Half Marathon in Ten Days

In September, while I was vacationing at Hilton Head Island, I rather casually posted as my Facebook status, “Running half marathon tomorrow.”  What I intended at the time was that I would be running 13.1 miles the following day.  It would have been a nice way to finish off a week of excellent runs.  However, I came up short.  Basically, my intention was to park my car, run 5 miles north along the beach to a river inlet.  I would then turn around, run past my starting point by approximately 1.55 miles, and then return.  Not exactly a classic “out and back,” but close enough.  However, in the execution, I was unwilling to run past my car.  The 13.1 miles was truncated to a 10-mile run. 

It was only days later that I decided to run a marathon.  It became clearer to me on that trip that I needed to set some sort of goal for myself.  What was I running for?  Did I want to get faster?  Did I want to be able to run longer?  How should I measure progress?  The answer to these questions was that I wanted to complete a marathon, the benchmark distance run.  I wasn’t particularly interested in developing speed -- at least not initially.  First things first: finish a marathon.  Train for it & do it.

In retrospect, much of my running journey so far was presaged during that trip.  Why was I unable to finish my 13.1 mile run at the beach?  I would say that there were four factors to my early termination.  First, by the time I got back to the 10-mile mark, I sincerely sought to use a restroom.  To run right past a well-situated facility would have been exceptionally difficult.  This fed in to the second factor: it was quite convenient to stop.  If my run had been 6.55 out and back, I would have had little choice but to complete the run in some manner once I had committed to the first leg.  In my case, especially after using the bathroom, it would have been akin to starting a second run.

Third, since  I was running by myself, I didn’t have any of the good peer pressure to keep me going.  Running in a pack helps you to press on.

But it was really factor number four that got me to head back: I was short-changing my family.  The night before my run was a particularly difficult one.  I don’t exactly remember which kid was keeping us up all night, but I know one of them was.  While I was gone, Julie would have to take care of both kids while being already exhausted herself.  Further, as I recall, she didn’t look to hide her irritation with me.  As with several other times that week, I was off to do my own thing, leaving her very little choice as to how to spend her time.  To make matters worse, this was the longest run of the week, and I wasn’t even starting at the house, so there was travel time to add to time I would be away.  This was, after all, her vacation, too.  Why shouldn’t she be a bit ticked off at me?  I guess I had never previously seen my exercising as being at some cost to anyone other than myself.  Surely, Julie and I hadn’t discussed the sacrifice yet at that point.

I haven’t endeavored a run that long since then.  And I’ve learned that running involves the whole family, in one way or another.

Still, I set out to run a half marathon on a whim, and it was on just such a whim that I signed up for the YMCA of Greenville Resolution Run to take place on the 7^th of January.  My schedule doesn’t have me running a half marathon for another two-and-a-half months.  And indeed, the half marathon is not a distance that particularly interests me.  From what I’ve been able to glean from websites and books, it’s largely a creation of the nomenclature itself (and a recent one at that).   Which sounds more noteworthy: running a “25k,” or running a “half marathon”?  The very word “marathon” attached to something makes it sound more impressive.  Of course, of the two I mention, the 25k is the longer run. 

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the chance to push myself a bit.  I don’t expect to do any better than about 2:40 or more.  I don’t intend to give it my all, since it really is just a whim.  However, it will be a chance to test my endurance, which is, ostensibly, my running goal.  

Indoor Running

A couple of weeks ago, my brother-in-law helped me move my treadmill from upstairs in my house to my garage.  I used to do most of my running at mid-day, and it was nice to come home from work, turn on the TV, and run in front of the tube.  At this point, however, almost all of my runs are in the morning; I’d have to take a really long lunch to get in a good run & shower at mid-day, despite working only a mile from my home.  It is likely that during busy season, I will do exactly that.  Last year I’d get to work at 6:00 AM and then take a long lunch during which I would exercise, and that worked quite well.  In any event, busy season is a couple of months away, and I was looking for a way to get in a good run even on cold, rainy mornings.  I can’t see wanting to do my long weekend runs on a treadmill, but it has been quite nice for my shorter, slower runs during the week.

For one thing, it’s nice not to have to fight hills while keeping my heart rate low.  On the treadmill, I can pretty much just set a pace & leave it there.  About half way through a run, my heart rate starts creeping up, so I adjust the speed downward accordingly.  But apart from the small adjustment, the treadmill makes it easy to choose a heart rate and keep locked on it.

Having the treadmill in the garage has also reinvigorated my long-held, if long past, practice of reading while running.  My running for the last couple of years has tended to be too fast to really be able to read, and it’s also easier to just turn on the TV & zone out when that has been an option.  Taking away the TV, slowing down the pace, and the added benefit of the ease of reading on an iPad has revitalized my reading life.

The thing is, almost all that I have been reading over the past several months has been about running.  Whether it’s directly about running, or about nutrition for runners, or in some other way related to running, that’s been about all I’ve found time to read (other than scripture).  A week or so ago, I was running on the treadmill and reading Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.  If you aren’t familiar with Haruki Murakami, he is probably the most prominent author of contemporary Japanese literature.  What I Talk About… is perhaps his only non-fiction work.  It is brilliant.  I was thoroughly engrossed in his writing.  Here is one of the greatest living novelists writing directly to my interests!

What I Talk About… is basically a memoir.  And as a memoir of a novelist, he talks a great deal about writing novels.  So, there I was, running, reading a book about what a novelist has to say about running.  At some point. . . it just became absurd.  I had pre-ordered (and since received) his long-awaited latest novel 1Q84 and was looking forward to getting around to it.  But it had been a bit daunting.  I don’t read a whole lot of fiction to begin with, because it takes a commitment of time that I’m usually only willing to give to non-fictional information.  Since I don’t read a lot of fiction, it’s a skill that I somewhat lack.  On top of that, 1Q84 is 944 pages, so quite intimidating indeed.  Still, the absurdity of reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running while running was just a bit too much for me.  At some point, I just switched over to the novel.  I am quite grateful that I made the switch.  I had forgotten what a pleasure it is to read while on a treadmill -- how the time necessary to attack a long work is built in to the daily (or near daily) routine.

On the other hand, running on the treadmill more often than not lately, I have become aware just how much I love running on the street when I do so.  Especially running in my Vibram FiveFingers, I love the connectedness that I feel to the ground when I’m on the street.  For years, all I ever knew was treadmill running.  I am thrilled that I took the show on the road last summer.  Road running is fulfilling in a way that little else is.

So is reading novels.

I guess I’ll just have to strike a balance between the two.  Surely, though, I will never again forsake the road.

