkeymarina.com

http://www.audubonhouse.com

Playlist: Somewhere Only We Know

2009-10-30T22:21:00.001-07:00

Good song. And it will get you moving:

I walked across an empty land

I knew the pathway like the back of my hand

I felt the earth beneath my feet

Sat by the river and it made me complete

Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?

I'm getting old and I need something to rely on

So tell me when you're going to let me in

I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin

I came across a fallen tree

I felt the branches of it looking at me

Is this the place we used to love?

Is this the place that I've been dreaming of...

http://www.imeem.com/artists/keane/music/HEB8mDxX/keane-somewhere-only-we-know/

Notes from Mile 22

2009-10-23T11:36:00.001-07:00

Email notes from John Ellis keep me moving

I'm not sure you could say I had used a training plan the first time I went out and ran a marathon. I had put in a lot of running and maybe even logged a few long runs but back then my goals were vague and my preparation was even more obscure. During the race I fought severe leg cramps during the last 6 miles and hobbled in with a finish time to reflect my focus. Not so good.

For my second attempt I stepped it up just a little bit, which is to say I did...something. I went to the Runnersworld website and printed out their training plan for an intermediate runner. I stuck to the program mostly, scaled back on the speedwork which had been my mainstay and started doing more distance runs and working on my strength. Somewhere during this time I started to catch on to the idea of AT thresholds and the like. Later that year I went up to the Human Performance Test Lab at OHSU and scored a V02 max of51.3. All the running was doing some good.

Last year I had the unbelievable good fortune to catch the eye of John Ellis who is on the staff at the Bill Rogers Running Center in Boston. John has a long time association to that place and an even longer involvement to long distance running. He lives along the course and just 4 miles from the finish line of the Boston Marathon. John will sometimes take a few folks under his wing that he thinks have the dedication and passion for endurance running and offers to help them with their goals. He does this for nothing and it seems that his only real reward is in seeing the improvement of those he advises. John's expert help has been nothing less than amazing. He is so dialed in to what I can do and just how much to push me and when to let me rest. Many times his advice will be so specific as to ask me to run at a 7 minute 58 second pace for instance. Not an 8 minute mile.

I've noticed many times that his notes to me will be written very late in the evening after he has gotten home from his day job and spent time with his family. Just last week I got an email from him while I was online at 9:30 pm west coast time. He was up past midnight working on my workout for the next week!

Last year John helped me for more than 4 months, first helping me stay consistent with base training and later working on very specific aspects of my race needs. Back and forth the emails flew, he feeding me weekly updates and me asking simple questions like, "what's a surge"? I not only learned a lot about running but I got into really good shape.

Last year when I ran my most recent marathon, I set a personal record of 3:44:01. Honestly I could have done several minutes better had I not had a barrage of "issues" that day (call them excuses if you want). But it's still a time that I am darn proud of because I know how much work, time, sweat and sacrifice that I put into it. It's a personal thing that only I can roll around in.

The last few weeks I've hooked up with John again. Once again I'm looking forward to that weekend email from him that will set out in an thoughtful, easy to follow, simple format just what I will run next week. Doing it wont be easy and working it into my schedule will be anything but simple. But turning John's words into action just might help me set another PR in Sacramento this December. All thanks to John!

Marian and Eleanor

2009-10-15T23:09:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I wrote about Brandon's winning several levels of award for the writing of an essay sponsored by the Daughter's of the American Revolution. He wrote about the civil rights set within the idea of the Gettysburg Address and wove together the time periods of American Revolution, the Civil War and the Inauguration of our countries first black president. It was a great experience for the boy and one I am sure it will change his perception of history and his future forever.

Today I discovered an interesting side note to that story. In 1939, Marian Anderson, a black opera singer, was refused the opportunity to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington DC because of the color of her skin. Eleanor Roosevelt and her influential husband saw the injustice of this act and gave her a new venue, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where she sang for a gathering of over 70,000 people.

The organization that banned Marian Anderson from singing in their building? The Daughters of the American Revolution.

Eleanor Roosevelt, a member of the DAR, promptly resigned from the organization. As I said in my essay back last spring, something didn't feel right during that meeting when Brandon received his recognition. Maybe those hunches had some validity and maybe Brandon should have included this story in his essay.

Between loneliness and awe

2009-10-08T22:41:00.000-07:00

Many nights, as the summer days fade into the fall, I find myself going outside before bed, staring up at the largest piece of the night sky I can find and thinking of my mom and dad. It's not something that I ever plan and find no logic behind it. Still, I am drawn there from somewhere inside me.

The few people that know me at all would not consider me a religious man. And it's true. I don't feel much of a connection to any western religion and I most assuredly am not a Christian. For me the organized religions are just man-made expressions of a persons soul, a contrived outlet for the emergence of an inner spirit, and while I agree that it serves most folks for the exploration of their spiritual quests, for me it is too limiting. My path is the pure expression of that yearning, an impulse of my humanity that must be explored. It's why I run. It seems no matter when or where we have lived our lives on this Earth, we have strived to satisfy that internal desire to face the ultimate truth and most of us do so by embracing the most available religion. That's fine. Their common threads bind us. Our need to embrace them is as natural as our desire for love and sex and food. But none of them have worked for me.

So I go outside.

Last year, while I was putting away my mom's things shortly after her passing, I came across a small scrap of paper tucked in the pocket of an old full length coat that she had hung in the closet near her front door. Her pockets, as I had discovered earlier that day, were places to expect to find only old tissues and so I had almost not bothered to look. But there it was. I bent it's warped pages back into shape and then began to read. It was in the script her handwriting had become in her last years, not elegant and "pretty" as it had once been. This was barely legible, the tremors and shaking of her hand moving the pen about the page in a jagged jerky fashion as she wrote. I'm sure she was frustrated. I imagined when she must have written it, earlier that winter I supposed, out somewhere and maybe feeling emotional and obviously alone and wanting to say something to her kids. Her kids who were now nowhere near. She left each of us with a short private thought and then near the end of the scrap of paper she said that after she was gone, she would be watching over us.

That's where she pictured herself going. Somehow released from her miserable and broken body, set free amongst the clouds and dancing between the stars and finally being able to protect and look after the children that had grown and left her loving embrace. In death, she believed, she could once again offer the protection to us that in life she was so powerless to provide, and in that she found comfort. For her, this was no imagined or irrational fear. She had already lost a son and so lived that nightmare every day.

Now the sky has a different significance to me when I think of my dad because he is the one that taught it to me. On countless summer nights we would go out on the driveway, necks craned back, eyes pointed skyward while he took me on a tour of the heavens. For my 10th birthday he bought me a telescope and built a custom box to hold it's lenses and prisms. We would spend hours outside, sometimes staying up past midnight, until the entire sphere was utterly familiar. No constellation was too small, no star cluster too insignificant, we looked at them all and I knew all their stories. The spaces between the sports figures on my Pee Chee folders were filled with my accurate doodles of star patterns. My dad wasn't always the greatest guy back in those days, but the time we spent on that driveway together was some of the best.

So I go outside.

Not because of notes from an old pocket or even memories of standing beside my dad while he pointed from star to star. Instead it's something from within. An urging from my soul, and a calling from an ancient place. A place between loneliness and awe. And a need to go out, stare up at the heavens and tell my parents goodnight.

Loose Ends

2009-09-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

The boys and I spent all day Saturday doing trail maintenance up at Mt. Rainier near Paradise. It was a good experience for them and they had such a great time that they want to do it every year and maybe see if they can adopt a trail closer to home.

We worked on water bars, added stepping stones in areas that will get muddy next spring and removed a "social" trail by replanting it with native vegetation (above right). They were shocked at how well the side trail disappeared with an afternoon's work. There was a pizza party afterwards at an old lodge and they should a preview of the new National Parks show that will be on PBS.

My new job has been going well. I really love the work and the challenge although today I left there feeling quite frustrated after studying for my certification test. I was much too slow taking an on-line practice exam. It's a lot of material and by the time I left I was discouraged and a bit punchy.

Training for the marathon is going okay--so far. My ankle was tender today after hitting a pothole or something trying to run in the dark last night. Tonight is my only day off from running which I needed because my legs are tired. I am using the Ellis plan that I got from him about a year an a half ago. I'm jumping into the middle of it (unwisely perhaps) so my mileage for this week will double to 50 or more including a 16 on Sunday. Am I ready for it? No. But as someone once said to me, it is my risk and so my reward. Or as Yoda said, "there is no try or try not. There is only do". So I'll go do it.

TOP TEN LIST: Things I noticed while camping

2009-09-22T08:58:00.001-07:00

We spent two separate weekends camping at Mt. Rainier this month. Here are the top ten things I noticed while "roughing it".

10. If you're going to buy a pop up "sun" shade for rain protection, splurge and go with the 12 foot (not the 10).

9. There are people who HAVE to listen music in the middle of the National Park and apparently assume that you want to listen to it too. These people are best described as "dipshits".

8. Growing a "camping beard" doesn't make you look outdoor macho-just old and scruffy (see pic above).

7. Coffee takes f o r e v e r to drop in one of those Coleman pots that looks like a home machine and sits on a stove burner. Plus you have to bring a thermos to store it because it doesn't keep it warm. And it takes up a lot a space.

6. Dipshits also think they are being "green" by burning their stinking garbage in the campfire.

5. Those blotches of white mildewy looking things seen on the edge of campsites but nowhere else -- are dried toothpaste spit. Camping tip: good chance those same people committed other bathroom acts in the area that are not so easily recognized.

4. Learn how to camp by watching your dog: Take a nap in the sun. Don't worry about getting dirty.

3. Dipshits may even stand around their campfire passing a bottle of gasoline back and forth and taking turns squirting it in until flames shoot back at them.

2. Consider taking a hard hat when camping in the fall. This is apparently the time when squirrels are collecting nuts by dropping pine cones from high atop a tree over your picnic table.

