The Perfect Run

I run to train.  I am not a racer, but I do set the bar high, and attempt to meet my goal year after year.
Some weeks the strangest things happen.  This past weekend I ran a 5k race just to test my fitness.  It was a nice controlled 21:33 run.. Evenly paced @ 6:49 6:50 and 7:05 minute per mile.  I was happy with my times, nothing new was showing up in my data, and as my times would reveal I trained to be able to run like this.. Not any faster, not any slower.  Honestly, I don't know if I have run one mile in training faster than 6:38 this year.  So, these results are what I would expect.  What gets me, is that on Tuesday morning I went out on a 13.1 mile training run and ran consistent sub marathon pace miles.  In there I ran a 7:04  7:05 6:46 6:54 7:10 7:21 7:22 and only ran 4 miles over my marathon training pace.   13.1 miles is way more of an effort than a 5k, and I will admit, I felt super fresh after having two days of rest, and there was a nice chill in the air, but what happened?  Did I just drastically improve?  Days like this are hard to understand.  My long term goal for 2012 -2013 is to get myself down into the sub 1:30 Half marathon pace, but that is long term, and a goal.  Its hard for me to have a strong 1:37.40 training run and not think that I can run a 1:35 or under this October.  Its even harder for me to not lay everything on the table and just go for it.  I have to remind myself that running is about consistency, and sometimes you need to pull on the reins a tiny bit to really reap the rewards of proper training.
My goal is not to blow my own doors off in October, but to take this baseline marathon training and continue to build off of it into the 2012 season.  I realize that I have just started to get myself into really good shape, and I have a long way to go.  If I was to judge my level of fitness by my flexibility and strength I would say I have a couple of years to go at least.
This week marks my first 50 mile plus week in over 20 years.  I am tweaking my training a little bit by adding one double a week.  This way all of my runs don't have to be so long.  I am excited to see what is going to happen. 

The Training- Injury -Emotional Despair Cycle of Life

Running is a mission to achieve harmony between the body and the mind.  A delicate dance of two nimble creatures, carefully tip toeing their way together up a steep, flight of greased stairs. We run fueled by emotional highs pushing us to greater heights and crash at the first sign of strain or weakness from our bodies.  Yesterday, my body posted this message on its blog.  "Dearest Reader - Here is that sign you have been looking for.  Do with it what you will.  Love, Your Body."  Now having been a veteran of multiple years of the training, injury, emotional despair cycle, I have learned how to translate this message into a form my mind will except without argument. Stop now or you will be forced to stop later.  I have learned to stop, take a few days of rest and continue on from a healthy place.  This is not easy for everyone.  When your body says stop, and your brain says go, you must make a difficult decision.  If you follow the path of the mind, you run the risk of deepening your injury and knocking yourself out commission for the rest of the season.  If you listen to your body, you run the risk of what? Losing a couple of days of your training? Really?  It seems really simple to me.  It is difficult to take control of your mind and not be controlled by your emotions.  We are always building up to a great peak, and our emotions refuse to let us stop. We are fueled by the elation found after a strong running effort, be that a new PR or a great track workout.  We must learn to listen for the signs of over training, and physical exhaustion at every turn.  Training for a long distance event is not something that should be taken lightly.  Listening to your body is the most important part of your training regimen.  We must run down this road as a united, healthy and strong self.  The days of mind over body are over with for me.  I train, listen to my body and then have faith in my training.
I believe that we have a lot to learn by taking an eastern approach towards our distance running. We all have plenty to learn from the basic fundamentals of something simple like listening, breathing and walking. The act of running should not be consumed by your mind.  Your first couple of miles perhaps can help you organize your thoughts, sorting out the stress of your day and aid in letting go of the chatter of the ever present radio that plays in the background of you head.  Letting go, and listening to your breath and your footsteps will help loosen your mind and help relax your body.
Thich Nhat Hanh talks of breathing during a walking meditation with a deliberate  "in out deep slow calm ease smile present moment, wonderful moment."  and to "smile with every cell of your body."
See link  ( Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life )
I have learned to adapt his walking meditation to my running.  Some days I do wonder what the people I pass on the roads must think of this crazy man running past them wearing nothing more than a pair of skimpy running shorts and a big ridiculous smile.
 For me, running equals meditation.  Meditation is where I go to craft my prayers.  Running gets me to the place where I am whole, empty, but teeming with power and energy at the same time.
 Running heavy with emotional burden does nothing for me.  My goal of each run I take is simple.  I strive to find a balance between my mind and body.  So, when a small cramp or muscle tear pops up, I too have to fight the urge to continue on and ignore the signs.  But having been around the block a few hundred times, I know that giving up a few days of running to heal your body will strengthen more than just your limbs.  For to be whole, we need to listen, let go and sometimes stop dead in our tracks.