Big Decision Time

Big decision time: I’ve decided to run a marathon later in 2012.  I will run the Spinx Marathon in Greenville in October rather than the Columbia, SC Marathon in March.  On March 10, I will do a half marathon rather than a full one.

A number of factors went in to this decision.  If you’ve read the entries that I’ve posted in November, you might have seen it coming as well.

Last week was my firm’s annual meeting.  It is the one time during the year that I see a number of friends face to face.  It is a rare chance to catch up with each other and to share what’s new in our lives and our families.  In telling people about my plans to run a marathon in March, it just kept sounding more and more selfish to me.  Friends would ask about how things were going with a toddler and an infant in the house.   I would describe sleepless nights.  But really, the one losing sleep is, by and large, not me.  I don’t think I’m slacking off as a father and a husband, but I do think that I can offer more of myself.  I’d hear myself describing my allocation of time and energy, hear myself explain, indeed accurately, a disproportionate amount of myself being dedicated to running.

I was lamenting along these lines with my boss a couple of weeks ago.  His own father took up running in his thirties, I believe.  As I was telling him how I felt that the time I was spending on my long runs on the weekends was directly at the expense of family time, he said, basically, that I was experiencing exactly the same thing that every runner who has ever dedicated the time to running a marathon has experienced before me -- or at least, every runner with a family.  No doubt, the time that it takes to prepare has to come from somewhere, and one can only reasonably short change oneself just so much on sleep.

That said: I’m still going through with the marathon training and run.  I’m just deferring the 26.2 goal by two-thirds of a year.  So what’s the big deal?  What kind of difference do I expect there to be in training for an October marathon rather than a March one?

There are two big differences between March and seven-and-a-half months later.  First, the big difference is in my work schedule.  From the beginning of February until mid-April, I will be working around 55 hours a week.  In the March marathon scenario, many of my heaviest weeks of training fall during the first six weeks of busy season.  So, while I’ll still need to find long spells of time on weekends to dedicate to my long runs, they won’t have to be during weeks when I’m working six day weeks -- and long days at that.  Yes, training for the half will still take entail long-ish runs on the weekends -- but they won’t be nearly as long.  Also, this will leave the last five weeks of busy season free of any training schedule.  I’m sure I’ll want to keep up regular running in late March and April, but I can do it on my time rather than following the strictures of a training schedule.

The other big difference is that my kids will be just that much older.  Right now, my kids are likely at the neediest times of their lives.  Josiah is two-and-a-half, and so can get into anything he wants to, lacking the self-control to keep himself from trouble.  Chloe is seven months and still does not sleep through the night.  What that means, among other things, is that Julie needs a little extra sleep whenever she can get it.  If I drop both kids on her for a day, that guarantees that no sleep shall be had by the mama.  However, next summer, Josiah will be three and Chloe one.  Hopefully Josiah will be past some watershed in behavior, which will translate to greater independence.  Chloe, presumably, will be sleeping through the night (hopefully well before summer) and will get, at least for a while, progressively easier to care for.

Other little things also favor the October marathon.  Much of my more intense training will now fall in the summer.  I love running in the summer.  I love running on roads, and it’s better to run while it’s light.  I look forward to long, hard runs under the summer sun.

Also, it’ll give me a little extra time to shed a few pounds that would be hard to carry 26.2 miles.  Weight loss has never been much of a goal of mine, but in running, it becomes a little clearer the cost of carrying extra weight.  And I’m not looking to go on any great diet -- just to maybe cut out a few extra calories, with a goal of maybe losing a couple of pounds a month.

All that having been said, I am now very excited about my dual goals of running a marathon in October as well as the half marathon in March.  I’ve never given the half much consideration before, but I think it’ll be exciting.  It will give me extra confidence in the larger goal of running a marathon as well.

I made this decision on Saturday and had a good long run yesterday (Sunday).  It was filled with prayer and joy, even as I ran down an unlit trail well after sunset.  Even in the dark, the world is a brighter place for this change of mind.  I’m excited about busy season coming at work, which is my favorite time of the work year.  The anticipation was marred with a tone of dread.  Now my verve is up.

Bring it on!

Discipline

It’s still very hard to run so slowly.  True, I do get a smattering of fast(ish) interval runs, and Thanksgiving happened to coincide with the first tempo run on my training schedule.  It felt good to run fast for a change.

Still, many of my runs are still “A” runs, which means a maximum heart rate of 70% of maximum -- to wit, 140 bpm.  Especially running on Greenville hills, this can be an excruciatingly slow run.  So, I want to run faster.  Also, there are many running plans that would have me running faster.  I wouldn’t have to look too long or hard to find an 18-week training program that would allow me to run faster every day.

And so, my eyes wander.  I start wondering why I’m on the particular program that I am.  Does any other program at all indicate that I should run so slowly?

In short: yes.  In addition to the program that I am following as prepared by Coach Benson and Dr. Connolly, one of the other leading authors in the field recommends that, indeed, I need to be running just so slowly.  If I understand correctly, Dr. Philip Maffetone, author of The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing and other works, would have me basically never run at a higher heart rate than 180 - age.  So, Dr. Maffetone would have me under 142 bpm throughout my training (under 141 in a couple short months).  I’ve purchased his book and will look to it for reinforcement of the plan I’ve already undertaken.

Meanwhile, my moderate “B” runs are getting much more enjoyable.  “B” runs are my long runs that hold me to a top heart rate of 75% of max, or 150 bpm.  This used to be agonizingly slow to me.  And really, it is a frustrating struggle to fight with my heart rate monitor for an hour and a half, running right at the top edge of the range -- basically, being told to slow down for a whole run.  For my last couple “B” runs, however, I’ve tried to target 72% or 73% for the duration.  That way, if I lose control and start to run too fast, I have a little free reign before the punishment inflicted by the heart rate monitor ensues (beeping).  I find myself glad to run at these lower rates with the added freedom of not walking a tightrope for the whole run.  Ahh, I think I am on to something, indeed…

Yes, it’s still slow.  If I were to take my average pace from yesterday and figure my marathon time from that, it would put me basically right at a six hour marathon. 

But alas, most training programs do not even run this long.  It’s almost as if I haven’t even begun training yet under most systems.  And yet benefits have already been conferred.  True, my pace isn’t quite what I’d like it to be -- but my primary goal is to finish the marathon, not win it.  I’m learning the discipline that it takes to run all day. 

Man, I love running.

Doubt

Perhaps those of you who read Friday’s blog entry saw this coming.  This last weekend, I met with my first serious doubts about my goal of running a marathon in March.

