Running Through Time

Christmas Story

2011-12-21T14:34:00.000-06:00

The day after Christmas a number of years ago, I was driving down a country road in Texas. And it was a bitter cold, cold morning. And walking ahead of me on the gravel road was a little bare-footed boy with non-descript ragged overalls and a makeshift sleeved sweater tied around his little ears. I stopped and picked him up. Looked like he was about 12 years old and his little feet were blue with the cold. He was carrying an orange.
And he got in and had the brightest blue eyes one ever saw. And he turned a bright smile on my face and says, "I'm-a going down the road about two miles to my cousins. I want to show him my orange old Santa Claus brought me." But I wasn't going to mention Christmas to him because I figured he came from a family — the kind that don't have Christmas. But he brought it up himself. He said, "Did old Santa Claus come to see you, Mister?" And I said, "Yes. We had a real nice Christmas at our house and I hope you had the same."
He paused for a moment, looked at me. And then with all the sincerity in the world said, "Mister, we had the wonderfulest Christmas in the United States down to our place. Lordy, it was the first one we ever had had there. See, we never do have them out there much. Don't notice when Christmastime comes. We heared about it, but never did have one 'cause — well, you know, it's just papa says that old Santa Claus — papa hoorahs a lot and said old Santa Claus was scared to bring his reindeer down into our section of the county because folks down there so hard up that they liable to catch one of his reindeer and butcher him for meat. But just several days before Christmas, a lady come out from town and she told all the families through there, our family, too, that they was — old Santa Claus was come in town to leave some things for us and if papa'd go in town, he could get some Christmastime for all of us. And papa hooked up the mule and wagon. He went in town. But he told us children, said, "Now don't ya'll get all worked up and excited because there might not be nothing to this yarn that lady told."
And—but, shucks, she hadn't got out of sight up the lane there till we was done a-watching for him to come back. We couldn't get our minds on nothing else, you know. And mama, she'd come to the door once in a while and say, "Now ya'll quit that looking up the lane because papa told you there might not be nothing." And — but long about the middle of the afternoon, well, we heared the team a-jangling harness a-coming and we ran out in the front yard, and Ernie, my little brother, called out and said, "Yonder come papa." And here come them mules just in a big trot, you know, and papa standing upright in the bed of that wagon holding two big old chickens, all the feathers picked off. And he was just yelling, "Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas." And the team stopped right in front of the gate. And all us children just went a-swarming out there like a flock of chichis, you know, and just a-crawling over that wagon and a-looking in.
And, Mister, I wish you could have seen what was in that wagon. It's bags of stripety candy and apples and oranges and sacks of flour and some real coffee, you know, and just all tinselly and pretty and we couldn't say nothing. Just kind of held our breath and looked at it, you know. And papa standing there just waving them two chickens, a-yelling, "Merry Christmas to you. Merry Christmas to you," and a-laughing that big old grin on his face. And mama, she come a-hurrying out with the baby in her arms, you know. And when she looked in that wagon, she just stopped, and then papa, he dropped them two chickens and reached and caught the baby out of her arms, you know, and held him up and said, "Merry Christmas to you, Santa Claus." And baby, little old Alvie Lee, he just laughed like he knowed it was Christmas, too, you know. And mama, she started telling us the name of all of them nuts. They wasn't just peanuts. They was — she had names for all of them. She — mama knows a heap of things like that. She'd seen that stuff before, you know? And we was, all of us, just a-chattering and a-going on at the same time, us young'uns, a-looking in there.
And all of a sudden, we heared papa call out, "Merry Christmas to you, Sam Jackson." And we stopped and looked. And here comes Sam Jackson a-leading that old cripple-legged mule of his up the lane. And papa said, "Sam Jackson, did you get in town to get some Christmas this year?" Sam Jackson, you know, he sharecrops over there across the creek from our place. And he shook his head and said, "Well, no, sir, Mister. Well, I didn't go in town. I heared about that, but I didn't know it was for colored folks, too. I thought it was just for you white families." All of a sudden, none of us children were saying nothing. Papa, he looked down at mama and mama looked up at him and they didn't say nothing, like they don't a heap of times, but they know what the other one's a-thinking. They're like that, you know. And all of a sudden, papa, he broke out in a big grin again. He said, "Dad-blame-it, Sam Jackson, it's a sure a good thing you come by here. Lord have mercy, I liked to forgot. Old Santa Claus would have me in court if he heared about this. The last thing he asked me if I lived out here near you. Said he hadn't seen you around and said he wanted me to bring part of this out here to you and your family, your woman and your children."
Well, sir, Sam Jackson, he broke out in a big grin. Papa says, "I'll tell you what to do. You get your wife and children and you come down here tomorrow morning. It's going to be Christmastime all day long. Come early and stay late." Sam Jackson said, "You reckon?" And mama called out to him and said, "Yes, and you tell your wife to be sure and bring some pots and pans because we're going to have a heap of cookin' to do and I ain't sure I've got enough to take care of all of it." Well, sir, old Sam Jackson, he started off a-leading that mule up the lane in a full trot, you know, and he was a-heading home to get the word to his folks and his children, you know.
And next morning, it just — you remember how it was yesterday morning, just rosy red and looked like Christmastime. It was cold, but you didn't notice the cold, you know, when the sun just come up, just all rosy red. And us young'uns were all out of bed before daylight seemed like, just running in the kitchen and smelling and looking. And it was all there sure enough. And here come Sam Jackson and his team and his wife and his five young'uns in there. And they's all lookin' over the edge. And we run out and yelled, "Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas." And papa said, "Christmas gift to you, Sam Jackson. Ya'll come on in." And they come in and mama and Sister Jackson, they got in the kitchen and they started a-cooking things up. And us young'uns started playing Christmastime. And it's a lot of fun, you know. We'd just play Christmas Gift with one another and run around and around the house and just roll in the dirt, you know, and then we started playing Go Up To The Kitchen Door And Smell. And we'd run up and smell inside that kitchen door where mama and Sister Jackson was a-cooking at, and then we'd just die laughing and roll in the dirt, you know, and go chasing around and playing Christmas Gift.
And we played Christmastime till we just wore ourselves out. And papa and Sam Jackson—they put a table up and put some sheets over it, some boards up over some sawhorses. And everybody had a place, even the baby. And mama and Sister Jackson said, "Well, now it's ready to come on in. We're going to have Christmas dinner." And I sit right next to Willy Jackson, you know, and he just rolled his eyes at me and I'd roll mine at him. And we'd just die laughing, you know, and there was an apple and an orange and some stripety candy at everybody's place. And that was just dessert, see. That wasn't the real Christmas dinner. Mama and them had done cooked that up. And they just had it spread up and down the table.
And so papa and Sam Jackson, they'd been sitting on the front porch and they come in. Papa, he sit at one end of the table, Sam Jackson sit at the other. And it was just a beautiful table like you never had seen. And I didn't know nothing could ever look like that and smell that good, you know. And Sam Jackson, you know, he's real black and he had on that white clean shirt of his and then them overalls. Everything had been washed and was real clean. Papa, he said, "Brother Jackson, I believe you're a deacon in the church. I ain't much of a church man myself, but I believe you're a deacon. Maybe you'd be willing to give grace." Well, Sam Jackson, he stood up there and his hands is real big and he kind of held onto the side of the table, you know. But he didn't bow his head like a heap of folks do when they're saying the blessing. He just looked up and smiled. And he said, "Lord, I hope you having as nice a Christmas up there with your angels as we're having down here because it sure is Christmastime down here. And I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to you, Lord.

Like I say, Mister, I believe that was the wonderfulest Christmas in the United States of America."'

John Henry Faulk

Tucson Half Marathon

2011-12-13T20:28:00.003-06:00

This past Sunday, December 11, 2011, I ran the Tucson Half Marathon. After my disappointing performance in the New York Marathon, I wanted a race to run soon. I thought about Dallas White Rock, but decided against it, then I remembered that the Tucson Marathon and half Marathon were a week after Dallas. I ran my first Boston Qualifying marathon at Tucson, and thought that while I didn't want to run a marathon in December, the half marathon would be a good choice. So with about a month to go, I checked the air fares and they were decent so I registered, made my plane and hotel reservations. I only knew of a couple of other people going, and they were running the full. I also decided that I would keep my participation low key. A week before the race I was running with one of the other people going, so I told him, but no one else in my running club. I had a couple of goals for this race. While in my last post about New York, I said I probably didn't need to run there again, I still want the option to should I change my mind. So main goal, re-qualify for NY 2012. To do that I needed to run sub 1:40:00. My dream goal was to run sub 1:35. Tucson is a downhill course that flattens out around mile 10 of the half, and is a bit hilly until the end.
My arrival in Tucson was uneventful, I got a car and checked in to the host hotel. The next morning I saw my friends and joined them for coffee. They said they were driving the course later, and invited me to join them. I did, and after we went to the start of the full, we stopped at the Biosphere which is near the half start. We got out and ran 3 easy miles. It was good I saw the starting line for the half because I was able to plan my strategy a bit better. The first mile has a small uphill before we turn to the main road which is mostly downhill. I made my plan to run the first mile slow and then pick it up as we headed downhill.
At the expo I saw Marshall Ulrich, an elite ultra runner, selling his book Running on Empty. I went over and bought the book which he autographed. I talked to him a bit, and mentioned that I knew Harry Deupree. Marshall smiled and said he knew Harry very well. He went on to tell me a Harry Deupree story. When he finished he said he was very happy to know that Harry was doing well.
Race morning, I got up, ready and walked out the door to catch a bus to the start. One good reason to stay at the host hotel. Another was it was going to be tight making my 11:30 flight since the 1/2 started at 7 and I was going to have to get back to the hotel, check out, gas up my rental car, and make it back to the airport.
It was cold at the start, they had heaters but the people were gathered around them and it was difficult to stay warm. I had decided to go minimal with my gear, I wore a long sleeve shirt, and shorts. I did keep long pants and a jacket on till I needed to hand over my tote bag. I was in line to start when a sudden and powerful urge to make another stop at the potty hit me. I decided to listen to that urge since I knew they were having a wave start. The way the start worked was you got in where you could, and then they let a group go and then waited a minute before the next group. After my stop I felt much better. I started almost 10 minutes after then gun, we're off and while I was able to run, there were a lot of slow runners, and walkers ahead of me. After we made the turn to the main street, Oracle, I still had a lot of people to pass, but was able to at times go off into the street. They had us mainly running on the shoulder, and the rules said to stay inside the cones. There was traffic on the road. In the second mile I was running sub 7:30 by mile 2 and from mile 3 to 6 I ran sub 7:15. I ran sub 7:30 to mile 11 then started struggling and ran 7:50, 7:42 and 7:30 to the finish. Time 1:36:42, a new P R, and NYC qualifying time. I didn't hang around to eat or mingle, but went to find my bus back to the hotel. This was a bit confusing as we had taken a luxury bus to the start, but all I saw at the finish were school buses. I asked around and no one seemed to know what was what. Finally I asked the school bus driver and he said this was the bus to the hotel. I got on, and only a few others were there. I thought he's not going any where until we fill up, and that might take a while. Just then someone told him to take people going to the parking lots also. Then the bus filled right up, so even with the slight detour, I got to the hotel before 10. I had already packed, got my stuff, used TV check out and headed to the airport. Made my flight with about 10 minutes to spare, and got home safe and sound.

NYC Marathon & 6 Hour Run

2011-11-09T16:09:00.000-06:00

This past Sunday, November 6, 2011, I ran the NYC Marathon. I entered through their guaranteed entry by having run a qualifying time and didn't have to go through the lottery. I arrived in New York the Wednesday before the marathon to attend some business meetings.
I went for a 7 mile run in Central Park that Thursday. While I was running I was passed by someone going at a rapid pace. I thought it was Ryan Hall but wasn't sure because he went by so fast. A little later he was coming toward me and verified it was Ryan.
Race day, I took a cab to the Staten Island Ferry. The village was well stocked and the weather being nice was a plus. Time to start, I had decided I would just try to enjoy the race and finish under 4 hours. We start, and I'm holding right at a 9 minute pace. At about mile 3 this guy is passing me and then cuts in front of me, causing me to stumble. I didn't fall but hurt my knee catching myself. The guy says "I'm sorry, but I need to run with my friend." I pulled over to the side and tried to run, but was limping badly. I thought about quitting, but decided to keep running and see if things improved. As I ran my knee did feel a little better, but I was still favoring my other leg. I got back on pace and tried to keep it up, but as I hit mile 20, I started feeling the old wall approaching. I walked some, but as I hit mile 23 I was able to mostly run at pace. I finished in 4:10 and then had a long walk to the hotel.
While I think this is a great marathon, the negative experience of being tripped probably set me up to be in a bad mood about it. Right now it's 3 days latter, and my knee is much better but still hurt. I don't think I tore anything, just really sore and inflamed. My current mindset is that I don't want to run this one again, but time will tell.
Two weeks before I ran in a race called "24 the hard way." This is the third year for the race, and I've run it all 3 years. First year, 24 hours, last year 12 hours, and this year 6. I had hoped to hit at least 35 miles. I started out on pace, but the day warmed up and I began to slow down. Since this was not a goal race, and I knew I was running the NYC Marathon in two weeks, I decided not to try and push things. I finished with a total of 31 miles, and in second place.

Catching Up

2011-10-10T19:45:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile I know. Why? I just haven't felt like posting. But, to bring you up to date, here's what's been going on running wise. I ran the Sioux Falls South Dakota Marathon on 9/11/11. I was trying to Boston Qualify the day before registration opened. It was a nice race, a bit hotter than normal for SD. My only complaint about the organization is that the host hotel is 6 miles from packet pickup and no shuttle was provided. Surely they could add a $5 shuttle option for those of us that stayed in the hotel. Instead your choice is a $25 cab ride. I did find someone to share the cab with, but they need to fix that.

I ran the race, was holding pace for most of the run, but as is usual, had to slow down around mile 22. It was there that I made a major error. I decided that if I had a good potty break, I'd be able to run fast again. I could have finished without the break, but I thought that was my best chance to make goal. Well I took around 2 minutes to break, and missed my time by just over 2 minutes. Oh well, not that big a deal, still my fastest marathon this year. 3:47.

On October 1st I ran a nice flat 5k. I felt pretty good the whole race, and ran my fastest 5k in over a year. 20:59.

Yesterday, Sunday, October 9th my running club took a bus trip to Wichita for the Prairie Fire Full and Half Marathon. I was running the half since I have two longer races coming up in the next month. I'm running 6 hours at 24 the Hard Way, and the New York Marathon in November. I started the half marathon with the single goal of running sub 1:45. I felt that I could achieve this without stressing myself. It was cool and a very light rain was falling. Almost perfect running weather. I started and was holding right at 8 minute miles. My plan was to hold 8's and then pick it up at the 6.65 mark. At mile 5 I was really feeling good so I started picking the pace up. At mile 10 I was still feeling good, so I started running close to 7:30 miles. I ran the last mile at 7:17 and was still feeling good. I finished in 1:41:51 and feel no soreness a day later. I need to run more half's. Hope to talk to you again in less than 2 months.

Anger - Outrage, Drugs and a Right

2011-08-08T11:35:00.002-05:00

In the last few weeks I've experienced and exhibited these two emotions. They are somewhat the same, but not exactly. Anger can exist without outrage and vice-versa. But what I've seen and done in the examples that come to mind have been both. First, the examples.
I was running a 10k at the Lake, where probably more races in Oklahoma City occur than any other location. Whenever we race there, the bicyclists get all in an uproar because some runners think we own the trail at that point. I do think there needs to be some instruction to runners before the race but it doesn't happen. A biker cursed at a runner who was running in the wrong lane. I cursed back at the cyclist because, while she (the runner) was wrong, there was plenty of room to go around. Saturday during a club training run, basically the same thing. A runner crossed from one side of the street to the other and didn't look behind before she did it. This was a dangerous move, but fortunately the only ones coming were bicyclists, but this was a city street and a car could have been coming. Again, the biker cursed the runner and I said a few choice words back to her. And again, the runner was wrong, but the biker had plenty of room to manuver. Last example was yesterday, this time two bikers. One on the trail, the other on the road. The trail crossed the road, and the trail biker didn't look at the road as she was crossing. The road biker almost hit her and proceeded to yell at her to "watch where you're going." Again, the trail biker was in the wrong, but I saw the conflict before there was real danger and so did the road biker. He just felt that he was entitled to some outrage and anger. I told him to "chill out." Three reasons, first no harm done, and the lady was obviously frightened by both the near collision and his yelling at her. Second, he was clearly an experienced biker, and she clearly wasn't. Third, it was a lady being harassed by a man. If he felt there was a lesson to be learned, he should have gently said something to her. Honestly, I think the near collision was lesson enough.
And my point is this. We feel a right to be angry and/or outraged at behaviour we know is wrong or out of line. We get a little rush when we react to it with the same heavy emotion that is exhibited by someone else. A little bit of "feels good" to tell someone off. I've honestly been embarrassed by my reaction in two of the three examples I responded to. I got angry because they were angry and I'm trying to reign that in a bit. In the third example, near collision, I was calm as I told the guy to chill. I saw hurt in the lady's expression, and felt a bit sorry for her.
I know it's hard not to exchange anger for anger, but things will be so much better if someone can take the first step in ramping it down a bit. Might work on a much larger scale also.

Gunsmoke

2011-06-30T19:06:00.001-05:00

Lately I've been watching Gunsmoke each evening. I know many wouldn't think of watching this. First it's in Black and White. Second, it's a western. Well, you're right, it's B & W, but it's more than just a western. In fact it's more of life drama's than about the old west. For instance, tonight's episode, "Call me Dodie" is about a 17 year old lady who is the oldest child in an orphanage. She is a mother figure to the rest of the children. They look up to her because she makes the best of the cruel situation they're in. But she escapes to Dodge City and people do their best to take advantage of her. She has the innocence of a child, but she can take care of herself. Again, she has the ability to make the best of whatever situation she finds herself. There were no gun fights, Matt didn't have to shoot anyone or beat anyone up. Miss Kitty wasn't kidnaped or have to break up a potential fight in the "Long Branch." Don't get me wrong, this sometimes happens. But the longevity of the series can be attributed to how deep the episodes were. Other night time series have lasted longer, but Gunsmoke has more episodes. It was filmed during a time when they didn't repeat as much.
Many of the story lines probably give a false sense of "old west justice and sense of fair play." But that's ok with me, I'm not really looking for a dead on realistic portrayal of the way it was. One example is when Matt knew a man had set up another man to be killed. He did this because he had fallen in love and promised the woman he wouldn't kill again. So he set the man up so that Matt would have to kill him. In the end his love interest also died. While Matt knew the man had caused both their deaths, he let the man go because he knew his conscience would bother him for the rest of his life.
Gunsmoke, it's more than just a western. Thank you James Arness.

Comrades Marathon

2011-06-08T20:54:00.005-05:00

On Monday, May 23 I boarded a Delta Jet to begin my journey to Durban, South Africa. My journey took me from Oklahoma City to Atlanta where I boarded a 777 for the 15 hour non-stop flight to Johannesburg. From Johannesburg I boarded a South African Airways plane for the 1:15 flight to Durban.
The long flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg included three full meals, none of which were good, and all the individual entertainment I wanted. I went back and forth from watching movies or TV series to napping. They served plenty of water, and every few hours I walked around the plane. The short flight to Durban also included a meal which surprised me. You would be lucky to get peanuts on a flight that short in the U S.
I arrived in Durban at 11:00 P.M, there is a 7 hour time difference, which meant I had been travelling for 27 hours including layovers in Atlanta and Johannesburg. I took a cab to my hotel and had no problems checking in.
The hotel was decent, I would compare it to a Holiday Inn, but was on a bad side street. However, you only had to go about 1/4 block and you were on one of the main downtown streets, with access to anything you could want or need.
Since I arrived on Tuesday night, and the Expo didn't open until Thursday I spent Wednesday sight seeing. Durban is not a big tourist town, but it is on the Indian ocean. So there is a lot of activity along the beach, which was about a 5 minute run from the hotel.
Thursday I went to the expo, for those who know, it was about twice the size of the OKC Memorial Marathon Expo. There wasn't a lot of activity the first day, and since I was an International Runner I had separate areas to pick up my bib and check my timing chip. Everything went smoothly, and I bought a couple of logo items. It turned out it was good I checked in the first day, I went to the expo Friday afternoon, and the lines were out the door. It turns out someone had damaged the Internet connection, and they were having to do everything by hand.
Friday the International runners got a tour of the course by luxury bus. We made several stops along the way including a stop at the Ethembeni school. This school is right on the course, and the children lined the sides during the race with hands outstretched for a "high five."
From their website:
"Established in 1984, Ethembeni School serves 300 physically disabled and visually impaired children from all over Kwazulu-Natal, Kingdom of the Zulu (South Africa), educating them to reach their highest potential and to become independent and responsible citizens of the community.

The name Ethembeni means “Place of Hope” and the motto Phila Ufunde – Live and Learn. At Ethembeni 300 beautiful children live, learn, and give us joy and hope." The group in the picture below sang and danced for us. Many donations were left during this visit. It was inspiring to see them on Sunday during the race.

Actually seeing the course was a bit intimidating to me. All along I'd heard about the hills, but to see them, and to see they were one right after the other for most of the race was just disheartening. Oh well, I'm here now.
While this race is called a marathon, it's actually an ultramarathon. The official distance was 86.96km or 54 miles. The race is run between Durban and Pietermaritzburg (Up Year) and reverses direction each year. This was an "up" year.
Race morning: The reason I chose the hotel I stayed in was it was less than two blocks from the start. Sunday morning, I got up, dressed and went down to a breakfast the hotel was providing. The race started at 5:30 and it was cool but not cold. I didn't wear anything extra and was a bit chilly at the start. I was in my coral with about 20 minutes to go. Chariots of Fire, the Cock Crows and then the gun. We're off. Over 16,000 started this race, but they say that it takes no more than 7 minutes for everyone to cross the start, I was across in less than 3 but we were moving slowly for a few blocks. The time to start is important since, even though this is a chip timed race, you have 12 hours to finish from the gun. After a bit I settled into a nice pace. I have the usual 3 goals for this race, dream goal, under 10 hours, realistic goal, under 11 hours, fall back goal, finish before the 12 hour cutoff. We reach the first of the five major hills, Cowes hill. I run non-stop up this hill. It takes a lot out of me but I'm still feeling good. Next up. Field's hill, I also run all the way up this one. More fatigue and now I know I won't be running all the way up another hill. Along the way there are plenty of water/aide stops. They have the water and Energade (similar to Gatorade) in "sachets." These are plastic bags that you have to bite the end off and then squirt into your mouth or on your body. These must make for a trash mess, but they do keep them cold until they give them out. I ran/walked up the Botha's hill and finally walked the last two, Inchanga and Polly Shortts. I knew I would finish but both my time goals were out the window. I didn't have any energy to run very long so I was running maybe a minute and walking one or two. As I got into Pietermaritzburg I did begin to run continuously again. And when I entered the Cricket Stadium that was the finish I began to run and pass a lot of people. I finished in 11:11. Not as well as I wished, but just happy to finish and get my medal.
If I run this again, and I might next year for the "back to back" medal, I would insert a walk/run strategy for all the hills. I think running the first two took more out of me than I would have lost with some walking from the beginning.
I truly enjoyed the entire experience, and have left out a lot of details because this is very long already. I recommend doing this race if you can.