And the number one thing I noticed while camping:

1. Plain roasted marshmallow vs. a S'more? Plain mallow. Not even close.

Of cubes, dirty hair and politics

2009-09-15T06:25:00.000-07:00

I used to think that I had a fairly active job (no laughing Josh!) until I moved over to being an inspector. It's still darn busy but no matter how active I am during the day there is no getting around the fact that I have been assigned a cube. Those tiny iconic markers of modern workdom. The mauve box with a bank of glaring white fluorescents overhead and a high back rolly chair. But worse of all is the computer screen set in the middle. Hours upon hours, worker bees all over the planet are wired into the network sitting somewhere in the honeycomb to input their data; a medical transcript over here, accounts receivable data over there, and yes -- fire hazards found yesterday, right here in my new cube.

But I'm pretty lucky, my data entry takes only a few hours each day and the rest of the time I'm outside. Not so for many of us-- and therein lies a problem.

You see we just weren't made for all this sitting around. We're supposed to be moving, working hard at just one all important goal- staying alive. It's only very recently that we have had the luxury of getting our meat wrapped in plastic and kept frozen just steps from the place where we will sit down and eat it. It wasn't long ago that eating plants meant walking to where they grew, when they grew, collecting them and bringing some back home for those less mobile. We had to work for everything we ate and many times, no doubt, went hungry when the supply ran low.

More recently, even as late as our grandfather's or maybe our great grandfather's time, schedules revolved around the fluctuations of sustenance. We can still see signs of this if we look closely. Calendars still show the phases of the moon, when a family can plan on staying out late to work in the fields by it's light. Summer vacation just ended for my boys, a relic of an idea where the kids would be home from school all day during the peak growing season to work the fields. A tradition held over from a time when such things were that important, but now it's origins are nearly forgotten. It wasn't that long ago we had to work our asses off just to eat.

Years ago there was TV reality show called "Frontier House" (if you have Netflix it is worth getting) where four ordinary families were followed in rural conditions that existed just over a century ago. Each was told that they would have to work hard all day every day to bring in water, cut firewood, hunt for meat and grow their own crops. In the beginning two prissy teen aged girls were grossed out after the second day because they were unable to wash their hair. But in just a few weeks the same girls were filthy, with flies on their faces and seemingly unaware of it. When you're hungry and need to work to stay alive your priorities change pretty fast. Later one of the men on the show was taken to a doctor because he had lost so much weight and it was feared he was ill. After a check up it was determined he was fine. His rapid weight loss was just a result of his calorie intake being so much less and the long physical labor he was putting in. That's the way it was back then. Not many fat people.

We don't have to work that hard anymore, at least most of us don't. We sit in our cubes and stare into the glowing box. But the impulses to scavenge and stuff something into our face whenever we see it continues in as strong as ever. Which is the simple reason 2 out of 3 Americans are overweight or obese. No real workie but lots of greazie, sugary food. If I don't run, I slide right into that overweight category. And being overweight creates a slew of health problems, from heart attacks to the current spike we see in diabetes.

Overeating and not exercising are a biproduct of our "success", but other things like smoking addiction, which I have written about before, contribute to it too.

Which brings me to this countries current health care debate. "Single payer", "co-ops", "public options" and the like are all the buzz words being bandied about. We get so fixated on who is going to pay for something that we lose sight of the real issue-making people healthier. That needs to be the starting point, not the peripheral result if all else in the new law goes right. The main focus needs to be a fresh look at keeping people healthy in the first place, not how to pay for more and bigger band-aids after they get sick. We need to stop talking about creating a huge bureaucracy that maybe, just maybe, will end up in people getting healthier. We need to come up with a plan that starts with prevention and then goes to treatment. Be proactive instead of reactive. Like my new job, if you prevent the fire in the first place then you never need to go put it out. Make prevention and incentives (such as an increase in insurance rate for smokers. High risk insured already pay more in areas like homeowners and automobile) a part of any new legislation.

And if you're going to choose to make bad decisions about yourself, such as being fat and smoking, that is your choice. But I don't want to pay for it. Before community there should always be the individual. And now if you'll excuse me, I've stared into this video monitor for way too long!

A New Plan

2009-09-07T18:59:00.001-07:00

California International Marathon

I'm not going to be ready for the Portland Marathon. There just isn't going to be time to be in shape to set a PR there. I might still run it, or do a half, but the idea of qualifying there is just not going to happen.

So here is the plan. A plan that was always the "B" option. I got to get my butt in gear, get serious and work hard for being ready for the marathon in Sacramento on December 6th. That's 12 weeks away so hopefully I can get focused and be ready.

There are a couple of things I like about running this race. First, as the profile above shows, the course is mostly level or downhill. That will certainly help! Second, it would be nice to run a new course and one that is an A to B. And last, I have a bunch of relatives in Sac that I could use for motivation and support.

So starting tomorrow I ramp up and getting moving. Hopefully moving towards PR or a BQ.

Smiles on the Yakima Greenway

2009-08-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

I had a good run yesterday. First of all it was nice to just be running on consecutive days. I was listening to Steve, which is what really helps pull me out of my running funk more than anything else-- and I was devoted to a full 8 miles, my longest in quite awhile. But what I didn't anticipate was the gem of running trail called the Yakima Greenway.

Matthew and I were on our annual late summer circuit of minor league baseball teams, this time we were visiting Yakima and the Tri-Cities. After we got checked into our Yakima room I opened the guest services book to help me find a running route for the next morning. I had thought about making loops around Yakima's downtown area which has been beautifully rejuvenated with trendy shops, replica lamp posts and hanging baskets. But I normally try to avoid the multiple street crossings that such an area necessitates and there was a weekend "3 on 3" hoops tournament going on that looked fun right but it was set up right on the downtown streets and very congested. I looked for something else in the notebook.

It wasn't hard to find. Not far was the Yakima Greenway, 10 miles of trails along the Yakima River and dotted with city parks. Perfect! It was only a few minutes away. Matthew and I went to the ball game between the Yakima Bears and the Tri-City Dust Devils and when we got back I set out my running stuff so I'd be ready to roll early the next morning. Trouble was I slept longer than had intended (I'm not quite adapted yet to the 5 a.m. wake up that my new job demands) and so didn't get out the door until I had geared up and woofed down some hotel express breakfast.

I parked at Sarg Hubbard Park and started north along the paved trail..and then it happened almost immediately. The first person I came to along the way smiled, gave me a quick wave. "Hmm, nice guy" thinks I. The next guy kinda the same thing, a little smile and a quick "morning!". Hmmm. Now I'm getting into it. As the next person approaches I smile and raise my diaper clutching paw. We even make some eye contact. "Mornin'!!"

The asphalt path straddles a riparian zone between the river and the freeway. Mostly it is quiet and a pleasant run but there are portions when it is forced annoyingly near the interstate and at the 4 mile point where I turned around the path would have actually taken me on an overpass to the other side.

After a mile or so I saw what looked like a golf cart coming at me from the other direction. Sure enough that's what it was--with two people riding it and a flashing amber light on top. Was there a golf course nearby? No, these were volunteers providing free water to anyone out on the path. Very friendly! I graciously declined the offer made by the apparently married couple adorned in straw hats with a band and those big wrap-around sun glasses. "No thank you, I carry my own" pointing to my Ultimate. I saw another one of these carts later on.

At one place I came to a couple with their Golden Retriever and I suddenly missed Hannah. In a few minutes I came to a place on the path dotted by wet paw prints and knew that the golden had been allowed to play in the river.

I stopped a few times to read a few of the many informational signs along the way. I'm a sucker for finding something out about the geology and history of the area. And some of them described how this greenway project was funded, apparently much of it through contributions. But what impressed me was the people. The culture of the greenway is one of smiles and goodwill based on the common experience. An exchange that is transmitted up and down it's 10 mile length one person at a time.

My smile broke out into a laugh just once, not from the greenway camaraderie, but from a skit Steve did taken from 2001, A Space Odyssey. I wonder what people must think when they see me do that! But no matter. Yesterday was a good run.

http://connect.garmin.com/player/12229496

When I Don't Run

2009-08-19T15:18:00.001-07:00

When I was in college I was impressed by a certain essay we were asked to consider titled "Why I Write" by Joan Didion. I liked that short story starting with the cadence and rythmn of it's title but what really stuck to my ribs all these years was the fact that she doesn't really fulfill the promise of the title. She uses images and paints a picture which brings the reader into a deeper meaning. A meaning that exists in the white spaces around the words, a meaning of common fears that we all share and exist off the page.

It was about this time that I had planned to write an entry inspired by my Writing 101 assignment so many years ago, something I was going to call "Why I Run". That's going to have to wait because despite my determination and grand plans I have not been running -- much. This was to be the height of my marathon training. I had been pushing toward this time with both anticipation and expectation, excited to move past the time of long slow miles and finally push harder, and more than anything, go faster. My 12 week plan was printed and sitting on my desk ready to go. Running is pretty simple after that. You just need to put on your shoes and go do it.

But I haven't done it. In the last month I've logged less than 20 miles, well short of the 200 or more I should have completed. And not just completed but run with the purpose of a person devoted and committed . It just isn't that easy.

Running for me is all about heart. When I lose sight, when I stray and feel lost it can be extremely difficult for me to ind the road. Not because I don't want to run but because I have lost the heart to run. It's both a passion and a celebration of being alive, an exploration of my potential taken just one step at a time. But when I mess up or other events in my life go wrong, as happened last summer, the fire that feeds my passion for most everything, including running and blogging, is quelled. The times that I do run are mostly uninspired and only serve to confirm my condition.

This lull will end now, weeks old, not months, and I will return to the roads. That's where I'll find myself again and continue the quest. That's where I'll find the my inspiration to write an essay titled "Why I Run" and when I do write it it's meaning might be found in the white space.

On the run?

2009-08-13T05:47:00.001-07:00

Williamsburg, VA.