As I mentioned on Friday, it’s not that I don’t think that I’ll be able to finish my 26.2 mile run.  Perhaps I do have some fear along these lines, but in any event, I won’t really be able to face and battle these fears until race day.  Meanwhile, I’m learning what I need to know about nutrition and pacing, and I am training my body to be able to complete the run.  I have no illusions about being the first one to the finish line.  But I think I am realistic in my expectation that, if I keep up my training and keep learning, that I’ll be able to run the race to its completion. 

No, it’s all that I might feel that I’m giving up along the way that weighed on me this weekend.  It’s all the extra responsibility that I feel I am putting on Julie to single-handedly parent the kids, especially on Shabbat.  So, I started thinking: If I changed my goal to do the marathon in Greenville next October, that would put the heavy training during the summer.  And in summer, the whole family can go out together; Julie can bike & pull the kids in a trailer while I run.  Or she can head out with me and play with the kids on a beautiful summer morning under the sun while I run, as opposed to being stuck in a house for hours every Shabbat throughout the winter.  And then, when busy season comes along, I could be in a lighter training cycle rather than overlapping my busiest time of year at work with some of my longest runs.  Really, one might say, I didn’t think things through very well before I signed up for this marathon.  It really could be timed out a lot better for October.  So, maybe I could call the marathon folks & tell them to change my registration to be for the half?  That way I could also make the most out of money already committed to this process.

I shared my misgivings with Julie after my run on Saturday.  We talked it through & I think that I had nearly sold her on the change of course.  But, I guess after thinking about our conversation as she showered, she came back to me and encouraged me to stay the course.  No matter what, she said, we would be running and biking and playing on Saturdays during the summer.  Wouldn’t it be nice (she didn’t say, but I inferred) if we could just enjoy each other in doing so instead on needing to stick to a programmed duration or distance?  I’ve come this far, and even if I were to change gears to aim for an October marathon, that’s really not going to change much about my daily or weekly runs.  How about, Julie suggested, I do my long runs on Sunday instead of Saturday for a while?

I won’t need to work on Sundays until February, and even then, Sundays tend to be short working days for me until mid-March.  The marathon is March 10^th.  When I was originally setting myself up on my marathon schedule, I was envisioning the worst cases: the three-hour run two weeks prior to the marathon and the other couple long runs right near the end. 

But, suggested Julie: Isn’t there some room for flexibility?  I mean, sure, there’s one long run a week, and it makes sense for it to be on Saturday or Sunday.  And it would probably be hard to just wing it week to week, since the days before & after the long run of the week are in anticipation of and recovery from the long run, respectively.  But what about planning on running on Sundays in November & December, at least?

Boy-o, does it ever pay to have a smart & loving wife!

My doubts have been allayed.  My verve has been renewed.  

Real Endurance

There are several types of endurance necessary to run in a marathon.

The most obvious is the endurance that it takes to run 26.2 miles without stopping.  There is no question in embarking upon marathon training that, if all goes as planned, your endurance will be put to the test on race day. 

But there’s only one race day.  Well, okay -- there’ll probably be more than one.  The point is that even though the training is about race day, the training process is a much larger commitment.  Even if the marathon itself turns out to be a miserable few hours, it is, alas, only a few hours.

The real test of endurance is the training that is necessary to take that few hours seriously.

I heard a Rabbi teach last week about Abraham.  Abraham endured a number of tests that demonstrated his commitment to G-d.  One of the first tests that Abraham (then Abram) was put to was when G-d commanded him to leave his homeland and set out for an unknown destination.  A later test (as related by the sages of the Talmud) involved Abraham’s angering Nimrod, the king of the land.  According to the story, Nimrod had Abraham thrown into a firey furnace.  Abraham trusted in G-d and came out of the furnace unscathed.  The result of this victory was the conversion of many souls from idolatry to monotheistic worship of Adonai.

The Rabbi’s point, however, was that the test of setting out from his homeland was a much more difficult test than being willingly thrown into a furnace.  After all, the firey furnace, regardless of the specific outcome, would only really be a test on one day.  Setting out from his home, on the other hand, was a test without an end in sight.  While the fire might take his life, the journey would certainly take Abraham’s comfort, being a man of great wealth even at the outset of his journey.

This lesson resonates with me.  It’s one thing to take a few hours and run.  Really, I’d love to do this.  But while I understand that the marathon will indeed be hard, it doesn’t compare to the difficulty of the training.  The hardest part is being away from my family for a good chunk of time on Shabbat.  Tomorrow I will be out of the house for 2.5 hours while the rest of my family remains at home.  Instead of being a relaxing time of rest for Julie, it brings the burden of being the sole caregiver for two young children who each demand quite a bit.  To that extent, it is not even my time that I am sacrificing, but that of my wife.  And believe me, that’s even harder.

October 25^th is National Married-to-a-Runner Appreciation Day.  It is the brainchild of one of the editors of Runner’s World.  I found out about it, alas, on October 26^th this year.  Even though it was a day too late, it seems that honoring your spouse for all they give up to allow you to follow your passion can never go out of style.  Excuse me, please, while I run off to the store to get some flowers on my way home.

Shabbat shalom!

Mr. Upside-Downsky

First, allow me to get the preliminaries out of the way.  My time in the 5k last Saturday was 30:49.  It was a bit over my goal time, but it was a good learning experience.  Unfortunately, the main takeaway is pretty 5k-specific.  The best lesson I learned was how packed the field is for the first half mile.  Starting out in the middle of the pack, there was very little way for me to run my desired pace for at least that long.  Having this knowledge could well have made the difference between beating 30 minutes and falling short of it -- but what’s a minute difference in a marathon to me?  On the other hand, having a 5k time under my belt does allow me to estimate my marathon time.  I had been thinking that I’d be lucky to beat the maximum course time of 6 hours by too much, so 5:30 had been my out-of-thin-air goal time.  With a 5k time of 30:49, using the formula T2 = T1 x (D2/D1)^1.06, my marathon time is estimated to be 4:55.  If I further assume that I lost time procedurally and that 30 minutes is actually a realistic 5k time, then my estimated time for a marathon would be 4:47.  Since there will undoubtedly be some procedural time lost at marathon as well, however, it probably makes sense for me to stick with the 5 hour pace group based on my 5k performance.

What I really want to share with you today is some of what I’ve learned from my recent foray into sports nutrition.