2011 Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon

2011-05-06T10:15:00.001-05:00

Sunday, May 1st, 2011 I ran the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. This marathon is called "A Run to Remember." And the race director makes it clear that this is not a race about running, but about remembering the 168 people who died in the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah building.
It was raining Sunday morning and because of the threat of lightening, the start was delayed for 30 minutes until 7 a.m. It was cold and rainy at the start. I was dressed ok for the cold, but I knew if it kept raining I'd be soaked and cold. We start and I was back a bit so I had to fight my way through a lot of slower runners, and of course the required "walking 3 or 4 abreast" crowd. I was running this marathon 13 days after running Boston. I was doing it more as a training run for Comrades, but still felt that I could beat my Boston time.
It did rain almost the whole time, and I was pretty much ok most of the time. I hit the half at about 1:51 and was feeling fairly good. I've only run the OKCMM once before, and it was not pretty. In that run I hit the wall at mile 17 and finished just under 4:30. As I approached Lake Hefner I started worrying that this would happen again. But the first time was a hot day and this was good running weather. As we ran the trails at the lake I could feel the wall coming, but I was still running well. The picture above was taken on the lake trails around mile 16. The lady in the picture is running her first marathon, and I happened to catch her just as a friend was taking her picture. She had taken the early start, and with the delay got an extra 30 minutes. She did finish by the way.
I passed mile 17 still feeling good, but also knowing I was going to slow down now. For a brief time the sun came out, and many in the crowd were saying no more rain from here to the finish. I thought they knew what they were talking about, I was wrong. The sun went away and it started raining more and getting colder. As I headed down Classen Blvd., my feet were numb from the cold and rain. I didn't really feel bad, but my feet felt funny with each step. I did walk, twice I think, but then I started to get my second wind. While I wasn't running as fast as before, I was running. I ran in from there and finished in 3:53.11. Four minutes better than Boston, but still a 9 plus positive split. Oh well, just a training run, right?
When I finished I started uncontrollable shivering. Our running club had a tent, and I spent a few minutes there but decided I needed to get to my car, get home and get warm.
Since OKC my training has been going well and I'm gaining more confidence that I'll be able to finish Comrades. Flight booked, hotel booked, guess I'm going.

115th Boston Marathon

2011-04-24T19:21:00.001-05:00

This was my third time to run the Boston Marathon. One of my running goals for the year was to PR at Boston. As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been injured, and had stopped training to hopefully recover enough to run Boston and the Comrades Ultra Marathon in May. I didn't stop running, I just stopped running fast. My rehab seemed to be going well, and I even started hoping that I'd be able to run Boston fast.
A large group of my running club members were going, and we had a lot of things planned together. Most of us arrived either the Saturday before the Marathon (Monday, April 18) or before. We went out to dinner Saturday, Monday after the Marathon, and Tuesday. I enjoyed all of our outings together.

Many of us took the bus together to Hopkinton, the start of the marathon. It was very chilly there, but the day was supposed to be very good for running. Cool, and a light tailwind. We started, and I was running with one of my running club friends. Our pace is usually very similar, but lately she has been running faster than I have. While we talked about our goals for Boston, we really didn't get specific. She was running well, but faster than I thought I could hold, so after a couple of miles, I backed off the pace a bit. I was holding around an 8:30 pace, and passed through the half in 1:51.51. But I knew I wasn't going to be able to hold that, so I started slowing down even more. By the Newton hills I knew I was going to walk some. So every aid station I would grab both water and Gatorade and walk until I finished them. While I wanted to run well, I at least needed to finish under 4 hours to get a decent seeding at Comrades. By mile 21 I knew if I could just hold 10 minute miles I could get my sub four. I finished in 3:57.05. Not a bad time for me, but a positive split of 15 minutes. Very poor pacing. I'm not disappointed with the time, just my pacing.
I will be running the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon this coming Sunday, May 1st, just 13 days after Boston. This is more of a training run getting me ready for the 57 miles at Comrades, but with good weather and light winds I plan to try and beat the Boston time.
I haven't qualified for Boston 2012 and don't know if I will be able too. But if I do, I'll probably continue to run there.

Fear

2011-04-04T19:19:00.001-05:00

There are several reasons I haven't posted in awhile. Been busy, very busy. But the main reason is I'm injured. Not can't run injured, but can't run the way I want to injured. I have runner's knee. I've actually had it for some time, but up until now, it didn't interfere with my running. Yeah, that's sounds odd. Runner's Knee that doesn't affect my running. Well it didn't. I could run as fast and hard as I wanted, and it wouldn't bother me until after the run. But now, I can't run hard. I've stopped all of my speed work that I was doing in preparation for Boston, and Comrades. The fear part came in when I started speculating that this would be the end of running for me. One pharmacist told me it was probably Arthritis and that the only thing I could do is mask the pain. That's what I get for guessing and using the Internet instead of just going to someone who specializes in this type of injury. I am doing something about it now, and I think I've made progress. I'm seeing a Doctor about it, and he identified some problems right off the bat. Anyway, I'm now fairly confident that I can do my runs, but also fairly sure that PR's are not going to happen.
I have run two races in the past month. A 25K which I ran in just over two hours, and a half marathon that I ran in just under 1:50. Neither of which is close to my best, but I was just happy to finish them.
Two weeks from today is the Boston Marathon. And thirteen days after that I'm running the Oklahoma City Marathon. My plan right now is to run OKC easy as a training run for the Comardes (Ultra) Marathon which is one month after OKC. AARP was offering free entries for people over the age of 50 so I took them up on it.
Well, for now I'm going to close and try to keep updated a little more often.

Mi Viaje a Peru - My Trip to Peru

2011-02-01T22:09:00.004-06:00

I am currently in Cusco Peru with my brother, on the left in the picture above. We left the U S A on Saturday, January 29, and arrived in Lima Peru the 30th. We transferred to a domestic airline and arrived in Cusco that afternoon. I plan to update this one posting as events transpire. I have been sightseeing so much and getting in so late every evening, I haven't had time to update the blog. My excursions will slow down, and I will try to catch up in the next few days.
Our first tour was to the Sacred Valley. We took a bus from Cusco and stopped numerous places. One was an animal rescue area when they were nursing pumas and condors. Below is a picture of my brother next to one of the condors.

Next it was on to other parts of the Sacred Valley. We travelled to Urubamba and Ollantaytambo. Ollantaytambo is located at the foot of some Incan ruins. At this point we were around 8,000 feet and had to climb up quite a few steps. Each climb took a lot out of you, but we rested at various "terraces" that were cut into the land. These were made for several reasons. To resist erosion and to take advantage of the various "micro climates." While the weather was never extreme, one minute we would be warm and within minutes it would be very cool. Other times it would rain for 20 to 30 minute. All of this was very interesting, but completely wore me out. Because of the altitude, I don't plan to run in Cusco, but am definately getting in some major hill work. Next up, Machu Picchu.

We had to be up at 4:00 a.m for the trip to Machu Picchu. We were picked up by the tour van, taken to the PERURAIL Station to catch a bus to another city to take the train. You could take the train straight from Cusco, but due to mudslides you had to go to another station. We arrived by train to Aguas Calientes and had to take another bus up the mountain. These were full size tour buses going up the mountain on a single lane dirt road, and it was raining. When we met a bus coming down the mountain, one of us had to pull over.

When we go to Machu Picchu, we had to do some climbing. Once we were into the actual Inca rooms and other structures, it was magical to me. Our guide explained that this was not really a city, but a holy place, a place to come and teach and meditate. And that when the Spanish came to conquer the Inca, that they hid this place. It was not discovered until 1911 and had remained unseen for 500 years. I won't go into all that I learned, but it had very special effect on me, such that I left our guide to be alone there for awhile. I realize it was a combination of what Machu Picchu is and what I wanted it to be, but that was enough for me.

On to Lima.

We got to the airport for our trip to Lima in plenty of time. I was really ready to leave, I loved Cusco and all the history around it, but I had been suffering from a minor dose of altitude sickness. For me it was just a mild headache most of the time. But my brother got very sick for about 24 hours. He's not a runner, but he works out and is in very good shape. We got to our gate, and as we boarded, they stopped us. I thought what is this? But they upgraded us to first class. We were on TACA airlines, but they knew we were advanced members of American and United, so that's the only reason we could figure for the upgrade. The plane was full also, so maybe they did it to make more room in coach. I've already questioned this good luck more than I should have. Needless to say we enjoyed our trip to Lima.

We arrived in Lima and took a cab to our hotel, ALLPA. More about Lima tomorrow.

This is a view from just above a shopping mall. The hill in the background is really a peninsula and the ocean is behind it also.
Lima is a city of about 9 million people so it is somewhat typical of large cities. Dirty, fast, and problems with traffic. We are staying in Miraflores (see the flowers) which is a district of Lima. It is very modern and progressive. It is considered a prime spot to live and as I've seen while running, it has plenty of parks and tourist spots, restaurants, shopping centers, and other entertainment. I have seen more people exercising here than any where else I've been during this trip. Yesterday we ventured to the Lima downtown area. It took about 15 minutes to get there, and cost 15 Soles (a little over 5.00). Like most Latin American countries, and I'm sure in other parts of the world, you negotiate the price before you get in the cab.
Downtown was very historic. Lots of churches, goverment buildings, and of course restaurants and shopping areas. And by shopping, I mean both regular shops and natives hawking their (mostly) hand made wares. I'm a bit sick of being hustled every where I go, but I have to give it to them, most are hustling and not begging. We've eaten both at Peruvian restaurants, and restaurants that cater to tourists. I had my share of experimenting in Cusco. So now I've mostly gone with foods that I'm familar with, but even at that, it's always a bit different.

Past and Future Goals

2011-01-03T21:52:00.006-06:00

A Very Happy New Year to you all. I was in church when the New Year came, so I guess that's a good start.
I am fascinated with time. I love time machine stories and movies, and I love to speculate about time. The fact that time and light speed are directly related is considered the greatest equation to this day. But most of time is arbitrary. One second, minute, hour, day, week, month, and finally, for this post, year. Happy New Year. But only one second separates one year from the next. And if we lived in the country, without any media and paying no attention to our watch, we would not know the difference.
Ok, what does that have to do with past and future goals? Nothing. It's just that if we didn't have all these artificial milestones, we'd never know time existed.

My goals for 2010 were:
1. Qualify for Boston at Boston (3:45:59 or faster)
2. Run 100 miles again.
3. Run a sub 20 minute 5k.
4. P R in the Marathon.

Goals 1 and 4 were accomplished at the same time at the Boston Marathon.
Goal 2 was accomplished by finishing the Mother Road 100.
Goal 3 was not accomplished, nor did I train to do so. With my training for the Marathon and then the 100 miler, I never spent time trying to improve my 5k times.

I will carry the sub 20 goal over again, but I will call it a secondary goal. One thing that wasn't a stated goal, but that I had in my mind for the future was also accomplished in 2010, and that was to win a race outright and not just my age group. I did that at the 12 hour run at 24 the Hard Way.

My race calendar is already pretty full for 2011. I'm entered in the Boston Marathon again. I've agreed to crew and pace a runner at the Leadville 100 miler, and the picture above represents my major goal race of 2011, the Comrades Marathon (Distance: 89km – 56 miles) in South Africa. Comrades is the oldest, largest, and most famous Ultra Marathon in the world. The races reverses direction each year, and 2011 is an "up year." Meaning I will be running from right to left on the profile map.

My goals for 2011 are as follows:

1. Finish the Boston Marathon in under 3:40
2. Finish the Comrades Marathon in under 11 hours (Race has a 12 hour cut-off)
3. Help my friend to finish the Leadville 100
Soft Goal of running a sub 20 5k.

My Mother Road Trifecta

2010-11-28T12:14:00.002-06:00

On October 10, 10.10.10, I ran the Mother Road marathon from Commerce Oklahoma to Joplin Missouri. It is called the Mother Road because part of it is run on Old U S Route 66. The original super highway that ran from Chicago to Los Angeles. The Mother Road ain't what it used to be. Most of it is now state highway or even just under local care. Which is to say the road is in many places in disrepair. Nevertheless I had decided that if I was successful in finishing the Mother Road 100 run, then I would attempt to finish all 3 Mother Road races being run, at least partially, in Oklahoma. This would mean that if I was successful in the 100 mile run, I'd have to run a marathon a week later.
Well I finished the 100 mile race in 24 hours 30 seconds on Sunday, November 14th. Sunday was also the last day to register online for the Route 66 Marathon in Tulsa. You could still register at the expo, but I didn't want to leave it to chance, or give myself a reason to back out. I registered that night when I got home.
I didn't attempt to run until the Thursday before the marathon. That didn't go well, every muscle in my legs was still sore, and I really couldn't run. I "jogged" for two miles before giving up. Still on Saturday I rode with some friends to the expo and picked up my packet, bib, and timing chip.
I decided that I would just see how it went the next day. The next day I rode with Willie, Adi, and Willie's son to Tulsa. I had thought about getting a room and spending the night in Tulsa, but Adi said they were going up both days, so I decided to just ride with them. We got to Tulsa in plenty of time before the start, parked and walked down to the "Race Village." This year Tulsa had 3 corrals, and they had stated that your bib would be checked before you were allowed to enter a corral. They were based on your estimated finish time, so you could say whatever you wanted as an estimate. I was truthful and entered over 4 hours. This put me in the 2nd corral, but when we entered there was no one checking and I was in the 1st with Willie. I decided I didn't want to be there, and moved back to my correct corral. There was about a 5 minute delay between corral starts so I watched the first one start and waited for my start. We're off and I'm running around a 9:30 pace. I usually take a few miles to get going so I just settled into a comfortable pace. I never lost sight of the 4 hour pace group and as I felt better, I dropped the pace below 9 and slowly gained on the pace group. I passed them but then settled into a 9:05-9:10 pace so I wasn't pulling away from them. I didn't feel bad, but never felt good enough to pick up the pace. Around mile 14 I started feeling pain in my legs, both ITBands were hurting and I knew it was time to back off. I started walking some and trying to fuel up to see if that would help. As we entered the worse part of the marathon, South on Riverside into the wind, I recognized a park area which was the start/finish for the 50 miler I had done in Tulsa back in July. I knew they had a full bathroom there, so I left the course to go spend some quality time there. Upon reentering the course, I felt like a new man, and began to run again. My pace was still slow, over 10 minute miles, but at least I was running steadily again. Once I made the turn around on Riverside and had the wind at my back I was able to drop the pace back below 10 minutes and felt like I might be able to finish under 4:25. I ran the rest of the way in and finished just under 4:25. I finished the Route 66 Marathon thus completing my "Mother Road Trifecta." For the record, the first Route 66 Marathon in 2006 was my first marathon.
What did I earn by doing this? Nothing above what anyone else earned in each race. Why did I do it? I wanted to push my body to the edge. I did do that. I have run twice since finishing, and feel like I have made it with no permanent damage. I may have an ITBand problem. But I have run up to 5 miles without pain, so I'm not sure. I will gradually increase the distance to see if it triggers the ITB pain, but so far so good.
I have no plans to race anymore this year, but a 5k near the end of December isn't out of the question.

The Mother Road 100.3 - Final Chapter

2010-11-18T20:26:00.002-06:00

This past Saturday, November 13, 2010, I ran in the Mother Road 100.3 one hundred mile run. This was the third and final version of this run. The race is put on by Thomas Hill and Bret Sholar. Anyone that knows them knows that they put on first class quality races.

The first Mother Road went from Oklahoma City (Arcadia) to Tulsa (Sapulpa). The second version went from the western border to Oklahoma City (El Reno). And this final version went from Baxter Springs KS, to Tulsa (Catoosa). Thus completing races that covered one end of the state to the other.

I remember the first run, but was not ready to run that far yet. When the second Mother Road came along, I still wasn't ready for the whole thing, but good friend Joel McCarty asked me to pace him the final 35 miles.

My experience pacing him was invaluable. I remember him persevering through the cold, darkness, and pain to push on to a finish. I told him I had never cried after finishing a race, but I was close to tears watching him push on to a 100 mile finish. So when this opportunity came along, I knew I had to run.

I had run one other 100 mile run, Rocky Raccoon in Huntsville State Park, Huntsville TX. I finished that run in a little over 27 hours.

This race was to be similar to Rocky in that I really didn't have a crew up until the week before the race. While Cara and Randy Nance had agreed to crew me, I knew they had other people to crew also. And in a race of this distance, the runners would really get spread out as time passed. The week before the race Bill Goodier offered to crew me. The week before Rocky Raccoon Willie and Bill offered to crew and pace me and without their help I'm not sure I would have finished. I already had Joel lined up to pace me for the Mother Road from around midnight to the finish. Everything seemed to be falling into place.

Bill got me to our hotel the night before, and to the start line the next day. It was cool but a storm front had passed through the day before with rain. So we were fortunate that the rain was over.

The National Anthem, a prayer, Don shoots the gun and we're off. I started at an easy pace and felt pretty good. There were aid stations every 6 to 11 miles, but besides resting a bit I wasn't eating much there, Bill was taking care of my nutritional needs. I did the first 30 in right at six hours which was my goal. Bill was concerned that I was drinking plenty, but might not be eating enough. He was right. In almost every ultra I run, there comes a time around 30 miles where my stomach gets queasy and nothing appeals to me. So I stop eating, and mostly drink water because the sports drinks are sweet and by this time I'm sick of them.

But I was still making good time. I had aches and pains but none that grew bad enough to concern me.

As darkness approached my pace began to really slow down. I was tired, but I knew the problem was I hadn't eaten enough and now I was paying for it. I came into Vinita and passed a Sonic as I approached the next aid station. While they were certainly appreciated, there were problems at several of them. In at least three they either didn't have soup, or it wasn't warm. When I saw Bill, I asked him to go to Sonic and get some Tater Tots. When he got back with them I thought I was living the good life. I scarfed up the tots and felt like I could go on.

I arrived at the Chelsea aid station which was where Joel would join me. This was in a warm hotel room and Randy and Cara were there also. I had some more soup, picked up some Gator Aid and Joel and I headed out. I had given up on a sub twenty four hour finish and was planning to just walk it in. Joel convinced me that I was making good time and still had a shot. We started running as much as walking and I began to think it was still possible also. We both knew from experience that when daylight came, we would experience an additional boost.

Bill continued to keep us fueled and updated on our pace. As daylight came I still could run so I kept running as much as possible. Joel would encourage me but not push me. As we approached the finish I knew it was going to be close. I was running as much and as fast as I felt I could but was really hurting now. Not injury hurting, but tired and sore from running so long. The last few miles were very hilly and despite that we continued to run. As we approached the running track which was the finish I started running as fast as I could. Bill was already there and ran to read the clock. As I entered the track he said fifty eight minutes. I thought I can do two minutes, but then he said fifty nine minutes and I knew I was just going to barely miss sub twenty four. I continued around the track and saw the clock turn to twenty four hours. Final time, 24:00:30.
I am very happy with my finish. I felt that I was running as hard as I could near the end and know that I would never have finished that fast without Joel encouraging me.

Many thanks to Bill who had to have had the hardest job. Trying to meet my needs and drive a little bit at a time. To both Bill and Joel for giving up more than a day of their time to help a friend reach his goal.

A First for Me - Literally

2010-10-25T08:48:00.011-05:00

Saturday, October 23, 2010 I ran a 12 hour race which was part of 24 The Hardway, and the Dirty Double Dozen. These are combined trail and road races. Since I ran a road race, I'll just explain how those worked. On Saturday three different races were run on the same one mile paved loop. The 12 hour race started at 6 a.m, the 24 hour race started at 9 a.m. and the 6 hour race started at 12 noon. Last year I ran the 24 hour race. This year because I want to run the Mother Road 100 (Nov. 13, 2010) I decided I'd run the 12 hour race as a training run for the 100 miler.

We started right on time, 6 a.m. It was still dark, but this is a smooth track so I didn't take a light with me. A friend of mine (Kelly) was running her first ultra marathon. She had done one marathon before this but she is a very strong runner. She asked me some questions about doing this run, and I told things I thought would help her. And even though she is a faster runner, we felt like in a run of this duration, we would spend some time running together. She asked me about how to start, and I told her it takes me a while to get going so to feel free to take off, but not to overdo it.

I had a goal of running over 60 miles during these 12 hours, but first and foremost I wanted to run smart and within myself. I started out feeling pretty good and was running mostly sub 9:30 miles for the first 20 plus miles. I started slowing into the 10's after that, but all I needed to do was keep my average under 12 minute miles. Kelly and I didn't run together much during this period, in fact she lapped me twice.

As the day wore on the weather started getting a little nasty. As you can see by the pictures above I was wearing a singlet. The wind really picked up, and those with tents were having to either secure them better, or take them down. It got cooler and started to rain some. I was never cold, but had a jacket and thought if it gets any colder I'm putting the jacket on. I never did use the jacket and eventually the weather calmed down and began to warm up a bit.

As with any long race I had my ups and downs. I just had to keep powering through the downs with the knowledge that an up would be coming.

As the day wore on I passed Kelly and she was also going through her own ups and downs. We found out that we were leading the race. When someone first told me that I thought they were joking with me. But Kelly confirmed that we were leading. We knew that others had started faster than us but they had either dropped out or slowed down. We began to think about what we would do if it came down to the two of us at the end. I told her to do her own thing, if she wanted to pick up the pace to go ahead. We both did run our own races for a while and I think I was leading her for a time. I didn't know if she had slowed or stopped. While I did want to win I also didn't want to be a jerk. Plus I knew when it came right down to it Kelly was a faster runner.

To digress for a moment, one of my running goals was to win a race outright, not just my age group or the masters category. But here is how I pictured that happening. In the next year or two I was going to start running in small town 5 k's. I'd noticed that occasionally I'd see a winning time of 22 minutes or more, so I thought well I could have won that race. It just goes to show that things don't always happen the way I picture them happening.

With about 30 minutes to go Kelly caught back up to me. I have to tell you she looked good for having run almost 60 miles. You'd think this was just a afternoon jog for her. So we again started talking about what we were going to do. I said feel free to take off and do what you can do. She said no, she didn't feel that great. So we started talking about tying for first. At first we thought about slowing down so that we would cross the timing mats right at the 12 hour mark. But even though we had slowed, we knew we'd have to slow down a lot more to time it just right.

One more small explanation. Since this is a timed and not distance race, the race ends right at 12 hours, regardless of how far you've run. The way they handle the end of the race is on your last lap, you get a flag with your number on it, and when they shoot the gun ending the race you place your flag where ever you are at that time.

We talked about it some more and decided we would tie for first. We also decided that rather than trust the timing mat to record our finish times as being exactly the same, we would simply place our flags side by side when the gun sounded, and that's what we did. The first picture above is beside our flags and our actual finish spot. the second is us crossing the timing mat together. Final milage for both of us 62.35 miles.

