Media Challenge #3 - ah, bliss

I swear I run for bliss, mostly. These days I don't do tempo runs, speedwork or runs with quantified targets. Instead, because of a hurt hip, I look for a pace that makes my body feel good. So that's a bliss run and it's very pleasant. On the other hand, friends, sometimes I just want to crush the competition.

I've been travelling every week this summer, so I never had the energy for a focused workout. In the last 3 weeks I got to practice the bliss run along the river in Chicago, in a wood in Columbus OH, the hills of northern PA, with the seals in Monterey, at altitude in Denver, along the beach in East Hampton, and in my home trails of Brooklyn. Since I had to be away from my family so much, these runs were the consolation of my summer.

Each time I arrive at the Central Park loop where we have our Media Challenge series, I feel the full weight of Nietzsche's eternal return: love every second of your life as if you'll have to repeat it forever. Seriously, I gotta love this loop again? The route mobbed with slow joggers tweeting on iPhones? The agonizing hills? The part that smells like horse shit? If I can find bliss here I'll find it anywhere I guess.

I do a nice long warm-up to try to get the stiff hip to relax and then hit the start line just in time. The horn goes off and suddenly the issue isn't so much my hip as the elbows of a bunch of guys in front of me. Getting out of the scrum is always my first priority, and even though it means I go out too fast I have to get past this pack. I quickly find myself in the lead and for the first time realize that the guy who usually wins this race isn't here tonight. I know I'm not in strong shape, so the idea of leading the whole way wigs a little. Still, speed is busting out of me and I have to work hard to hold back. First mile gone in 5:34.

Soon enough a guy pulled up next to me. I pushed ahead of him for a while, but I was already feeling all those hours sitting in planes, trains, and rental cars, and let him pull out a few yards. In the last race this same guy had paced me for the first 7 minutes until I pulled away forever. Maybe I could do that again.

I kept him in my sights, but I was feeling pretty bad. My legs produced visions of breaking down, my lungs felt tense and cramped. I concentrated on form, light and straight, and that helped a little. But somehow this race seemed to be all about work rather than, say, bliss.

Late in the second mile my pace was beginning to feel a little more manageable, but I knew I was slowing. Thing is, so was the leader. We kept a steady 15-yard gap as I grasped for rags of energy I could assemble into a kick. The last half mile was starting to feel good again (this is why I don't like short races - just when you're warmed up you hit the finish), and at the usual place I started my kick. Last race of the season, mine to lose, and so on. I gave him a good run, but he had hit about the same stride and started a little earlier. So I followed him in by about 10 seconds, and as I collapsed on a bench I reconciled myself to second place. Final, 20:31.

I was exactly a minute slower than the first of the series in May, but it was a lot more painful. I pulled out as much as I could find, did as much damage as I could. Somehow this was kind of blissful too, in the sense that I left nothing undone. I wasn't left with a pile of "what-ifs". I had crushed the only competition that mattered. You know. Me.

So that's the summer season. Two second places and one third place in the media series. Our company team got 5th at Corporate Challenge, and won the Media Challenge series. It's been a brutally hot summer for training, and for me, one filled with too many hip aches, family setbacks, and plane rides. Everything began to feel uphill. But just now it feels good to have thrown some really good punches.

Brooklyn Half-Marathon 2010

Last year I trained for the Brooklyn Half as my key race of the season, but an overuse injury kept me on the sofa for that part of the calendar. So I had a score to settle today.

Didn't sleep well at all last night, probably just the excitement. I kept looking at the clock - 3:47, 4:15. The baby woke before 5:00 as I was getting ready to go. Just as well, I was awake and wanted to see her before the race anyway. I gave her a hug and she went back to sleep.

My wife makes me coconut rice to have for breakfast when I'm carb-loading, that stuff is total rocket fuel. On top of last night's farro pasta with kale pesto (Shug writes recipes for a living, did I tell you?), that ensured I had some juice in the legs. Now just to get on with the mental game.

My goal was to beat 1:20, and my fitness in recent races showed I might do it. You never know what you've got in the tank, a tiger or a rock. I aimed to run a very consistent pace, with slight adjustments for known hills, with the aid of my handy Garmin.