Just as with my learning about the proper way to train to run, most everything that I’ve learned about nutrition over the last couple weeks has been counterintuitive.  As long as I’ve been in the habit of exercising, I’ve been good about bringing water along with me and staying hydrated throughout a workout.  “Sure, I understand that sports drinks replenish electrolytes that are lost during workouts.  But, really, I have plenty of salt in my diet.  Why should I add more through a drink?  And even if there are other electrolytes that I might need to replenish after a particularly hard workout, there’s no reason to add all of the calories of a normal sugary Gatorade, right?  That just kind of defeats one of the purposes of working out to begin with, which is to burn more calories than I’m consuming.  And I’m totally not hungry after a run.  I might as well use that to my advantage, too, and wait to eat until I actually feel like eating.”  Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

Now that I’m learning about sports nutrition, I’m well aware that I had many things totally wrong.  What I’ve learned is that I need sugar calories before a run, absolutely need more sugar calories after a run, and really should be downing sugar during the run as well.  When all’s said and done, even on my light run days, I need to consume about 80 grams of high-glycemic-index carbs before my workout is complete.  Yep, that’s 320 calories that, I now understand, are absolutely essential to add to my workout.  And that’s for my easy runs -- the ones that I complain about being frustratingly slow.  And, the more I read, the more I am assured that this isn’t fringe advice.  This is well-accepted contemporary nutritional science.  Obviously the folks over at Gatorade know this stuff all too well.  If you’ve made a purchase of Gatorade lately, you’ll have noticed that there isn’t really just a good ol’ “Gatorade” product anymore.  There is one product that is suitable to ingest before a workout, another one to drink while you’re working out, and another for the recovery period. 

Granted, I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of this newfound (or newfound-to-me) information.  But as with a lot of my training, it’s been a matter of act first, understand second.  I can snub my nose at the information, say, “well, that doesn’t sound right at all; I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing,” and get nowhere just as fast as I have been getting for the last ten years -- or I can change my habits.  Indeed, the pre-workout Gatorade is really pretty gross, especially first thing in the morning.  It’s like drinking syrup.  No, not “like” -- it is drinking syrup.  And I still don’t have any desire to eat right after running.  Furthermore, it’s highly inconvenient.  When I get home, I want to shower & get to work.  But now, I’m taking a little extra time to have some sports drink, eat a banana, and drink some of Josiah’s chocolate milk.  Yes, all three. 

Such is a life of faith.  Not everything makes sense.  Not everything feels “natural.”  But you decide to do it because you trust something or someone more than you trust your instincts.  Some people are comfortable calling this a “leap of faith” a la Kierkegaard.  Really, it is entirely rational.  Why on earth would I think I know better than a nutritionist how I should be eating?  I’ve been trusting myself for a long time & it’s gotten me. . . not very far.  So how do you take it to the next level?  It’s got to be through trust and faith. 

I’m not obese or incredibly out of shape.  But if I want to get in better shape, I have to trust a nutritionist.  I wasn’t particularly unhappy or despairing before I became religious.  But I guess I wanted to be more fulfilled.  I wanted there to be something or someone greater than me.  I wanted there to be a G-d.   And you know what?  He’s not hard to find.  Countless smart, wise people have come before me & known him by name.  Maybe I can trust one of them.  Maybe I can humble myself long enough to believe that I’m not the smartest, wisest being that’s ever walked the face of the earth.  Does that really take a leap?  Does it even really take humility?

Three Days Before Race #1

My first race is in three days.  As of today, however, I still have not resolved my heart rate monitor issue.

If you read my last post, you know that the reading on my HRM was regularly spiking.  I thought that the culprit was either an expiring battery or some kind of interference from my new running jacket.  It was easy enough to put both of these theories to the test.  A fresh battery & running without my jacket still gave me conclusive evidence: something else was wrong with my equipment. 

Coach Benson, the author of the book I am using for training, has a section in his book describing various things that can cause the heart rate monitor to malfunction.  One of the things he mentions is that a loose chest strap can result in just such errant readings.  After reading this, I was sure that I had found the solution to my problem.  I tightened the strap, put on my heart rate monitor, and observed the readout as I sat and read on Saturday afternoon.  No spikes.  Problem solved, right? 

Of course not.  The next morning as I took to the road, things started off looking right (as they always do).  But after running for a while, my HRM reported my heart rate at 210 BPM.  I can get my heart rate pretty close to that and I know what it feels like.  No way was my heart beating that fast.  I was probably right around 150 BPM, a far cry from over 200.  The continuing errors on my device led me to do more research on possible problems.  As it turned out, my hunches were right in terms of my problem-solving efforts.  Weak battery & some types of clothing can indeed have such result.  But the other thing I found out is that a lot of people have had just such a problem -- that the chest strap (and indeed all Garmin chest straps, apparently) has a bad habit of showing heart rate spikes after about six months of use.

I’ve ordered a new chest strap and contacted Garmin customer support.  Hopefully they will replace the faulty one and I can have a spare strap going forward.  The heart rate monitor is too central to my training to go without.

On the other hand, the last week of running has been uniquely rewarding.  Since my heart rate monitor has shown itself to be an unreliable tool, I am willing to ignore whatever it tells me.  So, I’ve been running with fewer constraints.  Generally, my runs are keyed to a heart rate range, and I spend my whole run fighting to keep within the range.  If my run is supposed to be a 60% - 75% run, I spend the whole time at 75% - 76%.  I always want to run faster than my workout will allow.  Being able to ignore the beeping of my device has been quite liberating.  I still try to follow the spirit of the session -- i.e. in the 65% - 70% sessions, I know the whole point of the exercise is to hold back -- but now I’m holding back on my terms.

Unfortunately, I fear that this will delay my progress somewhat.  I’ve been running “how I want” for a couple years now with basically no progress.  The whole point in following Coach Benson’s model workout program is that it will allow me to develop as a runner.  Running slow is in unsatisfying in some ways.  However, there is satisfaction to be found in achieving a goal.  My goal is to run a marathon.  Lest I forget.  Also, I want to develop into a better runner.

This weekend is the first test.  It’s a little premature.  On Coach Benson’s schedule, the 5k doesn’t come until the end of week six, and I am only on week four at this point.  Also, I don’t really have an empirical benchmark to demonstrate development.  In any event, I’m psyched that, for the first time since I started this training: I get to run!  The faster, the better!  Race day!

My goal has been to do a 5k in 30 minutes.  I have a hunch that I might be able to do even better than that, though, so I’m setting up my splits so that my Garmin will be encouraging me to finish in 26 minutes.

It’ll be the first time that the Garmin will be telling me to speed up rather than slow down.