Haven't been running much lately. Tons of excuses, the most recent being that we are on holiday on the east coast and have not made the time - except once. Started in DC then made a big sweeping loop up through Philly, Gettysburg and now down in Williamsburg on the way back to the start. Enjoying lots of history and spending time with the fam--but not running much!!

Just a run in the parks

2009-07-30T12:55:00.001-07:00

Awhile back I wrote about how the boys were doing in baseball. Well the summer season has just ended and so I wanted to give a quick update. I mentioned earlier that Matthew had wanted to support his high school team despite not being on the varsity team. We drove to Pendleton to cheer them on. This time he chose to support his brother in the state junior baseball playoffs instead of going to his playoff tournament in Astoria.

Brandon's team finished strong as expected. They won their division, placed top seed in their district playoffs and then went on to take the 4th place trophy in the state. Those are the numbers...the heart, sweat, emotions and amazing and improbable comebacks are the real stories that we will rememeber forever.

So I am proud of both my kids. Matthew for showing some signs of growing up and doing something selfless, for his brother no less. And for B for being such a gutsy little stud.

So the day after the playoffs I included in my run a visit to all the fields in town that they played at during the summer. A little tribute to the remaining time I'll have when they are still playing kids games in our small town.

Right Beside Me

2009-07-26T09:30:00.001-07:00

On our first date was in the spring of 1988 and I was so nervous the waitress at the Provision Company restaurant in the Sunriver lodge refilled my water glass a half dozen times. I had a sesame chicken salad which was a little too sweet for my liking but I didn't really notice at that particular moment. Lynda sat to my left at the little table and looked all so sophisticated and cultured. She was a WSU grad, manager at Sunriver resort, wore the nice clothes of someone in that position and was able to make the lunch tab disappear with a just few words to our waitress.

By contrast I was hick. Just two years of community college I drove a growling white forestry pumper which needed to have the passenger seat dusted if someone were ever going to sit on it.

It wasn't long before I learned that her work veneer was extremely thin. Lynda played coed softball for Izzy's Pizza, her mom and dad had weekend property up near Easton which featured a junker double wide and when I suggested we go for a mountain hike and take a lunch, she accepted (picture above). Lynda didn't mind getting dirty. On our first "real" date we went to a small production of the play "Bleacher Bums"- a choice that turned out to be exceptionally prophetic.

We both knew from the start that we would spend the rest of lives together. At least I did. Being with her was easy and felt so right. Inside something seemed to say, "oh there you are, now we can get started". She kids me for having never actually asked her to marry me. But there was never any need. Once we found each other there was no question we would always be together.

Besides my love I also know that I need her. I've never been very responsible or had much interest in grown up things like money and politics. I'm much more child-like, dreaming myself up to the stars at night or riding a wave of wind as it rushes though our trees in the evening. My craving to keep life simple has meant that someone has had to pick up my adult slack and of course that person is Lynda.

She does know who she married and so rarely complains about it, but every once in awhile, when my divergences veer beyond the bounds of even her enormous tolerance, she pulls me back in and sets me back on the path once more. Without her I'd surely walk off the cliff.

So this last 10 days I've paused and reflected on things. It was a naturally time to do so. I had intended on a light running week anyway, to brace myself for the race training about to start. And I was changing jobs, leaving the fire fighting business to go the prevention side. A big change and also worthy of a rest. Marathon training and a new job are both challenging and a little scary. But I know I'll be able to do it. I know because Lynda will be where she's been since our Sunriver days. Right beside me.

The "Old Town" route

2009-07-10T16:45:00.000-07:00

My Garmin tracks a recent run thru old town. Wagon drivers on the old ferry road (yellow) had to slalom the grid if they were going through.

I run down this street on most days. The railroad tracks still exist behind the green car on the far right.

It might be obvious by now that I love history. More exact, I like to understand my relationship to history. Someplace inside me craves to feel connected, to give my life context and know how I belong amongst the flurry that surrounds.

Now I live in a sweet little town. Surrounded by farm land, small wooded areas and orchards, Sherwood, at least for the time being, is as Mayberry as Mayberry ever hoped to be. Yes, urbanization has taken over the strip along the main highway with supermarkets, fast food joints and even a big box store, but if I run just few blocks off the main drag the sense of small town quickly returns.

The heart of the town for me is still at it's original 6 streets, semi-officially designated as "Smockville" but we locals call it simply "Old Town". I really love running through these old streets. Filled with houses fronted by white picket fences, sprinkled with cozy mom and pop type shops and looked over by a few old and not so old multi-story, multi-use brick anchors on some of the more prominent street corners, Smockville sets the pace for who we are.

I have kind of a hazy idea of how this place came to be, but it goes something like this: when white settlers, mostly french Canadians, arrived in droves to take advantage of the fertile Willamette Valley in the mid-1840's, the Atfalati indians were the poor losers. Within a single generation most of them had succumbed to disease. The farmers that they quickly replaced prospered taking advantage of the near perfect growing conditions. And the Willamette River provided a ready made water road placed perfectly down the valley's center. Steamboats cruised along it's length moving people and produce. Along the river small towns popped up, gathering points really where products could be loaded or unloaded from the ships. Slowly, wagon roads were cut through the wilderness, often following the trails left by the Native Americans.

One early settler, a little to the north, was John Taylor. His ambitious scheme was to build a road from the emerging berg of Portland to the lower end of the Tualatin Valley. The payoff would be the money he would charge not only for using the road but also the use of his ferry boat needed to cross over the Tualatin River on the way to the end at Dayton. After Taylors east-west road was operating in 1852 a secondary road was built splitting off to the south to access the riches of the larger Willamette Valley. This twisting road through the woods would greatly increase traffic on the main toll road. It's destination was the steamboat port of Butteville on the far bank of the Willamette and literally at the top of the valley in an area called French Prairie. Again, a ferry was used to cross the water to reach Butteville on the other side. Some homesteads were scattered among this splinter roads less farm worthy forests, but most people still lived near the rivers or in the open valley farm land.

One such woodland based pioneer living along the road was James Smock who first chose this forest area to set up a saw mill and provide lumber for new construction. Later he created a grist mill to feed the ever increasing locals, refining the crops from both valleys. Ever diligent in seizing upon a new opportunity, Smock's big chance really happened when he caught wind that a railroad was going to be built near his place.

This was a time of big dreams and seemingly unlimited potential for capitalists. The railroad, with the wildly ambitious name of "Oregon & Transcontinental" would parallel John Taylor's ferry road to the south and give it a run for it's money. James Smock found out where the tracks would cross the road to Butteville and started buying up the land there. Twenty years of being a mill owner were about over. Smock was about to go big time!

When the dust of the railroad workers had settled Smock obliterated a section of the road linking Butteville with John Taylor's ferry road and plotted out a 9 block town right up against the tracks. The rail bed at that point did not run directly east-west or north-south but instead sliced through the woods at almost a perfect 45 degree angle, but no matter to Smock--he just squared his new town to the tracks anyway. This was about access to that railroad, not neatness on a map. Smock was no fool. He perfectly placed the grid so that travelers passing through would enter at one corner and would have to exit at the opposing side ensuring they would see the town. It worked, and modern day drivers are faced with the same options when they enter the little checkerboard today: "Which way will I go this time to get to the other side?"

The names to those few streets he laid out in 1885 he kept pretty simple too; Railroad, Washington, 1st, 2nd and Pine; and the name of the new town itself even less of a shock: Smockville. Here where wagons from the gathering place of Butteville would meet the railroad headed back toward Portland, businesses emerged; a livery, a tavern and eventually a store owned by Smock himself built right where the wagon road crossed the tracks.

While other small towns eventually withered or died out(Butteville's sister city of Champoeg was washed away in 1861, Middleton just a few miles down the tracks from Smockville did not sustain itself commercially) Smockville continued to slowly grow and diversify. Soon after a town government was formed they decided that the name of Smockville was a little too folksy and limiting to their grand plans and so the name was changed to the more sophisticated sounding "Sherwood" simply because the area reminded someone of the famous forest in the U.K.

Like a geographical Rip Van Winkle the little town slept for the next hundred years. Most of the forest was cut and replaced with fruit trees and a cannery and brick making plant were built on the railroad tracks-- but mostly nothing happened here for a long time. While other areas of the Portland area grew up and got developed, not so in Sherwood. That is until the Geiger's moved to town!

Yep, that's about when it all went nuts. Home Depot, Regal Cinemas, Target, Albertson's, Safeway and of course a McDonald's, all built along the Highway 99W: which ironically paved over Taylor's Ferry road and put the railroad practically out of business. Funny how things run in circles. Now there is a movement to put a commuter train back on the tracks because there are too many cars on the highway!! That's awesome!!!

But James Smock's original 9 blocks, the one's we locals like to call Old Town, still sit at an odd angle along the railroad tracks, looking not too much different than the day when he saw them last. Only now a middle-aged dad with bad posture, a drippy big nose and holding a diaper plods through on his long runs. And wonders how he got to be so lucky as to live in a place called Sherwood.

Playlist: Stop & Stare

2009-07-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I leave my iPod at the house when I go out for my run. It may be because it's a shorter distance or more likely the mood of the day suggests an outing without anything to change it. Times when I just want to run free of devices and feel and hear the world as it is. Other times I just tire of all the wires and fiddling with the gadgets.

But most of the time I take it with me. Even then I'll often take the ear buds out during the run and just let them clank around below my neck (I route the wire under my shirt so that I don't snag it with my hands which I find very annoying). In addition to listening to Fdip and some of it's off-shoot podcasts, I of course listen to music.

Again, mood mostly inspires me on to what I listen too. When I was down in Arizona in March I bought an album appropriately called "Second Wind" filled with native American flute music which complimented my runs out in the dessert. Back home I still listen to it when I'm feeling mellow and just want some quiet background sounds for a slow run at dusk. (It wasn't until I had this bought and downloaded that I realized that most if not all of the music was done on a synthesizer. I wanted real wooden flute music dammit!! Oh well.)