I went over super early to make sure to get my number and get my bag turned in. In fact I was early enough to avoid all the lines because no one had arrived quite yet. The park was quietly preparing for something subterranean, or extra-terrestrial, but in any case for something unexpected. I had time to do a few strides on the grass and warm up.

Waiting at the start I chatted with Robert, who had forgotten his watch. I sometimes wonder whether my watch slows me down, since I think I know how fast I can go and check it constantly. I figured Robert, who runs 80-mile weeks in his quest for the nastiest race in the world, would either bonk or PR.

The first two laps in the park shot by, since I know the park very well and could focus on running tangents in a very wide running lane. My goal time meant I needed to keep to 6:06s on average, maybe slower on the big hill, and much faster on that crazy downhill at the south end of the park. Apart from the first time up the hill, I kept well under my mark. I love that park.

Then I figured the long stretch down Ocean Parkway would be fairly flat. But I was running as close to my lactate threshold as I could and everything felt uphill. In fact everything began to feel vertical, except when it seemed vertiginous, or spinning, or upside down. Ocean was deserted except for some grouchy grandmothers being prevented from crossing the street, and a few of us runners. I let a couple of guys pass by rather than pick up the pace, since I wanted to stay rigorously on target. But I wonder if I hadn't been counting seconds if might have gone faster without the watch?

Without a watch I at least would have been able to count down the lettered avenues of South Brooklyn. I slowed considerably between Avenues H - R, but then picked it back up to faster-than-goal for the rest of the alphabet. This gave me an absurd amount of time to ponder the absence of an Avenue Q.

At last the boardwalk and a cheer from my next door neighbor and her baby, and to the finish (where I was outkicked by a really nice guy two age divisions older than me). I came in at 1:19:11, totally shocking myself since I had stopped looking at my watch a ways back. Placed 36th out of 7,006 runners, and was something like the 4th guy over 40 years of age.

One guy I talked to at the finish had a goal of tucking behind the lead female runner and seeing what he could do. Things were going well until he realized he was pacing behind a skinny guy with a ponytail. So he accidentally finished a minute or two ahead of the first woman.

By the way - watchless Robert PR'd.

I looped back and met neighbor Sara to try to catch her husband Brian as he finished. I just missed Brian's finish (1:33 - at his first half-mary!), but we found him and headed down to the beach to soak my legs.

This was the real glory of the race - beyond even the perfect weather, the awesome vibe in Prospect Park, finishing right under the Parachute Drop and in sight of the glorious Cyclone - because we had run all that way to the beach. The feeling of sand between my toes after all that, and the cold water on my legs, was a bliss I cannot describe to you.

One more moment of bliss - watching the 2-year-old children's race. Again, indescribable.

The subway, being what it is, took exactly as much time going home as it had taken me to get there on foot. But I got home to pancakes, wife and daughter, and everything overfloweth.

And with that I declare my spring season at an end. My next key race is the Berlin Marathon, and while I'll race at least once a month until then, there are no scores to settle. Probably I'll try racing without a watch a few times though.

Media Challenge #1

It's been a heck of a quarter - new job responsibilities, tons of running, a bunch of PRs, still learning tons every time I run. But time for the blog has obviously fallen back.

Tonight was the first of this year's Media Challenge races, pitting your media overlords against one another (when will we realize our mistake and join forces to fight crime?). The race loops twice around the occasionally-stinky bottom part of Central Park for 3.5 miles. It's a particularly grueling course, and you have to spend yourself very wisely.

I didn't spend myself all that wisely tonight, but I had a great race. Came in feeling pretty good, and was determined to stay with the front runners as long as I could. Unfortunately they set an insane pace for the first half mile (around 5:15 pace), and while I finished the first mile in 5:24, I was still under my target pace of 5:34.

Found myself slowing a lot in the middle before attempting a dignified kick at the end. But the two front guys had lost me long before the end.

I finished in 19:31, which was almost exactly my target. It's just that I ran really unevenly to hit it. That time earned me third place - the winner ran 18:58, or 5:25 per mile - holy cow.

