I finished my (possibly) last marathon last month, in conditions brutal enough to make seasoned NYC marathoners quit the course before the halfway mark. For those of you who have been following the blog for these past 7 (seven!) years, I won't bore you with the mile-by-mile recap. Suffice it to say the course was spectacularly wonderful and cruel, as only marathons can be, and there was the usual cheering, cursing, gasping, and weeping...all before mile 14. High wind speeds destroyed a few runners; bibs were being whipped off racers in the first .2 miles across the Verrazano bridge. (A quadruple-pinned bib is, let me tell you, a difficult item to simply tear off from your body.) Headwind was nearly consistent the whole race, adding to the already chilly autumnal season. I wore full winter racing gear, plus a plastic garbage bag for insulation. (Suffice it to say the race photos shall never surface.)
But, the most entrancing part of the race were the crowds - all of New York showed up to cheer and marvel at the runners - the energy from the spectators truly made the difference. That will forever remain my favorite part of the whole experience, being taken care of by the New Yorkers in every borough.
Special thanks to my friends and family who, I can say with supreme confidence, supported my finishing to an extent they know not. I honestly would not have been able to finish that marathon and get back on a plane immediately after (another great post in the works) without their help.
The picture of me after the finish line, where I befuddled the photographer by insisting, through my sobbing, that he snap a picture despite the snot and tears, is testament to the relief of knowing that I had not only completed the race, but also transitioned out of my life in NYC. Having taken a new job in the Bay Area recently, I found myself with two weeks to pack up my 10-years-in-NYC life and move back to the Best Coast. Never could I have predicted, back in February, that by signing up for the race, would I have to fly back to NYC to complete it.
So there I was, late September, in my little apartment off 18th street, staring at the multitude of things I had to ship to California. I thought about all the times I had imagined race weekend: waking up in Brooklyn, heading over to the pier to take the ferry to Staten Island, and not checking any post-race baggage since I would simply hobble home afterwards. There I haggled with myself, amidst a labyrinth of cardboard boxes, trying to determine if it was worth shipping my GU packets back with me or not. (File that away under; "Things I Did Not Anticipate Having To Think About"...). Six boxes and two FedEx packages later, I was shipping my life across the States once more, about to start a new chapter, with a small pit stop in DC for a 10-miler/family reunion. On the plane home, I barely had enough time to re-envision what race day was going to look like. In fact, I didn't even register that I needed another flight back to NYC in less than a month, nor did I completely think through the logistics of race day (which is why I was/am still so grateful for the support network I have).
I realized later that the most pressing circumstance of the whole move was affecting me at a subconscious level:
How had I managed, after all these years, to end up back at the beginning?
The move itself was whirlwind, and, in typical NYC fashion, left me with barely enough time to process what had just happened before I was jumping back into what seemed to be a life ala deja vu. Nothing was terribly unfamiliar, and, having lived a semi-adult life already in the Bay, I felt like I was simply stepping back in time, yet with a better sense of who I was this time around. While I may have settled into a routine here in Cali, there are times where I feel like I'm just visiting, and living an extended European vacation. Never in NYC can you call your daily life picturesque (unless you count those special sunsets on the Hudson in winter when the sewage doesn't smell quite so pungent). But here, running around in the foggy mornings, or in the clear midnights, it's a surreal transportation to some semblance of a Conde Nast travel poster.
I very clearly remember my first "returned" run, about a week after I had settled: I laced up my shoes around 8pm and headed out towards the foothills. It's weird to run on pavement here - I actually snickered to myself thinking about how often people expect running on pavement will destroy you, and that being my only medium for so many years. I was grateful for the pavement in that moment: feeling like NYC had followed me across the country. I was breathing in deep gulps of the night air, so piney and purifying - when I turned into the local track at the elementary school. Running around the sandy track, I saw a few faintly bobbing headlamps and heard the sounds of dog leashes clicking away down the street. I was thinking about how odd it was to be running in the warm weather, and how much colder it might be for the marathon. I was a little lost in my thoughts as I turned up an alleyway to head out the back of the school, when a quick flash of light swung up into my face and a small voice called out:
"Greeting Adventurer, what brings you here at this time of night?"
I barely registered the surprise I felt at being heralded by an 8-year old and his expedition companion.
I shuffled by, without missing a beat, huffing out a quick retort:
"Running."
Duh, I caught myself thinking. There it was: true New York indignation at being asked a question with an obvious answer in plain sight. "Adventurer" - that kid was having a very creative walk, and what a question to fall out the darkness to interrupt my thoughts. In fact, that was the part that surprised me the most: having a simply absurd and yet strangely timely question posited to me in a dark back alley of suburban California.