My favorite music is that which has a lot of passion and emotion poured into it. A song where I can touch the feelings pouring from the artist. Alan Jackson's "I'll Try" comes to mind. He almost seems to cry near the end of the song - and it always makes me think of her when I hear it.

But there can be strong energy in music and running too and there are certain song that are able to pull me past some of the long miles. So, once in awhile I share some of those songs here.

One of my favorites I keep deep in my playlist to give me that extra motivation late in the miles. For me the song is all about becoming a runner and for me it is full of heart. Because as a runner I've become what I can't be.

OneRepublic - Stop & Stare - Free MP3 Stream on IMEEM Music

It All Depends

2009-06-25T19:21:00.001-07:00

After getting home from my long run today Brandon wrinkled up his nose, got a disgusted look on his face and suggested that I change my name to "Smells Like a Diaper". Not a bad idea.

Fdip

2009-06-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

My friend Steve Walker

Running can be a lonely business. The struggle and persistence are usually endured alone. The victory of pushing up a hill and cresting it's top on a sultry summer morning is typically celebrated by ones self. In the cold months the feeling of solitariness is all the more profound as fewer runners are out on the roads. Being a distance runner complicates things too as few friends find the idea of running for an hour very appealing. We're not like everybody else and we know that.

But as I've said before, there are times when running with a friend just feels right. Sometimes it's just an excuse to see that person again, such as my old friend Bob. Other times it's to help push me toward a certain goal while on a run or simply to help me find the strength to get my ass out there and get it done. Randy has been my bud for those needs. But there is another friend that I rarely talk about.

Our relationship is rather unique I have to admit. I've never met him and yet I know him very well. We have much in common; our age, love of history, astronomy, baseball, camping, celtic music, tending the garden, living in a small town, our teenaged sons and of course -- running. Yet he knows little about me. Like me he seems obsessed with his mortality and consciously lives his life as a journey of exploration on it's meaning and human purpose. His attempts to meld the spirit of his heart with the realities of his head are so similar to my own. He's made me laugh out loud like an idiot and more than once shed a tear when overwhelmed with the love for his son. Once a week we going running together for an hour. I get caught up on what's happening in his life and his running. It is a unique relationship but one that exists just as it was intended.

I guess you could say that Steve is the host of a running podcast. But to those of us who join him each week it is so much more. He is so genuine and passionate about life that bonds quickly form. Although Steve constantly fusses over quality and accurate content for his weekly theme, those of us in his running circle couldn't care less. We're not in it for the running tips. We go for a run with Steve simply because we like going running with him. If all the glitz, theme music and production stuff were to disappear I would still be there. All he needs to do is clip his mic to his running shirt and head out the door. But he does so much more.

As I said, he's a passionate person. He puts everything he has into what he does and that includes Phedippidations. How he is able to produce such a high quality show every week is way beyond me. I can't even hack out a weekly blog entry. But every Friday good old Steve has another hour of friendship locked and loaded and ready for me and my weekend long run.

To the faithful the formula is familiar. Steve regrettably breaking away from the family routine to run, stepping through the squeaking door and assessing the day. Procrastinating in his yard, talking about his recent runs, troubles at work, size of his tomatoes in the garden and of course the weather, before finally giving up and pressing the start button on his Garmin. On the run Steve delves into the topic - that isn't always about running, but that just doesn't seem to matter. This more about the friendship and no one really cares what we talk about.

Always promoting everyone but himself (it's no secret that he doesn't need to) he spends the second half of the hour talking about other runners: other podcasts, blogs, websites and fellow runners race reports. Steve even mentioned this little blog in the summer of 2007. He's recently coined the phrase "race net community" to describe the new social media web that joins so many runners together. In a way, the expanding network has diminished the intimacy of "Fdip", but that's just Steve message: let's all get get connected.

I have to admit that the show formula becomes part of the allure, the familiarity and pattern of it induce a type of anticipation. Sparring with his son John Michael while waiting in the car for the school bus, trash talking his defenseless running friend Joe Steindl, gushing over his running advisor the great John Ellis, the inside relationships are as regular and cozy as those in an episode of "Mister Roger's Neighborhood". Blueberry ales, books and wine, canoe camping, the Worcester Tornadoes, "The Curra Road", bad drivers in Oxford, harping on Tom Cruise and Barry Bonds, the sanctifying of the complex George Sheehan -- like a good friend I have come to know what to expect.

This just scratches the surface of our friendship. After years of running together I know a lot about Steve, while I admit that he knows virtually nothing about me. But this is a new time and there are indeed new kinds of friendships. And that's just how Steve intended it. Still, how much do I like Fdip? Tree-si-so!

(Fdip can be found and listened to on your computer at http://www.steverunner.com/ or you can subscribe to Phedippidations and download it for free on iTunes.)

How I Got Here: Willard Barnes

2009-06-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

(left) Celia Barnes with her grandpa Willard in 1900 and again with Matthew and me 93 years later.

I can remember the exact moment. I was standing by myself on the hot sidewalk outside our house in California. I was 7 or maybe 8 years old and I wondered very simply- how did I get here? How did I happen to be standing here at this exact moment? What events happened before me to bring me to this place? I knew some things about my parents and my grandparents but nothing more. A few obscure stories told by by dad but beyond that our family story was fading fast.

Many times as a kid my family would go for weekend rides into the foothills east of Sacramento. Grandma Ruth (dad's mom) was widowed when I was small and she often join us. My mom would bring a picnic lunch. A few times our wanderings (for I really believe that my dad had no plan when we started out) we found ourselves out near the old gold mining town of Grass Valley. On one of the trips Grandma Ruth said that she had been born up there and we even visited an old man that was her cousin. He lived on an old run down family ranch. These little glimpses helped me a bit but it really intensified my curiosity: how and why here?

One night when I was an grown I called Grandma and asked her who her grandfather was. "Oh honey, I really don't know. You see he died before I was born." Grandma was the youngest of her two sisters and brother. What she didn't know was that I had just been to the National Archives branch is Seattle and had spent the weekend digging up our family bones. What I wanted from Grandma was some flesh to add to the skeleton. Stories of our family. Who they were. Something besides the numbers found on old census records and land deeds. More than dates and names. She knew a lot about our family of course but didn't know much about her Grandpa. Lucky for me, she knew who did.

Grandma's sister, who was "Aunt Celia" to me, was still alive and living in Sacramento. Born in 1899 she was a teenager when her grandfather passed. This was the connection I needed and it wasn't long before I was sitting in her living room with a tape recorder on the table asking questions. She talked and showed me ancient pictures that were stored in a huge box that she had brought up her ladder-like basement stairs before we arrived. She went on for hours and I thought could have continued all night.

She told how her grandfather, a poor little boy from Upstate New York whose father had died when he was young and had been sold into bondage by his evil mother. The boy named Willard was a "bond boy", she explained, who slaved away on a farm until he was of legal age.

Ent!! Well not exactly Aunt Celia. I didn't have the heart to tell her that this version of young Willard Barnes early years was a bit exaggerated in our passed down family lore. His father really did die about 1840 when he was small but Willard's mother didn't abandon him. She remarried and following the custom of the time his son became an indentured servant, early America's version of foster parenting. We will never know if young Willard was treated worse than all the other kids in house, but we do know that the Henderson's remained "shirttail relatives" of the Barnes clan so I like to think he was treated fine. And we know he was with his mother.

Digging through some library archives I found a newspaper ad from the mid-1800's of a type young adult Willard may have seen. "Come to the Gold Fields of California!!" it screams across the top. A map shows two water routes, one around the horn of South America and the other a short cut across the Isthmus of Panama by mule. I can picture him saving the ad, maybe even hiding it from everyone else in the house, and dreaming of the day he would be free to do as he pleased. Crossing to the other side of the country by ship and making his way to the gold fields was indeed dreaming big. And when he was old enough, 18 years, he packed his scant belongings, kissed his mother goodbye and started his new life by heading west.

He chose the short Panama route. Allister Cooke in his book "America" writes of the horrid conditions in Panama. The heat, dysentary and disease spreading mosquitos were awful. But he made it and boarded the steamer ship "Golden Gate" on the other side and headed north to San Francisco. He wasn't exactly a 49'er but in 1851 my family had arrived on the west coast.

He went up the Sacramento River and settled in the San Joaquin Valley. Knowing farming, not gold mining, his plan was to homestead in the valley and feed the miners up in hills. Things worked well for over 10 years. His farm on the Yuba River was perfectly positioned to serve both the mining camps to the east and the anywhere up or down river. That is until Christmas 1861. Willard, now married with two children, probably wasn't alarmed when the rain started. But it soon became clear that this was no ordinary winter storm. It rained for almost four weeks without stopping and most of the valley near the rivers was several feet under water.

His friends in the town of Linda looked for the Barnes family during the flood and couldn't find them. The local paper listed them as among the missing and the worst was feared. It wasn't until the waters receded that they were able to crawl out of a granary, a raised building that holds wheat or feed. The flooding wasn't exclusive to central California but ravaged the entire west coast. The town of Champoeg, near where I live now, was wiped out by floods in the same month.

Willard and family decided to rebuild on higher ground, away from the unpredictable river and closer to the mining towns where their produce would be bought. They found good land 30 miles to the east in-- you guessed it-- Grass Valley.

Willard had several sons who grew up and made their fortunes in bigger towns, followed by a couple of daughters who married locals and stayed in Grass Valley. Finally he had one last son in 1875. He must have been relieved to have another boy to help him out on the ranch and the boy may have felt some obligation to stay with his dad for as long as needed. But the boy, John Fayette Barnes, like his father before him on the Henderson farm all those years before, dreamt of something more. Something different. When Willard finally became too old to work the ranch, he leased it out to another family and moved into a spare room of his married daughter in the residential area of Grass Valley. His son John also moved to town and started a lumber business to take advantage of the explosive town growth. His first child he named Celia-- and now I sat in her living room.