Met up with friends and colleagues afterward. I chatted with Team Fox teammate and super-blogger TK. Lady Ani, who runs for another team, encouraged me before the race just to take it easy, as she blasted Coldplay on hot pink earbuds. Comrade Brenn ran an amazing race himself, and comrade Chris showed up in a suit since he's still recovering from his marathon.  Coach Sue injured herself at Penn Relays, so was out too. So our team's 2nd place position is therefore quite an accomplishment.

Now: onward to the Brooklyn Half-Marathon on Saturday. . . .

Manhattan Half Marathon 2010

Last year, a long hot soak in the tub. This year the ice bath.

That's the distance I've come in my first year of racing.

Last year's Manhattan Half Marathon was my first race. First race of the year, first race ever. It was 14 degrees, so cold that you had to break the ice on the cups at the water stations. My cell phone died of frostbite in the baggage area.

But I don't remember the cold. I remember the almost holy sound of breathing and shoes hitting asphalt at the start, not a voice anywhere. I remember the citrus feel of the winter sun. And I remember having no clue how fast or slow I was going. I almost wept when I realized I had come in under 1:30.

After the race I took a hot soak and actually did weep. It hit me that I had accomplished something that I could always hold on to. Since I didn't ice I even got to hold on to muscle aches for two days afterward.

This year's Manhattan Half was similar in some ways, but it was no longer an intriguing new acquaintance. I've made good friends with Central Park over the last year, its hills and twists. This year's Half was warmer and I was overdressed. I'd stayed up late the night before. But it felt great to be with those 2 long loops again.

I met up with Comrade Gregg before the race. Last year I didn't know Gregg, but I knew his name because it was next to mine in the results, which I had scrutinized obsessively. Later come to find out he was co-captain of my company racing team, and now my track club teammate. It's been a great year for meeting people.

Last year's race was so exciting because it was so unknown - I didn't know the Harlem Hills or even my own legs. This year's race was just fun since I knew what to expect, how to pace, and could just enjoy the ride.

I basically hitched for about half of the race behind a woman who seemed to know what she was doing - at least she kept an even pace, even if she stopped dead at water stations and didn't observe the tangents as rigorously as I did.

I ended up with pretty even splits, and pushed it to a sprint at the very end, bringing my system to the brink of real nausea. It's great to get that last little bit out of the toothpaste tube. The lady-who-stops-for-water bested me by at least 40 seconds. But I beat last year's time by a little and felt very satisfied by that. (Last year I was 29th in my age division; this year 28th - progress!)

Last year my wife tried to bring the baby out to the race, and had such a hell of at time parking she missed most of the race. This year we knew better and I just met her at home afterward. Nothing like the warm embrace of the family. I got a nice post-race hug before my post-race ice bath. Fourteen minutes in icy water will reset your clock pretty good. And the next day I had no aches.

The Art of Rest, part 2

I started running regularly just over a year ago. I logged 1,200 miles in 2009, ran 16 races, including the NYC Marathon, met a bunch of new friends, and learned a ton about myself. It's been a great year. Running was the perfect gift for the man who didn't know he had it all.

This year: I plan to get faster, build some weekly miles, get up early enough to run every day, or nearly. I'm registered for the Berlin Marathon, and there will be a bunch of races in between. I hope to break 5:00 in the mile, and 3:00 in the marathon.

I hope to find just the right training cocktail. Manhattans fueled me most of this year (along with barolos and burgundies). Perhaps Old Fashioneds, or pisco sours? I've heard a Rob Roy can improve leg turnover.

To all runners everywhere, I wish you a fantastic 2010. See you on the roads.

Time is the school in which we learn

(Click on the comic panel to see the text and blow your mind.)

Marathon dopamine has been rushing through my brain for days. I haven't slept well all week, and only partly due to the effect of the time change on my infant daughter. My body is pretty much back to normal, but my head is still filled with the race.

Two nights after the NYC Marathon I woke at 3 am and couldn't get back to sleep. My mind was empty, but my metabolism thought it best to be at full speed. To busy my brain I counted off the race miles, one by one, like sheep. And strange to say, for every mile I could vividly remember the course and the sensations in my body. I remembered children's faces and the backs of runners before me. I remembered tiny decisions I made about timing and potholes.

