Topics of conversation for long runs
10. Food.
9. The week’s television.
8. Bad drivers.
7. Beer and wine.
6. Coffee and chocolate.
5. The weather.
4. Bodily dysfunctions.
3. Parts you forgot to BodyGlide.
2. The ex.
1. Food.
Blog Page 294
21.1k, one duck medal
By 8:30 this morning, I was already having my picture taken with Mickey Mouse at an all-you-can-eat buffet, with a half-marathon behind me.
My friend Bob and I rose at 3:30 a.m. at Disney’s Polynesian Resort (Now with extra pineapple!), dressed in the dark, put on our extra layer of discardable Target clothing (gray hoodies and pajama pants — mine red with a snowflake motif, his blue with white wolves). We took the Monorail (Is there a chance the track will bend? Not on your life, my Hindu friend…) to Epcot, and for the next hour and 15 minutes hid from the wind and rain in a small tent where the Disney folks were cleverly selling gloves and hats.
At 5:25, 15 minutes before the start of Wave 1, we figured it was a comfortable time to find Corral A and wait for the race. We walked out of the tent and immediately heard an announcement saying it would take 20 minutes to reach the start line. Oops. A few minutes later we heard the national anthem (I think) and a few minutes after that, as Corral G came into view, we heard the start of the race.
The benefit of chip timing is you can start anytime up until they remove the mats from the start line and not really lose any time (I know someone who slept in and started the Ottawa Marathon 10 minutes late but still qualified for Boston after dodging a few dozen walkers), so we weren’t worried. But we wanted to get going before the next wave. So we ran to the corral, discarding our extra layers along the way, and crossed the start line with the last few runners from A.
Over the next 3k we passed a lot of runners who would have been behind us if not for our tardiness. We ran on the grass and on medians to get around congestion. My biggest surprise about the Disney race was that it was so dark. I guess they run the races super-early to minimize conflicts with theme-park hours and to avoid heat (not an issue this year), but the result is that instead of running in the Florida sunshine (not an issue this year), you’re running on pitch-black roads between theme parks, then briefly darting through Magic Kingdom and turning back toward Epcot.
Despite all the warnings, the weather wasn’t a factor. It was cold and rainy but there was only one stretch, at about 10.5 miles, where I felt the wind head on.
Our goal was to get in under 1:40 so Bob would qualify for New York. He was running strong and at about 8 miles, I told him to go ahead if I fell behind. At that point, I was having some stomach issues and if you had asked me my chances of making my goal, I would have said 5 per cent. We stayed together until Mile 9 and then Bob started getting a little bit ahead.
I was a bit discouraged, but I started to focus on getting to the each subsequent mile without losing my pace. I got to Mile 10 and then Mile 11 and I started to feel better, well enough that it seemed possible to hit my goal. At the final turn around the Christmas tree in Epcot, I shouted to Bob and followed him in about 40 seconds later. He had a great race and finished in 1:39:11, I came in at 1:39:53.
Considering how I felt at 8 miles, I was pretty happy with that, almost as happy as I was to receive a foil blanket to warm me for the walk back to the Monorail. Oh, and to get my Donald Duck medal. And then, after a quick shower, it was off to the buffet for Mickey-Mouse-shaped waffles.
Does this prove I love running?
Even though the forecast for race day tomorrow is for 2 degrees and ice pellets, I am:
-driving two hours tonight, from my vacation in Sarasota to Orlando
-crashing on the sofabed in my buddy Bob’s Disney hotel room
-getting up at 3:00 a.m. to get ready
-boarding a monorail (It glides as softly as a cloud) from the Disney hotel at no later than 4:00
-arriving at the start line at no later than 4:15 for a 5:40 race
-standing in the cold in a sweatshirt and fleece pajama bottoms (with wolf design) I purchased yesterday at Target
-running a half-marathon when it’s 2 degrees and ice pellets, as mentioned above
-driving two hours back to Sarasota after the race to briefly resume my vacation
Friday Video – Sitcom Racing
I don’t know about you lot, but the winter weather isn’t doing it for me and I’m taking it to the treadmill for the next while. And that means my long lost friend – television – is coming back into my life.