This was a great race for me. It taught me more about focusing during a race. It also taught me some things about myself. From the time they told me I was leading the race, I had to start thinking about what I would do if Kelly caught back up with me. What should I do? What should we do? I haven't asked her, but I suspect she had some of the same thoughts. The main advantage I have over some of the newer runners is experience. All other things being equal, Kelly would out run me most of the time. But when it came down to it we both made a decision to defer to the other person. During the time I was thinking about this, I thought about what it would feel like to actually win a race. But that does not compare with the feeling I had sharing the win with a good friend.

Thanks Kelly for a great run.

Tri-State Mother Road Marathon

2010-10-12T08:40:00.007-05:00

My running club sponsored a road trip to the Mother Road Marathon in Joplin Missouri. This marathon was to run through three states. Starting in Commerce Oklahoma, through Baxter Springs Kansas, and finishing in Joplin Missouri. I was running this as a training run for the upcoming ultras, but also felt like I was in shape to run sub 3:50.
I arrived at the pick up spot late Saturday (October 9th) morning. The bus left on time and it was nice, equipped with DVD, and wi-fi. I knew almost everyone on the bus, and it was a festive ride. We arrived at our hotel, I got checked in and then on to the packet pick up and "pasta feast." These two events were not up to par. The "expo" was nothing more than packet and t-shirt pickup. The "pasta dinner" was ok, but not worth eight dollars.
Some of the runners ate again at a local chain restaurant. I went to my room to finish off the sandwich I had brought for the ride up, arrange my running apparel, and retire to watch football. Next morning I boarded our bus for the ride to the start. We decided to use our charter rather than take the race shuttles to the finish line, and then other shuttles to the start. We arrived at the start with more than an hour to kill. There were plenty of port-a-potties, and water seemed to be the only choice for drinks.
Showtime, we start just after 8:00 a.m. I had decided to run this race by feel. I had talked with a friend, and she said she planned to run an 8:30 pace. I thought about it for awhile and while I wanted to do the same, I said I wouldn't push to do it. I started out running near 8:30's and it felt ok. The roads were sloped or cambered most of the time during the first half. The race really could have started at 7:00 and we wouldn't have had as much problem with the heat as it ended up. I pushed to the halfway point in about 1:50, right on pace. The race ran us into this parking lot, I can only imagine to get the mileage right and to cross us over a timing mat. While exiting the parking lot I tripped over a speed bump and fell. Guess I was going too fast. I scrapped my right shoulder and hands, but only my pride was hurt. I jumped up, and the guy behind me told me my shoe had become untied. I stopped to tie it back, and then promptly tripped on another speed bump, this time I only stumbled, but didn't fall. I pushed on determined that this little incident wouldn't affect my race, and it didn't. The second half of this race is more uphill, and had a steep one at eighteen. While I knew I was faltering, this is where it was all over. I was tired, probably dehydrated, and just knew that I was going to be walking a lot from here to the end. If I could have kept a 11/mile pace, I still could have come in under 4 hours, but I had the "I don't cares" by now. So every time I would start running, and then my head would spin and I'd feel nauseous, I'd slow back down to a walk. I did not run for a non-stop mile from this point on. I never got over the wall but when I saw the finish line, I ran all the way in. I finished in 4:04 and suprisingly took third in my age group.
My critique of this marathon is that the run itself was done well. There were plenty of aid stations, the city police/state police/sheriffs dept handled traffic well. The expo was not good, nor was the pasta dinner. The race should have started an hour earlier, but the weather was unseasonably hot, so I can see where they thought it would be ok. I won't return to this race unless we do another road trip.
As I said this was really a training run. In two weeks I'll be running a 12 hour race in Oklahoma City. And in five weeks I'll be running the Mother Road 100 which will run on a small part of this marathon course, but in the opposite directon.

In the Mean Time

2010-09-26T18:07:00.002-05:00

I've continued my running, racing, and training. Since my last post about running, I've run at least three races. Two 5k's and one half marathon. Both 5k's my time was about 21:25. No where near my best, but good times. The second 5k I did feel better at the end than I do after most 5k's. That let me know that maybe my training is paying off. At the half marathon, I was running very well the first half, and out and back course, but really struggled coming back. That didn't bother me because it told me some things. Mainly that I am able to run long at a higher level, but need to mesh my pace with the distance. The half was a training run anyway.
Coming up all my runs/races are long. In two weeks, 10/10/10, I have a marathon. Then on the 23rd of Oct. I'm running a 12 hour timed race. And in November I'm running the Mother Road 100. I also have signed up for a very famous race, but more about that later.

Internet Emotions

2010-09-12T10:46:00.003-05:00

There have been several reasons I haven't posted in some time. Most of them are related to negative events in my life. While negative they are all part of life. I have had severe property damage related to tornadoes. Negative experiences dealing with the insurance companies related to this damage. Negative experiences related to the contractors fixing this damage. And the death of someone very close to me.
The reason for my title is that I don't like "Internet emotions." That is compassion's, condolences, sympathies etc. from people who either don't really know me, or didn't know those around me. I'm not saying they aren't sincere or heartfelt. I'm just saying I don't like them. I've always felt that I'm part of a crossover generation. I'm comfortable with technology, in fact I enjoy it. But I don't accept that I can have a best friend, someone who can share in whatever we're feeling, and we've never met. I like the people that I "talk to" correspond with on the Internet. But I don't feel like we're truly "good friends." Nor do I expect them to feel like I'm their "best" or even "good friend." Some of my younger friends on Facebook or like areas seem to be more comfortable baring their souls here. For me, it is hard to even confide in face to face friends, let alone my "cyber buddies."
I'll get into my running in another post, but on my run this morning, I decided it was time to come back.

Midnight Madness 50 Mile Race

2010-07-07T20:05:00.005-05:00

Friday, July 2nd was the date for my second ultra of the year. My first was the Steal the Seal 50k (31 Miles) which was really a training run for this race. This one was called the Midnight Madness 50 Mile run. Put on by the TATURS (Tulsa Area Trail Ultra Runners). The race was directed by Brian Hoover, Head TATUR. The TATUR's are known for putting on quality events.
This race was another midnight start. I met up with two friends in OKC at 8 P M for the ride to Tulsa. It rained hard on the way, remnants of a hurricane, and we were a little worried about our race. It was still raining when we arrived at the park for the start/finish, but it stopped before our midnight start. This race was 5 loops on the paved Tulsa River Trails. We would cross the Arkansas river twice on each loop. The loops were also reversed each time. Three times counterclockwise, and twice clockwise. I didn't think I would like this at first, but getting to see everyone on the trail turned out to be nice.
I had an outside goal of finishing under 10 hours, but really just wanted to run smart. I started around a 10 minute mile and ran fairly well. While it wasn't raining, the humidity was very high, and it was warm. First loop no real problems. I didn't stop in the aid stations long, and moved out for my second loop. Again no problems, but my energy did start to drop. Third loop of course I began to slow down. I still had a chance to beat 10 hours, but knew it wasn't likely. On my final loop, I really began to feel a bit better. I was into the walk/run mode, but since it was now daylight, cloudy so the sun wasn't shining, I was somewhat energized. That coupled with the fact that Chuck started running with me helped me increase my pace a bit. My new goal was now to beat 10:30. It was also starting to rain again. But the rain was actually welcome, it cooled things down some. I finished around 10 hours 26 minutes for an official distance of 51.5 miles.
Thanks to all the aid workers, pacers, and to Chuck for hanging with me the last 6 or so miles. Thanks to Mary for helping me get something to eat at the end. Thanks to the TATURS for a well run race especially considering the conditions.

Steal the Seal 50k (31 miles)

2010-06-13T20:16:00.005-05:00

Midnight (June 12th) Friday night/Saturday morning I started my first official ultra marathon of the year. Official because I did run past the marathon January 2 in an unofficial ran.

This race is called "Steal the Seal" because early in Oklahoma State history the first Capital was Guthrie. The story goes that the State Seal was stolen in the middle of the night and taken to Oklahoma City to make it the new Capital. So the premise was that we would symbolically return the seal to Guthrie.

At midnight we started our journey to Guthrie from the State Capital in Oklahoma City. Down Lincoln to 50th and then to Martin Luther King Dr. This street has several names as it passes through Oklahoma City to Edmond and beyond. I started with three other friends and we ran together for about six miles. One surged ahead and the other slowed down a bit after the first 10k. When we left Edmond it was very dark and the fireflies were putting on quite a light show for us. It was probably the most enjoyable part of the race outside of the finish. Bill and I stayed together until around 2o miles when I was starting to fade. Bill was still running strong, so he went on. It was about this time that we left pavement and hit a dirt road. It was very dark on the road and at this point I started to use my head light. The dirt road part wasn't bad except when cars would pass and then the dust was a problem. Since most of the cars were supporting us though, I'll take some dust. There were too few aid stations in the second half for the heat and humidity during this run. When I saw Cara and Shay on the dirt road it was like an oasis. I was out of water and knew there were no more aid stations until the finish. Another small change I'd make would be to put more signs on the dirt road to confirm that we're going the right way. Although I did not go off course, I was afraid I had. I ran for over 5 miles without a sign and couldn't see any lights letting me know that I was near Guthrie. My Garmin was reading 30 miles and I was still on this road. Just as I was about to panic that I had gone too far, the road curved and I could see pavement and houses, Guthrie. I knew I was near the finish and picked it up a bit. Now there were people at the turns to let you know where to go. Three blocks to the finish. I crossed the finish line in 5:36:21. Fifth male and sixth overall. This was not an easy run but neither was it really hard. There were hills and the heat and humidity made it difficult. But it should be good training for yet another ultra, 50 mile, July 2nd with another midnight start.

Thanks to Bret, Bill, and Mary for the time we ran together. Thank you to all who manned the aid stations in the middle of the night. Thanks to all of you roaming the course with aid to anyone who needed it. Those that I remember were, Dave, Keith, Cara, Shay, Chuck, Vaden and friends, and special thanks to Brandi and friend for the aid, and Brandi for the ride back to my car.

Vibram Five Fingers.

2010-06-08T19:30:00.003-05:00

I have said I'd review these for some time now. Almost a year ago I purchased the Vibram Five Finger KSO's. I have over 100 miles on these. I bought the Five Fingers to hopefully make my feet stronger. I had run a couple of races over 50 miles and the thing that hurt the most was my feet. In the later miles of my 100 mile run, my feet were really hurting. There was no damage to them, they just hurt from being on them so long.
I must say the verdict is still out on whether they are helping. I have two road ultra's in the next month, and I may know more after that.
I have done most of my running on pavement or grass. I don't feel comfortable running trails in these. I have some friends that do, and Barefoot Ted has run hundred mile races in them. But I feel that I'd be courting injury running trails with these. I've stubbed my toe hard running trails, and if I hadn't been wearing trail shoes with their extra toe protection, I would probably have broken one by now.
Lately I've been combining heart rate training and running in the FF's. My heart rate training entails keeping my HR under 130. I usually do 5 to 6 miles in this range at a nearby paved loop. The most I've ever run in the FF's is 12 miles. Whenever I run hard, my calves hurt for several days. It's not a injury hurt, just a sore hurt that tells me I'm using muscles I don't usually use.
I guess I would say that these are fun shoes, but whether they are worth the money depends on what you want from them. But as most people advise, if you do get them, don't rush into long mileage with them. I would suggest no more than 5-8 miles a week for several months.

Andy Payne Pt. 2

2010-06-05T11:52:00.006-05:00

I'm only calling this "Pt. 2" because this is the second time I've run this marathon. I first ran it two years ago. This year's version was run Sunday, May 30th. It is a very low key marathon, less than 100 finishers this year. And it is almost always hot and humid. This year was no exception. I ran this race as a training run for my next two ultra marathons, 50 k on June 12 with a midnight start, and 50 miles July 2 also a midnight start.

It was in the low 70's at the 6:30 AM start of the marathon. I had a somewhat loose goal of running this under 4 hours. But my main goal was to run it smart. I started out running with a friend from the running club. We separated after about 7 miles and I ran the rest of the marathon alone. The race starts in a park where we run about 2 miles and then it's 3 times around lake Overholser. If it weren't for the hot and humid conditions, this would be an easy course. It is boring, but there is very little elevation change. I started feeling the loss of energy around mile 15, which is on the last part of the second loop. I was still able to maintain a sub 10 minute mile, but I had to use the walk run strategy for the final lap. It was now into the high 80's and too far between aid stations. Still when I finished in 4:05:45 I didn't feel bad. I won my age group and am ok with the time. As a training run I got what I needed, a nice finish, heat training, and no injuries.

Boston Marathon & Goals

2010-04-21T16:41:00.007-05:00

This was my second time to run Boston. Last year my only goal was to enjoy the experience, and just try to beat 4 hours. I finished in 3:59.35. I qualified at Tucson, 3:43.01, Dec '08 and that gave me two years. I hadn't run that fast since. I tried to P R at CIM, 3:52.26, in Sacramento back in Dec '09, but in retrospect, would have been better served to simply try to B Q. I have no regrets about that though, I went for it and paid the price. This year I had a goal of re-qualifying at Boston. That meant I had to run 3:45.59 or faster. That was my only goal outside of the always backup goals of finishing and not hurting myself.
In the days leading up to the marathon it rained. I flew in Friday because I wanted to just take it easy. The Red Sox game was rained out in the 8th inning and it rained some Saturday and Sunday. Some friends and I went for an easy 4 mile run Sunday morning, and it was misting. The forecast for Monday was almost perfect. Cool, mid 30's and partly cloudy in the morning, and warming to the 50's in the afternoon.
I made it to the Athlete's Village with no problems. Sat by a nice young lady from California and we had a good conversation all the way. Once in the village, I walked around for a while looking for some others from the running club but never found them. It was chilly, so I looked around for a spot out of the wind and in the sun and sat down.
Showtime
I was in the 2nd wave starting at 10:30. I walked to my corral and waited for the start. Boom, and we're off. Walking at first, but once you cross the timing mat you can start running. It's still crowded, but it didn't slow me much. Plus since the start is downhill, I needed to hold back a bit anyway. Once I got going at my pace, really a bit under, I felt pretty good but as with any long distance race I was apprehensive about being able to hold pace the entire race. I was to go through many ups and downs, but keep going in the knowledge that the down would soon give way to the up. From miles 8-11 I was in a zone like I've never been in. It was like I was in a bubble, no one around me and able to do anything I wanted. I felt like I could really pick up the pace here, but resisted the temptation. I was unable to maintain that feeling, but was still keeping pace. Boston is strictly a chip timed race except for the elites. I knew I had about a 3 minute cushion over gun time, but decided I wanted to meet my goal on gun time. Every mile had a clock so I knew where I was in relation to the start. Mile 20, fatigued but still on pace. Newton hills, still running and while I was hurting, I was running strong. Many were falling by the wayside, some having hit the wall, others with one pain or another. I ran up Heartbreak hill at pace, and once I topped it felt like I was going to make it. I did slow for one mile at an aid station. I decided I needed to get hydrated so I slowed to a light jog and drank both Gatoraide and water. Ramp back up for the finish. Under the Citgo sign and just a little more to go. Once I turned onto Boylston street and could see the finish in the distance I really picked it up. I could see the clock just turning to 3:44 and knew then that I would meet my goal by gun time. I finished and the clock read something like 3:44.40. I slowed and then started walking. Extremely happy I had met my goal. Later when I saw my chip time, 3:42.07. Not only did I re-qualify for Boston at Boston, but I had P R'ed at Boston. I trained hard for this race, and am so pleased that hard training paid off. Those of you who run know that training alone doesn't do it, you have to have other things fall into place also. Monday, April 19th, 2010 Boston MA, it all fell into place.
Thank you to all who wished me well, thought about me and the others you knew running there, and for all your congratulations also. I appreciate you all.

Sanctuary

2010-04-06T09:30:00.005-05:00

Sanctuary is one of those words I've always liked. There is so much contained in that one word.
There are many definitions of sanctuary. But the one I like best is "A place of refuge or asylum." Asylum is another word I like, Leon Russell had a group called the "Asylum Choir." And another called the "Shelter People." All of these words have a similar meaning to me, Asylum, Shelter, Sanctuary. Running is my Sanctuary. Not a physical place, but a place. I can go there other times, but running has the added benefit of lowering my resistance. Like when you stay up far beyond time to sleep, not under the influence of drugs, just going beyond time to sleep. Fasting is another way to get there. But for me, it is usually running, running beyond the comfort zone. Whether it be by pushing your speed, endurance or time limits. I run alone a lot, not so much by choice, but because I work in a place away from people of a like mind. I have never seen another runner during my weekly runs near my job. But this is fine with me. I get my communal runs on the weekend. But sometimes even that is not possible. I was out of state on business last week, and missed the club run. So I did my long run, 21 miles, alone last Easter Sunday. It was a wonderful time. I did see a lot of other runners, even a few I knew. But our paths simply crossed, and were not joined.
When I got home the house was vacant, everyone was already at church. I had promised to go, so I went. I was still in sanctuary, a place where I can be alone with myself, even among the hundreds who surrounded me.
From the Song "Million" by Paul Kantner

"And yet there were some of the men and ladies
Who remembered that in the beginning we were one
A body and one spirit in all of our bodies
Whoa... oh sanctuary
Come and sail with me ... revelation
Standing on the edge of civilization"

Road Trip - A2A Half Marathon

2010-03-31T21:41:00.004-05:00

My running club planned a road trip to a new marathon/half marathon about 100 miles from Oklahoma City. We chartered two luxury buses for the trip. This was to be a test of my Boston Marathon training. I was running the 1/2 and wanted to do my first sub 1:40 time. I just missed it at Tulsa in November, 1:40.22. My training has been going well, I've been able to meet all the speed work times and have resisted the temptation to overdo it.
The bus left Sunday morning right on time. It was a festive atmosphere and I was cautiously optimistic. This was a point to point race for both the 1/2 and full. We got to the start and it was cold and windy. But we all knew that we'd warm up once we started. I had just a short sleeve on, and decided to put a long sleeve under. We started and it was a steep downhill for the first couple of miles. I let the hills take me and was running faster than I needed to. As the road leveled off, I started keeping the pace I needed. I felt fairly good the whole time, and took a Hammer Gel every 20 to 30 minutes. For a first time race this one did everything right. Plenty of aid stations, good traffic control, and a nice finish. The wind was at our backs most of the way, but when we neared the finish, the wind was in our face. I was also starting to fade, but knew I was near my goal. As I entered the stadium and got on the track, my watch said I had close to a minute to spare. We did one lap on the track to finish, and I started sprinting like I was just starting a speed session. I passed several people, and as I neared the finish, saw I was going to make my goal. 1:39.19. I reached my goal, and won my age group by 4 seconds. That means that I passed the 2nd place male on the track. Of course I didn't know that at the time.
The ride home was nice. The entire trip was very well organized as was the race.
A couple of weeks earlier I won my age group in the triple crown of racing.
Next up, Boston April 19th.

Jack Rector 25k & Creek Classic 10k

2010-03-09T08:03:00.005-06:00

There is a group of races here called the Triple Crown. This consists of a 25k/5k, 10k/5k, and then a St. Paddy's (Day before) 8k. The 25k is named in honor of Jack Rector, the man I'm pictured with. He and his wife started the Oklahoma City Marathon training group years ago. Jack has since passed, and the race was named in his honor. I had only run this race once before, and since it was the only time I'd run 25k, it was my P R. I wanted to run it this year to see if I could improve on my "P R." I also felt it would be a good test of my conditioning for the Boston Marathon. My goal was to hold 5 minute k's. This would give me a 2:05 time, and about a 10 minute P R. I started out holding this pace, and while I would go over by 3-5 seconds, I was able to average this almost the whole race. I finished just over 2:05 and was pleased to be able to reach my goal. I also won my age group.
After the 25k, I decided to go ahead and run the Creek Classic 10k. I've run this race a couple of times before, and swore I wouldn't run it again after two years of poor after race activities. But then a friend took over the race, and I felt like she would make improvements. The race itself had been fine, but the awards ceremonies the last two years took way too long. Last year they ran out of medals and said they'd mail them to us. I never received mine, and when the previous race director emailed me telling me I was going to be charged for not turning in my chip, I pointed out to her, one, that I owned my chip, and two, that they hadn't sent my award. She replied to me that "I don't know why runners care so much about those medals." I told her that I didn't care about the medal, but that it was more about doing what you say you're going to do. Enough of that. My goal for this 10k was to try to hold 4:30 k's. This would give me a 45 minute time, not a P R, but not easy for me. I started holding this, but was letting it drift a bit after 4k. I was probably averaging 4:35 k's through 8k, but got a second wind and ran the last 2k under 4:15 each. I finished just over 45 minutes, and won my age group again. The awards ceremonies was better, but still needs some work. I know it is not easy putting these races on, and hope they can improve next year. They had a great turnout and say they raised more than they had hoped for for their cause.
Next up, 8k.

Whatever happened to Lucy

2010-02-24T09:28:00.009-06:00

My sophomore year at the University of Oklahoma I had a professor, Dr. Temerlin, who taught psychology. It was the most interesting class I had in college. And we had to read a book called "The Person" that basically covered the person from birth to death. It was the biggest text book I had all through college, and the only one I read cover to cover. You could sell it back, but I still have that book.
Dr. Temerlin and his wife were raising a chimp, Lucy, from birth to be as much like a human child as possible. Many of his lectures would be about their progress with Lucy. He even brought her to class a couple of times. They taught her sign language and she was able to learn over 140 signs. This was fascinating to me, and from time to time, after college, I would hear news of Lucy and how she progressed. But like a lot of things, I didn't really seek out news, just moved on. Saturday, after leaving a brunch I had to attend, it was terrible, I was listening to NPR's This American Life, and they were telling the story of what happened to Lucy. The short version is that they put her in a rehabilitation center in Gambia, but she did not adapt to the wild. The story is much more interesting than that. Janis Carter, a grad student under the Temerlins, actually lived with Lucy and other chimps trying to re-introduce them to the wild. Again, the short version is that Lucy finally left sanctuary and when Janis returned after about a year, she found Lucy dead.
The story was both interesting and of course sad. I was fascinated by what Lucy learned, one thing is she would lie. Something they thought was unique to humans. But the sad thing is that Lucy had never lived in the wild, and then they tried to introduce her to it, and you know the result. Isn't that just like humans? When they're through with you, they basically throw you away. But I'm able to say I know what happened to Lucy.

