Will the Real Runner Please Stand Up?

I think it was January 2008 when I listened to a voicemail that started, “Hello, I am looking for Eric Cameron, the marathoner….”  The voicemail was from a fellow Mr. Cameron who was also registered for Boston in April of 2009 and has a penchant for tracking down members of the Cameron clan.  If I received that call today, I would be tempted to say, “The marathoner isn’t in right now, I am expecting him back…eventually.”

I have heard/read people refer to being a real runner.  It usually comes in conjunction with a goal or achievement.  Be it running a certain number of miles or days of the week, achieving a certain level of speed, or completing a race or challenge, people feel that they are not a real runner until they have reached a certain level of psychosis dedication to the sport.

I used to be a real runner. I was a marathoner.  I labored over training plans and could be found pouring over my training log.  I awoke early to run while my neighbors slept.  I set goals and chased them feverishly.  I caught a lot of them.  I blathered on endlessly about races, training, recovery, and the friends that I made along the journey.  However, the real runner is MIA at the moment.  A flaccid temp has taken his place, wide eyed and panicky about how he can fill the shoes of his predecessor.   He has the real runner’s notes on how to get the job done, but is a bit overwhelmed.

So the question is this, if one has to reach a milestone to be considered a real runner, at what point does one cease to be a real runner?  Is it a certain number of pounds gained, dropping below a certain number of miles each week, or failure to maintain the training log because the truth is too painful?  Did I lose my real runner card when I abandoned goals to kick ass in my next race?

Ah…the next race. My real runner doppelganger is registered for the Pikes Peak Ascent in August and the Houston Marathon in January.  He had goals and aspirations for glory in those events.  He had a plan.  I have a belly and a growing feeling of doom.

Of course, being a runner is what has gotten me into this mess.  I trained like crazy for three years and was limping around Boston on the evening of Patriot’s Day 2011 after completing my 8^th marathon.  The stabbing pain in my heel was the call for the real runner to go away for a while.  As I wrestle (I wish I could put this in past tense) with Plantar Fasciitis, an over-use injury from all that glorious running, I also wrestle with my identity.  If I am not a marathoner, who am I?

The answer: I am a runner.  Yesterday, the first day of summer, I took the dogs out for a run.  We all needed it.  The grass was high from the recent rain and the trails were soft without being muddy.  The sun was warm on my skin as we plodded along.  My mind was full of goals; where those goals would have been focused on race paces and strategies a few short months ago, they were now about how to finally whip this ailment and get back to my former state.  At what seemed like every turn on the familiar course, I thought about the hard workouts I had put in on those same trails over the past years.  While I am currently unable to hold the pace that I labored at while preparing for recent marathons, there was a spark.  I wanted to get back there.

And I think that is the answer to my question.  I am no longer a real runner when I don’t want to do it anymore.  Yesterday’s run was slow, and my heel was a little achy, but it made me want to get after it, which makes me believe that the marathoner will return from his hiatus.  As I turned off the trail to hit the neighborhood streets, I caught something out of the corner of my eye.  It was Eric Cameron, the marathoner, gliding through the tall summer grass in the angled sunshine of late afternoon, chasing his glorious goals.

I will catch him and pass him soon enough.  Really.

Hair of the Dog

According to Wikipedia, the phrase, “Hair of the dog” originally referred  to treating a dog bite by putting the hair of the biting dog on the wound to avoid rabies.  Of course, in our modern usage, it refers to having a drink in the morning of the booze that we over indulged in the night before in the hopes of ameliorating a hangover.

This rabid runner figured he would return to the well as I headed out for a recovery run after a hard half marathon in which I bucked a headwind for 13.1 miles.  While I won’t go into the details of the race here (click the race report link if you are interested), let it suffice to say that I gingerly got out of bed this morning.   Some dog replaced my lower legs with wood while I slept.  So while the family was still asleep in the motel room, I slipped out for some cure—more running.

Marathon training, and racing of any kind, is hard.  While some people run socially, soaking up the atmosphere, I feel the need to push hard at every race, and the Canyonlands Half Marathon was no exception.  While I train and race hard, every training plan has recovery runs built in.  The idea is to run slowly and just get those wooden pegs loosened up a bit.  While the running is slow, it is often difficult.

As I headed out of the motel at the southern end of Moab and headed west along the Colorado river, I was hobbled.  Everything hurt, and I could barely fake a running motion.  However, like magic, the same activity that put me in this position slowly rescued me.  My legs stopped hurting by degrees and the pace picked up a bit.  The wonderful part was that I had no other goal besides logging some miles, so I could look around.  Yesterday I raced down a beautiful canyon, but anytime I thought of looking at the scenery, I was quickly drawn back to the task at hand: racing and cursing the wind.  This morning, I checked out the river and the beautiful canyon walls.  I saw sleepy campers slowly emerging from their tents and even a couple of llamas who watched me curiously as I ran by.  I trotted along with only the beautiful scenery and my thoughts.