Aunt Celia remembered walking over several blocks to visit her grandpa. She talked about how he would cut off a willow branch and use his pen knife to make whistles for all the kids. She said that she saw him get upset when he found that the man on the old ranch had cut down a favorite tree on the property. And she showed me a picture of her sitting on his lap when she was but a baby.

Willard died in 1913 at the age of 83 of stroke. He had gone outside to feed the chickens at his daughters home when she found him on the ground. He was brought inside and ate lunch while the doctor was being called saying "a Barnes can always eat." But he passed later that afternoon. Aunt Celia had made the name and numbers into a real person.

My grandma Ruth was born that next year and after World War I ended her dad's lumber business was no longer as profitable so John moved the family to the Sacramento where he worked as an architect. She later married Gerald Geiger and my dad came along in 1934.

Maybe everyone retains that memory of the moment of their self awareness. That unique time in our lives when we stop suddenly and are slapped with the most obvious of personal questions: how did I get here? That kid standing on the hot summer sidewalk in Rancho Cordova now has at least part of the answer. Great-great grandpa Willard brought me here by mule.

Training update: It probably makes more sense to do a few more weeks of base training. I need the strength and endurance. I got over 30 miles last week, I'll do 40 this week, then go for 50 and 60. That will give me 12 week of race specific training before Portland.

Standing at the Base

2009-06-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

Psst! Yeah, you runner dude. The one with the John Stockton shorts and wires sticking out of your ears. Yeah, hey, can we be honest with each other for a second? I mean let's just get this out in the open once and for all. You know what I'm talking about. How when we aren't doing jack and someone asks how our training is going and we all lie our butts off telling then we're "base training" when what we really mean to say is that we're between races and don't have a freaking clue about what the hell we're doing out there and we're just making it up as we go along. C'mon, that's our fall back answer when we're dinkin' around. "Uhhh (sniff), I'm base training right now."

But seriously I DID have high hopes and a genuine interest in doing the right thing this cycle. My weight was exactly where I wanted it for starting the higher miles. I had no real injuries. My schedule was conducive to the time needed. And I had an expert trainer to keep me on task and maximize my time spent doing the long and slow. It was all there ready to go. But then...

...but then I ticked off my "E-coach". I'm not going to get into what happened because there are two sides to every story. But in my opinion two things must exist in a coach-student relationship: mutual respect and good communication. I respected his advice, but I didn't always feel his love in return. And this time around he had a BlackBerry and so his messages had become short and I suspect, on-the-fly. I'm the type that appreciates a little explanation on top of the bottom line. It's part of the journey for me to understand what we're doing. With much regret and with a ton of appreciation for all his time already spent, I had to give up this expert advice. I'm still not over it.

I still had his general base training plan: alternate weeks of 60 miles and 40 miles and keep the pace very slow. The idea was to build strength and endurance but not get hurt by pushing too hard. I was ready to go. I ran 31 miles the week before and bumped up to 42 miles the next. My plan was for 50 miles the following week, but...

...but I was at work carrying some bulky equipment back to the fire engine at an apartment building when I stepped off a retaining wall into the parking lot. A resident there had put a landscape brick, one of those gray wedge shaped types, at the bottom of the wall - apparently as a step. I didn't know it was there and my right foot hit the edge of it, buckled and rolled me right to the ground. I hobbled around for awhile cursing under my breath.

Two weeks later and I'm just now feeling like things are back to where I can run. I did a couple of light runs last week (shouldn't have) just to get out, but now feel okay.

So much for establishing a good base!

In a few days I'll be 16 weeks from the Portland Marathon. Tempo runs and speedwork will take over. So go ahead and ask me then how my training is going! I'll have plenty to talk about.

I Have Met the Enemy

2009-05-30T13:19:00.000-07:00

Two week before my very first marathon I stepped on a fire hose at work and rolled my right foot. It hurt so bad I could barely drive back to the station. The entire bottom half of my foot eventually bruised and after this injury I seem much more prone to having similar problems with that foot.

A week before my second marathon the running gremlins reached up and grabbed me again - I rolled the same foot on a round rock at mile post 2.25 at Forest Park. Again, I ran a marathon with a black and blue foot. Imagine the odds! But things were different last year for my most recent marathon attempt--my feet were good, but I ran with a strained lower back. Craziness!

But I'm not just hurt at race time. Oh no, I've had some training related injuries too. My first was a bout with ITBS. I found out quickly enough what it was (from a booth at a race expo!) and within a month it was gone. To deal with it I added some new stretches to my routine, including a pendulum clock looking thing and another I affectionately call the ballerina pose; one arm arched over my head like I'm in Swan Lake or something. But what really cured my sore knee was massaging the outside of my thigh with a foam roller.

At first I could barely put any weight at all on the blue roller--now I could use more. It really takes out the knots and kinks in my overused leg muscles. It's kept handy, hidden behind an overstuffed chair in my living room, and I break it out several times a week when watching TV in the evening. I love my little foam roller. We also have a big red body ball that we keep downstairs which gets a little use from me now then for some core.

I trained pretty hard for last years marathon, doing over 50 miles a week for a stretch. When the race and the race soreness wore off I was left with left heel pain. Yep, plantar fasciitis. I went to a so called "sports doctor" to get that fine diagnosis (I had a pretty good idea already). It was important to me to find someone who understood runners, and not just their particular problems, but someone who understood what makes us tick. Someone who could relate. I pictured someone who would be a fellow runner.

The guy I went to was none of that. His two pieces of advice; go get fitted for orthotics and (cue the big fanfare trumpet music here)-- think about giving up running. "Hmmm, yeah, I'll do that when you think about giving up portraying yourself as a sports doc!" Bite me.

I went to his recommended orthotics guy. He told me he'd love to make me a $500 pair of custom inserts but almost everybody does just fine with the off the shelf type. "Hmmmmm, you mean I didn't need to go through all this rigmarole and could have just bought some damn slip-ins at the store?" "Yep" says the orthotics dude. I drove down to Roadrunner Sports and bought a pair of green Superfeet for $30. They work great.

I'm also more diligent about replacing my shoes more often. This a pretty cheap sport so it doesn't make sense to scrimp on shoes. 500 miles now, and that's it, new shoes.

I also got a night splint for treating the PF, but I'm not convinced it does much. So far, and knock on wood here, despite getting my miles back up the plantar is doing fine and I would even say is better than it was before I started really running again at the first of the year. Go figure. I also self massage my plantar trigger points every day. Trouble is I don't have a clue about where those trigger points might be, so I just massage the entire bottom of my foot.

And speaking of horses (well I did just mention "Trigger") the last thing I do to stay injury free is take those huge horse pills we all love, the twins of gag reflex; that's right the urp duo: Chondroitin and Glucosamine. You best get yourself a big sip of water before trying to choke down those two sons-a-bitches. But most people say they help, or are at least harmless, so I take them.

So I'm doing okay, as long as I keep stretching and doing the what I'm doing. Oh, I did roll that same damn right foot again at work last week and haven't run since then while I wait for the purple to fade to green and then back to...skin color. Not much I can do about that one. Stupid foot. But running is a competitive sport. And I know who I'm racing against.

For the Love

2009-05-18T23:10:00.000-07:00

His own junior varsity season over, Matthew came to me and asked if I would take him to Pendleton for the varsity teams first playoff game. He knew that he wouldn't play, but he just wanted to be around the game and the boys he has played baseball with since he was small. I wanted to take him but it would mean eight hours of driving for just a two hour game. Nobody else from the JV team was making the trip. But Matthew really wanted to be there.

It was obvious from the very beginning that baseball was special to him. On his second birthday he got a Playskool toy-sized baseball set that we promptly set up in our living room. Matthew picked up the plastic bat, struck the ball off the "T" and commenced to run the bases --in the right direction and then slid into second! Whoa! How did he know how to do that? More surprising was that this was the 1994 strike shortened major league season and he hadn't even seen a game in four months! He had just been paying attention and remembered.

Like a lot of kids he started playing Little League as soon as he could. The picture above is from 2002. But after a summer or two our town switched to the "Junior Baseball" league which meant that each year all the boys would be sorted into three groups based on playing ability; average, above average and exceptional. Not blessed with a ton of natural athleticism (he takes after me that way) he was graded into the average group, called "National", that first year.

But this is what he loved to do. When not playing for his regular team, Matthew was always organizing neighborhood games either in our cul-de-sac or in our backyard. He would make posters and place them on the group mailbox on our street or take them door to door trying to get kids to play. The gate in our side yard still has the outline of the stickers he used to write "HOOD FIELD", the old location of his tike sized ballpark.

The next year he ranked the same, National, but had a great coach who became a family friend and for several years playing at this level was just fun and didn't matter. But as Matthew got older and neared middle school years many of his closest friends started playing the higher American or Federal level ball. He wasn't really embarrassed about it, but with his love for the game he expected to move up.

During the winters he would get in as much baseball as possible, which in dreary western Oregon meant indoor lessons. BioForce, a baseball academy, was his winter sanctuary and he told me over and over on the way home how good it felt just to throw the ball and be around the game. At home he would stare out the window at the rain-- like Rogers Hornsby. I knew what he was waiting for.

As parents we tried to make springtime happen sooner for him by taking our March vacations in Arizona. Starting off the baseball season early with the warmth of pro training games was something we all enjoyed, but Matthew was the main reason we went.

In his last year of junior baseball Matthew went to tryouts and really gave it his best effort. But by then the prejudging and labeling of years of playing at the lower level was too much for him to overcome. He would play his last year at the same level he had played all the previous- at National. Soon after the start of each season Matthew would emerge as the unofficial captain of the team. The coaches saw his desire and heart and his teammates admired his devotion and knowledge of the game. For Matthew the other things were more important than raw talent.