My memory is notoriously poor. But during the race it was as if time passed more calmly, even if with a greater violence. I had a feeling of being not just affected by time but part of time, like a blob of dye flowing in its current. As Meb Keflezighi said in The New Yorker, "Cherish it. It's a beautiful thing, when you can click the miles along. It's a beautiful thing, and you better cherish it."

I have experienced that kind of metronomic intensity on only a few occasions. Counting down the days to my wedding, I remember being carried along on a kind of wave of nervous bliss. I felt confident that the river was carrying me to the right place. As the officiants did their thing I inhabited every part of my body at once, my thoughts were inspired but nearly foreign as I improvised my vows. The grin rarely left my face during the ceremony and the reception.

Three weeks earlier than her due date, my wife started having regular contractions. At first I figured it was a false alarm but it was a good time to rehearse what little we'd had time to learn. As the intervals narrowed the reality seeped in imperceptibly. I can remember each contraction - not, I hasten to add, like my wife must remember them. But I recall my metabolism settling in for a long haul (it turned out to be pretty short), I recall every minute in the car on the way to the hospital, and each deep contraction once we were in the last phase. I can taste the quality of the light as it fell on my daughter's head for the first time. (It glistened on the slime that still covered her.)

These occasions are in a different league from a race. They were permanent changes in my life and the lives of those I keep close. The race is ephemeral. It's just that it got deep into something I can't usually hold in focus.

To be able to carry that sensation of time at all times - that would be remarkable. That would be the curriculum of the race, the reason to keep going back to school until you learn it. And you never fully learn it.

I chose the title of my last post more or less by chance, from a poem by fellow Brooklynite Delmore Schwartz. I had already decided to use the same poem for today's title too, mainly because it rhymed. But now that I'm at the end of the post and I see what it's about, it's clear there was a hidden logic. So to make my point I'll just toss you the last stanza of "Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day":

Each minute bursts in the burning room,
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
(How all things flash! How all things flare!)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.

Time is the fire in which we burn

New York City Marathon 2009!

It was an amazing day, a total blast. It's quite something to be cheered for, and really moving to be cheered for 3 hours straight. It's all true what they say about the New York crowds - people come out, even on a damp, gray day, to raise really a beautiful racket.

I remember ever step, but somehow the race just flew by. My milestones weren't the mile markers, they were my friends and family along the course.

Bridge to Josh and Bryony (Mile 7): Couldn't believe how slow I went up the Verrazano Bridge, or how fast I came off it. Feeling very professional in my new arm warmers. Suddenly it's my home borough of Brooklyn. Over there is where you turn off to go to Lowe's and Ikea. Hey, there're Josh and Bryony! My first supporters of the race. Big energy boost, feeling great. Abruptly realize I'm hard to recognize in my sunglasses, hat, and brand-new arm warmers.

To Melissa, Karen, Dave, Katherine, Mike, Leah, Brian, Sara, and the Giant Duct Tape Flower (Mile 7.75): Next thing I'm running through my own neighborhood. I've been looking forward to this since I got up at such an ungodly hour this morning, because my wife will be showing up with a 4-foot flower made entirely out of duct tape, created by friends' awesome kids. Before I come to the Flower of Power I see neighbors Sara and Brian - enough energy to get me running way too fast. Up ahead I see a strange thing, yes, it must be the flower. Melissa's waving it like the national flag of Yippeestan, my friends are whooping, I'm hooting and hollering and running like a spazz. Now I'm really pumped, and my pace increases. Later, Melissa would tell me what was running through her mind: "What's up with those arm warmers?"

To the Bishop Loughlin HS band playing "Gonna Fly Now (Theme From Rocky)" (Mile 8.86): I'd read about these guys, but I wasn't prepared for just how awesome they were in person. They play this tune over and over for hours. All I'm doing is running for a while. They're the heroes. By now I'm locked in a slightly too-fast pace.