What did bring me here?
Running, I had said. Yes, running had brought me there, to that little path behind the school in the later evening, putting in the last bit of taper mileage before I was to fly back to NYC to race through all 5 boroughs. But running, as I rolled the question over in my mind, had also brought me to many distinct places in my life. I've often joked that every time I train for and complete a marathon, some major shift happens. The first time, I started a fresh life in New York. And this time, what might be the final time, I was starting a fresh(ish) life in California. And I mention that because, honestly, there is no place like a run to really figure out your life.
Philosophically, I know that running has taken me many places, and not always in an obvious sense. Running has taken me to places in my emotional and mental life that are strange and wonderful and challenging. I've had time to reflect on who I am and what I want out of life, during those long silent 20-milers. I've questioned my sanity on speed intervals, wondering why I torture myself. Running has pushed me out the door into blustering weather and warm sunny days, into freezing winds and sweeping landscapes. I've run in nearly every state and country I've ever visited, and run with people from all walks of life. Running has introduced me to new and old friends, to new and old places, and to new and old versions of myself. I wasn't a runner for much of my life, and then I became a runner, and then I stopped and had to start over and rediscover what being a "runner" actually means....
There are many things that bring you to where you are, but none so catalyzing as running. It will not let up, it will not let you turn around, while at the same time chiding you for defeat at every step. My lungs are a testament to its insistence - take a break from running for two weeks and see how it feels to return. It surprises me every time, how quickly the practice can dissolve out of your system. But then there are moments of arriving at gracefully easy strides, where your body says, "ah, that's familiar" and you relax because you've found that perfect pace where everything is effortless, and the thrill of unlimited potential rises into clear view. You can feel how long it's taken you to get to that ease, and understand what it means to truly earn something. Running has brought me from simply moving to moving forward.
And that's the most compelling part for me: the very idea that the most primal movement, a forward motion, can often transform your whole existence. I've traveled from coast to coast, from 5Ks to marathons, from young to not-that-young, from 'I-think-I'll-run-a-marathon' to 'what-the-hell-was-I-thinking-AGAIN'. Running has brought me joy, tears, aches and pains, insurmountable obstacles, and laughable benchmarks. It brought me back to school, back to my own life, and back to a place I've always known was home.
Running, very simply, always brings you full circle: you start, you go, and you return...and for all the places I've gone, or seen, or done, or been, running will always bring me back to the beginning.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Friday, December 5, 2014
Food is Fuel
It's a weird thing, to motivate your muscles with your mind.
It's a lot like that scene in that Tarantino classic 'Kill Bill': Uma Thurman, just out of her coma, drags herself (using only her arms) through a basement-level parking lot, and hauls herself into a truck to audibly concentrate on re-animating her body, simply by saying aloud to her toe "wiggle your big toe"... despite having been bed-ridden for years, and this being the first time she's moved. Her arms were fine, but her legs - well, it takes thirteen hours to get herself fully functional again.
It's a lot like that scene in that Tarantino classic 'Kill Bill': Uma Thurman, just out of her coma, drags herself (using only her arms) through a basement-level parking lot, and hauls herself into a truck to audibly concentrate on re-animating her body, simply by saying aloud to her toe "wiggle your big toe"... despite having been bed-ridden for years, and this being the first time she's moved. Her arms were fine, but her legs - well, it takes thirteen hours to get herself fully functional again.
Running at 6am without breakfast is literally like throwing my body into a pickup truck and telling my mind to start the car so I can go avenge my honor.
The lesson from this morning is:
Uma should have stopped by the hospital cafeteria to grab a snack before trying to attempt feats of glory.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Getting Nowhere
I surrendered to an indoor run last weekend, on a treadmill, because humidity.
During the hour and forty-three minutes I was treading along, the lack of scenery made me acutely self-aware of the aches and pains of continual running, suddenly illuminated by having to stay in one spot.
I don't think the mind is made for stasis. Or static. There's something in the motion of running that triggers a need for progress. It's perhaps built into our DNA; how odd it feels to be running and getting nowhere - that feeling of perpetual stasis while in motion is enough to make anyone go crazy. Hence, it's an immense mental feat to run loops around a track, or miles upon a wheel.
I'm not quite sure how to articulate it, but I know that when I'm running, it's a relief to my sense of motivation: progress in some form is actively happening. Especially outside, the changing scenery is immediate evidence of the progress. But put a human in one place, and the DNA starts getting confused.
"Hey, we aren't going anywhere!'
"What's the point of you moving so fast right now? Nothing new is happening!"
"When are you going to feel like you're making progress?"
"You are wasting your life in one spot here."