He ended his last game by scooping a hard hit ground ball at his shortstop position, quickly running over and stepping on second base to get one out and then throwing down to first to complete a double play. His team slapped him on the back in the post game huddle and I noticed small tears in his eyes as he knew he had played his last JBO game. I felt his mixed emotions too. It was the end of a long time, middle school and junior baseball were over.

What seemed like an impossibility just a short time before became a remote chance--he would try out for the high school freshman baseball team. "Stro", as the head coach is known, was a no nonsense type of guy. Shaved bald, tanned, with a goatee and bulging eyes he is Mr. Intimidation. But he also had a reputation for leaning toward kids with a positive attitude, good grades and plenty of heart. You had to have skills to offer but attitude was important to him too. Maybe, just maybe, Matthew would have a chance against kids who had been sorted higher and played on more advanced teams during all the previous junior baseball years. It was a long shot but he had nothing to lose. He had been practicing his pitching and would try to go out for the freshman team as a pitcher.

The tryouts are really two weeks of very hard practices. Pitchers and catchers would report for two hours before school and everybody would practice for three hours after school. In all, he would be at school from 6 am to 6 pm. For five hours every day Stro had a chance to check out his hustle, talent and determination. Every day when I picked him up, exhausted, I'd ask him how it went and he'd reply that he was told to come back the next morning. At the end of the two weeks he had made it to the final day of cuts. He walked into Stro's office to find out and got the news--he was on the team.

The season was one of a huge door opening up for Matthew. He was an equal now, just one of the team. When not pitching, he played first base. Never as strong as most of his team, his hitting was not his strength, but his pitching and defense were solid. In one memorable late summer game he came to the mound in relief after most of the other pitchers had given up huge hits and he shut the other team down in the last few innings. The Bowmen had lost the game but he had proven his ability to make good teams miss the ball.

This year was less stressful. After his summer league performances it seemed a sure thing he'd be on the JV team. He played well during the frequently rained out spring season this year. The team won all but three games - but there are no playoffs for junior varsity. His season being over until summer ball, he's been enjoying a short break but felt the need to follow the varsity team to Pendleton for the playoff game.

I had initially shrugged when he asked to go and even that very morning I wasn't sure if we would do it. But I can feel my son moving away from me. At 16 years old he separates more and more all the time, doing his own thing and weaning himself from his parents. He doesn't seem to remember or really care how much time we used to spend together when he was smaller. All I know is that my time with him is getting short. So if he wanted to spend all day with the old man there really was only one answer. I sent a text to his phone: "Still want to go?". "Can we?" came back when he was between classes. "Yes. Meet me at the office at 11". "k, thx!". The top picture is from my phone on the ride back home after the game.

The varsity lost the game -- despite our long drive. But it's baseball and there is always another game. Most of those same players will be playing summer league ball next week. And the my boy, who never played higher than National, will be right there with them...throwing strikes.

Busy as a B

2009-05-17T14:01:00.000-07:00

I took Brandon to the mall the other day after school to get some dress clothes; a shirt, tie and some black Dockers. Most of the time, you see, my boy is clad in those big athletic shorts and a sports team t-shirt. But when you are going to be honored for your brains and passion for history by a huge national organization, a trip for fresh duds is a must.

It has been a busy week for the boy. He started it off when he played his trumpet in the spring concert at the middle school. He has also been practicing with the marching band so that he can toot the trumpet in the Junior Rose Parade next month. It has been fun watching him gain confidence this year and I am soooo glad that someone in the family will continue the music gene forward.

Friday he stayed after school to video record his campaign speech, he's running for next years student body council. Today is election day! It isn't a lark, he really wants to be involved in the middle school scene during his last year there. But he's running against someone with much more name familiarity, her dad was recently the mayor of our town, but I still think he has a good shot at it. The posters he stayed up late painting last week each had a square with a big red check mark in them.

Brandon is a two sport man, and I mean two at the same time! A few months ago I wrote about his basketball playing over the winter and he had so much fun with that he joined a spring league which plays 2 games at "The Hoop" every Sunday. He's been able to play power forward, which he prefers to the post position he had most of the regular season. Forwards get to take more jump shots I think.

Of course his main thing right now, other than school, is playing baseball. He as emerged as the main stopper in the pitching rotation and has a wonderful strikeout to walk ratio. He does very well despite throwing almost all fastballs. He's a bigger kid for his age and unless the smaller boys he's throwing to can hit the "1" ball he feels there is no need to go to the junk.

So yesterday the back of the Exploder was filled with baseball gear, lawn chairs, coolers, and our dress clothes hanging over the side windows. We (well really just he) was multi-tasking big time. We had to be in Canby for an 8 a.m. game and afterwards change into the ties and buttoned shirts using a nearby warehouse parking lot-- which was quiet on a Saturday. We got to the hotel in Kaiser where the Daughters of the American Revolution were holding their annual state-wide meeting. Brandon was on the agenda as being the Oregon winner of the history essay contest.

His essay was about the Gettysburg address. He entered the contest because we had just gotten back from a family east coast history trip which included two days in Gettysburg and four days in Washington, DC. Gettysburg was his favorite part of the entire two weeks and so the inspiration was all bottled up. The timing was good too. He wrote it after Obama had been elected but had not taken office and so was able to use the national mall setting as the back drop for the story. He ended the report with Lincoln sitting in his chair watching the inauguration from his memorial.

They announced during the meeting that he was also the regional winner (northwest states) and his work would be entered into the national contest with a possible return trip to Washington DC. He did a fine job of being receptive and polite while being surrounded by the throngs of old ladies at the luncheon. It was a fairly formal event, at least by our standards, and he handled himself well.

I had mixed feelings about the DAR when we were done. Their promotion of history is wonderful and I had no idea that many of their fundraisers and energies are spent filling in the holes in school budgets. But I also couldn't help noticing that the only minorities in our large meeting room were the hotel wait staff. The very nature of the organization makes it very exclusionary, to be become a member is quite a process with particular documents required and only certain lineage qualify , there was a palatable overtone of elitism amongst the white glove wearing "pages" and the southern drawl speakers. But I digress...

We left the luncheon and Brandon changed back into his baseball uniform in time for the evening game back in Canby. I kept watching him in the mirror during the drive as he admired his medal, frequently placing it in the palm of his hand to judge it's unexpected weight.

His team won all three games over the weekend, earning first place and he received his second medal in as many days. He was very overwhelmed by everything that had happened and I could tell during the last game that he was tired.

His new burgundy shirt is hanging up in his closet now, practically lost in the sea of sweatshirts and replica jerseys, and his shiny gray tie is draped around it's collar. But it will be there for him if he needs it later. Who knows when this busy boy will need to go the closet to find it.

Irresistible Rain

2009-05-04T18:26:00.000-07:00

I woke this morning to some legs that felt like they had run eight miles at a 8:23 average pace the day before. They were comfortably uncomfortable, if you know what I mean. So my fuzzy plan for the day was to take it easy and look for that magic moment when the day when beckon me into my shoes and out the door.

The boys didn't have school today and so I asked them if there was something that they wanted to do together during the morning. They surprised me by wanting to ride the WES commuter train--which harkens back to a few years ago when they were both train nuts. I wasn't surprised that Brandon suggested it but was shocked that the 16 year old would eagerly get his carcass out of bed early on a morning he could have spent unconscious. We stopped at Starbucks for drinks and then got on the train in Wilsonville for the roundtrip that took a little over an hour.

When lunch was over a light rain started falling and by the time I had puttered around in the garage putting away tools and sweeping the floor, the rain was no longer light. From the protection of the open garage door I stood at the edge of the wetness and watched miniature waves of water roll down the street out front. I listened to a bird preach the most beautiful sermon from the pine tree that stands over our driveway, and wondered what type of bird it was. I tried to predict whether each chorus of it's song would have four notes or five or six.

With the boys baseball games and practices postponed for the day I set about mapping out the remainder of the afternoon. The rain continued to gather, wet and warm, and windless, it came straight down. The little bird had left and now the only sound was that of the torrent. I couldn't take it anymore. I had to put on my running clothes and go get in it.

I told the boys I wouldn't be gone long, this was going to be about running in the rain, no measurements needed. I grabbed Hannah, a spare towel and drove to the middle school. The place was deserted except for a dad and a few girls kicking a soccer ball around on the side grass, he hatless and seeming to not notice the weather.

I started to run right away, staying to the outside of the track where the puddles were smaller, Hannah's folded leash in one hand and my diaper in the other. I wore shorts but had put on a long sleeved poly shirt, my lime green bike jacket, cap and gloves. My legs rarely get cold but my hands usually do.

Hannah stayed by my side for the entire first lap but then lagged behind and started cutting the corners, being with me on the straights, her typical off leash pattern. She's gotten slower and her tongue droops out the side of her snout earlier than it did when she was a pup, but her enthusiasm remains the same. Avoiding puddles isn't on her worry list, hence the extra towel. Let her get muddy legs and a wet underbelly. It's not on my worry list either.

If I did have a bother, it's the nursing home that overlooks the far end of the track. I fret that a resident there, to me stuck in their small room, will see me outside moving free and lament their own situation, hindered by age and circumstances. I would feel bad if that's what they thought. But little I can do.

In a few minutes I was warmed up and impervious to the rain. As long as I kept moving I would be warm. All I needed to do now was coast through the gray and the green and the water and the space -- and rejoice. This was something I asked for, a thing that wanted to be done, a place I had to go, a feeling I wanted to embody. Let it rain and let me soak it up. Moving as intended. Exposed and vulnerable, as is natural. Breathing and pumping the way I was supposed to. Getting closer to the truth but knowing that the answer will never be fully seen. Another beautiful day to be alive.

The magic had culminated as the daylight continued to fade and I savored what was left by walking the last lap with Hannah, slowly and sometimes pausing to make it last. The rain continued and now with a hint of a breeze, for the first time it did feel a bit cool. At the end of the track I wiped down Hannah with the towel and then we loaded up and went back home. It rained hard for the rest of the night.