Sooner State Games Trail Run

2010-02-14T20:20:00.009-06:00

Yesterday, Saturday the 13th, was the running of the Sooner State Games Trail Run. This is a race held on trails within Oklahoma City. The course is a 3.5 twisty hilly rooty trail. For the record, that picture is not from this course. This race had 3 distances, 3.5, 7, and 14 miles, 1, 2, or 4 loops of the course. The starts were staggered 5 minutes apart to keep it from being crowded. This race had been postponed two weeks because of the big ice storm we had. The day was almost perfect, the trails were a bit muddy with small water crossings, but not bad. I decided to run the 7 mile race because I felt like that was a distance I could push all the way. We started and I ran fast to not get caught behind slower runners once we hit the single track. After about a mile you come to a fork in the trail. I've run these trails before, but I don't run them often. Needless to say I took the wrong turn. I ran for awhile, but noticed I wasn't seeing anyone else. Then I passed a marker, and it was meant to be read from the other direction. At this point I left the trail and got on this paved path that is nearby. I started running a loop of it, debating whether to drop, or take my lumps and go back to where I made the wrong turn. I ran a mile on the pavement, then decided, what the heck, I probably won't medal, but I'm going to complete the race. I saw someone who knew the trail better than I and she explained to me where I went wrong. I picked it back up there and went the right direction. Almost an hour to finish the first loop, but I was over 6 miles according to my Garmin. I was really feeling good, so I started pushing the second loop. Many of the people I knew thought I was lapping them, but I told them I was just catching them. I finished around 1:37, 1st loop 58 minutes, 2nd loop 39 minutes. Oh, and 1st place in age group. The 2nd guy finished about 3 minutes after me. I told the timer what happened in case I should still be disqualified, and he said as long as I returned to where I went off course I was OK.
Today our marathon training group was scheduled to run 16 miles. The weather forecast said the temperature would be dropping below freezing, it was around 58 yesterday, and we would likely get sleet and snow. When we started it was cold but nothing was falling. Within a mile a light sleet started and by mile 7 it was coming down hard and stinging my face. A friend said she was only doing 14 so I took the shortcut with her. I wasn't tired, but I was tired of the sleet hitting me, and we were running right into it. With the turn around it was now at our back. But it soon turned into a light snow, and it was just a beautiful run. As I got closer to the end I was feeling like I could pick up the 2 miles I had cut with no problem. I had been running by myself for some time now, so I decided to keep straight where I should have turned to get the extra mileage. I felt good and did an out and back to get the total to 16. A great start to Valentine's Day.
Congratulations to all my friends that ran the Austin half and full marathon today.

Danman 50, 26.2, 13.1, 10k

2010-02-10T09:04:00.002-06:00

Danman is an unofficial race held at a man's (Dan's) land down near Madill in southern Oklahoma. It's almost a Fatass, but it probably has too much support to qualify as a FA. As the title suggests, there are multiple distances to run. And I didn't run any of them. I signed up for the 50 miler, but with the snow and rains we've had, I knew I wasn't going to run 50 miles. You didn't have to pre-register, but I did. I rode with some friends who planned to run 13.1 miles. So I had to keep their schedule in mind also. So I went with plans of trying to do at least the marathon distance.
Dan has a large "ranch" with a beautiful house on it. Large, plenty of room, this served at the headquarters for the race. The race is two loops, 6 miles, and 7 miles. You do these loops as follows, 1st loop only for 10k, both loops for 13.1, and both twice for 26.2. The second loop has a 3 mile plus offshoot for the 50 milers to get around 17 miles per two loops.
I started on the first loop, and it was very muddy, and somewhat hilly. But I made it through ok. Second loop was a bit easier, although it was shoe sucking muddy right near the end. I decided to take the 50 mile extra loop to get to 17 miles. I also decided that I would take the 2nd loop again, rather than the first. The 2nd time I just did the 7 mile loop, ending up with close to 24 miles.
This is a nice run, and if I ever do it when the conditions are better, I will attempt to go the full 50 miles.

Egocentric

2010-01-17T22:18:00.004-06:00

Before I get to the reason for that title, just a few words about training. I've run both trails and the road lately and things seem to be going well. Our cold snap seems to have snapped, at least for the time being.
I commented on another blog that was about what the author felt was an overemphasis of fighting tobacco use at the expense of other worthy endeavours. I expressed a dissenting opinion. The author and I have no problem. We do not always agree, but we are always civil. Another person commented that I was egocentric, or rather my blog is egocentric. Here are his exact words;
"I looked over your egocentric blog brother and I find it amusing, this comment of yours, because connected to what you write about (me, me, me) your concerns are not for public health but rather for your own desires in your own little world. "
Now his comment didn't really bother me. However, he sent me a very childish email. But the purpose of this post is to look at whether what he said is true. Of course it is. This subject has been covered by me in the past, and by many blogs that I've read. We allow ourselves to boast, if we so choose, about what we do or accomplish. Those who have read this blog for any amount of time know that it is primarily about my running. But is running all there is to me? Of course not. I simply choose not to talk about the other things I do or am involved with. Nor am I going to talk about them now. From time to time I do, but not often. If I am to be judged solely by the content of this blog, then so be it.

Goals - Past and Future

2010-01-14T17:36:00.004-06:00

January 2009 I set 4 running goals. 1. To run my first 100 miler. 2. Run the Boston Marathon under 4 hours. 3. Run a sub 20 minute 5k. 4. P R in the marathon.
I achived two of them. I ran 100 miles, and I completed Boston in under 4 hours, barely.
For 2010 I am carrying the two that I didn't achieve over to this year. And I'm adding two more. My running goals for 2010

1. Qualify for Boston at Boston (3:45:59 or faster)
2. Run 100 miles again.
3. Run a sub 20 minute 5k.
4. P R in the Marathon.

I didn't specifically train to run a sub 20 5k. I plan to do that this year starting past July or August. Vamos a Ver.

A New Year - Short Ultra - Met Blog Friend

2010-01-07T08:20:00.010-06:00

A New Decade is here. And like a New Year or a New Day, what is the difference between today and yesterday. I guess in this case a lot more hung over people.

For my first race of the year I ran a Fat Ass race. For those who don't know what this is, it's a very low key minimal support informal run/ultra. This one has a maximum distance of 50k (31 mile), but you were welcome to run whatever you wanted. I haven't run much since the CIMarathon early December. Several reasons, one - I wanted to rest a bit, two - a very busy time of year, 3 - relatively cold here. We had a blizzard Christmas Eve which stranded me in the DFW Airport trying to get back home. Anyway I decided to run the race and just do it by feel. This is a 17 mile out and back, then a 14 mile out and back. I would guess around 30 people started, but many turned back at the only water crossing. The temps were around 20 at the start, and while there was a makeshift bridge, some just didn't want to chance it. I started out very slow, and was in nearly last place for some time. I pressed on and made it to the dam which you only had to do once. While I had warmed up some on the trail, the dam is elevated and open to the elements. It was cold and windy and my hands started getting cold again. I made it to the turn around and continued back, still undecided if I would go beyond the 17 miles. The trail was snowy, icy, and muddy. After making it back to the start, I sat down, had a sausage with chili and some hot chocolate. I decided to go back out, but since I figured I'd be the last person on the trail, I told the director that I would turn around when I encountered the last person returning. There were only three people who had headed back out to do the full 50k. I just wanted to get past the marathon distance. The second time out I was much slower, not feeling bad, just low on energy. I encountered what I thought was the last person returning, decided to continue just a bit more so I would get over 28 miles, and then headed back. I finished feeling ok, ate a little more then headed home. A nice way to get back into the swing of things.

On New Year's Day I met one of my blog friends. She was headed back to California from Tennessee, and had stopped in Oklahoma City to rest for the night. The next morning we met at Starbucks, and chatted like we were old friends, which we now are. Nice meeting you Penny, look forward to the next meeting. Below is our picture, and here is a link to her blog.

California International Marathon

2009-12-20T14:19:00.004-06:00

My apologies for the lateness of this post. I've basically been in a running hiatus, running but not for any real purpose other than to keep my sanity. I have been very busy in business and personal matters.
I entered this race hoping for a personal record. I'd heard that this was a fast course, and it was mostly down hill. By profile it is a more gradual and less of a drop than Tucson, but supposedly move even.
A running club friend was coincidentally running this race also. His reason was to qualify for Boston. We made it to Sacramento with no problems and went to the expo to pick up packets, talk to and listen to Bart Yasso. The next day we drove the course with a couple of other people from Oklahoma.
Race day was cold and windy. The buses to the start were efficient, but not very warm. Still, they were warmer than outside. I left the bus with about 20 minutes to go and made my way to the porta-potties. I got in and out with just minutes to spare. Once again, I was unable to make it to my starting area and ended up in the 4:15 group. We started and I slowly caught up with the 3:45 group. I hoped to run faster, but wanted to hang with them until the halfway point. This course was much hillier than I thought it would be, but everyone said the second half was better. I passed the 1/2 in around 1:50 which is about what I wanted. I hoped to at least even split. I left the 3:45 group hoping for a more downhill course. I assume it was, but again it was hilly to me. I could also tell I was soon going to be having energy problems. I started losing about 10 seconds per mile, and there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it. I was tired, cold, and the wind was blowing in our face. I started walking through the aid stations and continued to slow. I was finally having to walk about every half mile, and even when I ran it was around a 10 minute mile. I finished in about 3:52, quite a bit short of my sub 3:42 goal. I didn't feel bad, just tired, so I wasn't too disappointed. Any finish not hurting is a good finish.
My friend found me at the finish line and told me he had been successful. Great Job David

Route 66 Half Marathon

2009-11-24T18:07:00.003-06:00

This past Sunday, November 22, I ran the Route 66 half marathon in Tulsa. Four years ago this was the site of my first marathon. I decided to run the 1/2 because I'm running a full in two weeks. So I wanted this to be a long tempo run, and to also try to run my best time in a 1/2. My previous best was run in Oregon in a 1/2 that I'm convinced was short.
I felt like I had a good chance to P R because my 12k last week went well, and I was able to hold a fast pace the entire race.
A cousin had died earlier in the week, and I attended his memorial service first. It was good to see friends and relatives there. After that I headed to Tulsa to check into my hotel. After checking in I went to the expo for packet pickup and to check things out. It's a nice little expo and I did see some friends there.
That morning it was a bit cool, perfect in other words. I took the shuttle to the start and met up with more friends, some running the full, others the half. I waited too long to get in the starting area, and got stuck around the 10 minute pace area. Not good. We're off, and in the first two miles I'm working my way around slower people. It was ok, but I would have like to have started a bit faster. My first couple of miles were around 8:30. Not good enough if I wanted to run under 1:41. As I cleared the crowds, and started to warm up, I began bringing the pace down. I was soon around 7:30 and worked on holding that. I never felt bad and in fact ran a few 7:10 miles when I realized that I was going to be cutting it close. When I made the final turn to the finish, I could see the clock inching to 1:41. I wasn't too worried, I knew I had a small chip cushion. I finished with the clock reading over 1:41. When I got my official time, it was 1:40:22. I met one goal, but missed another by 22 seconds. I could have qualified for New York with a time under 1:40:00. But that's ok, I'm not sure I could do New York next year anyway. I have two ultras near that time. I'm very satisfied with my performance, and looking forward to my next marathon in Sacramento in two weeks.
Congratulations to all my friends who ran and who met their goals.

Races & Training

2009-11-15T10:53:00.005-06:00

Last week I ran the Race with Stars 5k. This has always been a good race for me and I like the fact that they don't give medals, they give gift certificates and tickets. I had a mild cold the days before the race and decided I would just run and try to be one of the first 300 who would get "an extra prize." Earlier in the year I had picked this race as a possible attempt at a P R. But that was before I decided to run the 24 hour ultra. Coupled with the cold I just decided to run by feel. I did just that and was pleasantly surprised that I still was under 22 minutes. Good enough for 3rd in Age group. Four tickets to a museum I've never heard of. And the extra prize, an LED bracelet.
Yesterday I ran the Race for Hope. This is a 12/5K run to benefit the Oklahoma Brain Tumor Foundation. I like this race and this was my 3rd time running it. I volunteered last year because of my pacing duties that night in the Mother Road 100. Yesterday a cold front came through just before the start. As I was driving to the site at Lake Overholser, I could see clouds and fog ahead. The sun was shining when I left the house. This was a good thing though, as it cooled the race off. I was running the 12k and I wanted to treat it as a tempo run for my half marathon next week. I started out slowly and then as I warmed up, began to pick it up. I wanted to hold around 7:30/mi and at times was below that pace. I felt good the whole time and finished just over 54 minutes. I didn't realize that this was a sub 7:15 pace. It ended up being good enough for 1st in age group.
After the race I went to lunch at church for the men's ministry. It was a good day including having to get a slow leak fixed on my car.
This morning I did a nice 10 miles of trails at Draper Lake. Cloudy, light rain, great run.
Looking forward to my half marathon next week, and my full at the California International Marathon in Sacramento. I've also registered for the Boston Marathon.

24 The Hard Way

2009-10-27T21:16:00.002-05:00

While I am excited about my 24 hour run this past weekend, I have to spend a moment remembering someone else.
My cousin Jimmy (Married to my 1st cousin) died last week. He had Leukemia but chose not to tell anyone, including his wife and daughter. He aslo refused any treatment. So when he went into the hospital a week ago Saturday (Oct 17th) and died two days later, it was a big surpise to everyone. Who am I to question his decision. All I can say is the man was fun to be around. He was a coach and a teacher, and the funeral was packed with his fomer students and atheletes. Less than twenty-four hours after finishing my run, I was driving in the pouring rain to his service south of Dallas. And now, back to the run.
I got up Saturday morning not knowing how the days run was going to go. The plus is since this race was in Oklahoma City, I didn't have to travel, and could sleep a bit later than usual. Our race started at 9:00 A.M. Saturday morning. We started, and I started running very slow. This was a .97 mile loop so I was trying to keep my early loops under 12 minutes. As the day wore on, I was able to pick it up just a bit. I didn't ever want to go much below 10 minutes, because I knew I had a long way to go. After 30 miles, I decided to take a 45 minute break. The other nice thing about this being a local race was I could walk to my car. I laid down and listened to the start of the OU-Kansas game. After returning to the course I continued to run into the dark. While you might think that this continually running the same loop would be monotonous, it really wasn't. As night wore on I grew more fatiqued and decided to take a longer rest. When I came back I was into my 3rd time hitting the wall. I tried various things to get over it, but in the end only time would work. The night running was hard but I was never sleepy and even during my rest times I never went to sleep. When the day broke I had a mild recovery and continued to try to keep sub 20 minute miles. I was now walking the slight up hills and "jogging" the downs. They had a computer monitor just as you crossed the timing mat, and you could see where you and others stood. My friend Bill, who helped crew and pace me at my first 100 mile race, was running his first ultra. I could see he was getting close to 100 miles, and was hoping he would make it. That's him with me crossing the mat for his 100th mile. He ended up with slightly over 100. My total ended up being 87 miles. While that is my 2nd highest total ever, I was a bit dissapointed in having taken the breaks. Without them, and assuming I could have kept going, I should have been able to get to 100 also. On the other hand, it also tells me to be able to run longer without breaks, I need to train longer. My longest training runs were around 32 miles. I probably needed a couple of 50 mile runs. I'm not sure I need to do this again, but I'm sure I'll want to later.

Spirit of Survival Marathon

2009-10-04T20:45:00.006-05:00

Today I ran the Spirit of Survival Marathon. From their website:
"The Spirit of Survival Marathon is unique because it is the only USATF certified race approved to run through one of the nation’s 547 Wildlife Refuges. For the individual looking for the ultimate wildlife racing experience, this event offers the opportunity to run while observing wildlife in its natural habitat."
Doesn't that just sound wonderful? Well I ran this race last year because it was on my birthday. It was unseasonably hot for Oct in Oklahoma, and I went out way too fast for this very hilly course. This morning it was raining and a bit chilly. The race is about 90 miles from Oklahoma City, and a group of us left the city at 4 this morning. It rained all the way, and was raining when we got there. But as it got close to start time, the rain eased up. It still was wet the entire race, but a nice gentle cooling rain. I promised myself since I now knew this course, I would run it smarter. And since I was treating this as a training run, I decided that I would get under 4 hours if I could, but not worry about it. I started out running with a friend, and as we talked, the miles seemed to go by easily. We ran the flats sub 9 minute miles, and the hills plus 9's. My friend had to make a potty stop, so I kept going and we didn't run together anymore. As with most marathons I had my ups and downs, but kept telling myself that I would push through the downs, and take advantage of the ups. I passed the 1/2 marathon mark at 1:58. I had no plans to try to negative split, but I thought that I could maybe have close to even splits. The second half I started getting fatigued, and we made a turn at mile 15 that turned us into a brisk headwind. But I kept pushing on trying to average right at 9's. When I hit around 20 miles, I allowed myself to walk for a minute. It was a struggle to keep running 9's. As I got closer I realized I could average 10's and make it under 4hours. I was able to stay close to 9:30's and finished in 3:58. Making my splits 1:58/2:00. Anytime my splits are that close, it's a good race. When I finished I was so beat I almost couldn't stand. I sat down and felt terrible, couldn't eat anything, but could drink and I had the chills. One of my friends who was driving said they have showers and you'll feel better. I doubted it, but since I was riding in his car I figured a shower was a good idea anyway. I got under the hot water and was feeling better in no time. The warm up did wonders. I'm sore of course, but feeling pretty good. Afterward we went to this famous hamburger place and had lunch. Back to the city and getting ready to go to work tomorrow. Get friends, great race, great day.

Renaissance Run & What's Important

2009-09-27T13:52:00.003-05:00

Today I ran 16 miles at lake Hefner, and in a couple hours I'm going to go run 6 easy miles in my Vibram Five Fingers. I promise a report soon, but I feel that I don't have enough experience yet with only about 25 miles on them.
I ran the Renaissance Run yesterday. This was my first major race of my running career. Up until I ran this race 4 years ago, I ran little small town races of usually less than 50 people. It is very well run but a bit hilly. However, I always seem to do well here. I ran it in 21:08 and that was good enough for 1st place in age group. Even though there were two other races in the area, there were over 300 people in this one.
My son and grand daughter spent the last two nights here with me. As I was getting ready for my race first my son then his daughter climbed into my bed. As I was leaving my bedroom to head out for the race, my grand daughter said "pa pa, come here." She hugged me and said "have a good race." Then she laid down and went back to sleep. That's what's important.

Makin' Tracks 5k & Training

2009-09-13T16:44:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I ran the Makin' Tracks 5k. I've run this before and it is moderately hilly. I still wanted to see where I stood but wasn't going to hurt myself if I could help it. I didn't blog about my last 5k before this one. How much more can I say about these? It was overcast and looked like rain. In retrospect the rain would have helped, but it held off. I started out too fast, go figure, running the first mile around 6:30. After that it was slower each mile. The humidity was terrible and many runners were suffering afterward. I finished in 21:25, slowest of my last 3 5k's but good enough for 3rd AG.
Today was a scheduled 16 mile training run with the club. It is two loops around Lake Overholser. It rained all afternoon yesterday, all night, and was raining when I got up this morning. I considered not going, but it was an easy rain no lightning. I was early and a friend asked if I'd like to do 2 easy before the start. Duh, OK, let's do it. I started with the club for the 16 and fell in with a group running a pace I thought I could maintain. It appears there was some miscommunication on water stops, and we had to get water from a garden hose after about 4 miles. Then finish the first loop with no more. They did get one up at the start, and promised there would be more on the second loop. So I started out on the second and really started picking things up. There was water this time and I finished with a total of 19 miles. Things seem to be going well with my training. I'm less than a month away from a marathon I plan to run as a training/birthday run.

Jean Michel Jarre

2009-08-30T12:08:00.005-05:00

This artist isn't for everyone. If you don't like computer generated music, you won't like him. This is an atypical song for him though, it is mostly "pan music." Steel drums as in Caribbean music. This song, Calypso, is inspired by the French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. This is a live concert performed in Paris. Jarre holds the worlds record for the largest outdoor concerts with an audience of 3.5 million people at a concert in Russia. His set a world record of 1.5 million in Houston.
All of this information is from Wikepedia.
Oh to see him live in concert.

Run With the Bulls

2009-08-23T12:42:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I "Ran with the Bulls." No, this is not a Pamplona style event. It is only called that because it starts and ends at the Oklahoma City Stockyards. I've run this race before, and it is well run and well attended. They give a tech shirt, and serve hamburgers after the race. The course is a simple out and back with one moderate hill that you see twice obviously. I've been feeling good lately, and felt like I could have a good race, not a P R, but maybe the best of the year. I started just a bit slow, but sub 4:10/KM. I saw 3 people I knew were similar in speed and hung with them for awhile. I passed all but one and stalked him until about the 4th K where he was steady, but I had to slow a bit. When I could see the clock, I realized that I had just missed sub-21. But that was ok. 21:01 chip time and 5th in age group. It was a fast bunch in the group. Still that is my fastest 5k this year.
Today I ran a 6 mile tempo run with the club. They were doing 12, so I drove to the 3mile mark, waited for some friends, then did the 3 mile out and back with them. After that, I decided to go to the park and run/walk 3 miles in my new Vibram fivefingers. More about them in a later post.
Later today I've agreed to run 14 miles with a friend.

Random

2009-08-13T09:55:00.006-05:00

I had a great 9 mile run this morning, in the country, by myself. What was so great about it? See the second part of the first sentence.
Below is a paragraph I stole from another blog:
Reality: Once in a while you get a chance to impact someones life and you can only hope that the impact that was left is positive and one that will always make that person feel they were glad they met you. Your impact on this earth is very minimal in reality. We are just a second of the existence of earth. Most certainly only one or two people you know today will be here in 100 years. Most of us in our 30s will be dead in 50 years. Over half of everyone we know will be gone. That car, that house, that bill, that pain in the ass neighbor, the mean boss, the hard expectations on and on. It all just does not matter in the big scheme of life.
The writer has had some medical issues, is improving, but had in his words a "mental health break down yesterday a pretty bad one."
Why the picture above? This month marks 25 years since I've had a drink. For many that doesn't mean a thing. A few will understand. For me drinking is not an option. I didn't drink like normal people drink. And I was headed to one of three places, the street, prison, or the cemetery. I have only been running for 5 years, so the two aren't connected, at least not closely. I have at least two co-readers (we read each other's blogs) who are wine connoisseurs. I look forward to toasting our online friendship one day, but I'll have Martinelli's sparkling cider.
There are plenty of places to discuss Rick Pitino, Michael Vick, National Health Care, and all the topics of the day. This isn't one of them.
My granddaughter is in Atlanta, I miss her. As of today, all of my immediate family is out of town. A break every now and then is good, for everyone.

Two Lakes 50k

2009-08-02T15:50:00.006-05:00

Joel contacted me around mid-week asking if I'd like to join him for a 30 mile run. I said yes. We went over our options, three times around Hefner, two times around Hefner and take the connector between Hefner and Overholser. From the time I discovered you could run between the two lakes, I've wanted to loop them both in one run. So we decided to loop both lakes. We estimated that would get us close to thirty miles. But since Joel worked near the course, we made an aid station stop there and that got us beyond 30 miles. We had planned to start at 5 a.m., but it was raining on my side of town so we started 20 minutes late. It was nice and cool then and we started off easily. Even when the sun came up it was still cloudy. When we got to Overholser it started to heat up and the clouds began to dissipate. We pushed on. Things went fairly well and when we got back to Hefner, we knew we had it made albeit at a very easy pace. We finished right at 31 miles in about 5:55, just under a 12 minute pace. We are both training for a twenty-four hour run in October.
Today I decided to do an easy six miles at Earlywine Park.