Remember when we didn't have mileage on a treadmill? I suspect the manufacturers had to come up with some way to keep our DNA from jumping off the machine - hence the obsession with checking how far I've gone now that another 45 seconds have passed. It's infuriating, because the treadmill itself isn't like real road - the road does not, I can guarantee, roll out behind you. If anything, running outdoors compared to being on a treadmill is like trying to swim through a tar pit. It. Does. Not. Feel the same.
I competed in a road race yesterday, despite rain and wee morning hours. I hadn't run a whole bunch this week, and despite the "all-clear" from the pulmonologist, I wondered how my VO2 was going to hold up. I was less worried about my body, because after running long-distances for a while, you know that it's only a case of mind over matter. However, my mind still likes to make up excuses for the myriad of bodily aches that manifest after 45 minutes of tar pit wading:
"You're going too fast, you're gonna burn out before you hit 3 miles."
"We don't ever run this fast for this long, SLOW DOWN because I can't breathe."
"Your plantar fasciitis is acting up and you're going to have heel spurs if you don't walk right now."
"You realize you are not improving at all right now. You're simply headed for the medical tent."
Sometimes it doesn't matter about where you're running, the mind is still going to put up a fuss - and the only way to distract it is by proving it wrong.
Running through Central Park yesterday morning, as the rain drizzled down, I made one last mile-long effort to shuffle past 7 other runners in front of me. I don't know where the push came from, but something in my mind knew that, despite the pace, the rain, the aches and pains, I needed feel like I was making progress. So push I did, shortening my cadence, focusing intently on one back after another as I passed the other competitors, surely and consistently, and repeating to myself, over the din of my mind:
"Running is easy, running is easy, running is easy (no it's not) running is making me relaxed, relaxed, relaaaaaaaaaaaax."
"Do. Not Puke."
And then it was over, crossing the finish and letting my arms fly up to give my lungs some room to expand out to twice normal capacity in order to catch my breath.
Progress.
It can hurt, but it feels so good.
During the hour and forty-three minutes I was treading along, the lack of scenery made me acutely self-aware of the aches and pains of continual running, suddenly illuminated by having to stay in one spot.
I don't think the mind is made for stasis. Or static. There's something in the motion of running that triggers a need for progress. It's perhaps built into our DNA; how odd it feels to be running and getting nowhere - that feeling of perpetual stasis while in motion is enough to make anyone go crazy. Hence, it's an immense mental feat to run loops around a track, or miles upon a wheel.
I'm not quite sure how to articulate it, but I know that when I'm running, it's a relief to my sense of motivation: progress in some form is actively happening. Especially outside, the changing scenery is immediate evidence of the progress. But put a human in one place, and the DNA starts getting confused.
"Hey, we aren't going anywhere!'
"What's the point of you moving so fast right now? Nothing new is happening!"
"When are you going to feel like you're making progress?"
"You are wasting your life in one spot here."
Remember when we didn't have mileage on a treadmill? I suspect the manufacturers had to come up with some way to keep our DNA from jumping off the machine - hence the obsession with checking how far I've gone now that another 45 seconds have passed. It's infuriating, because the treadmill itself isn't like real road - the road does not, I can guarantee, roll out behind you. If anything, running outdoors compared to being on a treadmill is like trying to swim through a tar pit. It. Does. Not. Feel the same.
I competed in a road race yesterday, despite rain and wee morning hours. I hadn't run a whole bunch this week, and despite the "all-clear" from the pulmonologist, I wondered how my VO2 was going to hold up. I was less worried about my body, because after running long-distances for a while, you know that it's only a case of mind over matter. However, my mind still likes to make up excuses for the myriad of bodily aches that manifest after 45 minutes of tar pit wading:
"You're going too fast, you're gonna burn out before you hit 3 miles."
"We don't ever run this fast for this long, SLOW DOWN because I can't breathe."
"Your plantar fasciitis is acting up and you're going to have heel spurs if you don't walk right now."
"You realize you are not improving at all right now. You're simply headed for the medical tent."
Sometimes it doesn't matter about where you're running, the mind is still going to put up a fuss - and the only way to distract it is by proving it wrong.
Running through Central Park yesterday morning, as the rain drizzled down, I made one last mile-long effort to shuffle past 7 other runners in front of me. I don't know where the push came from, but something in my mind knew that, despite the pace, the rain, the aches and pains, I needed feel like I was making progress. So push I did, shortening my cadence, focusing intently on one back after another as I passed the other competitors, surely and consistently, and repeating to myself, over the din of my mind:
"Running is easy, running is easy, running is easy (no it's not) running is making me relaxed, relaxed, relaaaaaaaaaaaax."