Team Geiger

2009-04-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

A search of the last name "Geiger" yields 2 entries in the 2006 Portland marathon

It was my first marathon and I was feeling my way along. Nothing was familiar, not the least of which was the distance. At some point, I knew, I would be running the farthest I had ever run in my life. Every step was into the unknown-- about how my body would deal, but each was also a push into the realm of what was possible.

I thought I had a pretty simple plan for getting to and from the race. Lynda would get up early with me and drop me off near the race start, go back home to the boys and then after the race they would all meet me at the finish line and we would go home together. Pretty straight forward.

The race went well for a first marathon. I fought through the typical cramps near the end but otherwise did fine. I was just sticking my toe in the water of long distance running and just like almost everybody trying this distance for the first time, finishing was my number one goal.

But something unexpected happened on the back side of the course out near mile 20. At this spot in the course the organizers had placed a timing mat and the width of the road was narrowed from two lanes to less than one. Families used this "pinch point" to look for their loved ones running in the race. I could see this up ahead for awhile and noticed a whole group of people sitting along the curb, waiting just before the narrowing.

And then something happened-they saw me and suddenly all stood up! As I got closer they started started cheering me on. A little closer and some of the group, there must have been 10 or 12 of them, picked up small cardboard signs and held them over their heads. All of them were clad in the same red colored T-shirt with black block letters across the chest. And the closer I got the encouragement got louder and more animated.

Soon I got close enough that I could read the signs they waved above with outstretched arms. And I was shocked. "TEAM GEIGER" the signs boasted and this was wonderful! My last name is Geiger! And the shirts, all 10 or 12 bright red shirts, they said TEAM GEIGER too! Everyone was wearing the same little uniform to show their support. Wow! I knew running a marathon was a proud accomplishment but I never expected this!

But then I looked below the signs held high and above the black block letters across their chests and...and looked into their faces and ...I didn't know any of these people! Not a one. Nobody. Complete strangers. But they're still going nuts and cheering me on, all excited. And as I came even nearer I trotted up to them with this look of utter bewilderment and muttered panting "Geigers?" I said, "I'm a Geiger." And they all looked equally confused and said, "well so is she" and pointed behind me.

I turned and looked over my shoulder and there was a young woman just running up. Heather was her name...Heather Geiger!

Later I looked to see how many Geiger's ran the 2006 Portland Marathon. There were only two us--out of thousands of runners. And on that day somehow we converged at the same point at exactly the same time in a very unlikely fashion.

And true to my simple plan, my family was waiting for me and cheering me on--right where I expected them. At the finish line.

Staying Home

2009-04-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

Randy's wife waited for him near mile 20 of the marathon and knew something was wrong as he came nearer. He was laboring more than she expected, a vague expression behind his fogged glasses. She slipped in beside him to find out what was wrong and ended up running much of the rest of the race with him, helping him along, encouraging him to continue. When I saw him, just four hours after we had started, he looked pale and he was feeling sick.

Rob, an acquaintance I knew from the kids schools, was in the same race although I never saw him along the course. I think he lined up behind me at the start and never felt well enough that day to catch me or at least I didn't recognize him. Rob finished several minutes after Randy and was frustrated by what happened that day in Portland.

The three of us had a connection created by our new passion for running, our similar ages and the same small town we all call home. And now all three of us were left to play the game of the competitive runner and find out why we had trouble with this race.

I had the better time that day and finished seven minutes under the four hour mark. But that was 2007, a year and half ago, and so much has changed during that time. All three of us trained harder and smarter and I've added more base training miles and speed work. It's paid off.

During the next marathon we ran together in Eugene, Randy finished first with a BQ and Rob came in about 10 minutes later-- but short of the 3:30 he needed. I came in just a few minutes after that and set a PR, but still 14 minutes slow of a qualifying time for my age. Both the other guys, much lighter than me, had really ramped it up for this one and had passed me in ability. I felt I had done the work but my weight and an injury had sealed the deal and took away the very slim chance I had. Rob would run the Newport marathon a month later and qualify for Boston too, leaving me the odd man out.

Fast forward to today: Patriots Day in Massachusetts and Randy and Rob ran the Boston Marathon this morning. The now even more slimmed down version of Rob ran an amazing 3:34 and my buddy Randy did a fantastic 3:42, which is awesome for the tough Boston course. I kept track of both of them using their bib numbers plugged them into the marathon's website and am proud of the fact that both were able to realize their dreams-- and do such a great job once they got there.

But for me, I have a long way to go and a lot of work ahead. As I always say, life happens. My ability to better my running hasn't progressed as fast as Randy and Rob. And that's okay. For now I can only wonder. Wonder if one day I too can leave home, fly across the country and go for a run in Boston.

Intervals With Randy

2009-04-09T16:19:00.000-07:00

An April run as recorded by my Forerunner

April 7th, 2009. 9 AM. A beautiful sunny morning with temps in the mid 50's. I had run into Randy at the high school parking lot the day before while picking up Matthew from baseball practice and made this running date before he got away.

Started my 405 while jogging over to Randy's house and before heading down to the middle school track. Randy wasn't quite ready to go so stretched a bit in his driveway. After a few minutes we were off.

Warmed up by jogging up thru Snyder park and then coming down Main street into old town Sherwood. I was almost 2 miles into my run when we got to the middle school. The PE classes were out on the football field practicing lacross. There were lacross sticks, cardinal red T-shirts and tennis balls going everywhere. The teachers had pulled out one of those green AV carts, strung an extension cord and were blasting music over a stereo.

Most of the kids saw what we were doing and gave us a wide berth. Others were pretty clueless and wondered onto the track without looking. But, it is their track and their time to use it, so...

Randy's plan for the day, which he had gotten from the Runnersworld website, was to do three sets of 800m and 600m intervals at 5k pace with 90 second recoveries. Randy had decided that 5k pace meant 7 minute miles - which was cool with me.

We took off on the first 800m (2 laps) and we're just friken flyin'. But I'm following alongand having a good time. It's his workout and I'm just tagging along as far as I'm concerned. We got done with the first 2 laps and Randy looks down at his watch and states the waayyyy obvious, "we ran that one a little too fast." "Yeah," says I, "that did seem faster than 7 minutes. We can slow it down for the next one". Randy nods and I notice that his glasses are starting to fog up.

The next interval was 600 meters and this time the pace was still too fast, but a tad better. The next 600 was too fast again, but I'm just enjoying myself with no expectations for anything but running on a beautiful morn.

Later my watch would show that we were doing about 6:30 pace. My heart rate was doing fine at about 165.

Slowing to a trot after the speed set I stopped and bumped fists with Randy. "Whew, that was great. Thanks man. It was good to do some faster running out here." Randy looks at me wryly, "we still have 2 more sets to do. That was just the first."

Uhhh, I knew that.

The next set of 800/600/600 was more realistic, bouncing around the 7 minute mark. The last set was an average of 6'45" miles and we finished up the last 200 meters at 6'20" pace where my heart rate peaked at 182.

I came to a complete stop after this one, got my hands on the hips, bent over at the waist, took a few gaspy breaths and then broke out the ol' fist bump for the second time. "Ahhh that was good!" We finished up the lap we were on at an easy jog and then started for home by cruising through Old Town and pointing our noses up Pine Street and the steep hill which loomed ahead. I was out of gas and while I didn't walk up the hill it could barely be called running. We rounded the corner onto Division and I bid adieu to Randy at the driveway up to Snyder park.

In all I got in 8.5 miles, which was a surprise. But it was a good run on a beautiful spring morning.

My Diapers

2009-04-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

I guess it all started with my big nose and the crooked septum that splits it right down the middle. It's gross I know but this condition keeps me in a non-stop low grade sinus infection. I went through the horrors of trying to fix it surgically a few years ago. It helped a little, but as the doc said as he stuck a 6 inch metal suction straw up my nose and deep into a sinus cavity I didn't even know I had, "I found it was much worse once I got in there. I did the best I could but it's still deviated and going to cause you problems." Yes. The problem is that my nose runs all the time.

What does all this mean to a runner? Well, let's just say when I go for a run and get everything all warmed up inside and add some heavy breathing - the condition worsens. The harder I run, the faster I go, the snottier I get. The cold of winter adds yet another dimension to the situation. No, there is nothing attractive about my running and running nose.

Some wiping adjunct was needed.

Well, early on I found I could take some type hanky or tissue with me. Kleenex fell apart right away and you couldn't wipe your forehead with it so that was out. I still had some old hankies in the bottom of my sock drawer and at first ran with these for a bit. But let's face it, these sheer linen squares, these throw backs to the sixties, these monogramed relics of our grandfathers generation (to the point of being a garnish to his three piece suit) have always been awful at their intended mission and in this case totally inadequate for real nasal drippings.

So what to do? A small hand towel seemed the answer and so I went with that. Small, absorbent and ubiquitous, surely this was the way to go. And so it was for the better part of a year. During this time I was running a lot with my friend Bob and he would poke fun of the object usually held in my right hand referring to it as my "moist towelette". So be it. I considered it a necessity and it worked pretty good.

But one day my face was feeling particularly chaffed, perhaps from shaving or maybe from being outside, but a little sensitive. So instead of grabbing just any hand towel I went to the linen closet in search of the most supple. A towel that would be the least irritating.

But all of them seemed pretty rough. Dish towels were a little better but the wife would have a hissy fit if I tried taking those out for a run. So I dug deeper. And deeper. And then lo and behold I found just what I was looking for! Buried deep in the closet, way back on the left and down on a shelf near the floor was a stack of old cloth baby diapers! Sitting there for 10 years, hidden, waiting for the next little bundle of joy that we never did have, were a good 8 or 9 perfectly sized, wonderfully absorbent, gentle on my face cloth baby diapers! Come to papa you little poop blankets and let me snot all over ya.