To Judith and Gabriel (Mile 11.98): Next thing I know I've passed the annoyed Satmar Jews, and come to the hip part of Williamsburg. The hipsters don't hoot like the earlier Brooklyn crowds, but they wave enthusiastically. Despite holding a sign with a giant picture of me on it, Gabe and Judith don't recognize me until I run straight at them pointing and yelling. And yet I feel it's too late to jettison the arm warmers.

To the half-way point (Mile 13.1): Totally jazzed by Gabe and Judith, I make it to the half-way point exactly on schedule. Even so I know I've run most of the first half too fast. I don't care, I'm having a great time.

To Sue at Engineer's Gate (Mile 24.41): The second half of the race is a lot more interior to the runner. I slowed a little, well, a lot, but loved every band, cheered every disabled runner I could, and cursed the Queensboro bridge for being so steep. First Avenue rocked though the headwind was discouraging. The Bronx was fun. Harlem and Fifth Ave flew by in noisy blur. I realized at around Mile 23 that there wasn't much left in the tank. Sue cheered for me behind her camera just inside Central Park. Hope she got a picture, because I got jazzed again and accelerated just a little.

To Columbus Circle: Mile 24 had slowed me a lot - that hill is brutal, and despite deep concentration I couldn't pull much more out of my legs. I was running 40 seconds per mile slower than my target pace. Still, I started steeling myself for a flashy kick at the end.

To the finish: I turned it on as soon as I saw the turnoff up ahead. I did a quarter mile in 1:27, my fastest pace of the day. Abruptly however, it turned back off. My legs stiffened into uncooked pasta, my hands started tingling, I felt impossibly light and brittle. I could hardly move. One hundred yards to go and time had frozen, like in a dream. So I waddled. I waddled at my slowest pace of the day on broken macaroni legs so I could get this thing done.

And then it was. Done!

I felt amazing. Still too tired to take off the arm warmers though.

Although I missed my main target by a couple of minutes, there were several reasons to be satisfied:

1. I put down everything I had on the course, and had nothing left at the finish.
2. I ran the first half faster than my first half-marathon a year ago.
3. I ran the second half faster than I ran the same distance in August in the NYC Half-Marathon - which I was trying to race.
4. It was my first marathon, so I had no idea what to expect.
   
5. I had an amazing day from before the start to well after the finish.

There's more to say about everything, but that's the course. I had no idea how amazing Meb Keflezighi had been, or that shoo-in Paula Radcliffe had come in fourth. The vibe was intense and hushed after the finish. But more on that later.

The Art of Rest, part 1

It's time to taper for my race, so I've been sprinting through some books to take my mind off of marathoning. So I got a book about the NYC Marathon, another about Kenyans and marathons, one about Ultramarathons, and one last one about bugs and marathons. Together they've completely changed my marathon plan.

A Race Like No Other by Liz Robbins was a great tour of the route, and reading about the elites is inspiring. Now I know some of the regulars along the route and I'll be able to properly blank on their names as I approach.

Then there was Toby Tanser's More Fire, about Kenyan runners. I have to write more about this book sometime. It's not that it's compellingly written, or makes obvious sense, or has any good advice at all. But it's the best running book I've ever read (and I've read a lot). It's basically just profiles of Kenyan athletes, where they came from, and their training methods. No, not methods actually, their training spirit. The people who are the foremost international distance runners are hungry for victory. The need it economically, they seem to need it spiritually, they focus on getting it, and they don't mess around with folderol (love the image of athletes using donated heart monitor bands as clothes lines).

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall has become infamous for igniting a debate about running shoes, but I think everyone, maybe including its author, has missed the real point of the book. The entire plot and some awe-inspiring scenes at the end of the book pivot on one single, simple thing, the connection between competition and compassion. We race with and about others. The book traces the genesis of a race between some indigenous Mexicans and some North American oddballs in 2006. In the book, even races won come off as downers because of failures in generosity. The successful races in the book are powered by an innate human capacity to push individual limits to break collective boundaries. Afterward everyone parties together. McDougall spins great stories, and clearly focus tested them in bars. The message is a lightning bolt, and reminded me I still hadn't signed up with a charity for the marathon (I have since corrected this).