What this is, and what this is not.

I am going to put it out there right from the get go.. This rambling babble is not going to change the world, cure cancer, or send money to save small children from famine in Africa.. This is not about my amazing wife, or her soon to be open brewery.  This is not a blog about God, Haute Cuisine, Critical theory, or my relationship with my 3 young children.  I may at time make reference to all of these individual interests in my life, but in no way is this a place to write about them.  What this is, is a blog about running.  Its simple and its sweet.  It is not a place for me to wax poetic about 20 years ago (when 5:15 miles could be strung together like paper dolls hanging in the warm light of the afternoon.. is that waxy enough for you?) this is about the present, the now, the sometimes beautiful, sometimes brutal trials of one person (and his aging body) who wakes up EARLY in the morning and runs all over creation.  Oh and wait, its about something else too.
The idea for The Run Old Boy Run Project came to me when I was standing in a sea of runners at the finish l  of a 10K that I ran this past May.  What I saw around me were not elite bodies sculpted into gazelle like perfection, what surrounded me was the real running community.  The slightly out of shape, the slightly in shape, the oval, postpartum , the fat, the skinny, the emaciated, the giants, and it dawned on me.. This is the church and these are the people who in some form or another, put together mile after mile by foot and journey through our cities, towns and country every day, in search of something more.  (I also like to think of them as   the slightly better looking cross section of some utopian version of what America would look like if we all gave up fast food and learned how to cook our own food from scratch..) but wait I digress....  I got to thinking about how to make the guy who finished  in 256th as much as a rock star as the young college age track star who gracefully tore off sub 5 minute miles for 6 miles.  I know this may sound funny, but its really not about the winner.  Its about the energy of thousands of people who for who knows what reasons put on their fancy shorts that morning and in front of thousand of spectators jiggled and bounced, sweating rivers in pain and ran the allotted 6 miles on that early morning in May.  Now, if you are not a runner and think that this is not a huge accomplishment, go outside right now and go and run 6 miles without stopping.  Go! Do it!  It is not as easy as you may think.
I would like to do something special for one middle of the packer this year.  I have not quite figured out what this means yet.. It might be as simple as a gift certificate to my favorite massage therapist,  or perhaps something a bit bigger, who knows.. but whatever the case... I have my eye on the Grand Rapids Marathon this fall as my possible first stop on my Celebrate the Middle of the Pack train. We will have to see.  If you have any suggestions or would like to donate something let me know.  How cool would it be to come in 457th and win a big ole prize?  How great would you feel knowing that someone else understands and honors what it is that you do?  Word, Amen.

Let me convert you..