Tools for Knowing the Heart

I got a bit of a scare this morning.  After strapping on my heart rate monitor, I headed down the road to leave the neighborhood.  By the time I had gone a tenth of a mile, during my warm-up stage, my heart rate monitor read “80%.”  Now, I’ve been using this thing long enough to know that I was not running in any way at an intensity that would have read 80% any other day.  I was just warming up; if I had to guess, I think it would have read around 65% any other day.

What made this day unlike all other days?

There are three possible culprits in the wild reading on my heart rate monitor today.  First, today was the first time I ran with my new running jacket, a Patagonia Runshade 1/4 Zip.  It would be unfortunate if the jacket is interfering with my heart rate monitor, since I like the jacket a lot -- but this is a likely cause. My hope is that the error was due to a failing battery in the chest strap.  The battery is easy to replace and would require no further change of gear or routine.

The third and worst case scenario for the cause of the error is that I had the wrong resting heart rate programmed into my heart rate monitor.  The Garmin (HRM) wants to show zones as percentages of the differential between maximum heart rate and resting heart rate, while Coach Benson expresses all of his zones simply as percentages of maximum.  In my case, my maximum heart rate is 200 and my resting heart rate is 50.  If I put both of these numbers into my Garmin, it will tell me I’m at 70% when my heart rate is (((200 - 50) * 70%) + 50) = 155, while my training program would mean 70% as (200 * 70%) = 140.  To get my Garmin to read in Coach Benson’s terms, I set resting heart rate to “1.”  Therefore the differential is essentially the same as actual maximum heart rate.  I’m sure that I’ve set my device accordingly in the past.  But yesterday I noticed that the value for resting heart rate in the computer software related to my Garmin was set at 55 or something.  I changed it so that the charts would read the way I want them to.  But the question remains: Was my device also set to RHR = 55 over the past few weeks?  If so, I’ve been going too fast all along -- even as I’ve experienced my running as, at times, maddeningly slow.

Notice how I’m not concerned that my heart was different today than yesterday.  I am confident that there is, for some reason, an error in my tools or their use.  My heart is as good as it has ever been.

Thinking about this leads me to ponder the words of Jeremiah in scripture: “The days are coming, says the L-rd, when I shall establish a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, a covenant I broke, though I was patient with them, says the L-rd.  For this is the covenant I shall establish with the Israelites after those days, says the L-rd: I shall set my law within them, writing it on their hearts; I shall be their G-d, and they will be my people.  No longer need they teach one another, neighbor or brother, to know the L-rd; all of them, high and low alike, will know me, says the L-rd, for I shall forgive their wrongdoing, and their sins I shall call to mind no more.”  The New Testament book of Hebrews explains that, indeed, the time of the new covenant has come -- that it took effect on the death of Jesus, ratified by his spilled blood.

The Christian understanding, then, is that we have knowledge of perfection written on our hearts.  Does this mean that we are to go wherever our hearts lead us?  I think not.  Though the perfect law of the L-rd is written on our hearts, I think there’s a lot of other stuff written there, too.  The very concept “follow your heart” can lead one down some very dark and clearly sinful paths very quickly.  Adultery.  Greed.  Idolatry.  These can all be seen as examples of the manifestation of following one’s heart.

When we want to know more about our physical heart, we use tools.  From a stethoscope, to a heart rate monitor, to an EKG, tools can help us better understand how our hearts are functioning.  Still, any of these have their limitations.  I bought a med school stethoscope for my two-year-old son so that he can hear his heart beating.  But if I just hand it to him, the chances are slim that he will make good use of it.  Even putting the eartips in his ears & the diaphragm in his hand, he is unable to be able to use the stethoscope correctly.  So, too, if you were to wheel a state-of-the-art electrocardiograph up to my desk, I would be unlikely to be able to learn much about my heart with it.  Just as Josiah would need some help to use the stethoscope to hear his heart, I would need instruction to make any use of the electrocardiograph.  We need both good tools and knowledge on how to use those tools if we want to be able to listen to our hearts.  But as I learned this morning, even a good tool that I know how to use can let me down.

What we need is a perfect tool and complete understanding of its use.

To know our spiritual hearts, I think that we do indeed have a perfect tool in The Bible.  But do we have complete understanding of its use?  The scripture I quoted above says, “No longer need they teach one another, neighbor or brother, to know the L-rd.”  How do we learn how to make the best use of our tools, then?  Do we really need no assistance in understanding The Bible?  Jeremiah is prophesying that we, in our time, have the perfect law written on our hearts.  My understanding is that The Bible is the perfect tool.  So, does this mean that what we have is sufficient for a total understanding of G-d’s perfect way?

Though I will change the battery on my chest strap today, I probably won’t run with my jacket on tomorrow.  So tomorrow I should know whether the worst-case scenario -- that my resting heart rate has been set incorrectly -- was to blame for the peculiar HRM readings today.  It’ll be Sunday or Monday before I will know whether simply changing the battery has fixed my problem.  If it works well tomorrow with a new battery & no jacket but then fails on Sunday, then presumably the jacket is to blame.  Here’s hoping that a $2 battery is the worst of my problems!

Favorite tool: Vibram FiveFingers

A few tools have proven to be particularly useful in my running life.  Perhaps another time I will discuss the role my treadmill played in changing my exercise routines, and I will probably repeatedly give props to my heart rate monitor and how that tool has allowed me to take my running to a level I had not previously anticipated.  But today, I’d like to discuss my favorite tool that has transformed my running: Vibram FiveFingers shoes.

In September 2009, the radio show All Things Considered did a piece on the emerging trend of barefoot running and the shoes that were becoming popular in response.  It didn’t strike me as something that I needed to go out to act upon right away, but I guess I filed the information away somewhere for later use.  The next July, as I was accumulating supplies for a mission trip to Mexico that I was anticipating, I decided that I needed to procure a pair of shower shoes.  Seizing the opportunity, I decided to take advantage of my “need” and acquire for myself a pair of VFFs to use in Mexico as my bathroom shoes. 

Allow me to inform you: VFFs make poor shower shoes.  Especially when you first get them, they are not easy to put on.  Also, though they do dry out, it is not quickly enough so that, after showering in them at the end of the day, you would want to put them on your feet to run to the baño in the middle of the night.  I ended up grifting my tent-partners’ shoes for those starry jaunts across the camp. 

Soon after Mexico, I brought my VFF KSOs (“keep stuff out,” a model that covers the top of the foot) to Destin to be my beach running shoe.  Again, they fell short of my expected use.  Once they became wet, they were very irritating to my feet.  By the time I totally overdid my beach run in Destin, I was carrying my VFFs, preferring instead to run through the stinking algae that lined the beaches at that time in my bare feet.  Strike two for the VFFs.