The recovery run did more than just enable me to walk through Moab shops and hike to some magnificent rock formations in Arches National Park with my sons; it recharged my love of the sport.  I ran for medicinal purposes, but loved every step of the way.  The early Sunday morning jaunt greeted me with very few cars, comfortable temps, about 6 miles of joy (after the first mile of painful clomping) and even a breeze that seemed less hostile than yesterday.

So I am now back home with 28 days until the Boston Marathon.  That works out to one more week of hard training and then a taper—three weeks where the mileage lessens each week, but the intensity of individual workouts remains with the hopes of delivering me to Hopkinton with fresh, speedy legs.  In 29 days, I will probably try a little more hair of the dog that bit me.

Mike's Hotel

A high school friend with whom I have been in contact off and on over the years posted some pictures on FaceBook the other day. His name is Mike Pop.  He posted a whole album of pictures of the renovations he has made to his home.  He owns an old hotel (originally build in 1880) in rural Nevada and is renovating it into a small storefront and three apartments. 

The enormity of the task is daunting to me.  The pictures show the old rooms prior to the changes, and then the removal of walls, repairs to some of the brick arches, building kitchen cabinets from recycled wooden doors, replacing windows, cutting holes and installing stairs, and basically repurposing the entire building to his needs.  In addition to all of these changes, my friend creates a lot of art from things he finds in the Nevada desert; all of the railings on the hotel are handmade—Mike Pop originals.  Wow, that job is huge!

As I looked at the pictures, impressed with all of the work that my friend had done, I noticed that all of the pictures were labeled, stating what it was that was depicted: new window in the kitchen, new cabinets in the kitchen, the kitchen when fully painted, etc.  There would be groups of pictures as an area of the hotel was transformed, with several shots of a given area, then a shift to another area.  While the enormity of the transformation of this old hotel did not lessen, it became clearer to me how such a task can be completed.  The entire project is the renovation of the hotel, but within that project, are smaller projects. Removing the walls, framing new walls, creating a kitchen, creating a utility room all fall under the Hotel Project banner.  And those smaller projects are comprised of numerous projects themselves: wiring for the appliances, building the cabinets, changing the window, sheet rocking, painting, etc.

I think that Mike’s project is going really well; it is impressive to see all that he has done, but the list of things to come is still daunting.  However, he finishes a task and moves onto the next item, all with an overall vision of the finished product.  His journey parallels any big task.  He is not getting paid to repurpose the hotel; in fact he spends a lot of money, time, and labor on his task.  He does it because it makes him happy and he sees worth in it.  His process, of taking one step at a time is inspiring.

 

I get frustrated doing any kind of home repairs and improvements.  Something always goes wrong and I am left grumbling as I make one more run to the home improvement mega store.  Mike told me that the nearest lumberyard is 80 miles away and Home Depot is 130 miles.  But he has had no shortage of setbacks along the way.  I would be a basket case.

Of course, I am a basket case, but it is not an old hotel that is highlighting my dementia.  I am not building a home from the remnants of an old hotel, but I am building a marathon.  I am sure that people, when seeing my friend’s home upon completion, will be in awe that he did it all himself, yet still not grasp the enormity of the task.  When people find out that I have run a marathon (or 7) they have a similar reaction.  They are impressed, but usually don’t “get” it.

A different friend of mine once wrote that marathoners know the secret that a marathon is short.  Yes it is 26.2 miles and takes a number of hours, but those measurements pale when compared to the thousands of miles and hundreds of hours that are dedicated to preparing for the task.  Of course, like the renovation of a hotel, training for a marathon is an accumulation of a lot of smaller tasks.  There are training cycles, mesocycles, weeks, and daily workouts.  One task at a time is completed, which accumulates into a section of the tasks being completed, which eventually leads to a finished project that is turgid with my effort, focus, and passion.

In our culture of immediate gratification, it is easy to forget that change often occurs slowly.  We should dream big, set our goals high, but focus on the immediate task at hand and its contribution to the goal rather than being overwhelmed with the enormity of the goal.  Take it one step at a time, do that step to the best of your ability and move on.  The big picture will take care of itself.