Racing is not obviously a team sport - but as a friend of mine once replied when I described a race as a solitary effort, "You didn't notice all those other people out there?" Race day is a deeply communal experience. And not only communal with the runners and spectators around you. When you race, the team is really everyone and everything you can fit in your heart to fuel you through.

I'm following up Born To Run with Bernd Heinrich's Why We Run. I'm not very far through it, but it's a denser meal. McDougall is a journalist, Heinrich is a lyrical scientist. He writes about endurance in all species, especially bugs, his first taxonomic love. You come away in awe of nature, time, people. All of this may seem a little cosmic, but that's the American thing. We get like that.

Somehow this is all about something oceanic. Simple, but potentially large. There's a nice profile today of Ryan Hall's charity foundation -

"A lot of people have been asking me about competing with the Africans and when are we finally going to be able to compete with these guys," Hall said. "I've been inspired by many of the African runners, where they take their prize money and go home and do something good with it. They transform their communities through their success in running. As Americans, we should be doing the same thing.

So, you want to run like a Kenyan? Run like a Tarahumara? Run like your own ancestors? Then strengthen your family bonds. Get with a group. Run for a cause. Meditate on the departed. Rest up and run with passion. Here we go. . .

Grete's Great Gallop 2009

In martial arts, or at least the one I used to practice, they say a punch is not thrown but released. It's released as soon as the internal bodily resistances to its power are eliminated. The trick is to know how to shut off the resistances, and when to firm up before and after.

How do you make yourself ready for something to happen? Adrenaline says, let's tense up and pounce. The Tai Chi Kid might say, empty your mind and explode!

On Saturday I got to Central Park just in time to grab my bib and then a high-five from Grete Waitz (now that was some seriously good juju), and we were off!

I started one corral back so I wouldn't run out too fast. Did a fairly leisurely 1/4 mile before settling into target pace. I actually ran faster than target for the first 4 miles, and even zoomed up and down the Harlem Hills - thanks to training all summer in hilly Prospect Park.

Though I was moving well I felt slow. We had gone out to dinner the night before and now I experienced the dark side of every glass of champagne, burgundy, and muscat. I got 4 hours sleep due to some developmental hurdle the baby's going through. It was a comfy 67 degrees, but 97% humidity and a blanket of cloud was kind of a downer. After 4 fast miles I began to slow to a little over target pace.

Finally 45 minutes into the race I gave in and sucked down my caffeinated gel. Oho - there it was, the slow fuse of elation (just as TK has described). I became convinced I could punch my way through to the other side of the jello mold. I gradually sped up again and just reeled in runner after runner with slow acceleration. By the end I was running as fast as at the start, and I had enough to sprint for the last tenth of a mile.

Everything came together for this one, exactly the way it didn't come together in August. I would occasionally catch myself running hunched and crumpled, but focused on my form and brought my spine back up straight. I pumped my way up the hills and flowed back down them. I was disciplined about tangents. I ran with a smile. I had fun and joked with other runners. This is elation and this is why we race.

This is a big boost for my marathon confidence. I came in 25 seconds later than my target, but the race felt great and I managed negative splits at the end. My mind was clear. My legs felt ready for anything.

What I wasn't ready for was the awesome food after the race. The finish line plum was nice, but those gravlaks on a bagel (great NY/Oslo fusion), heart-shaped waffles, and free water were straight from Valhalla. I wished I could stick around and listen to the music (I do love a Hardanger fiddle), but I had to get back home in time to get to the farmer's market and pick up bags of heavy produce, then spend the rest of the day playing charades with the darling baby girl.

Am I ready for a marathon? Who knows? But I'm certainly ready to shut down the resistances and believe in the explosion.

Right, Wrong, or Ready

For me this fall, all roads lead to Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, where the NYC Marathon starts in 29 days. But as a newbie I don't have any past marathons to help me set a pace. I have to go by shorter races and a bunch of faith.

So I'm running Grete's Great Gallop tomorrow, probably in the rain, to see whether my fitness has indeed improved over the last year of training. And if I can put in a good time I can trust my training and relax into my pace on marathon day.

Today I feel worried that the race won't show progress, that all my training won't show up. But just as I'll have to trust my training 29 days, I will trust it tomorrow.