At some point soon thereafter, however, I started using VFFs on my treadmill.  I really liked the feel of the run that they offered.  VFFs let you feel connected to your running surface in a way that nothing else can.  Also, it was quickly apparent, they changed my gait.  I’m not an experienced runner, but the extent to which I was running differently was noticeable.  Now that I know more about the mechanics of what I’m doing, I know that running in VFFs forces you to run closer to the front of your foot and shorten your stride.  Also, in isolating each toe, you allow them to participate differently in your stride.  This significantly increases agility.

Vibrams became my daily running shoe.  But it wasn’t until a couple of months ago that I began to understand the full benefit conferred by these shoes.  After the birth of my daughter, I switched my running time from midday at my lunch break to first thing in the morning.  This change allowed me to get to work early and regularly take afternoons off to spend with family.  This is also when I started using my heart rate monitor and running on streets instead of a treadmill.  As time rolled on and days grew shorter, I found myself running in pitch dark most mornings.  And, while the VFFs allow me to feel connected to the road, they also connected me to rocks and burrs and whatever else was on the street that I was unable to see in the dark.  It seemed to me that a conventional running shoe would address this problem. 

~~

Let me give a little background at this point.  I changed much about my life in 2002 and 2003.  It started when I broke up with a long-time girlfriend.  Seeking a personal renaissance, I joined a gym and started exercising daily.  At that time I was addicted to prescription stimulants and was a rather emaciated figure, weighing in at maybe 120 pounds at just over 5’9”.  I moved to South Carolina, re-introduced myself to G-d, broke my drug addiction, and I did what I could to maintain a decent exercise schedule.  In a sea of gym equipment, I found myself gravitating to the treadmill.  I never asked anyone how best to make use of the thing -- just hopped on, hit the buttons that seemed good, and got going.  For several years, this entailed speed walking at steep variable inclines.  I enjoyed the workouts.  It had been many years since I had exercised, and I relished the difficulty of the process.  Self-discipline has long been one of my strong motivating drives, and at that point in my life, I directed my self-discipline toward exercise.

But, as I have said, I was in the dark on what I was doing.  My only advice came from the treadmill itself and its programs.  Within a year, I was experiencing knee pain more or less constantly.  (My years of sitting in full lotus position, which was where I had directed my self-discipline in the previous decade, were certainly of no help in this matter.)  I went to an orthopedist for consultation.  He diagnosed me with medial synovial plica irritation, if memory serves me right, and suggested that arthroscopic surgery would be the best way to treat the pain.  I was uninsured at the time, so the arthroscopic surgery was out of the question.  I decided that I could bear the pain -- for a while, anyways.

Eventually, I began to change my workouts so that I wasn’t on such a steep incline.  This helped my knees, but significantly lowered the intensity of my workouts.  Over the next several years, I experimented with different types of workout to keep intensity high while not beating up my knees.

When I got my VFFs, something inside me said, “game on!”  I greatly increased the intensity of my running. 

~~

My understanding is that it takes some time to adjust to any new pair of running shoes.  When I got my conventional running shoes (Saucony Progrid Kinvara), I took it very easy on the roads for a couple of weeks.  Then I turned it up a bit.  That week I found myself walking differently.  I also noticed that when I wanted to stand still, I looked to find a position that would allow me to keep my knees bent rather than locking them straight.  After a couple of days of this, it started to become clear that what I was feeling was quite familiar.  Yes, this was very similar to the pain that I used to live with, day in, day out.  I had entirely forgotten about knee problems.  I had been running long, hard, hilly runs for months, and had never given a single thought to my knees.  Now that I was adjusting to a conventional shoe, the old pain was back and very real.  It seems that there is something of a slingshot effect on joints when you have padding in shoes.  The impact itself is initially lessened, but on return, it compresses the joint more than it would if you didn’t pad the impact to begin with.  The padding of the conventional shoe was making my knees work harder than the padding-free VFFs would.

Once I began to put two and two together, I began to explore my other “barefoot shoe” options.  As it turns out, Vibram makes a range of shoes, some of which are designed for specific activities.  On reading reviews of the Vibram FiveFingers Bikila, it seemed like it might be right for me.  Indeed, my Bikilas rock my world.  I can’t speak highly enough about how Bikilas have opened up my running options.  I got them in time for my second beach trip of the summer, and did my best to put them to the test.  I ran two 10k, two 5k, and a 20k run that week.  And really, I haven’t thought about my knees on those runs until now.

Bravo, Vibram!   Three cheers for making a product that can transform a life!

Running behind Danny

Just a couple quick thoughts today.

First, today was my first “C” run.  On my training schedule, “A” runs require staying in the heart range of 65-70% of maximum, “B” runs (the long Saturday runs) allow a range of 60-75% of maximum, and “C” runs are 75-80% of maximum heart rate.  So today was the first time I was really allowed to run.  How wonderful it felt!  It’s been weeks since I have been allowed to run up to 80%.  Okay, it’s true: I do cheat sometimes during my cool-down period.  After all, I end my runs by going up a big hill which leads to my neighborhood -- so it’s hard to keep my heart rate down without going backwards.  But today I was able to run a full 5 kilometers.  Well, 5k including warm-up and cool-down.  Anyway, I got to run, and I was very happy.  Next week, I get my first “D” run, which is seven-minute intervals up to 85% max heart rate. 

Today was a rainy morning.   It won’t be long before early morning rain might change the course of my day.  But for now, it was quite welcome.

What occurred to me today was how our church’s pulpit minister, Danny, is at least partly responsible for my decision to run a marathon & write this blog.  Danny decided to do a year of nine different forty-day fasts.  For example, he started with a 40-day food fast, just finished 40 days without speaking, and just began a 40-day fast from walking (getting around in a wheelchair, I imagine).  And he is blogging the experience on this very site: http://yearoffasting.blogspot.com.

It’s pretty clear how his influence would have led me to write this blog.  He’s the only active (unpaid) blogger that I know.  But more so, I think, has been the influence of his decision to undertake these austerities.  It seems to me that a number of us at Clemson Church of Christ are setting bigger personal goals for ourselves.  I have to think that some of this comes from his impact.  My buddy Mike from church has decided to run the Columbia SC marathon as well; I would say “with me,” but he’s ten years younger than me, has been in training longer than me now, and is generally more athletic than I am.  So the only sense in which I’ll be running with him is that he & I are both running the same race and, perhaps, I may be able to draw some strength from the spiritual kinship of that.  But I’m sure he’ll be done an hour and a half before I will.