Last week’s running plan (11 weeks until Boston!) got disrupted by a minor illness; I took two consecutive days off, making up one of the runs on Sunday, my usual rest day and skipping an 11 mile run.  I wound up with 56 miles for the week.  I can’t recoup those 11 miles I missed, but I don’t have to. It was a solid week, including a 22 mile long run that went very well.   I will just press on.  This week started off strong, despite some bitter cold and snow.  I completed a recovery double (6 miles am, 4 miles pm) on a treadmill at the local recreation center on Monday, bringing January’s mileage total to 270 miles (a monthly record).  I ran 146 laps of an indoor track on Tuesday for 14 miles.  Today’s project is five recovery miles.  The forecast calls for a high in the single digits (F), but I owe it to myself and the pups to get out there.  So I will bundle up and tend to the task at hand, knowing that the finished product in Boston will be something that I can be proud of.

Here are some links from Mike Pop.  More information about the hotel is available in the “pages” link on the right side of the blog.

Hotel Renovations Pictures: http://s457.photobucket.com/albums/qq292/junormaneureka/Hotel%20Renovations/

Mike-Pop-Art: Find me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mike-Pop-Art/70408604092

A fresh [re]start

My resolve lies in the same place that it did yesterday, to train and race well.  However, after today's 15 miler, I was struck by the zeros in the training log.  The MTD and YTD were reset to zero.  I felt as if the zeros were taunting me.  It was a "what have you done lately?" kind of taunt.

Plenty of people start out the new year trying to accomplish something that they have not accomplished in the recent past.  I think that any motivation to improve ourselves is a good one; however, we all know what often happens to new year's resolutions.  The attendance at health clubs soars, diet plans and quitting smoking aides have record sales, and marathon registrations soar. OK--I made the last one up.  Nevertheless, using the calendar as an impetus for change is rarely successful. 

Marathoners know the secret.  One day is inconsequential.  It is the culmination of days, months, and years that affect change.  When we strive to change our lifestyles, it starts with a single day, but that change is not realized until it becomes habit.  John "The Penguin" Bingham speaks of the courage to start, and I commend everyone with that courage.  But change is glacial.  One day, one week, one month at a time, we carve out a new lifestyle.

As I ran today, I thought about the new year and change.  I posted my first blog post yesterday, but does that post make me a blogger?  I am not so sure.  I think I need to stick with it a while.  Resolutions are good, but resolve is better.  My exciting new year's eve consisted of re-reading Running with the Buffaloes by Chris Lear.  The book follows the University of Colorado's cross country team in their pursuit of the NCAA title in 1998.  There is a scene, near the end of the book, when the harriers are about to start the NCAA championship race.  One of the runners starts to freak out an his teammate says that everything they are experiencing at that moment is bullshit.  The preparation, the training, is what is real.  While the pressure of the race and the expectations for that event surely have weight, it is what we have done, not what we intend to do, that is real.

Go out there and do.  You can look back on those accomplishments with pride.

So it begins

On this last day of 2010, it seems appropriate that I get a jump on the new year.  While I am not a big fan of resolutions, it seems like a good time to start blogging.  I have been kicking around the idea of blogging for a couple of months, with most of the consideration occurring while I was out running with the dogs.  So, why not make running the focus of this new adventure?  I am sure that the people I interact with on a daily basis will be appreciative of an outlet where I can discuss my running, my dogs, and anything else that is occupying my thoughts as to spare them having to listen to me talk about it.  Of course, I offer no guarantees.  Perhaps now they will have to listen to me blather on about blogging.  Who knows?

I entered my last run of 2010 into my training log today.  5.2 miles in twenty degree temps brought my total for the year to 2159.3 miles.  It was a good year of running: my highest mileage ever and my first sub-3 hour marathon (Chicago 10-10-10) are the highlights.  Of course, I plan on using this blog as a forum as I pursue some goals for 2011.

The first two goals for the new year are running well in the Canyonlands Half Marathon (3/19/11) and the Boston Marathon (4/18/11).  I aspire to set personal records in both events.  Of course, all I can do is prepare and hope for the best.  So prepare I will.  I am currently finishing up the third week of Pete Pfitzinger's 18/70 (18 weeks/ 70 mile week maximum) plan.  It is my second time using this training plan; the first of which garnered a 10:30 improvement of my marathon time.  Pfitz has planned the work, now I will work the plan.

After Boston, I will set my sights on the lofty goal of the Pike's Peak Ascent.  I have never run this event, but it is on my wish list, and, if all goes well, I will accomplish that goal this year.  I am sure that there will be other races, but the A-list is relatively short at this point.

Of course, I don't want this blog to be a glorified version of a training log.  I am hoping to create some interesting narratives regarding running, dadding, husbanding, cubscouting, and anything else that rattles around in my head as I am banging out the miles.

Happy new year!