Midnight Streak & Training

2009-07-26T15:42:00.003-05:00

Last night I ran the Midnight Streak. Two problems with that name, first it isn't at Midnight, and second it's not a streak in the old running naked sense. Anyway this was my first time running this night race run at the State Fairgrounds. It is a large race, around 1,000 people. It was hot and humid, but a cool front was scheduled to come in soon. We started at 11:00 P.M. and I had decided to run a little slow to keep from overheating. I felt pretty good and started picking things up. We had one mild uphill and there were sprinklers on the course so I ran through them. I finished and saw that my time was better than I had hoped, 21:55. Good enough for third in age group, first in my age group was a 56 year old man who ran 18:09.
Yesterday morning I ran 7 miles on trails with some friends from the trail running club. This morning I ran 9 miles on different trails with two friends. I'm feeling pretty good lately and hope it continues.

El Scorcho - No más

2009-07-19T08:21:00.003-05:00

In my room trying to sleep. Can't seem to wind down. The short story is I didn't finish. I ran 6 loops and just couldn't do any more. Why? I hurt, I couldn't keep anything down, and I was dizzy and wobbling. I wanted it to stop, so I did. More after I get some sleep and drive to San Antonio.
Ok, I'm in San Antonio and I guess it's time for the longer version. I tried to nap before the race last night, but was unable to. It's just hard to change my routine, and I try never to nap because it makes it hard for me to go to sleep later. I got up and drove to the site around 11:00. I felt good at that time and then at midnight we were off. My goal was to hold 30 minute 5k's but to do the first loop just a little slower. Give things and people time to shake out. First loop around 31 minutes and not feeling bad. Second loop still feeling ok and pick up the pace just a bit. Finished in 29 and have my average where I want it. Third loop, working hard. Still on pace, but not feeling great. I've been drinking water and Heed at every aid station, two per loop. Fourth loop, not feeling well and had to start walking. Head was hurting, and couldn't drink anything but water, anything else to drink or eat just made me nauseous. I felt like quitting, but told myself I have to at least make 25k. Fifth loop, felt terrible, head hurt, legs hurt, feet hurt, and was dizzy. Kept drinking, lost it twice, but kept going. Decided I was going to drop at the end of this loop. I came through somewhere around 40 minutes. I decided to sit down for awhile and just see if I felt better. After 10 or 15 minutes I was going to turn in my chip, but instead started on the sixth lap. Again I was walking as much as running, still dizzy and unsteady. I decided I would drop this time. Around 45 minutes for this loop. I almost dropped when I went through the timing map but again decided to sit down and see if things would get better. After about 20 minutes I still didn't feel any better, so I dropped.
I was bummed out about this, but today I still feel like I made the right decision. I can't explain what happened, I've gone farther than this in training, but things just didn't go right. I don't know if it was the heat, if I was sick before I started and it just got worse. I just don't know. I feel ok today, just the usual soreness and some fatigue but no different than if I had run 20 miles in training. This was my first DNF and I hope it doesn't make another one easy. But for now I'm not dwelling on the negative.

El Scorcho & San Antonio

2009-07-17T21:29:00.004-05:00

Just a brief update. I'm headed to Ft. Worth TX tomorrow to run a 50k called El Scorcho. It starts at midnight Saturday night. Then after finishing the race, and maybe a nap I'm heading to San Antonio on business.

Hanging by a thread

2009-07-09T21:00:00.004-05:00

Tuesday I called a supplier who was way behind on shipping us some parts. A man answered the phone, and as soon as I told him who I was, he said "your parts aren't ready." An odd response I thought from someone we'd done business with for over 30 years. I politely asked when he thought they would be ready, and he said Friday. Today a lady from the company called, and told me the man who I'd spoken to, the owner, committed suicide. He was 57 with a wife, children, and grandchildren.

4th of July

2009-07-04T17:17:00.003-05:00

Not that I'm a big time patriot, but it's odd to me that today is better known as the 4th of July than Independence Day.
This morning I ran the Freedom Run. It was hot but overcast. I thought that it would be a little easier than my last 8k. Wrong, it was not sunny, but it was still 85 degrees. I started off easier and felt like I was running a pace I could sustain. But after 5k I started suffering. There was a water stop at 6k so I slowed to a walk, took two cups, poured one over me and drank the other. I finished and took 3rd in age group. Later a group of us met at Starbucks and hung around for awhile. It has been a good day, and my training is going well. I'm still not racing as well as I think I should, but I just chalk it up to the heat.

Super Summer 8k & Green People Run

2009-06-23T18:19:00.004-05:00

Saturday I ran the Super Summer 8k. It was hot, humid and I ran too hard. I had to walk during the 6th k. I was dizzy and needed to rest a moment. I finished ok, and after a while felt much better. Second in age group and a nice hat. Again, nice to get something other than a medal.
After that, I went over to the nearby Bluff Creek Trails. It was the annual Green People Run and poker game. You signed in, got 3 cards, and then for every 3.5 mile loop of the trails you ran, you got two more cards. I only ran two loops, and even then I feel like I overdid it a bit. This is put on by the Trail Running Club that I belong to, and it is a nice get together. Beer, food, and other drinks.
I had a nice father's day. Family took my son and I out to dinner, and got to spend some time with my granddaughter.
We have now entered the time of year that I hate in Oklahoma. We will be near or over 100 degrees for the next week. Hot, humid and just terrible weather to be in. The Oklahoma City Newspaper, which I refuse to subscribe to, always can be counted on to run a cartoon in winter when we have very cold and snowy weather making fun of Global Warming. They never run that cartoon in the summer.
I see no real benefit to run in the evenings, so I'm trying to get my runs in early.

A First for Me

2009-06-14T10:26:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I got the bright idea to run a track 5k. I thought I could do better because of the even surface. A couple of things I didn't take into account were, that it would be afternoon before it started, and it would be very hot.
The run was yesterday. The schedule said that the 5k would start around 10:30. So I arrived at the suburban high school track around 9:30. It was warm, but completely overcast. I thought this would be good. I did a few easy warm up laps, and then they cleared the track. So I went into the stands to watch the events. This went slow in my opinion, but I've never attended a track meet before. But to me there was way too much time between events. There weren't too many people running the 5k so they put us all together, which was fine with me because otherwise the masters group would have been last. We line up, and start. If you've never run a track 5k, it's 12.5 laps around the track. Each 2.5 laps = 1k. So we start at the 200 meter mark, halfway around the track, so we can finish at the s/f line. Since it was so hot, and now all the clouds were gone, I had thrown out all ideas of a great time and just decided not to overdo it. Several people that I felt were slower started out much faster than I did. But I had passed most of them by the 3rd lap, and lapped all of them before the finish. Don't get me wrong, I was lapped also, and double lapped by the leaders. They have a sign at the s/f line with "laps to go" but that is only for the leaders if you get lapped. I was wearing my Garmin, and I knew how far I had to go. They tried to bring me in a lap early, and I almost let them do it, but I continued on around for the last lap. Just before I finished, I lapped a guy, I knew I had lapped him, because he was one that had started fast, and I had passed before the 3rd lap. Anyway, they told him he was finished right after me. I knew he had another lap, but I didn't say anything. He came up to me and asked me if I didn't think he had another lap to go, I said I wouldn't worry about it, it really doesn't matter since we're not high schoolers. I finished in 22:41. Not great, but good enough for 1st in age group. I would like to do another track 5k, but under much better conditions.
Today I decided to run trails. I had the idea that I would just take it easy, and run all the colors of the Draper trails. I ran green, blue, red, green, orange, green, and yellow. I tacked on a little more to make it an even 10 miles. It was very humid, but I go an early start so it wasn't too hot.

Where Dreams are Born

2009-06-12T06:58:00.003-05:00

The Ending! Two-Thousand Years Later!

Sooner State Games 1/2 Marathon

2009-06-08T16:31:00.003-05:00

First, I don't want you to forget about my little quiz. Click here, and I'm adding three clues. One, it's a movie, two it was made in this century (21st), three, it's Sci-fi.
Saturday I had decided to run this 1/2 marathon. I wanted to see where I stood training wise, and see if I was heat acclimated. It was overcast, but very humid, hot, and windy. Hmmmm, I bet I could switch to the 5 or 10k. In fact, I would have had a chance to be top 3 in the 10, but I couldn't have known that, and besides, my goal was to see how I could do in a longer run. This could be a nice little race, but has had problems over the years. It was to have a few today also. We started, and as usual in a longer race, I started a bit slow. By mile one I started pulling my pace down to sub 8's. It felt good, and I felt like one I could sustain. I hadn't made the turn into the wind yet. Just after the 3.5 mile mark, we head into the wind. It's still early, so I don't feel too bad, but the problem here was there should have been an aid station around mile 4.5 - 5. On a cool day, this wouldn't have been a problem but today it was. So I had to make it to the 6.55 turn around for more aid. Then back to the 10k turn around for the next station, over 4 miles. I started walking about 30 seconds every mile after the turn around. But I must have had a lot of company because no one passed me (for good) in the 2nd half. With less than one mile to go this guy did pass me, but I found the strength to pass him back and run to the finish. My main goal here was to stay under 1:50 and I did, 1:49and change. Second in age group and lots of fluids. Which they ran out of at the finish line. They went to get more, but still not good.
Yesterday I had promised a friend to do 14 miles with him. So we did it, but neither of us could find out groove, and ended up doing it very slowly. Today I'm still dragging, but I don't think it's anything a day or two of recovery won't cure.

A Love Supreme

2009-06-05T19:50:00.003-05:00

While I'm using John Coltrane's title and cover art, it is in no way connected with this post. I just think that the title works for what I'm saying. Another title I thought of was "The Greatest Love Story ever told." And I'm not getting religious or spiritual here. I have just finished with what I think these titles describe, and I'd like you to "name that story." The only hint I'll give you right now is that this story spanned over two thousand years. Again, it's not religious.

Mt. Scott Road Trip

2009-06-02T20:57:00.003-05:00

Saturday a group of friends from the running club decided to do a road trip to the Wichita Mountains, run up Mt. Scott and then go to Meers for their famous hamburgers. We met to carpool and headed down to the park. It was a great group. It was what I love, a group of people who you don't have to watch what you say around. We ran/walked up the mountain (big hill for those of you in states with real mountains). It was about 3 miles up, and it was a good workout. We stayed at the top and took a lot of pictures, and then headed back down. It was hard to hold back, and finally after I realized I had a chance to run my fastest mile ever, I just let go. I was running close to a 6:15 minute mile. My best total mile was 6:23, but Garmin says my fastest pace was 5:45. If only.........
It was starting to get hot, and we decided to head on to part two, Meers for hamburgers. You usually have to wait in line here, but we got there almost at opening time, so we got right in. I had eaten here once before after the Spirit of Survival Marathon on my birthday last year, but I was sick after finishing and really didn't enjoy the visit. I enjoyed it much better this time. It was a great road trip, and we're planning another one at the end of this month.
Sunday I ran trails with some Trail running club friends. And this morning I did some speed work.

Weekend & Dog Jog 8k

2009-05-25T20:47:00.003-05:00

Friday through Sunday afternoon I was at my mother's. Which is where I am during the week. There is a rodeo in my hometown and it is the biggest day of the year there. It's not the same to me, but it's still a homecoming of sorts. I got to spend some quality time with my granddaughter. She begged me to let her stay with me when her mother was going to leave. I said ok, and about 30 minutes later she was throwing a fit to see her mother. I knew she was tired, and she always gets cranky when she's been up longer than usual. So I just suffered through until she fell asleep. The next morning she woke up, I was already up, and she apologized to me. She is always at her best for the first few hours of the morning.
We went to the cemetery and then headed back home. This morning I decided to run this 8k here called the Dog Jog. It is to benefit a dog charity and encourage responsible pet ownership. I don't have a dog, but I like them. I ran this and it was hot and humid. I was having a hard time keeping up the effort, but ran well considering how bad I felt. I finished in just over 36 minutes. Over a minute off my P R, but good enough for 2nd in age group. Again, they gave a useful prize. Gift certificates to Sonic. All in all a good weekend.

Patience is a virtue

2009-05-22T21:09:00.005-05:00

Years ago I heard this song. I didn't know the name, but I knew it was by Jean Luc Ponty. I became acquainted with his music through the Mahavisnu Orchestra lead by John McLaughlin. Ponty was on Visions of the Emerald Beyond. But back to this song. It touched me then, and I vowed I would buy the album. I figured I wouldn't have any problem finding it even though I didn't know the name. Wrong, I could not find this song. Remember this is pre internet, and my only real choice was to buy albums until I found it. I didn't, and so I gave up searching actively for it. I thought, I'll hear it again someday. That was over 15 years ago. Recently I've been using Pandora. I created a station beginning with Delerium and was just listening yesterday, and this song comes on. I jumped up to see what the name was, and it was this ambitious title "Computer Incantations for World Peace." If you care to listen to it, click below. And I ask that if you do, pay particular attention to the change that happens around 2:38. Remember those who are important to you.

	Jean-Luc Ponty - Computer Incantations For World Peace

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Boathouse Tri & Training

2009-05-17T15:10:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I volunteered to work at this Tri. It was a great experience to see these class athletes from the US, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America. I got to see the swim start and the transition to bikes and run. I was working the run part, and so I saw them all come through twice for the 5k run. It was great to see all these international athletes and I got to practice a little Spanish.

My maintenance training has been going well. This week I did a little speed work with 1/2 mile intervals, and I tried to do a tempo run, but it was so hot, I had to turn it into an easy run. I ran several 8 minute miles, but felt like I was going to get sick, so I cut it short. I haven't acclimated to the hot weather yet. Today I did a 20 mile long run, two loops around Hefner including the Stars and Stripes loop. I wanted to do the second loop faster, but I didn't fuel before the first, or take any water with me, so by the second loop I didn't feel like picking up the pace, and just barely forced myself to go back out. I did average a faster second loop, but that was because I ran the first two miles of the first loop over 10:30 each. All in all it was a good run, my longest since Boston. I don't have anything on the calendar, so I'm just trying to be in shape should I make a spur of the moment decision to run something long.

Running & More in So Cal

2009-05-06T09:47:00.005-05:00

I am staying in Huntington Beach for business. Yesterday evening I went for a 10 mile (5 out & back) run along the beach. I could get used to this. I have run north of here before. From Marina Del Rey north, and south. I don't know how much more running I will get in, because the business part of this trip starts in earnest today. I'm here for the filming of an infomercial. And while this is not a movie or TV series, the parts I've seen have been very interesting. I still may run a trail race this Saturday, but will have to play it by ear, and it may be sold out even if I do have the time.

Sunday I did an 8 mile progression run. I started off slow, and then started doing progressively faster kilometers. Finishing with 2 4:30's. Not as fast as I would like, but I feel like I need to ease back into speed work while incorporating the stretches the doc prescribed.

Bricktown Blaze - Training & Injuries

2009-05-03T08:08:00.004-05:00

I ran this 5k yesterday. This is an evening race to benefit Limbs for Life Foundation. I knew about this race, but had never run it before. It's a downtown race that starts and ends near the Redhawaks (Minor League Baseball Team) stadium. It was a nice cool evening overcast but not raining. That was one reason I signed up for this race. In past years it has been hot for this race. I saw the long range forecast predicting temperatures in the 50's. We've had more rain than we've needed lately. At 5:30, right on time, we start. This race takes you out from downtown just a bit then returns. Nothing spectacular about the course, gentle rolling hills. I was not feeling my best, but didn't feel bad either. I was able to hold 4:30/k's or better. I finished in 22:01, 1st in age group. The age group prize was a baseball. It's always nice to get something other than a medal.
Friday I went to see the running doc. I made an appointment with him to try to work on some minor problems before they became stoppers. I saw him before the office visit, and he told me "you know you don't have to come to my office?" He is often at our group runs, treating people out of his SUV. But as I told him, I needed his undivided attention. He diagnosed my problems, told me they were minor and gave me some stretches and exercises to fix them. My training has been on the back burner because I didn't want to aggravate any of my issues. This week I head to Southern California for work. I'll be there from Tuesday to Saturday. Depending on my schedule I may run a 22k trail race in Malibu Creek State Park.

Oklahoma City Marathon - Pictures

2009-04-26T19:17:00.011-05:00

I ran with the legends yesterday, and cheered the runners on today. I have a new toy, a Kodak Zi6 video camera. This is similar to the Flip. My skills are poor since this is only my 2nd day using the camera. Needless to say I didn't realize how jerky the video would be since I was walking, so I cut pictures from my videos. If any of you in the pictures want the video, let me know. The sound is outstanding. The first two pictures were taken by a friend, thanks Arnie, with his camera. One is me with Bill (Boston Billy) Rodgers and the other is me with Joan Samuelson. By the way, Joan was 1st place female in the half. At 51 years old she ran 1:21:57.
The runners did a great job today despite the hot, humid and windy conditions.

The 113th Boston Marathon

2009-04-20T18:33:00.007-05:00

Wow.... I wasn't prepared for this. I don't mean physically, I mean mentally. Going into this, I just wasn't buying into the hype that is the Boston Marathon. But they made a believer out of me today.
I went to the expo on yesterday and it was crowded but I wasn't impressed with it. I did buy one of the overpriced official jackets, but felt like I had to have one. I also saw Team Hoyt there.
I was looking for Kara Goucher to get an autographed pic for Wille, but alas she wasn't there.
I awoke this morning and caught the shuttle from my hotel to the race shuttle buses and then made the 26 mile trip to the start. The athletes village was ok. There were plenty of drinks and energy bars but it was crowded. The good thing is that the weather wasn't too bad. Rain was predicted for later in the day, but it was overcast and a bit chilly. It was below freezing when I got up, but it was probably in the high 30's low 40's by the time we were outside.
Ok time to line up in the corrals. Then we're off, it took about 3 minutes to cross the start and then we were running. This is the largest marathon I've ever run, and I was worried about having room to run. It does take a lot of energy to get through when you're running just a bit faster than some. From almost the start there was great crowd support. And there was never a time without that support. Every city we ran through was extremely supportive. All the parts you've heard about now I was seeing. Hopkinton, Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, let's stop here for a moment. As we approached Wellesley I heard this loud noise. A sign warned us to cover our ears. As we hit Wellesley (Women's) College, the ladies were screaming and had signs that said kiss me. I picked me out one, and moved over to plant a kiss on her. About 15 seconds lost, but I wasn't going to miss this opportunity. On to Newton, Brookline, Brighton, and Boston. This is a hilly course and while it is a net downhill, it is not what you'd think of as a downhill course. It is hard on you and takes a lot out of you. Before we hit the halfway point, there were people walking the hills. On the bus I overheard a conversation where this guy said "don't worry about Heartbreak Hill, you'll run over it and wonder, was that it?" I knew where it was before we climbed and certainly didn't wonder "was that it?" It is hard on you around mile 20, but it also isn't the last hill as I thought it was. Around mile 19 I passed Team Hoyt, and it looked like he was having a hard time. I was almost in tears thinking about them and the dedication of father Hoyt to his son. Around 22 I saw Bill Rodgers (Boston Billy) over to the side and he seemed to be having problems. I checked and he finished just over 4 hours. Which means he did indeed have problems because he is much faster than that.
I had already mentioned two things, (1) one of my New Years goals was to run Boston in under 4 hours, and (2) that my IT Band problems might derail that goal. I started out running just under 9 minute miles because the start is a steep downhill. On level ground I tried to hold 9's, lower downhill and higher uphill. Around mile 18 my IT Band put out a little dull pain, then looked up at me and smiled and said, just don't want you to forget about me, but I know how bad you want this, so I'm going to give you a break today. No more IT Band problems. That is not to say that I didn't have other problems. I was starting to hurt around 20 and had just under an hour to finish. I walked a bit on a couple of the hills near the top and then started back running when it leveled off. That seemed to work well, and I still was holding close to 9:15's, which if I was able to hold would just get me in under 4. At mile 25 I wanted to walk so bad because they were still teasing us with hills. But I knew that I was too close to 4 to do any walking. They have a sign that says one mile to go, and when I hit that I started picking it up a bit. Another hill, oh well just kept pushing and topped it, turned left and I could see the finish line in the distance. I like that because I kept up my pace and took it on in. I didn't know for sure if I had beaten 4 because the clock was gun time and I didn't beat 4 there. But my Garmin said 3:59 and change. Official time 3:59:35. Mission Accomplished.
I don't know if I'll run this marathon again, I'm qualified for next year also, but I've learned not to say what I'll do right after the race.
This is an awesome race if the conditions are right. While we had a head wind off and on, the conditions were still good.
I am also pleased that I have accomplished two of the four goals I set for myself this year.
Blessed that I was able to finish this race with no apparent injuries.

Pre-Boston Marathon

2009-04-18T18:22:00.004-05:00

I made it to Boston safely. Nothing really to report. I feel under trained for this marathon. But I am determined to run it. I didn't make it to the expo today. I walked to the subway, then remembered that I needed this postcard to get my bib. I was at the station getting ready to buy my tickets when this revelation came to me. So I just walked back to my hotel and decided to wait until tomorrow.
I just finished reading Willie's blog. I feel you brother. I haven't run this week either. I told myself I need to let my body heal, but the truth is I haven't felt up to running. On the flip side, I have read other peoples blogs, and it seems like several are going or have recently gone through this. Hopefully I will get over it soon. I plan to blog one more time before the marathon, or I may just add to this one since it is a bit short.

PATRICK FRENSLEY MEMORIAL RUN & Training

2009-04-05T16:31:00.005-05:00

I wanted to race this weekend, but didn't want to run in the Redbud Classic. The classic is a huge race, plus it is Sunday afternoon, and I wanted to run long Sunday morning.

The Patrick Frensley Memorial is a 5k run in memory of a young man (College Student) who was killed by a train....... while running. I didn't know this story until I had finished and a friend asked me if I knew the story of this race. He had a slight grin on his face and I wondered why. I thought it was strange to get hit by a train while running (sober), but then I thought back to my youth and in my mind I could see him thinking even if he didn't beat the train to the crossing, he would be able to see he wasn't going to make it and stop in time. It is also my understanding that he did beat the engine, but there was something sticking out that caught him.

I made the 20 minute drive to the start of the race. The weather was warm, but very windy. This is an out and back, so I thought the wind would be against me at the start, but with me on the way back. While it is an out and back, it is not straight out and back. It seemed that the wind was against me no matter which direction I was going. On the way back I was pretty much by myself. There was one lady right in front of me, and I heard someone tell her she was 3rd female, so I thought, I'll stalk you for a while then pass you. I passed her with about 1.5 k to go and there was no more incentive to go faster. I wasn't going to catch anyone else, and no one was going to catch me. I finished in 22:07. First in age group and that was ok. This is a nice little race, and I would do it again.

Today the running club was doing their last 20 miler in preparation for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. I did not plan to do 20, but wanted to test my IT Band up to 16 miles. The difference between today and yesterday's weather was the high Sat. was 80. The low this morning was 37. I knew a cold front was coming in and thought I was ready for it. I woke up this morning, checked the temp, 39. A little warmer than I expected, but the wind was howling like there was a winter storm going on. The weather man said these were tropical storm grade winds. I made a decision not to run with them, but wait till the sun came up and it warmed up a bit more. I also figured it might be smarter to do my miles on a loop course in case my IT Band flared up I could stop immediately. Whereas if I had run with the club, it was possible that I could be up to 8 miles from my car and would have to walk back. When I left, it was all the way up to 41, a whopping 2 degrees warmer. And the wind was still howling. I ran one untimed lap (1.5 miles) to warm up then started my Garmin. First lap at 9 minute miles. Then I sort of got into a groove and started doing 8:10-30 minute miles. I treated it like a true race pace, and when there was a headwind, I backed off, and when there was a tailwind let it take me away. I was able to do 16 miles, with an average pace of 8:30. While I did feel my band tightening up, it never hurt. That gives me hope that I may be able to run the entire Boston Marathon in a couple of weeks. I am determined to do it, but may fall short of my proclaimed goal of doing it under 4 hours.