Anyway, I think more of us in the congregation are asking more of ourselves, and I credit Danny with his leadership role.  It’s been great the many ways we have been able to participate in his fasts: from reading his blog, to hosting him for a weekend when he was fasting from sight, to the vicarious participation that we’ve been afforded seeing his struggles.  It is good to move, to compel oneself, to go beyond one’s comfort zone.  It’s great to have comfort, but most of the rewards in life come from pushing.

From the labor that brings forth a baby to the struggles of running a marathon, it is good to push.

Slower, slower

Following my marathon training program is quite frustrating.

It’s not that it’s pushing me too hard.  Quite to the contrary -- it seems to me like I am not doing nearly enough.  After all, I’m running, first and foremost, because I want to RUN.  Proceeding as slowly as Coach Benson (the author of Heart Rate Training) is suggesting just feels too easy.  He warns about this a few times in the book.  As easy as it seems, he assures, I am building tissues that will, in its course, allow me to run 26.2 miles.  Still, it’s hard to have the discipline to do . . . so little.

Enter: Trust.

The reason to follow Coach Benson’s training program is that I have given myself over to trust in him.  He’s coached many people over many years, and he has earned his credibility.  Heart Rate Training has a near-perfect four-point-eight-out-of-five-star rating on Amazon.  The book is collaboration with Dr. Declan Connolly, an exercise physiologist who has published more than 300 articles in scientific journals and has served as a consultant to professional and Olympic teams.  So, while my body tells me it can handle much more, I must override my instinct to run faster, longer, and harder in the short-term with a long-term goal in mind.  I must trust those with more experience than me.

Surely, there is no great leap here to the religious life.  For me, certainly, the critical moment in my religious growth was when I decided to trust and obey scripture.  In my thirtieth year, I began to read scripture as I had not before.  I started in the most natural place to begin a serious read: in the beginning.  By the middle of Exodus, I was fully aware that G-d was speaking not just to a people remote in time & place from me; his words, his Word, was intended for me.  Many rules are stated & repeated, but none so frequently as “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (or some variation thereupon).  It seemed unmistakable what G-d was asking of me: “Honor me by obeying me.  Hallow the day that I have hallowed.”  And I did.  I read and obeyed.

In retrospect, I remember it almost like a teenager who has been asked to “go steady.”  It was the most important decision of my life.  “Yes, L-rd -- I’ll go steady with you.”

The fruits of my trust have been manifold.  My life has been nothing but a series of rewards since that time.  Dare I say that I have had no difficulties since then?  In a very real sense, this has indeed been the case.  I have had moments of sorrow and fear, but I am never far from the joy of walking with G-d. 

Though, indeed, sometimes I have been tempted to run.  Sometimes I feel like I want to do so much more.  If walking with G-d is so great, wouldn’t it be even better to be a missionary or a pastor or something?  Walking is great; running must be better!

My running life can inform my religious life.  From my walk with G-d, I have learned that it is wise to trust an experienced coach.  From a running coach, I can learn that sometimes it is in my long-term interest -- in the very interest of developing speed -- that I take things a bit slower than theoretically possible.

On today’s marathon training schedule, one word: “Off.”

On Schedule

As of today, I am officially on schedule.  That is to say, my training schedule is a 24-week course with the marathon falling at the end of week 23.  I guess week 24 is just to wind down from the marathon.  So, today was my first day on my formal program.

And, as when I began my more disciplined training about a month ago, it meant as shorter, lighter run than I would have ever imagined beneficial.  Today’s was a 30-minute run that included a 5-minute warm-up and a 10-minute cool-down.  So, running for 15 minutes.  And by running, I mean maintaining a heart rate between 65% and 70% of maximum heart rate.  I’m at 40% stumbling out of bed in the morning, and my first cup of coffee gets me easily to 50% of maximum.  So staying between 65% and 70% -- especially in hilly Greenville -- sometimes means shuffling my feet to a tempo similar to that of a run. 

No, I’m not doing it wrong.  The author of the book & program from which I’m working, Heart Rate Training, says one should be able to talk in “Faulkner sentences” at this level of work -- meaning, essentially, totally unlabored breathing.  Yep, that’s pretty much where I am.

The thing I’ve noticed, quite to my amazement, is that ever since I changed my runs from high intensity to low intensity, I have been losing weight quite rapidly.  I certainly haven’t changed my eating in any meaningful way.  I understand it has something to do with fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscles using different stores for energy.  Now I see why aerobics are so popular…

Shabbat

My marathon training schedule lays out specifically how long I need to run each day and at what heart rate.  There is really not much flexibility built into the program.  So, I have to make decisions now that will be a commitment of my time weeks and months into the future.

I am a CPA that specializes in taxes.  That means my work schedule gets very busy from about the beginning of February until the middle of April.  Tax season itself may be described as a marathon.  You can’t just blow all of your reserves any time you want to get things done.  Rather, you have to pace yourself for the long haul all along the way.  In doing so, things might take a little longer to accomplish in mid-February than they would at the beginning of April.  I guess it’s like the running concept of negative splits.  You should always be faster in the second half of a long race than in the first (or so I understand).

Throughout my adult life, I have been rather strict in my observance of Shabbat.  Demanding a weekly day of rest for myself has, I believe, allowed me to be on net more productive in every aspect of my life.  My family life is richer, my working life more efficient, my spiritual life deeper for observing the Sabbath.  I’ve had to fine tune my relationship to Shabbat over time, and the observance in our home takes on a distinctly Rau-family flavor.  The essence of our Shabbat observance is, I believe, true to scripture: we do not work, nor do we have work done on our behalf, nor do we engage in commerce on the Sabbath.  We boil no water & do not kindle fires.  We avoid turning on or off lights.  We try to set aside time to study scripture and otherwise share in religious communion.

I’ve never been in the habit of exercising on Shabbat -- I’ve routinely avoided it other than the natural exercise that comes with playing with my children -- but I’ve never really had to explore “rules” about what is within the scope of allowable exercise.  So, it is with some consternation that I have made the decision that my weekly long run will fall on Saturday.

The long runs on my program are as long as three hours a couple of weeks prior to the marathon.  Generally they’re closer to two hours.  So, the question becomes: what is the best day for my long runs? 

I’ve been able to be stubbornly observant of not working on Shabbat by being willing to work Sundays -- every Sunday throughout busy season.  Long weekday hours & a moderate work day on Sunday allow me to be observant of a Sabbath day of rest as well as uncompromising in Sunday church attendance.  And the question, as always, must hearken back to how I can best serve my family while attempting to attain this new goal.