Durham runner Garrett Oortwyn passed along these classic running clips from TV sitcoms…
If I ever consider running a marathon in Spain, remind me that 12 miles apparently translates to 26km:And of course The Office’s Rabies Charity Fun Run:I particularly like this Seinfeld clip, as it supports my current campaign to bring back sweatpants and sweatshirts to replace today’s sissy running tights:Of course that’s only the second greatest Seinfeld running scene:Homer Simpson laces ’em up for the Springfield Marathon:And finally, the Cosby Show episode where Heathcliff “Combustible” Huxtable and Sanford “Tailwind” Turner team up at the Penn Relays:
Bill Cosby at 1988 Penn Relays from Ken Stone on Vimeo.
If I had a million dol-lars!
Have you seen the commercials for the Lotto Max game?
I don’t normally watch commercials, but I caught this one out of the corner of my eye the other day. I have searched high and low and can’t seem to find it online to show you, so I will just have to tell you about it.
Set to Bob Sinclair’s Love Generation, it shows a woman leaving her house for a run. Each time she runs across the screen, she is in another part of the world – the Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, somewhere in Africa….
Maybe I am thinking too much, but I find it very interesting that in order to get people dreaming about how nice it would be to be rich, and thus buy tickets, they went with a runner. Obviously this catches my attention because I am a runner. But I am sure that runners are not their target audience, at least not exclusively, so they must have thought that something about that ad would resonate with the population in general.
I guess I find it a little funny that they chose running to represent a lifestyle of ultimate freedom because to me, running is freedom. At the very least, when I am running, I feel free.
I am not gonna lie though, it’s not like I have never imagined how my running would change if I won the lottery! Oh I’d have a coach, maybe a chef, a pair of tights for every day of the week. Like the woman in the commercial, I would run everywhere. The list goes on.
Dream with me a little! How would your running change if you won the lottery?
It’s Starting To Feel Real!
Yesterday as one very small chapter in my running life closed, an exciting new one began. Registration for the 2010 5 Peaks Trail Racing season opened, marking my official debut as a professional race director.
I’m in an incredibly enviable position in that the national 5 Peaks brand is entering its 11 season, and my predecessor in southern Ontario, John Klich, built a very loyal racer following during his tenure. If I just follow his template, which has made people happy in the past, I’ll do fine. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel or right any terrible wrongs. My job is to learn a lot in my first year, tweak a few elements here and there, and (as with any endeavour) make sure the basic dollars work out so there’s a Year 12. Unless you’re running one of the 10,000+ megaraces, you aren’t paying your mortgage directing races… but the ink still needs to be black.
The other great thing I have going for me is that 5 Peaks organizes 27 races across four provinces, of which I am responsible for five. Not only do I have a team of other race directors across the country to call upon for advice, but many of the details related to insurance and other contract issues are handled by the owners of the company. This frees up my time to focus on the details of the races themselves. I’m a little more able to look at things from the racers’ perspective because someone else is looking at things from the lawyers’ and accountants’ perspectives.
On the other hand, adopting a very popular trail racing series has presented a couple of interesting challenges as well. For various reasons I was compelled to look for two new venues for the 2010 season. Fortunately – and contrary to popular belief across the country – we have an incredible array or gorgeous conservation areas within a very short drive of Toronto. The tough part is that since these are mostly very rural locations without any public transit options, I need locations that provide the number of parking spaces required by 500-600 racers. That whittles the field of options down considerably. Obviously as a race director having too many racers is a very nice problem to have, and I think I’ve found two fantastic locations to introduce to my runners. However, I do consider it part of my mandate to expose urban runners to their area’s beautiful natural environment and it makes me a little bit sad to know that I might never hold a race in some of my favourite places. Luckily I’ve got five great locations for now, with three or four more for when my chewability affords a little more bitability.
Trail running is absolutely exploding across North America right now, and it is very exciting to be a part of it all.
Recipe: Caribbean Squash and Sweet Potato Stew
I just wanted to pop in quickly and tell you about the dinner I had tonight. My mom used to make Caribbean Squash and Sweet Potato Stew (click the link for the recipe) when I was a teenager and I recently rediscovered the recipe. I served it over rice.
Why I like it: it is high in runner-required carbohydrates as well as fibre, but thanks to the black beans, it also has protein. Like everything I cook, it’s easy to make – just peeling, chopping and throwing in the pot. It’s flavourful – as the name would suggest, it is reminiscent of warmer climates. It’s also quite low-calorie by volume, especially when compared to other winter comfort foods – after a serving didn’t have room for dessert, and that is saying something for me.
End Of The Line
You know when you hear about a pro athlete wanting to “go out on his own terms”? You’ll see an older guy suffer a horrific injury, rehab like a madman to get back to game condition, then immediately retire. Or a player will get cut, have his agent shop him around, sign a minimum salary contract and claw his way onto a roster, and retire in the first week of the season.