I have been running for most of my life.   Running is like religion, if you are brought up a certain way and you stray, you most likely will return to what you learned and found comfort in as a child.  My mother was an early adopter of distance running.  She would take me on runs down the long dirt roads that I grew up on, and race me to the Appalachian trail marker that was 3/4s of a mile in the distance. We manned the water stations of the local 10k that ran past our house, and watched the NYC and Boston marathons on the television together.  Running was not a sport, but a way of life. We were not jocks, we didn't sport athletic warm up suits at the grocery store and plaster Just Do It! stickers all over our Subaru, we were runners, and it was not until recently that I learned what this meant.
I will be turning 38 years old this October.  Any thoughts of competitive running are buried in my past, most likely, shamefully hiding under the spent camel cigarette packages and the countless bottles of red wine that occupied my 'peak running years'. aka my youth.  I have lived on both sides of Healthy street, and even got myself a little dirty in the gutter along the way. 
Running has enabled me to experience life, and the world around me.  There are moments out on long runs where I feel connected to every living thing on the earth.  I know that the birds are cheering me on with their early morning calls, and that the wind winds its way through the trees for only me.   There are other moments when the sounds of city disappear I am left with the rhythm of my breath and the cadence of my footfall. Running is meditation.  I run to get myself to the place that I can truly craft my prayer within, and allow my scattered thoughts to come together.  Most of my 6 -10 hour  training week I spend alone, with only my breath, linked in to some wordless metaphysical river that winds its way along side of me.  Some days I am brought to a place of laughter, bliss, and total tranquility.  Its a beautiful practice to keep.
 I never experienced an issue with being unable to afford to run.  Running is dirt cheap.  A recreational runner who runs 3 miles a day to stay in shape can do this by making the minimal, annual investment of under $100 for a good pair of running shoes.  I spend about 3 times that amount on my shoes, but I also run 4 times as much.  I spend about $200 a year on race registration, running a race in May, June, August, September and October.  Thats, about it.  So for under $500 a year I can keep myself in pretty good mental and physical health.  Not bad when you consider what it costs to go skiing for a week in the winter.  This does come at the cost of one and only one thing... You have to put one foot in front of your other foot.
 If you are looking for the best form of competition, allow yourself to compete against yourself.  Winning and losing against yourself is the most important barometer you can have on your physical and mental health.
Every year I up the anti on myself and strive to become stronger.  By doing so, I have broken down barriers in my mind that have gotten in the way of achieving other goals in my life.  I love to kick the shit out of myself year after year.
 Why should you run?  I think that if you are 100% at peace with yourself, your body image and spiritual life you most likely are doing something right and really don't need to run.  For most of us, we need something to cleave to, and to rely on to get us from point A to point B in our lives.  Running offers itself up to you with open arms.  Putting one foot in front of the other might seem to be the most boring act imaginable, but with a little work and a hour a day you will be transformed.  I can't stress this enough.

The Run Old Boy Run Project

Sometime around February I started to question a few things about myself and my running. Now, I know that I am far from an elite athlete, but I do know that I have not even scraped the surface of my potential as a runner. I know that I will never string together sub 5 minute miles for 13 miles or sub 6 minute miles for that matter, but the question of what is my potential burns inside of me. My original goal or shall we say question was this.. What would happen if you took a slightly above average, quickly approaching 40 year old runner and trained him like he was an elite athlete?
Now that I am successfully surviving my first mileage build up in 20 years, I think that I am ready to commit to this project. In the beginning, I thought that running more than 50 miles a week would destroy my body. Running 30 mile weeks made my bones ache, so logically running more would hurt me even more. Not the case. I think what I have found out in the over 40 mpw land is that you really can not make the mistake of going out hard on a workout without being warmed up properly. The same is true for the tail end of a run as well.. Every run needs a cool down. Period. Just adding the warm up and the cool down to my training routine has made me more flexible, more confident in my health as a runner and frankly has added a few extra easy miles to my weeks total. Not a bad trade off at all.
Now, I will be honest with you... I do not think that I will ever run a 140 miles a week. I think that my goal for the rest of this year is this.. Continue to train for the half marathon as planned, build up to a near 60 miles per week before the taper just to see how it feels.. Taper, run the half as planned, and then evaluate the results, and revise the training plan as needed. I think that a realistic goal, barring a hellish winter will be to focus all my efforts on the River Bank Run 25k in May of 2011.. Sounds like a plan. So, with that said... Keep on keeping on... For now.