Dare I attempt to figure a long run into my weekday work schedule?  I think not.  This last year, I began my work days on Monday through Friday at 6:00 AM.  This allowed me to take a long lunch, during which I did my exercise.  But how long would lunch have to be for me to expect a two-hour run, or how early in the morning would I have to awaken to run two (and even three) hours before getting to work?  No, this would surely be setting myself up for failure.  The other obvious choice would be Sunday.  But how much burden do I want to put on Julie to get the kids ready for church by herself in the morning?  And again, exactly how early would I have to get up to be able to do this?  No -- I’ve decided that Saturdays will involve running for my period of training. 

But honestly, I don’t necessarily think that running precludes rest, or vice versa.  The rest of Shabbat is not simply lazing around the house & taking naps (although most Shabbats do, indeed, have both of these features).  No, the real rest afforded by Shabbat is on a different level.  It’s about setting the day aside, free from the cares of the mundane world.  For me, at least at this point, running is certainly not mundane. 

So, we’ll see how this plays out.  As I say, I’m a bit apprehensive about this decision.  It was not made lightly.  Though I am optimistic.  I believe that I’ve made the right decision.

Shabbat shalom!

Recent Beach Runs

By the summer of 2011, I had gained some discipline in running.  By this point, running has become an important & joyful part of my day.  I tend to run every morning (except the occasional morning such as today, when I am weary from watching my beloved Red Sox spectacularly end their season late last night).  So I have more at stake now than I did some years ago.  In years gone by, a running injury would have only been a disappointment for that week.  But now, it would rob me of something quite important to me.

Accordingly, gone are the days of ascetic running.  It used to be that I would run as long & hard as I could going one direction on the beach, forcing me to go essentially twice as far as my body wanted to go.  But now, I have a little bit of knowledge; and knowledge leads to caution.  Injury is the bane of runners, since there’s really no getting around the extent to which you rely on your body for such activity.  Experts in books and blogs continually warn about the danger of injury.

My 2011 beach trips reflected a healthier attitude toward running.  However, as my respect for the endeavor has waxed, it had been at the expense of the asceticism that used to drive the activity.  Even as I used my two beach trips this year to run harder than I would as part of my routine, my efforts were tempered by the repeated warnings about injury that I’ve come across.

My running has become less prayerful and more process-driven over time.  I am no longer blessed with the mystical union of which running used to avail me.  My “marching orders” are not so predictably forthcoming anymore.  The ecstasy of my special week of running at the beach has diminished.

However, I now experience a joy which is renewed every time I run. 

It seems that maturity in running may indeed have parallels to religious growth.  The mountaintop bliss that a teenager experiences at summer church camp must give way to something that sustains and is sustainable throughout the year.  The glorious epiphanies that mark the beginning of a religious life need to give rise to commitment and dedication if their substance is genuine.

One cannot be a genuine Christian for only a week a year.  Nor indeed can one be a genuine runner.

Running with G-d

Things have changed considerably since my early runs on the beach.

I’ve always had an ascetic drive.  When I was younger, I was torn at times between the expected path for me -- college, job, family -- and the possibility of living the austere life as a monk.  I have no regrets for the path I’ve chosen.  Especially as I dwell with my loving wife and children who give me such joy, I’m confident in the choices I’ve made.  Nonetheless, I have an underlying current which drives me.  It is mysticism in the true sense of the word -- a drive for true & present union with G-d.

My first beach runs were a combination of prayer & mortification of the flesh.  They were conscious efforts to push the limits of my body to a place far beyond physical comfort.  My mantra was “Press on like Paul!” in reference to the third chapter of Philippians.  It was a chance to remove myself from my life & approach G-d directly.  It was phenomenally rewarding.  Such clarity of mission was granted to me on those retreats that they became an important part of my spiritual walk.  Each year I would go to the beach to petition the L-rd for my marching orders for the next year.  And my petitions were granted.

By my 2010 beach trip, things had changed somewhat.  Soon after the birth of my son Josiah, my first child, I acquired a treadmill.  My thought was that, if I could get into the habit of exercising during the lunch hour, I could maintain a decent workout schedule while not short-changing my family of time I could otherwise be spending with them.  The treadmill is a pretty nice one; it has large rollers and is very sturdy.  In my early experiments with the several built-in programs, I ended up doing speed intervals that had me running much faster than I had ever previously run on a treadmill.  It felt good.  I kept it up and made it a part of my daily routine.

So, by the time I got to Destin in September 2010, I already fancied myself a “runner.”  As it turns out, Destin is a particularly awful place to run.  First of all, being on the Gulf of Mexico, the tidal effect is nowhere near what it is on the ocean, so the beaches are really short.  It goes from water to a very narrow strip of packed sand to the softest powder imaginable in a matter of yards.  To make matters worse, September 2010 was a few short months after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon.  The main effect of this disaster on my life was to substantially diminish my investment portfolio which was heavy on Transocean stock and options.  The secondary effect, apparently, was to provide a glut of food for algae.  The short zone of packed sand was absolutely covered in putrid algae.  A beach run was next to impossible.  I started out running in the powder and ran a little in the water.  So I started my run with wet & sandy shoes.  I took to the roads to get down to business.

To make a long story short, I rather overextended myself in my efforts.  I ended up running down an eight-mile dead end.  Actually, as the crow flies, the dead end was probably only half a mile from the house where I started -- but it was a marshy, impassible distance, leaving me no choice but to backtrack the entire eight miles.  By the end I had my shoes off, walking through the stinking algae to relieve my feet which had become ulcerated from my wet, sandy shoes.  It was a miserable run.  Worse, I lost my focus.  My prayers were shallow; my ego too vast; my petitions, unanswered.

Why do it?

Because I can.

I had never really given serious consideration to running a marathon until recently.  I have been exercising for probably ten years at this point, but you'd never be able to tell by looking at me.  My body is not weak, but my muscles are substantially obscured by a "lipid outer layer."  Working out was initially a tool that I used to help me quit smoking.  It subsequently became the means by which I have allowed myself essentially no dietary restriction while remaining somewhere shy of obese.

For years all of my exercise was done indoors; treadmills & cardio machines have been a staple in my life.  When I was travelling, I would seek out the hotel gym to keep up with whatever exercise program with which I was currently engaged.  Sometimes, however, I would use those opportunities to try something new.  Five years ago, I was on a beach vacation & had no access to a gym.  That was the first time in my adult life that I ran.

On that beach trip, I discovered something that would become increasingly more important to me.  A seed was planted that would grow into, perhaps, an obsession.  I've decided to give legs  to that obsession.  A marathon, it seems, is the perfect outgrowth of the love of running.

The time has come.