Chicago's Lake Shore Drive - My Run

2009-03-22T18:56:00.003-05:00

Since Wednesday I've been in Traverse City Michigan. You can fly directly there but I saved over $500 flying into Chicago and making the 6 hour drive (one way) there. The weather is not bad, but I did pass through quite a bit of snow on the way there. It was just pretty snow, coming down hard but not sticking to the road. After finishing work last night I drove a few hours then spent the night in Holland MI. When I resumed my trip this morning, I kept seeing these signs for a big casino in New Buffalo MI. I decided to stop there and play a little video poker. This is a pretty large casino. I found a machine and started playing. I hit for $75 (I was playing a quarter machine) within about 10 minutes. I decided to lose up to $5 of that and quit. I did just that. So I only spend about 20 minutes in the casino and then resumed my trip to Chicago. I arrived in Chicago around 1 and decided to visit my maternal roots. My mother is from Chicago, and every summer until I left for college we would spend two weeks visiting my grandmother. My mother had two sisters living there, and one from Brooklyn who would plan her vacation to be in Chicago at the same time. I drove to the S side and turned onto Evans from 47th street. My grandmother lived at 4736 S. Evans. When I was a kid 47th street was jumping. It's pretty dead now and looks like a ghetto. When we used to visit it was brimming with activity of black folks hustling and bustling and running businesses. Theaters and restaurants, blues and jazz clubs, just people taking care of business and having a good time. Maybe it is selective memory, but to me it was a great place and a great time.

After my drive down memory lane I headed out toward Midway Airport and my hotel. Midway is west of Chicago and their secondary airport after O'Hare. I checked in and changed into my running clothes to head near downtown and Lakeshore drive. I parked near the Shedd Aquarium and headed N. on Lakeshore. My car read 63 degrees at my hotel, but it was closer to 45 at the lake. I turned around after about 1/4 mile to go back and get my gloves. I picked them up and headed N again. I ran almost past down town, about 4 miles out and then turned around. It's nice to run beside the lake and see the people and activity, but the trail really is not that nice. It is mostly concrete and is cambered toward the lake as you hit the downtown area. I finished up with 8 miles, and headed back to my hotel. I leave in the morning to head back home.

"St. Paddy's Day Great Race of the Great Plains"

2009-03-15T13:57:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I ran this 8k. This is a well done and well attended race. Since it's in the middle of March, you never know what the weather will be like. Last year it was cold and windy. This year it was overcast and rain was possible. It was cool, mid 40's, but not cold. There was no wind. I decided I wanted to hold 4:30 k's which would put me right at 36 minutes. We started and when I checked my watch, I was doing right at 4. I knew that was too fast and I backed off just a bit to 4:20. This course is at Lake Hefner, which is why it was unusual not to be windy, and is an out, back past the start and then back to the finish. I felt good in the first half, and started feeling even better. I never really fell below the 4:30 mark and picked it up to 4:15 for the last k. This resulted in a new P R 34:45, ok, by 2 seconds, but I'll take them where I can get them. That was good enough for 2nd in my age group, 1st did it in 30 minutes so I don't have to kick myself for not cutting a few seconds off my time. This race gave trophies for everything including age group placings. This race did what I wish more races would do. If you won a top 3 trophy, you didn't get both that and the age group trophy. Since the guy that beat me won 2nd place masters, I got the 1st place trophy.

Today I ran with the running club. They were doing 11 miles, supposed to be 12 but there is construction on the course. I ran fairly conservatively, but overdid it just a bit. I've been having some IT band issues, and it flares up around 8 miles. I've been stretching it but I need to keep my runs under 8 until I get over this.

Creek Classic & Training Run

2009-03-08T16:14:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I ran the Creek Classic. This is a 5 & 10 K run in a suburb of OKC. It is not a bad run, but has a bad component which I'll mention later. In years past the 5k was part of the running club series, this year it was the 10k. It was a very windy day but not cold. I knew when we headed south into the wind it would be a problem. But one we all had to deal with. We started and I was trying to hold 4:30 kilometers. I was able to do this until we made the turn south and then my pace dropped quite a bit. The race finishes with a turn W then N. When we headed west I thought I would get some relief but it was not to be. The crosswind was almost as bad as the head wind. I wanted to stop and walk but resisted the urge. When we turned south with a tail wind I picked it back up a bit and was able to finish strong. I heard footsteps behind me and thought I'm not letting anyone do that to me at the end. I finished and my time was 45:54. Good enough for 1st in age group. The awards are given out in the school cafeteria and it was then that I recalled that the last time I ran this race they took forever to give them out. Same thing this time only since I ran the 10k, I had to wait even longer. I don't know why they can't get it together, this race has run for several years. Anyway, they finally get to the 10k awards, and run out of first place medals. That didn't bother me so much as the delay.
Today the marathon training group was doing 20 miles. Since I ran a marathon last week and the race yesterday I knew I wasn't going to do 20, but wanted to run some. I ended up with 14 miles and was fading after about 10. But I was by myself so I wasn't slowing anyone down. I need this to be a fall back week, and I'll race an 8k next weekend. I probably won't race again until April after that.

Cowtown Marathon

2009-02-28T20:49:00.010-06:00

I left yesterday for the drive to Ft. Worth. This is about a 180 mile trip from Oklahoma City. I was doing this marathon on the cheap. I was staying at Motel 6 for $40.00. Got to the hotel around 3, checked in, then headed downtown to the expo. It wasn't bad, it was in tents and there were a fair number of exhibits. I got my bag, bib, and shirts ( 1 cotton, 1 technical) then headed back to my hotel. Located a grocery store, and bought a sandwich. Ate, set out my clothes and relaxed for a while before retiring around 10. Around 1 I was awakened by the sound of "open the door or we're going to kick it in." I looked out and the police were at the room next door. Luckily Sergio opened the door. They were there for about 30 minutes before they took Sergio away. No more drama, and I went back to sleep. I got up around 5 and decided to walk about a block to a C-Store for coffee. Brrrr, cold and windy. About 35 degrees, and wind gusts to 35 mph. How should I dress? I decided to go with my original plan, short sleeve under and long over, and shorts. Gloves and while I didn't plan on wearing my jacket, I couldn't locate the bag drop, and it was 5 minutes to the start. Oh well, wear it then tie it around my waist when I warmed up. That worked, and I ended up needing it longer than I had anticipated. While it did warm up some, the wind keep the chill factor up. I had lined up behind the 4 hour pacers. While I didn't plan on following them, that was my only goal for this run. We started, and it took a couple of minutes to cross the start. When we were able to run, I started trying to hold 9 minute miles or less. This was a moderately hilly run, and I would let the pace follow the course. Slow down uphill, pick it up downhill. Things were going well until around mile 12 when my right knee started hurting, and my right calf got real tight like it was going to cramp up. This was about the same time we left the road and entered a park path that was pure concrete and I could feel it hurting the moment we hit it. I tried to run through it, but it hurt when I tried to hold pace, so I decided rather than injure myself, I'd just back off and take it on in at a slower pace. About this time I realized that I had Endurolytes, and hadn't been taking them. I took one every 10 minutes for 30 minutes, and then started feeling better and loosening up. I then started pulling down the pace again. While I knew I had about a 2 minute cushion in chip time over gun time I decided I wanted to break four on the clock, not just chip time. This meant that I had to drop my pace a bit and fortunately was able to do that. I was feeling good and picking off a lot of runners who by this time had hit the wall or just had to slow their pace. As I got nearer the finish line I began to know that I would reach my goal. As I approached the finish line, I could see it counting to four hours. I had about 20 seconds to beat the clock. About that time this guy starts trying to pass me and beat me to the finish line. All the incentive that I needed to sprint past him and beat the clock. Final stats, 3:59:51 Gun time, 3:57:54 Chip. This is a well run marathon, but I have no plans to run it again.

What a difference a (3) day(s) makes

2009-02-25T19:30:00.008-06:00

My last run before today was a crappy run. I was tired and just couldn't get into a groove. So I decided to take a few days off. That seems to have done the trick. I ran a nice little 6 mile run, and after two blah miles Reese got his groove back. Today was one of those days that sort of defines why we run. It felt good, and when I finished I had the runner's high for several hours.

Here is a link to some pictures from the Rocky Raccoon 100 mile run. After all the things I was dealing with, I didn't worry about the pics. But one of my friends who helped me succeed has posted these. Thanks Bill. RR Pics.

Sooner State Trail Run

2009-02-22T14:00:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was the running of the Sooner State Games trail run. In years past, this was a 12k run at Bluff Creek. Due to pending constuction there, the run was moved to the Draper trails. The race was also changed to a choice of three distances, 5, 10, and 25k. Since I'm still somewhat recovering, I decided to do the middle distance, 10k. There was a good turnout for the races considering how cold and windy it was. I lined up and after Don fired the shotgun, we were off. I know this course well so I was running pretty good. It took a little time to get around people, this was mostly single track, and bit by bit I moved up. I finished in 51:22, 9th of 25 men, and 2nd in age group. This was a well run race, and I hope they are able to continue with it. The only real problem I see is there is not enough parking, and I guess this race can't get too much larger, there simply isn't enough room.

Today I decided to do an easy 10 mile run around Lake Hefner. I started off slow and never got in a groove. I averaged around 10 minute miles, but walked in all but the last three miles. This doesn't worry me because of the race yesterday. My legs felt tired the whole 10 so I just need a little rest.

Training Again

2009-02-19T07:15:00.003-06:00

I started back training this past Sunday. I've been running 7 to 8 miles each time. I seem to have recovered from the 100 miler but don't want to push things yet. I did do a tempo run Tuesday of 6 miles at an 8:15 pace. I have two marathons scheduled in the next few months. Cowtown the end of this month, and Boston April 20th. Just a short post to let you know I'm still out there.

Rocky Raccoon

2009-02-08T20:07:00.007-06:00

This was to be my first attempt at the 100 mile distance. If you read my previous posts, you can see the issues I was having with crew/pacers and family issues. I also told of one of my running friends who out of the blue at Starbucks last week said he would crew me. Then he found someone else to help and suddenly all the burden of getting there and back and having company to run/walk with me during the night was off my shoulders. This was the basis of my success. Yes, success, I did it and I almost can't believe it.
Willie (click on his name to see his report) and Bill (I will post some pics they took when I get them so be sure to check back) picked me up at my house on Friday morning. They had every thing I needed in the way of ice chests, waters, an air mattress and sundry other items. We got to Huntsville TX, checked into the hotel then went to the park for me to check in and so they could sign the pacer waivers. Since dinner wasn't included in the fee, we decided to eat at a local chain restaurant. We went to bed early, and I did not sleep well. If one of them hadn't told me I snored a bit, I would have told you I didn't sleep at all. But I didn't worry about that. We went to the park, and waited for the 6:00 a.m start. It was dark and we had to play follow the leader until it was light enough to see the trail. I had decided to take a very conservative pace and warm up before trying to hold 12 minute miles.
Things went fine the first loop and I did it in around 4:07. Went out on the second loop and this was the loop that I felt the worse on. My knees starting hurting and of course I was projecting forward thinking they they would continue to get worse. They didn't. I finished the second loop in around 4:20. Time for that all important third loop. I knew it would be dark before I finished it, and my crew had my headlamp ready at an aid station. These two guys were anticipating my needs every loop. Neither has run an ultra, and neither has crewed a trail run, but they did better than I could have ever wished. I was starting to fade but my mind was thinking, I can do this. I am not going to be able to do it fast, but I can finish. At about mile 56, Willie met me at the Park Road aid station to start pacing me. I was a bit concerned about this because Willie has been injured recently. I did know that I would not be challenging him with a blazing pace, but still this course is hilly, rooty, and difficult, especially in the dark. Nonetheless I welcomed the company. I won't get into what we talked about, everything, because what happens in Huntsville stays in Huntsville. I walked more than ran, but threw in runs in the spots that I knew were not too rooty and downhill. As I approached mile 80 I was really starting to believe that I was going to do this. But also my feet were killing me. I had taken several pairs of shoe and socks, but decided that if I didn't have any problems I wasn't going to mess with it. I didn't think I had any blisters, but again, didn't want to take my socks off since I wasn't having any serious problems. My feet hurt because I had been on them so long. Last loop, Bill picks up the pacing duties. Bill was just as perfect as Willie. He would ask me in places that looked easy if I wanted to run a bit. It was pitch dark, we seldom encountered others and it was a long loop. Mainly because I stopped several times to rest. But I kept them to no more than a minute or two. As the sun came up, Bill started encouraging me to run more and more. I never would have believed that I could run after covering over 90 miles, but Bill convinced me that I could, so I did. We even started pushing the uphills because I made the stupid comment that I might be able to get in under 27 hours. We almost made it, I think my time was around 27:03. No official results are available yet. Afterwards we were able to shower at the park and headed home. I'm extremely sore, but once I took my shoes and socks off, I see that amazingly I have only one minor blister on my big toe. And I've had worse than that after running a marathon. I am truly blessed to have finished, to have finished apparently with no major problems, and to have had such great friends willing to change their schedules to help me accomplish my goal. Make sure you come back to this post, because I still haven't slept in over 36 hours, so I will probably be making adjustments to this post.

Weather induced taper

2009-02-01T08:05:00.008-06:00

We had an ice storm come through on Monday. For those who've never experienced one, it is worse than snow, worse than sleet, and much worse than rain. Basically it's rain that freezes on everything it touches. On top of that, my father had to go to the hospital that day. The storm was just coming in, and I felt it was ok to drive my mother to the hospital. He is out now, but still having issues.
When the storm came in, I decided not to try to run. I have "Yak Trax" but also knew that it was time to taper for my run next Saturday (Feb. 7). Also, I have already run more miles in one week (75) and one month (232) this January than I have ever run before even with not running for 5 days this week. I did run Saturday with the Marathon training group. We did 10 miles around Lake Hefner. I warmed up about a mile before the group started. I did this because I wanted this to be a tempo run of sub 8:30 for all 10. I hooked up with a friend that I knew could pull me along at that pace or lower. It ended up lower. We averaged 8:06 and did the last two at 7:45 and 7:20. I was struggling to hold that last mile, and tailed him just a bit at the end. But did it and felt pretty good afterwards. Then went to Starbucks for good conversation, and may have picked up a crew for my 100 mile attempt. If it works out, great, but if not, I'm prepared for that also. But just the offer showed me what a great and spontaneous group these runners are.

BALTO 5K Run 2009

2009-01-24T13:36:00.008-06:00

Today I ran the Balto 5k. I wanted to run for a couple of reasons. One, I haven't run a 5k in over 2 months. Two, I wanted to see how my speed was going. This run is in a park where I've run a 5 mile race. I knew that it would be a hilly race, so I had no delusions of a PR. Also since I'm concentrating on a long trail run, I haven't done speed work in a while. It was very cold this morning. Okay Northern and Eastern readers, cold is relative. But it is cold to us, below 20 degrees. And considering it was 60 plus yesterday, and 80 on Thursday, we didn't get a chance to acclimate to this weather. I arrived at the park and was disappointed to see that we weren't using the center that the Frigid Five uses. We had to pick up our packets outside, and later wait for the awards at the same place. I picked up my number, and warmed up for about 15 minutes. I then waited in my vehicle until 5 minutes before the start. I got out, and we're off. I had set my Garmin to pace in K's and I was around 4:15 in the first K. I was fine with that, but knew I wasn't going to do all 5 in that amount of time. I was getting winded quickly, and didn't really warm up the way I thought I would. Second K in 4:12, I'm surprised by that. Third K 4:14, fourth 4:16 and 5th in 4:23. My watch said 5:03K in 21:25. I don't know what my official time is because this was an old school timed race. No chips, they pulled your tag after you finished. And I never saw the standings posted. I would guess my time was around 21:15 and I'm fine with that. I would have been fine with 22. I'm also not sure if I won my age group as they had the age groups wrong. I'm 55 and should have been in the 55-59. They have the groups one year off, 46-50, 51-55. I finished second in that group, but the guy that beat me is 51 so we really aren't in the same age group. All in all it was a good run, and I'm pleased to know I haven't lost too much speed by concentrating on long slow runs. Now back to trails and long runs.

Ramping up the mileage

2009-01-18T20:40:00.007-06:00

For the past couple of weeks, I've been ramping up the miles in preparation for my 100 mile run. I consider this my last big push before the race. I've had a couple of set backs not directly associated with my running. First, you already know about the issues with my father, I'll update you on him in a minute. Second, my pacer has let me know that family obligations may keep him from joining me. I don't really want to attempt this without a pacer. I've learned from my 100k run, and my pacing duties for the 100 mile run that a pacer is a big help when you want to quit, but really aren't in physical danger. Well the 100 mile runner probably pushed the physical to the limit, but you get my point. It is also a big help to have someone with you during the night part. Yesterday I ran with my trail runners group. After our run, we went to the home of one of the runners for pancakes, eggs and fruit. While there, a young lady said she would consider pacing me. So I may yet have a pacer. I might give it a shot even without one. I've run a lot of trails and road miles these last couple of weeks. But I've been trying to get more trail miles since that's where the race will be run. I've also done several two a days on the weekends.
My father is now in an assisted living center. Two days after he discharged himself, he had to be rushed back to the hospital. Fortunately my brother was in town and with them at the time. My father decided that he didn't want that to happen again when just he and my mother were home. So he decided to go into assisted living rather than back home. They live 12 miles from ambulance service, 30 miles from a decent hospital and 70 from Tulsa or Oklahoma City. I must say though, he is as well as I've seen him in some time. He was giving me orders, telling another man what he needed to be doing and he was very precise in his instructions. Probably has to do with being off the hospital drugs.

Update

2009-01-09T07:18:00.003-06:00

My father came home yesterday, against doctors wishes. But he said they weren't doing anything for him, and he was just wasting away in the hospital. I wondered if he was making the right decision. Preliminary results are that he did. In the hospital for eight days, he didn't walk 20 steps. At his home, he has done more than that in an hour. In the hospital he looked like he was at deaths door, at home he has perked up, been very talkative, and watched most of the football game last night. I know it's early yet, but once again, I needn't have questioned his decision. Thank you all for your kind comments and continued thoughts.

My Father and I

2009-01-04T09:53:00.005-06:00

My father and I are in business together in a company started by my grandfather, his father. The picture here is from a story done about our company in '04, Pressure-Packed Business. My father is 76 years old, and until he was in his 75th year was the picture of health. Until he began a series of 3 operations, he was at work every day. If you read the story, make note of his comments about enjoying your job. He is now in the hospital once again fighting various ailments. He went in New Years Eve, and yesterday, was put in ICU (Intensive Care Unit). He appears to be doing better today.
Yesterday, even though I had been going back and forth to the hospital, assisting my mother who is staying with me while he's here, I decided to go for both a 6 mile run with the marathon training group. And then run in a very casual 25/50k. The 6 miles went well, although we ran it faster than I had planned. I ran most of it with a couple of friends who were then going to join me in the trail run. One of them would be doing his first trail run. We got there, and started this informal run. This run was on the honor system, that is there was a sign in sheet, and when you finished, you recorded your time and distance. Most of my friends went ahead of me. I knew that if I was to do the whole 31 miles, I would have to "start off slow, and then back off." Within about 5 miles I had passed most of them, and continued on to the turn around point. This was a double out and back, but when I got to the turn around, my Garmin was reading over 8.5 miles. It should have been around 7.75. When I got back to the start, I had over 17 miles. Anyway, I went to my car to get another bottle, and decided to check my phone. I had two messages, both telling me my father had been transferred to ICU. I sat and thought about it, and decided that since there were several family members with him, I would go back out, but probably not do the whole thing. I started back out, did about 3 miles, and decided I needed to go. I headed back, recorded my miles and time, 23, 4:45, and headed to the hospital. Things were not as bad as had been conveyed to me in my phone messages, I suspected as much. But, he is in ICU, so it is serious. As a friend of mine says "thanks for listening."

2009 Goals

2009-01-01T21:03:00.002-06:00

My running goals for this year.

1. To run my first 100 miler.

2. Run the Boston Marathon under 4 hours.

3. Run a sub 20 minute 5k.

4. P R in the marathon.

50/50 by Dean Karnazes - Book Review

2008-12-26T19:27:00.002-06:00

I just finished reading this account of Dean Karnazes' running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. I have already seen the movie and saw that the book was in the library, so I checked it out. This is an interesting book, but having read his first book, Ultramarathon Man, this book is not nearly as interesting. While I felt that non-runners might enjoy U M, I can't say that about this book. In fact, even Dean seems to have had to throw in tips and observations to try to make the book more of a how-to guide. This book is mainly 50 race reports. So if you like reading those, you'll like the book.
I have had a wonderful Christmas. Wonderful because I have been around family. Joy is watching the light of happiness in a child's eyes.
My training is going well, I'm starting to ramp my miles back up. My upcoming races are mainly trail runs, so I will try to get more time on the trails. I have several goals for 2009, but will write about them next week. I will tell you that I did register for the Boston Marathon, and my application has been accepted.