I always wondered why. The end result is the same… what’s the big deal whether you got punted out or walked out of your volition? I still don’t really understand the motivation, but today in my own little way I’m living it.
As of today I’ve run each the past 218 days. Tomorrow that number will be zero. Today, I’m out.
Every day since June 1st, I’ve laced ’em up and logged a run. The shortest was 2km, the longest 30.4km. I ran in my neighbourhood along Lake Ontario. I ran on the beach along the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. I ran on an island in San Francisco Bay. I ran in Central Park on Manhattan Island. I ran a half marathon through the vast physical emptiness of Death Valley. The next day I ran a half marathon through the vast emotional emptiness of Las Vegas.
In July, during my first ever 400km month, I developed a hip injury and nearly had to DNF the Acura 10 Miler at the 12km mark. The next day I ran 10km. Just last week I suffered a nasty case of food poisoning (ceviche in the hot sun in Mexico… what could go wrong?) but kept both the streak and my goal of 3500km in 2009 alive with 18km over the next two days. Fortunately these were rare exceptions, my body almost always felt great, and running seven days a week quickly became an automatic thing that I didn’t think about very often.
218 days
247 runs
2232km
Personal Best Races at 15km (1:02:52) and half marathon (1:28:45)
But Sunday, in a completely unremarkable jog on the gym treadmill, something blew up in my calf. Literally one step felt fine and the next felt like an ax had been swung at my achilles tendon, and I had to grab the console to keep from being thrown off the belt. I could barely walk the 500m home. I’ve never been one to have calf issues, and I don’t know what caused this or how to fix it. Over the last ten years I’ve had my share of ailments and have learned where different aches and pains sit on the runthroughability scale, but this one’s got me flustered.
Which brings me back to the “going out on my own terms” point. This blow up happened on Sunday evening. I gave it a full 24 hours, wrapped it up really tight, and put in a searingly painful-yet-determined run last night. And survived. It wasn’t pretty and I have to assume I did more damage, but I ran… and if I had to I could do it again tonight. However, I’m choosing to not do so. I’ve got goals for 2010, and they all require solid training volumes and intensities in January and February. Three weeks of hobbling around would be disastrous.
A couple times in the past few months – for reasons of travel, or time management, or hangover – I’ve logged runs in wacky locations, at wacky times of day, in wacky physical or toxicological conditions just to keep the streak alive. I’ve joked to my wife that the streak ends when I say it ends.
Now I’m saying “when”. My fingers are crossed that after a couple days of rest everything will be fine, I’ll start a new streak from scratch, and I’ll wish this two or three day gap never happened. I sure hope so. *Sigh*
Happy New Year!
Earlier today I took a quick look back at the past decade. Later on I am sure I will be looking ahead to the upcoming year. But in this moment, I wanted to pop in with a toast to each and every one of you. 
May your 2010 be injury-free and healthy. May you enjoy an effortless positive outlook when the weather isn’t so great, and excellent weather on the runs where it really counts. May you reach all of your goals, and may 2010 be a year filled with new PBs!
But most of all, may 2010 be a year filled with all of the joys that running has to offer!
Happy New Year!
How has your running changed in the past decade?
Wow. I can barely believe that 2009 is pretty much over. What’s even freakier is that 10 years have passed since that whole Y2K thing! 10 years! A decade. In the blink of an eye.
Or it feels like the blink of an eye – at least until I actually stop and think back over that 10 years and all that’s happened. While my life has changed dramatically in 10 years (I think I would be more concerned if it hadn’t!), one of the most relevant and notable developments is that this is the decade in which I became a runner. Of course telling it later I will need to be more specific – saying “I took up running in the early two-thousands” doesn’t sound natural, “the early uh-ohs” sounds dumb, early this millennium is just melodramatic – so I will likely go with “I took up running in the summer of ’04.”
I didn’t consider myself a runner in 2004. In fact, I wasn’t completely sure it would stick, given that I took several months off due to my very valid reasons (read: lame excuses!) of not having a treadmill or a reflective jacket. Fortunately the break was enough that when I resumed running it stuck. I don’t really remember when I started calling myself a runner. It wasn’t one of those epiphanies that I tend to have (yeah, so I am melodramatic after all. But what the heck? It pairs well with my tendency to be sentimental). I was just running and therefore was a runner.
How about you? What has changed about your running in the past year? The past decade?
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