No Tomorrow - Part 1

When I last posted to this blog, just about a year ago, it was in the wake of RunWalkAdopt 2012, and I wrote about my first taste of the thrill of speed.  A lot has changed since then -- in my running life and in my life itself.  In fact, there is no separate “running life” from “other life” for me any more so than there is a separate “spiritual life” and “work life.”  What occupies the mind, occupies the spirit, occupies the body.  Do I digress?  I think not.  Telling the story of my running is telling my life story.  And I think that’s what any blog is really about.

Up until RunWalkAdopt 2012, my running had been focused entirely on increasing my endurance.  But training to increase endurance is quite different than the process of developing speed.  By no means can I say that I am done with the process of endurance training.  I have not yet even run a marathon, and I have longer-term goals of running in at least a couple ultramarathons.  It occurred to me, though, that speed is of the essence of running.  Does my three-year-old know the joy of running?  Certainly.  But his joy does not hinge on how far he can locomote.  It is about breaking free from his ordinary self.  It feels good to run because we are accustomed to walking.

So I set out to get faster.  I would no longer approach 5k races as “fun runs” that I would enter without care or consequence.  I would train for them, and in doing so, I would invest meaning in the races.  And so, for the better part of the last year, I have been engaged in one training program or another in attempt to increase my speed.  At some point in the process, I came to realize that, if I were to lose weight, I would be able to run faster, and so I set out to become leaner.  I have lost quite a bit of superfluous weight in effort to better my running pace.

My most recent goal race was the St. Patty’s Day Dash and Bash on March 16, 2013.  I really like having a target race right around the corporate tax deadline.  It helps me to make time to maintain my body for the first couple months of busy season, and then grants me more flexibility of time and the possibility of another gear going into the stretch to April 15.  After any goal race, though, I am faced with a sort of vacuum of time & direction.  I spend so much time diligently following a structured schedule, but then find myself at the threshold of the unknown once the date -- the date that had been my focus for weeks and months theretofore -- has passed.  There is no wane after the long wax.

I have been through this cycle several times, now, and know well enough to expect vacuity of direction following a race.  I’ve tried several different ways to move through the uncertain and unstructured time (which really only lasts until I am 14-weeks out from the next race I target).  I get so used to racing -- my 5k training schedule has six practice races prior to the goal race -- that it’s natural to continue seeking them out, even if they don’t fall on a pre-ordained day on a training schedule.  I’m used to knowing what races are on the horizon and, generally, try to run in as many of them as I can.

When I saw RunWalkAdopt 2013 on the calendar, I was the first one to sign up for it.  It was scheduled for April 20, which worked perfectly with my working & personal calendar.  It was probably mid-February when I signed up for it.  As the days drew closer, though -- and especially after my St. Patty’s Day goal race had come and gone -- I was itching for something more.  I really wanted to run another half marathon.  And so I combed through the several websites and their calendars that advertise upcoming races.  I found a half marathon, and it came at the perfect time on my personal & work schedule: April 20.  I initially, somewhat regretfully, excluded the chance at the April 20 half, which was the Greer Earth Day Run.  But one day, while posting on the Facebook wall of a friend of mine about upcoming races, I came up with the idea: Why not run them both?  The half was a morning race, and the 5k was in the evening.  If I really wanted a novel challenge, indeed: Why not try to get personal records in both 5k and half marathon on the same day?  I had become faster than ever.  Why not give it a shot?

First, I had to find out if my wife thought that my idea was crazy or stupid.  I ran it by her, and, while I’m sure she wasn’t thrilled with it, she gave me the green light.  “Just promise me that you won’t die,” she texted me. “I promise!  I promise!” I responded immediately, whereupon I logged on & signed up for the Greer Earth Day half marathon.