The Christmas rifle

2008-12-24T09:42:00.009-06:00

The Christmas Rifle by Rian B. Anderson

"Pa never had much compassion for the lazy or those who squandered their means and then never had enough for the necessities. But for those who were genuinely in need, his heart was as big as all outdoors. It was from him that I learned the greatest joy in life comes from giving, not from receiving. It was Christmas Eve 1881. I was fifteen years old and feeling like the world had caved in on me because there just hadn't been enough money to buy me the rifle that I'd wanted for Christmas. We did the chores early that night for some reason. I just figured Pa wanted a little extra time so we could read in the Bible. After supper was over I took my boots off and stretched out in front of the fireplace and waited for Pa to get down the old Bible. I was still feeling sorry for myself and, to be honest, I wasn't in much of a mood to read Scriptures. But Pa didn't get the Bible, instead he bundled up again and went outside. I couldn't figure it out because we had already done all the chores. I didn't worry about it long though, I was too busy wallowing in self-pity. Soon Pa came back in. It was a cold clear night out and there was ice in his beard. "Come on, Matt," he said. "Bundle up good, it's cold out tonight." I was really upset then. Not only wasn't I getting the rifle for Christmas, now Pa was dragging me out in the cold, and for no earthly reason that I could see. We'd already done all the chores, and I couldn't think of anything else that needed doing, especially not on a night like this. But I knew Pa was not very patient at one dragging one's feet when he'd told them to do something, so I got up and put my boots back on and got my cap, coat, and mittens. Ma gave me a mysterious smile as I opened the door to leave the house. Something was up, but I didn't know what..Outside, I became even more dismayed. There in front of the house was the work team, already hitched to the big sled. Whatever it was we were going to do wasn't going to be a short, quick, little job. I could tell. We never hitched up this sled unless we were going to haul a big load. Pa was already up on the seat, reins in hand. I reluctantly climbed up beside him. The cold was already biting at me. I wasn't happy. When I was on, Pa pulled the sled around the house and stopped in front of the woodshed. He got off and I followed. "I think we'll put on the high sideboards," he said. "Here, help me." The high sideboards! It had been a bigger job than I wanted to do with just the low sideboards on, but whatever it was we were going to do would be a lot bigger with the high side boards on. After we had exchanged the sideboards, Pa went into the woodshed and came out with an armload of wood - the wood I'd spent all summer hauling down from the mountain, and then all Fall sawing into blocks and splitting. What was he doing? Finally I said something. "Pa," I asked, "what are you doing?" You been by the Widow Jensen's lately?" he asked. The Widow Jensen lived about two miles down the road. Her husband had died a year or so before and left her with three children, the oldest being eight. Sure, I'd been by, but so what? Yeah," I said, "Why?""I rode by just today," Pa said. "Little Jakey was out digging around in the woodpile trying to find a few chips. They're out of wood, Matt." That was all he said and then he turned and went back into the woodshed for another armload of wood. I followed him. We loaded the sled so high that I began to wonder if the horses would be able to pull it. Finally, Pa called a halt to our loading, then we went to the smoke house and Pa took down a big ham and a side of bacon. He handed them to me and told me to put them in the sled and wait. When he returned he was carrying a sack of flour over his right shoulder and a smaller sack of something in his left hand. "What's in the little sack?" I asked. Shoes, they're out of shoes. Little Jakey just had gunny sacks wrapped around his feet when he was out in the woodpile this morning. I got the children a little candy too. It just wouldn't be Christmas without a little candy."We rode the two miles to Widow Jensen's pretty much in silence. I tried to think through what Pa was doing. We didn't have much by worldly standards. Of course, we did have a big woodpile, though most of what was left now was still in the form of logs that I would have to saw into blocks and split before we could use it. We also had meat and flour, so we could spare that, but I knew we didn't have any money, so why was Pa buying them shoes and candy? Really, why was he doing any of this? Widow Jensen had closer neighbors than us; it shouldn't have been our concern. We came in from the blind side of the Jensen house and unloaded the wood as quietly as possible, then we took the meat and flour and shoes to the door. We knocked. The door opened a crack and a timid voice said, "Who is it?" "Lucas Miles, Ma'am, and my son, Matt, could we come in for a bit? Widow Jensen opened the door and let us in. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The children were wrapped in another and were sitting in front of the fireplace by a very small fire that hardly gave off any heat at all. Widow Jensen fumbled with a match and finally lit the lamp."We brought you a few things, Ma'am," Pa said and set down the sack of flour. I put the meat on the table. Then Pa handed her the sack that had the shoes in it. She opened it hesitantly and took the shoes out one pair at a time. There was a pair for her and one for each of the children - sturdy shoes, the best, shoes that would last. I watched her carefully. She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling and then tears filled her eyes and started running down her cheeks. She looked up at Pa like she wanted to say something, but it wouldn't come out."We brought a load of wood too, Ma'am," Pa said. He turned to me and said, "Matt, go bring in enough to last awhile. Let's get that fire up to size and heat this place up." I wasn't the same person when I went back out to bring in the wood. I had a big lump in my throat and as much as I hate to admit it, there were tears in my eyes too. In my mind I kept seeing those three kids huddled around the fireplace and their mother standing there with tears running down her cheeks with so much gratitude in her heart that she couldn't speak. My heart swelled within me and a joy that I'd never known before, filled my soul. I had given at Christmas many times before, but never when it had made so much difference. I could see we were literally saving the lives of these people. I soon had the fire blazing and everyone's spirits soared. The kids started giggling when Pa handed them each a piece of candy and Widow Jensen looked on with a smile that probably hadn't crossed her face for a long time. She finally turned to us. "God bless you," she said. "I know the Lord has sent you. The children and I have been praying that he would send one of his angels to spare us."In spite of myself, the lump returned to my throat and the tears welled up in my eyes again. I'd never thought of Pa in those exact terms before, but after Widow Jensen mentioned it I could see that it was probably true. I was sure that a better man than Pa had never walked the earth. I started remembering all the times he had gone out of his way for Ma and me, and many others. The list seemed endless as I thought on it. Pa insisted that everyone try on the shoes before we left. I was amazed when they all fit and I wondered how he had known what sizes to get. Then I guessed that if he was on an errand for the Lord that the Lord would make sure he got the right sizes. Tears were running down Widow Jensen's face again when we stood up to leave. Pa took each of the kids in his big arms and gave them a hug. They clung to him and didn't want us to go. I could see that they missed their Pa, and I was glad that I still had mine. At the door Pa turned to Widow Jensen and said, "The Mrs. wanted me to invite you and the children over for Christmas dinner tomorrow. The turkey will be more than the three of us can eat, and a man can get cantankerous if he has to eat turkey for too many meals. We'll be by to get you about eleven. It'll be nice to have some little ones around again. Matt, here, hasn't been little for quite a spell." I was the youngest. My two brothers and two sisters had all married and had moved away.Widow Jensen nodded and said, "Thank you, Brother Miles. I don't have to say, May the Lord bless you, I know for certain that He will."Out on the sled I felt a warmth that came from deep within and I didn't even notice the cold. When we had gone a ways, Pa turned to me and said, "Matt, I want you to know something. Your ma and me have been tucking a little money away here and there all year so we could buy that rifle for you, but we didn't have quite enough. Then yesterday a man who owed me a little money from years back came by to make things square. Your ma and me were real excited, thinking that now we could get you that rifle, and I started into town this morning to do just that, but on the way I saw little Jakey out scratching in the woodpile with his feet wrapped in those gunny sacks and I knew what I had to do. Son, I spent the money for shoes and a little candy for those children. I hope you understand."I understood, and my eyes became wet with tears again. I understood very well, and I was so glad Pa had done it. Now the rifle seemed very low on my list of priorities. Pa had given me a lot more. He had given me the look on Widow Jensen's face and the radiant smiles of her three children.For the rest of my life, whenever I saw any of the Jensens, or split a block of wood, I remembered, and remembering brought back that same joy I felt riding home beside Pa that night. Pa had given me much more than a rifle that night, he had given me the best Christmas of my life Merry Christmas Everyone Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Time off in the Dominican Republic

2008-12-21T17:19:00.003-06:00

For the last week, my wife and I have been in the Dominican Republic celebrating our 29th anniversary. During that time my running miles have gone way down. Less than 25 miles a week. But that is a good thing. I'm not sure I could have wound down my mileage otherwise, although the cold weather in Oklahoma may have been able to accomplish the same thing. We enjoyed our time away, but travelling at this time of the year is a huge headache. While we stayed at an all inclusive resort, within the D R people always have their hands out, and I detest that. I'm not singling out the D R, every country I've been in has been this way. And it was the same way in Miami, where we stayed a couple of days. More and more I'm convinced that customer service is almost dead. We had several occasions where we were lied to about why things didn't happen the way they were supposed to. But tis the season, so I'm not going to dwell on that. We are home, safe and sound and all is well.

Feliz Navidad Próspero Año y Felicidad!

2008-12-12T22:21:00.000-06:00

Activity

Route:	--	Elev. Avg:	3819 ft
Location:	Oracle, AZ	Elev. Gain:	-1762 ft
Date:	12/07/08	Up/Downhill:	[+692/-2454]
Time:	07:29 AM	Difficulty:	4.1 / 5.0

Performance

Distance:	26.17 miles
Time:	3:43:31
Speed:	7.0 mph
Pace:	8' 32 /mi	Heart Rate:	163 bpm (Avg)
Calories:	2778		182 bpm (Peak)

Map

Elevation (ft)

Pace (min/mile)

Heart Rate (bpm)

Heart Rate Zones

Zone	Range (bpm)	Time In Zone		Distance In Zone
Zone 5	167 - 185	1h 22m	36%	9.67 mi
Zone 4	148 - 167	2h 34m	69%	18.14 mi
Zone 3	130 - 148	0h 00m	0%	0.07 mi
Zone 2	111 - 130	0h 00m	0%	0.01 mi
Zone 1	93 - 111	0h 00m	0%	0.02 mi
(none)	out of range	0h 00m	0%	0.00 mi

Splits

Mile	Pace (min/mile)		Speed (mph)		Heart Rate	Elev Gain
Mile	actual	+/- avg	actual	+/- avg	Heart Rate	Elev Gain
1	8' 00	-0' 32	7.5	+0.5	161	-220 ft
2	8' 27	-0' 05	7.1	+0.1	164	-36 ft
3	8' 19	-0' 13	7.2	+0.2	164	-43 ft
4	8' 40	+0' 08	6.9	-0.1	164	+6 ft
5	8' 25	-0' 07	7.1	+0.1	162	-39 ft
6	8' 24	-0' 08	7.1	+0.1	153	-170 ft
7	8' 24	-0' 08	7.1	+0.1	153	-144 ft
8	8' 24	-0' 08	7.1	+0.1	154	-118 ft
9	8' 25	-0' 07	7.1	+0.1	155	-121 ft
10	8' 31	-0' 01	7.0	+0.0	156	-76 ft
11	8' 47	+0' 15	6.8	-0.2	160	+23 ft
12	9' 14	+0' 42	6.5	-0.5	164	+65 ft
13	8' 28	-0' 04	7.1	+0.0	159	-78 ft
14	8' 43	+0' 11	6.9	-0.2	161	-55 ft
15	8' 29	-0' 03	7.1	+0.0	159	-91 ft
16	8' 32	+0' 00	7.0	-0.0	163	-72 ft
17	8' 29	-0' 03	7.1	+0.0	164	-114 ft
18	8' 23	-0' 09	7.2	+0.1	166	-85 ft
19	8' 30	-0' 02	7.0	+0.0	166	-82 ft
20	8' 29	-0' 03	7.1	+0.0	168	-59 ft
21	8' 29	-0' 03	7.1	+0.0	169	-56 ft
22	8' 35	+0' 03	7.0	-0.1	169	-49 ft
23	8' 27	-0' 05	7.1	+0.1	170	-62 ft
24	8' 31	-0' 01	7.0	+0.0	171	-49 ft
25	8' 47	+0' 15	6.8	-0.2	173	-3 ft
26	8' 36	+0' 04	7.0	-0.1	173	-32 ft
end	8' 45	+0' 13	6.8	-0.2	175	+3 ft
Versus average of 8' 32 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Holualoa Tucson Marathon

2008-12-08T07:54:00.005-06:00

Well it's over. My purpose in running this marathon was to qualify for the Boston Marathon. For me to qualify, I needed to run 3:45 or better. This is an 8:35 average pace. Since Tuesday, I've been writing this blog in my mind trying to figure out how I could explain not achieving my goal. Why?, because I haven't run what I've felt like is a good long run. Sure, I've run over 30 miles three times, but saying "run" is to use the term loosely. All of those runs were really in preparation to pace a runner in the Motherroad 100 miler. And they were all run at a pace over 12 minute miles. But I had also been running pretty good tempo miles, so I knew I still had a chance. Anyway, my trip to Tucson was uneventful. Planes on time, no problems renting a car and finding the marathon expo. The expo was very small, but everything went smoothly. This race used one of the new style chips that tears off your bib and loops through your shoelaces. It's a throwaway. On my way to the expo I passed a Trader Joe's. So I knew where I would be buying dinner. I stopped there on my way back, got a sandwich and salad and went to my hotel to settle in and watch football. First I watched Florida take care of Alabama, which I figured they'd do, and then I watched Oklahoma take care of Missouri. I slept pretty good considering that I usually don't sleep well the night before a marathon. I got up at 4 and got dressed, got some coffee and headed to the parking lot to pick up the bus to the start. Got to the start and it was cold, but not as cold as I had expected. I decided not to wear anything other than shorts and my running club t-shirt top. I had gloves and long pants on but just warmed up in them, and then threw everything else into my drop bag. A countdown from 10, a horn and we're off. If any one plans to run this in the future, email me. I'm not going to go into all the ins and outs of this course, but let's just say that if you expect to be running down hill all the way, you're mistaken. But it's still a fast course. After reading other peoples experience with this course, I decided that I would let it take me along, that is bank time where I could and give it back where I needed to. I settled into my pace, still with doubts in my mind. Could I hold this pace and not crash and burn around 18-20 miles. My heart rate was running higher than I liked, but it was do or die. Also my Garmin will sometimes read high at first, but if I stop, let the rate drop, then start again it will usually stabilize. But there was going to be no stopping for that in this race. So I just pushed on with it running high. Eventually it did drop to where I wanted it, but after 12 miles it went back up. This race takes about a 4 mile detour into an area called the Biosphere. While I'm not sure I ever saw the Biosphere, this is where you have to give back time you've banked, and trust that you will bank some more after you leave here. This is a very hilly area, and I dropped to over nine minute miles based on what I had read from previous runners. Around mile 4, a lady asked what my goal was, then said that was hers also. She said maybe we can help each other and I said ok. We pretty much stayed together until after we left the Biosphere. Then she started dropping back. I had to keep pushing if I was going to make my goal. My left calf started hurting, not much but it made me think I might have problems up ahead. I remembered that I had some Endurolyte capsules, but also I have problems swallowing pills and capsules when I've been running for a while. I decided to chew them rather than swallow them whole, and after a while they seemed to work. I kept holding my pace, and when I hit mile 20 with about 3 minutes to spare, I started thinking I might be able to do this. But I also knew the wall generally resided in this area. But I kept pushing. Mile 21, 22, 23, I hit 23 with about 27 minutes to go to make my goal and I was thinking, I'm going to do this. My pace was faltering, but it was still just below 9 minute miles, and that was good enough to get me in. I started pushing near the end, you know it starts getting good to you when you smell victory, and I saw the clock was reading 3:42 plus. As I was nearing the finish line, I heard the guy was calling out names and cities, then I heard him call my name and Oklahoma City. I crossed in 3:43:01 chip time, 2 minutes to spare, sweet. I got my medal, some water and walked around for a bit. Then I went back to the finish line in time to see my new friend finish. She was beat, but said she felt ok, just couldn't maintain the pace. I then walked around some more and decided to wait to see a friend who had moved from Oklahoma to Colorado. I knew she was running, and had seen her during the out and back to the Biosphere. She was running with the 4 hour pace group, and I figured she'd be able to hold that. I saw her come in, talked to her for a while and then headed to the bus back to my car. Before I got to the buses, I saw a guy whose blog I read named Dane. He's a pretty fast runner, and is famous for having run 52 marathons in 52 weeks. He did it to raise money for a charity, and called it fiddy2. I have linked to both his blog and charity. You also might want to read his race report , since it gives more course information than mine. I then took the bus to my car headed to the airport and now I'm home. Hurting and sore, but I've felt worse. Happy to have achieved my goal, and in the next few days will decide if I will register for the Boston Marathon.

Turkey Trot 8k

2008-11-28T20:51:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I ran the 8k Turkey Trot. It was good weather, and one of the largest crowds I've seen there, over 800 people. As has been the trend lately, more women than men ran the race.

I wanted to run well, but didn't have that "great race" feeling. I warmed up and then got ready to start. We were off and I was feeling tired within 1k. But I pushed on. I had set my Garmin to record my pace in k's and I wanted to try and keep a 4:15 to 4:20 pace. I was doing that and hanging on through 7k. I faltered a bit near the end, and I averaged 4:21/km or right at 7:00/mi finishing in 34:47. I took 3rd in my age group, 53rd male and 61st overall.

After that, I went to Stillwater for dinner. It was ok, my sons and granddaughter went with me. We ate, came back and I took it easy for the rest of the evening. This morning I went to Arcadia lake to meet with 3 other people for an easy 9 miles on trails. This was a very relaxing run, and I felt great afterwards.

I hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving.

Racing and Life

2008-11-23T07:33:00.003-06:00

Before I started blogging on Blogger, I blogged on Myspace. The title of this post is from a Myspace post from Dec. '07. Here is the first paragraph:

"This past weekend (Fri Nov 30-Dec 2) I was in Dallas visiting a couple I've been friends for many years. The friends moved from OK to TX about 3 years ago. The man was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) about a year ago, and is starting to go down hill. He can't walk, can barely talk, and gets around in a motorized wheelchair. Since I knew I was going, typical me, I had to see if there was a race nearby, there was,"

I stopped there, because I went to Dallas again this weekend, and again I found a race.

So now I will talk briefly about the race. I found a 5k in Weatherford TX about 45 miles from where I was staying. My appointment in Dallas was for 1:30 Saturday, and I couldn't just hang out in my hotel until then. So I went to the "Coyote Chase" and ran, came in 2nd in my age group. Well run race, they gave you a nice trophy instead of a medal. Back to last year.

Here is the last paragraph from that '07 post:

"Back to my friend, some people I've talked to about this situation ask me "how can you deal with his illness?" "How can you stand to see this man that you used to hang out with, run a business with, and travel with in this condition? I reply, me? All I have to do is treat him the same as I always have for 3 days, then I'm back home preparing for work or my next race. But he has to deal with things like his wife or caregiver having to wipe his behind and feed him every day. He had to deal with knowing that there is no cure for ALS and it is almost 100% fatal. I got the easy job."

Well Anthony died last week, he was 48, and I went to Dallas to help his wife celebrate his life. She had a wake Friday night, and it was as close to a party as you can get in a funeral home. I spoke very briefly "I look over you all and know that many of you knew Anthony better than I did, and I know that I was not his closest friend, but whenever I was around him, he made me feel like I was his best friend." Everyone who spoke of him said the same thing, they would call or visit to encourage him, and he would turn the tables on them every time. He would always end up encouraging them. He will be missed, but as someone else said, his influence will always be with us.

Putnam City Cancer Classic 5K

2008-11-15T18:23:00.004-06:00

I wanted to keep the speed work up after my very long slow distance last weekend. Many of my friends and co-runners are off to run in either the Tulsa Route 66 Marathon or the San Antonio Rock n Roll Marathon.
The only race nearby was this 5k which was perfect as far as I was concerned. It was cold this morning, and even colder at the race site which is on the lake. My car was showing 40 before I got there, but I know it was in the 30's with a wind chill in the 20's. I did my best to stay warm until the start. This was a moderate sized race, 212 finishers, and a fairly flat course. We started and I was looking at a couple of people ahead of me that I knew I wanted to get ahead of quickly. I did, and as the course turned north we were going into a strong headwind. I had my Garmin set to alert me when I was going too slow and it was beeping constantly. But I knew I wasn't going to use all my energy fighting the wind. This is an out and back course, so I knew the second half would be with a strong tail wind. I made the turn around and none of my age group rivals were anywhere near me. Still I was giving it all I had. As I passed the 4 k mark I was fading fast. I heard someone breathing heavily behind me and thought it was a rival. I sneaked a peek as I made the final turn and saw it was someone much younger. He passed me and I crossed the finish line. I had a finish time of 21:27. That was good enough for first in my age group, and I was fine with that. Today was not a day for p r's.
I will run an 8k on Thanksgiving Day and then it's the Tucson Marathon for my B Q attempt.
Good luck to all that are running marathons and half marathons tomorrow.

Motherroad 100 Miles - Pacing duties

2008-11-09T17:30:00.005-06:00

This was a first for me, a race that I was running for someone else. Throw ego to the side, and realize that you are there for the runner you're pacing, not for yourself. Some time ago, a friend of mine announced he was running the Mother Road 100 Part 2. I told him if he did, I wanted to pace him. He said, "I sort of had you in mind." This was to be his longest race ever. I won't go into his ups and downs before the race, you can read his blog if you care for the background. If I had not had pacing duties, I would have run a 12k yesterday. I thought I could do both, but I decided to check my ego, and not run it so as to be well rested when my pacing duties started. The 100 mile race started at 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning. The plan was for me to jump in at mile 67 and basically run with him through the night and on to the finish line. I woke up that morning very early, and decided to go out to the 12k and volunteer. I had a great time there and for one of the few times got to see a race from start to finish. It was inspiring to see both the front runners kicking butt, and the back of the packers just enduring to the end. After that, I went home to piddle until that night. I knew I needed to nap, but just wasn't tired. I watched football, but again was getting restless. So I decided to find my way to finish line parking and see if I could find a ride to the meeting place aid station. I waited in my car and listened to the end of the OSU-Texas Tech game. I saw someone picking up a pacer, turned out I knew the pacer and they agreed to take me to my meeting place. My runner was running a bit behind schedule, so I went out to meet him. He was in good spirits, this is around mile 65, and was actually assisting another runner. He whispered to me that he was going to make sure this runner made it to the 72 mile aid station, and leaving it up to him whether to continue. We did that, and the runner stayed at the aid station. I don't know if he finished. This aid station was a weigh in point, and Joel was right at the limit, so he hustled out before they had time to do the math. He said he was really a little heavy at the initial weigh in, and he was not concerned that he was not taking in enough calories. We pushed on to the loneliest part of the race. This was a 6 mile stretch of dirt road that crew vehicles were not allowed on. Did I mention that it is now around 2:00 a.m and cold cold cold. I had dressed warmly enough, but I always have issues with my hands. This night was no different. It was hard to navigate this section, there were several forks in the road, but we finally figured out that they had thrown ribbons on the correct road. This would be a very hard section by yourself, and after that many miles you'd be a bit punch drunk. I would guess that several people dropped after this section because of that and the cold. Joel decided that when we finished this part, and got back to our crew vehicle, we would have to sit inside for a while to warm up. He had put together the perfect crew, this guy, Michael, was the right man for the job, and assisted Joel with his every need. The car was showing around 35 degrees. Joel was also starting to have some foot issues, 78 miles by now, go figure. He took care of them, and we headed out for the next section. It was a low point for Joel again, but again he persevered. By the time we made the next section, the sun was coming up, and so were his spirits. We started running more than before, and made our next section in good time. Joel had goals, but in my mind my only job was to listen to him, and get him to the finish line safely and under the 30 hour cut off. I gently pushed him, but this was not a kick him in the pants for some unimportant time goal. Joel was really hurting on the last section, but he smelled victory and kept moving. Our pace was slowing, and quite honestly I was getting a bit sore. We were going slow, but over 30 miles is still a long way. However, I knew I wasn't going to get any sympathy from a man on his 95th plus mile. Joel's family started showing up as we neared the finish. He was hurting big time, he didn't give me all the details, I'm sure by this time just talking is a big effort. But it was clear he was just pushing the pain aside and concentrating on the finish. I honestly gained more and more admiration for him as he pushed on. This race has a cruel finish, you turn through a gate and think the finish line is not far and then you see a sign that says "only 1.5 miles to the finish."

Nonetheless he persevered until the end. I am sore after my 35 miles, but so glad that I got to be a small part of this impressive showing by Joel. Great job man.

A Very Historic Day - Un Día Muy Histórico

2008-11-05T06:18:00.007-06:00

When I started this blog, I made a conscious choice to keep it non political. Not that I'm not political, I'm a very political person. And I will admit that for the first time in my life, I contributed to a presidential candidate. However, I didn't want the blog to be political. Politics has gone beyond civil reasonable discussion and disagreement, to nasty dirty lies and innuendos about people. Nevertheless, I cannot stand silent on the historical nature of, and the statement made by the people of the America I live and vote in. I will leave it with "we can only hope that the promises become reality." "Esperamos que las promesas serán realidad."