And so RUNS WITH A DIAPER was born (I have a thing for native american culture and oneof my favorite jokes ends with the punch line "so tell me, why do you ask Two Dogs F__ing"). And in a way I feel I'm doing something green by reusing what would have otherwise been thrown away. Sometimes it's very green. Ah gross!

So when I'm doing laundry and washing my running clothes there will away be a small stack of diapers sitting on top.

Arizona Running

2009-03-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

I do love running here. I often get comments from friends about running on vacation, but here in Arizona it is just plain fun.

I did 4 miles along the rim of the Grand Canyon the day after arriving. I started down in the gravel parking lot down below the Rim Village buildings near the old train depot. I chugged up the steps and started off down the trail to the east. After just a short ways I saw the PBS film maker Ken Burns walking the other direction by himself, perhaps something to do with his new series on National Parks.

The miles on this run just flew by. I would have kept going but needed to head back where the family was passing time in gift shops. But what a magical place and such a great experience. The picture of Lynda and me was taken by Matthew right after I met back up with them.

The next couple of days we were in Phoenix and staying in a hotel along I-17 in the middle of town. We picked a place that was on a running trail so I was able to get a 5 and 6 mile runs in here. The paths border a irrigation canal on both side and includes parks and a golf course so the sense of place was pretty good. Tunnels, as I had found last year in a different part of town, run under the busy roads so you don't need to worry about cars. So pretty good runs.

Then today I ran along the Lost Dog Wash trail east of Scottsdale. This was nearly perfect. I love trail running I got jazzed as I finished the second half of this 4 miler. I almost felt invincible. For the first time since the first of the year, I just seemed to dominate and powered over this rough terrain. Just an amazing experience. I will go back to this trail system again before we leave -- but tomorrow may do the Westworld trail which is nearby.

Yep, running is a part of my vacation. Plan around it and do it. It's just part of our day. Plus I have got to counter all these extra calories I seem to be swallowing. Oh well.

My Crew

2009-03-16T23:09:00.001-07:00

I spend a third of my life at another house. At this other place, where I have been for the last 13 years, I do all the things that I do at my house in Sherwood. Okay, not ALL the things, but most of them; such as shopping, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, paying bills, working in the yard, making my bed, brushing my teeth, watching TV, answering the phone and reading before I turn out my bedside light. And just like my home in Sherwood, I live in the other house with other people.

Living in a house with others creates all the fun, adventures and mishaps of any family sharing that small space. Who is going to unload the dishwasher and take the recycling out to the curb? Will the bathroom be available when I need it and will there be enough hot water when I take a shower. If I make eggplant parmesan for dinner, will everybody eat it. Will someone wake me at night by snoring or talking in their sleep? And "oh my god", is someone going to watch Fox News!!!

Luckily for the me the answer to that last one is NO!! I am lucky or blessed because I spend the other part of my life with amazing great people. We call each other, kiddingly, "my crew" but they are really my other family.

One of the other things that we do at the firehouse is workout together. For about an hour each day, usually late afternoon, we doff our black work pants and navy T's and sweats and dress down in shorts and tech shirts. Most times in the winter we head down to the station's basement which has become our gym. It has a bunch of cardio machines and plenty of weights for lifting. Whenever favorable weather allows, I'll go outside the fire station and run around the block to get outside. I have a half-mile route mapped out and prefer that to running on the treadmill.

Other times, especially in the summer, we'll take the fire engine down to Jackson Middle School where we can do a track workout or run cross country around the school yard. But the cool thing about Jackson is the long set of steps that goes up a hill for two blocks away from the school. Combining those stairs with the track is awesome.

I am also lucky because this other family loves to stay active--which keeps me motivated at work.

First there is Josh (on the bike, far left of the picture above). Josh usually does this workout on his roller for an hour but it is usually AFTER he has ridden the same bike from home 60 MILES that morning-- and will ride it back in the morning! And he does this in all weather, all winter. It flirts with insane but he is my workout hero. Josh trains for and rides in all types of bike races in the Portland area. His VO2 max is in the 70's and he stays super thin despite eating anything he wants. But he deserves it. He is the the calorie burning machine.

Next in the picture is boring old me on the treadmill. No surprise.

Mike is the little diesel engine. The first one down to the basement every day and he typically spends 20 minutes and every machine down there except the spin bike. The picture shows him on the elliptical and getting ready to hit the rowing machine. He's an animal!!

And last, but not least, there is Mariya. Yep, she loves the spin bike. "Mod", as we call her, is not only a spinning instructor but is also a fire department fitness trainer. Her biceps and calf muscles are way bigger than mine -- but I can usually take her in a foot race. She's always in a good mood and it's fun to watch all the stares she gets when we're out in public as this very feminine woman is out keeping up with the boys in a physical job. She is amazing!!

So this is my other family and the house we live in. No dalmation, just the four of us. But every third day when I walk in the back door to the my other house I am always greeted with their smiling faces and look forward to the adventures with them that lie ahead.

The Brookman Route

2009-03-11T16:28:00.001-07:00

The west end of Brookman road where the town of Middleton once stood

The rolling hills of this rural road give few clues to the nearby suburbia

The small town that I live in sits like an island surrounded by what I would call semi-rural countryside. It's not a hardcore western experience, more like hobby farms and hillsides covered with Christmas trees than anything else. Yet take a just a few steps beyond the cul-de-sacs crammed full of craftsman style super houses, and you quickly find yourself with a different sense of place. In our little town of Sherwood, Oregon, you can find this by running in nearly any direction. Everyone in town is but a few blocks from the country.

This morning Randy and I once again took advantage of this unique layout. Anytime we want to add a little grace and exchange bird songs for car exhaust, we head for Brookman road. It might be needless to say but we add this extension to our runs together most of the time. I'll sometimes go there by myself, but usually not.

The road itself is pretty old by Sherwood standards. It intersects both the old west coast highway (99 West) and the old Southern Pacific railroad. For short time a small town emerged near this junction when the tracks were first laid in the late 1880's. Nothing remains of "Middleton" now, although a modern grade school still bears it name. Stop signs still interrupt the flow of cars although the train tracks there are no longer used.

The part of the road we run adds two miles to whatever course we have laid out. The road is generally straight along most of it's bulk although it does throw a pair of right angles at you on the east end. At no place on Brookman will you find flat road, instead the course is undulating. A few of the peaks are steep enough to be challenging, but they don't last long, perfect really for working on strength and pushing yourself over the series of crests.

There are some houses along the way but mostly you just run past stands of douglas fir trees, orchards, and some fenced pastures. Some of these have horses. On the west end of the road there are goats and some place in the middle has a few cows. I wouldn't dare call them cattle. If you just have a few of them and they're on Brookman road, they're just cows. But they are fun to run past.

Randy and I are not the only ones to run this road. A quick scan of routes created on the popular "mapmyrun.com" website show many using Brookman. The most organized and most widely run road race in Sherwood, the "Oregon Run for the Roses", uses Brookman predominately in it's 10k event. This url shows the route on a map: http://www.oregonsrunfortheroses.com/10k_run.htm. But so far I have not seen any other runner out there except during that race. Maybe because it's a little too dangerous for most folks with it's narrowness and poor line-of-sight visibility, or maybe it's just too remote and isolated for the lone runner. But being alone can just add to the experience.

It's unclear what the future holds for this little road. Clearly it is a stones throw from major development and it seems sure that it is just a matter of time before it is engulfed by the same fate as other nearby orchards and farms. Most importantly Brookman Road is probably best known in Sherwood as the proposed route for a major bypass highway in an effort to ease traffic on other clogged streets. Although it will likely be awhile before this happens, if it ever does, it can only be a matter of time before this landscape changes forever and the island of Sherwood pushes outward.

But for now I feel lucky. Lucky to have a place so close to home that for at least 15 minutes any day I choose, I can run outside of town and feel a little bit country.

Happy New Year!

2009-03-01T10:04:00.000-08:00

I have been really sick with the flu the last few days and so unable to run as I would like. But I did go outside to get some fresh air sometimes and as I walked around the yard I noticed the first crocus buds poking their yellow or purple heads out of the ground. After coming back inside, I glanced at the calendar and was again reminded of our it's obvious imperfection. I think that the New Year starts on the wrong date.

The new year should start at the beginning of spring when the north world awakens from it's long cold sleep. It makes sense then to me to start the new year on March 1st. This is when the days start to warm and when hope returns for the promise of summer. New life emerges from the decay of autumn and the iciness of winter. I see my neighbors venturing outdoors, perhaps in shirtsleeves and exchanging "hellos", reconnoitering the lawn and pulling a few weeds along the way.

I was outside for only a short time. The walk was a weak substitute for the run I wanted. Inside, the calendar hanging on the wall seems strangely out of balance. Surely this should be the beginning. Everything around me tells me that this is day one. Even the calendar itself seems to demand a shift.

It's so simple and natural, move March to the front. Let all the heavymonths with their long names and weighty suffixes settle to the bottom of the calendar! Starting with September and staying through to February, let these brutes provide the ballast to carry the rest of the year. Let the lighter months rise to the top and start the year with aptly named March.

But the calendar's face offers an even more compelling reason for this natural realignment, and with no offense intended toward Pope Gregory, one quick glance at our new structuring and it becomes so clear; septem means seven and the month now sits in pristine place. So too with October being the eight month and the rest, each now sitting naturally in their rightful spot. Schoolboys across the globe, who now puzzle over our current anomalous positioning of those four months, could stop scratching their heads and get back to work.

Are we done yet? Not at all! Leap Year! Yes, along with this shift from our current imperfection comes the logical place to synchronize our calendar with the heavens every four years. When you try to fit a round sun into square calendar something has to squeal and so what better day to do it than on February 29th, now the last day of the year!!

These are all good reasons for making the change I think. And with all the renovations that President Obama is making in Washington, maybe I'll write and give him my suggestion. Hell, crazy bastard might just do it! But the best reason of all to start the new year on March 1st is what I saw when I walked outside and those little crocuses heads were bravely poking out of the ground.