Race With Stars - Training Runs

2008-11-03T17:41:00.003-06:00

This past Saturday, Nov. 1st I ran the Race with the Stars 5k. I like this race, it is run well. There is plenty to eat before the race, hot coffee and chocolate and they don't give medals, they give gift certificates to local business. I think I won one to Outback last year. Also, the weather was perfect, too cold before you start running, but just right after. Which also makes the coffee and chocolate taste so good. I saw only one rival that I thought would give me a problem, and I was right, he will be great motivation in my new age group. Nice, get older and the competition gets faster. I finished in 20:48, good enough for 2nd place in age group and only my second ever 5k finish under 21 minutes. The prize was a gift certificate to a Chinese restaurant. It was a good run and afterwards I went to a friends home who served breakfast to many of the runners.

Sunday I did a double run. First, in the morning I ran 8 miles with the running club. While I ran the first miles easy, I ran the rest slightly below MP to bring the overall average to MP. I cut the run short because my granddaughter was spending the weekend with me and I didn't want her uncle to have to deal with her too long. After she left I went out to the lake and did 11 miles very easy. I won't bore you with the rest of the week, but it was good with a mixture of runs.

This weekend I'm scheduled to pace a friend in his 100 mile run. The weather looks good and I'm feeling good about his run.

50k's and a Birthday Party

2008-10-26T18:51:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, Saturday, was a very busy day for me. I had plans for running in the evening, but I wanted to do sort of a warm up run in the morning. Around 9:30 a.m. I went to a local park. My plan was to run 4.5 miles, it's a 1.5 mile loop track. I started very slow and ran the first mile around 11:30, this included stops to stretch. I ran the next two at 8:30, this gave me three miles, and I decided to go ahead and make it an even six, so I ran the next two at 8:00 and ran a cool down mile at 9.

Next up was a date with my granddaughter. She had asked me Friday evening to take her to a classmates birthday party. I wasn't clear on the details, but I knew I had to pick her up at 12:30 for a 1:00 start. I got to the address and it was a place called "Pump it Up." It's a well run party place for kids but appointment only. They start you out with a safety video, then take you into the first play room. A lot of air pumped up play areas. Slides, jump areas, ball play areas, and in the 2nd room more of the same but including a obstacle course. After watching the kids for a while, I had to do the slide myself. It's a good workout getting to the top of the slide, but then the fun begins. I did it about 4 times, then in the next play room I did the obstacle course twice. After about an hour playing, and getting the kids good and tired, they take you to the party room. Pizza, vegetable trays, and plenty to drink. I was hungry now, and the pizza was as good as at any of these type of places I've ever been. But I think they bring it in. Cake, open the presents and then the show is over. About two hours total, perfect. My granddaughter wanted to go somewhere else, but as soon as she got in the car, she went fast asleep, perfect. I took her home and then prepared for the rest of my evening.

A friend, Joel, is running his first 100 miler in a couple of weeks, and he wanted to get in a long night run. I had not promised to run it all or any of it with him, I wanted to see what plans my granddaughter had for me first, but since things seemed to be working out, I decided to go for it. I got there, and there were two others there to run one loop with us. A loop is about 10 miles. It was daylight when we started, but it was dark before we finished the first loop. When we finished, the two dropped, and we gained another runner for one loop. We finished that one, and then Joel and I did the last loop together. We finished after midnight, and did just under 31 miles. So I'm calling it our midnight 50k.

In all Fairness

2008-10-23T12:55:00.006-05:00

I want to be fair about experiences I've had with different companies. I dogged O'Reilly Auto Parts in an earlier post about the way I was treated there. Now here is an encounter that had a different ending. I mentioned in my previous post that I had to rush home after running Saturday for an appointment with an appliance repair man. I had purchased a new dryer from Best Buy one week before. It was new, but a floor model out of the box and discounted over $140.00. I hooked it up and within about two days it started making this grinding sound. I couldn't meet anyone at my house until this past weekend, so I scheduled an appointment for Saturday, and they were to call me by 10:00 a.m. By 11:00 still no call, so I call them. They have me down for an appointment two weeks later. I said you've made a mistake, there is no way I would have scheduled an appointment that far out for a new appliance. She said let me see what I can do, but you may have to hold for about ten minutes. I said no problem. She comes back, and says I'll have someone there within ninety minutes. The guy gets there, and says the machine is damaged, you should get a replacement. I say, ok, but in my mind I'm thinking there's no way they are going to let me replace a floor model they discounted with a brand new one. Well, not only did they replace it with a new one, they never once said anything about the fact that they had discounted the first one for being out of the box and on the floor.

I condemned O'Reilly, I want to commend Best Buy for their customer service. And before I get carried away, I know that individual experiences will vary from time to time and depending on the customer service rep you get.

That's What I Get

2008-10-21T07:56:00.004-05:00

Training has been going well. Last week, I did a little of everything. Long runs, speed work and tempos. I seem to be able to hit my marathon pace fairly easily, although if there are any hills at all my heart rate climbs a bit higher than I'd like. From what I've read you can hold about 85% of maximum heart rate for some time. But go above that, and it's the same as going past your lactate threshold. So I've been doing some long slow runs to try to strengthen my heart.

Now, to the reason for my title. This Saturday the running club was doing fourteen miles. I decided I wanted to do 18 miles, but that I wanted to do the 14 at sub-marathon pace. Around 8 to 8:10 miles. My plan was to get to the lake an hour early and run a very easy 4 miles to warm up. Well when I got there, two of my friends were there, planning basically the same thing. So I take off with them, but a warm up for them is a bit faster than I had planned, but I ran with them. So then we start the 14 with the group. I start out running sub 8's and it feels OK. So I decide to hold on to them for at least the 7 miles turn around. I ended up holding them for 8 miles. I made my first water stop, then continued trying to hold at least 8:35's. This was now difficult, but I also wanted to finish the 14 miles in two hours or less. I was slowing, and it didn't look like I was going to make it. But with around 2 miles left I see I can make it if I hold around 8:30's. So I go for it. My gait is now not right, but I push on. I finish in 1:59. Mission accomplished. I had to leave almost immediately for an appointment with an appliance repairman. That's a story for another day, but it ended well. I feel very sore and like I might have pulled something. Later in the day I can barely walk. I'm starting to get worried. I have been relatively injury free for several years now, and I'm really afraid I've hurt myself. Sunday, I get up a little late and decide to go to this park to see if I can run at all. If nothing else, I can walk one loop, 1.5 miles. I get there, stretch, walk, stretch, walk, then try to run. Can't do it, can't run even a few steps. OK, no need to panic, you may just be real sore, you did run 18 miles harder than you've ever run a marathon. So I finish the loop walking, and go home. Monday I'm starting to feel a little better, and I can run just a little. Tuesday, much better, I can run, but I'm still not back to normal, but I'm now convinced that I'm just super sore. That's what I get for over doing it.

SOS Marathon - Emergency Rooms

2008-10-12T19:37:00.003-05:00

One more note on the Spirit of Survival Marathon I ran on my birthday. They made a big deal out of it being my birthday. When I finished I checked my time and saw that I was 4th in age group. The next day when I checked the online results I noticed that they had me in my old age group. I was actually 3rd in my new age group. I didn't get my medal, my companions told me the medals were generic so I didn't bother with trying to get it mailed to me. But it is a first for me, a top 3 age group finish in a marathon. Mind you my time was not great and it was a small marathon but I take my victories where I find them.
Today I did a very easy 11 mile run/walk. I was running, and ran into a friend who was walking. He had raced yesterday, and was just taking it easy today. So I walked with him for awhile, and when he turned back I started running again. It was an easy recovery week.
Yesterday, Saturday October 11th, I was taking it easy, watched OU lose to Texas and preparing to "chill" for the rest of the day maybe run a few light errands, when my granddaughter calls and asks me to take her to the emergency room. Now my granddaughter is 5 so you know who was really asking. So I speak to her mother and her mother says "yes, we do need to go to the emergency room." So I go get them and take them. My granddaughter is in a great mood and just glad to be around "pa pa." And of course I'm thinking "is this trip really necessary." But of course error on the side of caution when it comes to children. So, the short rest of the story is I was in the emergency room from around 2:00 p.m until around 11:00 p.m. A nine hour stay for about thirty minutes of actual interaction with medical staff. And they treat you like crap, even though she has insurance. Thankfully my granddaughter is doing just fine.

They say the mind is the first to go

2008-10-05T19:35:00.005-05:00

Today is my 55th birthday. It's on a Sunday, when most marathons are run, and it's a new age group birthday. So what do I decide I want to do on my birthday? Sunday, football, how about lay around the house being waited on hand and foot while I watch football in my underwear and eat as many empty calories as I can? No? Ok, how about letting my family take me out to lunch or dinner, and then watch Sunday Night football? No, ok, how about finding a marathon, oh look, there's one just around 80 miles from Oklahoma city. Let's do that on your birthday. Duh, ok. So that's what I did. Willie , David, and I carpooled down to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge for the Spirit of Survival Marathon. I told everyone that my goal was to just treat this as an easy training run, and not try to go too fast. But deep down inside I hoped to run under 4 hours. This is a very hilly course and not conductive to running real fast. Nonetheless I was trying to hold around 8:45's for the first half. Even though I knew that I needed to keep my heartrate below 160 I consistently let it climb above that. I ran as hard up hill as I did down. You see where this is going. I ran the first half in around 1:55, I ran the second half in 2:23. Nice little positive split for a finish time of 4:18. Not my worse, but not a great time. About a mile from the end, I was walking at this point, this young lady passes me and says "run with me." Well being a sucker for a pretty young lady, I start running, then it starts getting good to me and I go off and leave her. I hear the speakers ahead, and keep pushing even though my body is now saying slow down and walk some more. I push on to the finish, cross the line and almost pass out. I slowly walked to find somewhere to sit down, and get something to drink. I really felt bad and was a little worried. But after about 5 minutes, I started to feel better. The two guys I rode with both finished top 3 in their age groups so we waited until they could get their medals. I'm grateful for this as I still needed some recovery time. We left the race to find the world famous "Meer's Hamburger" stand. We found it, and had to wait about 30 minutes to get in. I was still a bit unsteady on my feet, so I sat outside until they got a table. After I ate, I felt much much better. I was not impressed by the hamburger, it was good, but not great, a bit dry to me. Anyway, I got home, took a shower and then weighed myself, down 5 pounds, and this is after eating and drinking quite a bit. So I hit the wall because I was not eating enough, but I was feeling full, and really thought I was drinking too much. Anyway, it was an enjoyable day, mainly because of the great company of Willie and David.
Happy Birthday to me.

St. Gregory's 5k - Birthday Marathon

2008-09-28T19:42:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I ran the St. Gregory's 5k. St. Gregory is a Benedictine college. I like the place because you see monks walking around in robes. They blessed the race last year, but we had a less colorful blessing this year. I sized up the competition and saw that I only had one running club age group rival. They moved this race date, and there were fewer people this year. We took off and he was ahead. I decided that I'd better get ahead of him right away because I know near the end of a race I get the "I don't cares." I don't care if he beats me, I don't care who passes me now, I don't care that I'm near a P R. So I speed up and pass him within a few blocks. I had set my Garmin for a :21 minute race. This would be a P R for me. I was ahead of pace the whole time, and I felt as though I might get under 21 minutes for the first time. But on the main street we pass through this underpass and the Garmin lost the signal. This is an out and back on that portion, so I lost the signal twice and I wondered if the Garmin picked up correctly. Anyway I felt like I had first in age group locked up and was starting to gasp for air near the finish. When I was in view of the clock, I saw that it was just passing 20 minutes..... WOW. So I held pace and finished in 20:28. A new PR for me by 47 seconds. I felt pretty good about that, and feel pretty good about either this year or next year being able to get below 20 minutes.

I'm planning to run a marathon this coming Sunday, Oct. 5th. I'm only doing it because that's my birthday, and I just thought it would be cool to run one on my "new age group" birthday. I have no big expectations, it's a wildlife park marathon, and not conducive to a fast race. So my plan is to treat it like a long training run.

My granddaughter called me yesterday and wanted to spend the night again. Since I was home alone, I said yes. So that took care of running this morning. But I got her back to her mom by noon and decided to do an easy trail run. I went to the Draper trails and did an easy 5 miles.

Redman Tri & Training

2008-09-21T19:32:00.006-05:00

Yesterday I worked in my running club's aid station for the Redman Full and Half Ironman. This is my second year and I love doing this. For one thing it is a nice party for friends from the running club. And it is always inspiring for me to see these multi-sport athletes. Our aid station is at the turn around for the marathon. So we see the half's first, then we see the fulls who have to come through twice. The lead male and female breezed through like they were just starting their marathon. Forget the fact that they had already swam 2 miles and biked 112 miles. Awesome.

Yesterday morning I wanted to run with a group that ran 16 miles at Overholser. But I missed them by about 10 minutes. Since I knew there was no way I would catch them, I decided to just warm up, then do about 8 miles at marathon pace, 8:35. I started at mile 6 and ran 8 at pace, then backed off and cooled down for the last 2 miles. I saw the group pulling out from the parking lot, so depending on how long they stayed after finishing, I wasn't too far behind them. Today I planned to really burn it up. I ran with the running club at Hefner for a planned 12 miles. I got there thirty minutes early and did a real easy 1.5 mile warm up. By the time they got there I was ready and when we took off, I hung with the lead pack. We started running 8 min/miles and picked it up to 7:30's to the 6 mile water stop. I was amazed that I still felt pretty good. We took off again, and we backed it off to 8 min/miles. Since my pard and I decided to just finish the loop instead of an out and back. I needed another mile. He said he was done, so I took an easy cool down mile. All seems to be well.

GEICO Race for Freedom - Granddaughter Visit

2008-09-14T18:15:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was the Geico 10k. I was running late, by my standards, and couldn't park as close as I would like. This meant that I didn't warm up the way I like to and that bothered me a bit. It wasn't a bad morning, despite worries about the remnants of Hurricane Ike disrupting the race. It was overcast, but very humid. We start and I start sort of fast. By the first turn-around, about a mile and a quarter I realize I'm going to have to slow down. I was hurting from almost the beginning, and was worried that I would have to walk some of this race. After we split from the 5k runners I had scaled back my pace into survival mode. I knew it wasn't a P R day, but still hoped to finish in the top three age group. After about 4 miles I started to feel a little better. I picked it up a bit, but we had an out and back hill to climb. I hung on to continue to hold off anyone behind me. I finished in 46:45, well over my best time. Oh well, you can't P R every time you go out but I did finish 3rd in my age group. One more medal to throw into the drawer.
Today I ran 10 miles around Hefner at a very easy pace. I wanted to run with the running club but after the race yesterday, my granddaughter called me and asked if she could spend the night with me. All other plans went out the window, and I went to pick her up. We had a great time together yesterday and today.

Makin' Tracks 5k & Training

2008-09-07T13:57:00.002-05:00

Training is going well. I've been feeling pretty good. I did a 12 mile run on Wed and felt pretty good. I did have an issue that has only happened to me once before. That "I've got to find a bathroom and fast" issue. And since I'm a guy, you can guess it wasn't number one. Anyway, I'll spare you the details, but I was able to take care of business, and felt so good after that the rest of my run went very well. Today I did a 16 mile run with 8 miles from mile 6 at 8:30 or better, my Boston qualifying pace.
Yesterday was the Makin' Tracks 5k race and I was a bit apprehensive since I hadn't run a short race in some time. But when I got to the site, and after a short warm up, I was really feeling pretty good. I felt like I might have a P R in me. I sized up my age group competition and decided there was only one person I had to worry about. We took off, and I was feeling good and taking it kind of easy. I was passing people but wasn't at maximum velocity yet. There are some small hills in this race, and I felt really good climbing them. After 3k I only saw the one guy in front of me and decided I might have a chance to catch him. I picked it up a bit, and after passing the 4k mark I was really starting to hurt. The last k is also uphill and I wasn't in love with it as much as the earlier ones. But I was determined to catch him, and hopefully win first in my age group. It also helps that I know this guy slows a bit near the finish. I caught him with about a block to go and won my age group by 4 seconds. I also P R'ed by 20 seconds. A good morning all in all.

Follow up and Moving Foward

2008-08-31T16:17:00.005-05:00

Just a few more comments on the Green Lakes 100k. I have been informed that I won the "Courage of Trying" "Inspiration Award." Ok, thank you. I didn't feel courageous and very inspiring while I was whining about not being able to finish in under 14 hours, but I do accept this in the spirit in which it is given. Moving forward, I had to go to work immediately the day after this longest run of my life. And it was difficult, but day by day it got better. I was working a trade show in New York, and had to be on my feet all day. During the week after, I ran 5 miles on Tue and 5 miles on Thur. I think it was a bit soon, but I had committed to run 30 miles on Saturday with a group that was running the first part of the course for the Mother road 2 100 mile run. And I thought that some short runs would speed my recovery. I have agreed to pace a friend in this race. I will probably pace him on the overnight part of the run, so I will not be running this part, but I felt like I needed to run part of the course with him in training. Up until Thursday, I wasn't sure whether I would be ready to run this far so soon. I really didn't feel ready, but knew I needed to let him know something, so I decided to say yes, and hopped I would feel better by Saturday. We drove to Elk City on Friday night in a storm, and wondered what the morning would bring. We got up early, and it was calm and really a bit warm. It was not 6 yet, and I think it was in the upper 70's and humid. We met up with two other people, several others had backed out, and started our journey. I felt pretty good, but this is on old Rt. 66 and the highway is mostly concrete. My knees didn't like that, but it wasn't too bad. When the sun rose, it began to get hot fast. By mile 24 folks were starting to feel it, and we slowed to more walking than running. One of our group agreed to run on ahead and get the car, and we would call it a day wherever he picked us up. He got back to us at mile 27 just when we were starting to feel better. In any event it was a good run, I got to know two new runners, and as always, they are good people. I'm going to take it easy for the next week, and probably race a 5k next weekend. It has been months since I've raced one, and I'm curious to see where I am speed wise. Enjoy the holiday weekend everyone.

100k - Almost

2008-08-24T21:23:00.007-05:00

Almost dnf'ed. Story follows.
First let me say I'm just getting in to my hotel room. I started not to do the report until tomorrow, but what else do I have to do besides deal will all these aches and pains.
I made it to the race in plenty of time and waited around for the start. Pretty low key, ready set go. My plan was to hold my heart rate in the 140's and not worry about pace. On a level surface that would be sub 10 minute miles anyway. However, I was soon to learn that this course was anything but level. After about 2 miles you start this wicked ascent. No one was running it but the eventual winner, Valmir Nunes of Brazil. Last years Badwater winner. Many of us wondered why he was at this race, turns out he has a connection with the race director, and is training for Spartathlon, a 152 mile race run in Greece. The ascent is so steep that if it had rained, you wouldn't have been able to get up without holding on to trees. The first two loops went well, I did them both in under 1:30. Each loop was 7.77 miles, and I had to do eight. Also, it was unseasonably hot with no cloud cover. On loop three, the heat was starting to slow me down. If you look at my splits, you'll see that they got progressively slower. After finishing loop four, I seriously thought about dropping. But after staying in the s/f area for a few minutes, I decided to go back out. From here on out, I thought about dropping after finishing every loop. This race had a twelve hour cut-off for starting the last loop, and I finished loop seven in 11:57. I was the last runner allowed to start the 8th loop. I left, and a lady left with me since I was going to be the last runner on the course. I thought there was a fourteen hour cut-off, and I knew I was going to be cutting it close. So I took off on the last loop mostly running until I got to this steep ascent. I thought I could handle it one more time, but when I finished the climb this time, I was dead on my feet. I had to sit down at the aid station. this is an unmanned station, and is about a quarter through the loop. At this point it is closer to go back the way you came than to finish. I told the sweeper, I was going to drop here and head back. This lady, Carolyn said, why don't you think about that, maybe walk for awhile and see if you feel better. You know that climb took a lot out of you, and maybe you'll feel better in a bit. I said, I'll never make the fourteen hour cut-off. She said, they let you continue, you'll be listed. This perked me up a bit and I started walking. But after a little while, I had made up in my mind I was going to drop at the half-way aid station. I was dead on my feet, and could manage to run only a tiny bit on downhills. We made it to the half-way, and these guys had been nothing but great to me the whole time. When we got there, they said they were hoping I had made the last loop cut-off. I said I've got to sit down and make a decision here. While there were no more significant up hills, I just didn't think I could make it. But I sat for a few minutes, ate a bit, and said let's go. By now it was starting get a little dark, we were back in the woods, and I was glad Carolyn had loaned me her flashlight. And she had her headlamp. There was no more running to speak of, and we just powered on. I was now feeling better, I hadn't been much of a conversationalist during the first half, and Carolyn sensed that, and didn't try to engage me. But now we were getting to know each other. We went down the significant downhill, and made it to the bottom where it was pretty much flat to the finish. The crew at the finish line saw our lights, and started yelling my name. I told Carolyn that it was a double edged sword, it was nice to hear my name, but I knew they knew it because I was the only runner left on the course. We took it on in, everyone was great, taking our pictures, making me feel like a star. I finished in 14:25 It turns out I was also the second place Veteran, read old man, so I also got an award for that. While I was the last person to finish, I will say that there were people behind me that didn't make the cut-off. Also, 36 people started, and only 11 finished. I made sure Carolyn understood how much her encouragement meant to me. And this also underscores the value of a partner late in a race like this. Had she not been there, I would have dropped. I am so thankful to have finished this race. Apparently with no injures or illnesses.

The Taper to 100k

2008-08-22T19:54:00.005-05:00

I've arrived in Syracuse with no major problems. I flew into Buffalo because it was several hundred dollars cheaper than flying directly here. My flight was about an hour late into Buffalo, but that was not a problem. I still got here before 7 local time.

My training has been going well. I ran 30 miles this weekend. Twenty on Saturday, 11 on roads and 9 on trails, a new trail to me, my first run at Arcadia lake. I like this trail, but it is a long way from where I live. Sunday I ran a fairly easy 10 miles at Earlywine park. This is a 1 1/2 mile track. I ran a hard quarter during every loop, but otherwise I just ran to keep my heart rate under 135. This week I've only run 8 miles. I ran 4 on Tue easy, then ran 4 Thur. 1 easy and 2 at 8:30 and the last one at 7:30. I won't run anymore before the race.

I'm a little nervous about this run since it will be my longest ever, but I do feel like I'm in condition for the race. It looks like it will be a bit warmer than I'd like but I'll just adapt as the conditions dictate. This race has a 14 hour cutoff. That's not a blistering pace, but you can't take it too leisurely either.

Good luck to everyone running tomorrow in the Run with the Bulls or any other races. I'll be checking the results.

Should you care to follow me they have a link and say they will update the splits in real time. To remind you, this will be 8 loops around a 12.5k (7.77 miles) trail.

http://www.runrace.net/findarace.php?id=08237NY&tab=a5&runumbr=17

For a description of the course, go here:

http://www.gleruns.org/the_course

Hope to be giving you a race report Sunday evening.

Hasta el domingo