"Do. Not Puke."
And then it was over, crossing the finish and letting my arms fly up to give my lungs some room to expand out to twice normal capacity in order to catch my breath.
Progress.
It can hurt, but it feels so good.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Breath Bowling
I recently visited the pulmonologist, to check on my lungs. I've reached a point in my tempo runs where the bottom of my lungs constrict, and the back of my throat gets tight. Makes it a little harder to breathe, but nothing I haven't really dealt with before. However, with the amount of running I've been doing, I expected that I'd be seeing a marked improvement in my lung capacity. At least, I would expect that the breathing gets easier at some point, right?
My pulmonologist referred me to a lab for testing, something called a "complete PFT" to do a workup on my lungs, to rule out asthma. Since I'm an allergy sufferer, there was a chance that the lung situation is not necessarily chronic.
So off I went to get a chest x-ray, and to visit the Lung Lab for a workup.
And I can honestly say it was one of the more memorable experiences I've had in the hospital.
I arrived in the morning and was the only patient in the lab, along with another pulmonologist and a Russian technician, who were processing reports at their desks. The lab had a small, clear-paneled booth (reminiscent of a telephone booth) with long plastic tubes attached to a cardboard-tube contraption hovering near a chair (bolted inside the booth) which you face while seated. Outside the booth is a computer that generates statistics of your testing, and nearby is a chair where the pulmonologist of the Lung Lab sits and yells at people all day long.
I've been yelled at in my life, but it's usually been within the context of leaving milk out of the breakfast table, or being coached through sprint repeats on a track; it's rather absurd to have a medical professional screaming loudly at precise intervals while pressing on the back of your lungs while you are fully conscious and in no hurry whatsoever.
The first step in a "complete PFT" (Pulmonary Function Testing) involves forcefully inhaling and exhaling into the cardboard tube. Meanwhile, a computer shows you an animated image of a bowling ball which, no matter how forcefully you exhale, never reaches the pins at the end of the pixelated alley. It's rather disheartening, but the doctor assures you that your lung capacity is 100%, very healthy. This is after he's also introduced himself to you three times already, shook your hand thrice-over, and has meticulously explained the statistics that are populating on the spirometer read-out.
The second step involves inhaling a methacholine aerosol mist that causes the airways to spasm, while the doctor inquires about what you do for a living. Then you're supposed to try and knock those pins over again while he screams, even closer, in your ear. For asthma sufferers, the capacity usually drops by 20%. (Mine only dropped 8%, so that was good news.) After 5 rounds of misting and breath bowling, you feel slightly dizzy, which is (as the pulmonologist joked) "exactly how he likes his women." Afterwards, he asks if you need a glass of water, which you politely decline, because you're surrounded by an arsenal of unknown prescription drugs and a loud, forgetful lung doctor who seems to enjoy dropping double entendres.
In between methacholine rounds, small talk reveals that the doctor likes to spend his weekends outside the city, and refers you to the best apple orchard in Vermont. While you may assume that perhaps small talk might relieve the yelling, each round involves more laborious coaching, as if yelling these breaths out of you will make you birth a lung baby. He asks again after round four if you need a glass of water, and despite your refusal, brings over your abandoned iced coffee, mentioning it's probably not the best thing to be drinking during this sort of test, but puts the straw up to your lips anyhow because you're "still looking piqued."
The last step in the PFT is removing all the mist you've unsuccessfully (judging by your bowling score) exhaled by way of a bronchodilator. "Lips sealed, nice and tight... just stay like that for three more minutes." He mentions that he should do a recording of his voice, or perhaps you could do a recording, so he could save his lungs from having to coach people all day long on their breathing. But he's not sure you would have the time, because he's not even sure "if you are single." You might give a tight-lipped smile, hoping he has a report to process. Probably, he will begin arguing (loudly) with the Russian technician about COPD instead.
After reviewing your computerized read-outs of your exhalations, he will assure you that your test is pretty normal, and that there is a small percentage of a chance that it could be a false negative, but you can rule out asthma, most definitely. He will then regale you with the story of how, once, he was on a bike ride in Vermont and got chased by a pack of wild dogs, to the extent where he was sprinting so fast that he felt a touch constricted in his lungs and thought it "was probably a touch of EIA", and that your experience was probably much like his, so you simply "shouldn't push so hard."
You may neglect to mention you are training for a marathon, and cover up your smirk with a cough, compliments of the bronchodilator. You might then pick up your bag, thank him, and make a hasty retreat for the door.
"Don't forget to go back to your doctor!" he will yell at you from down the hall.
All very strange, you will think. But your doctor will be able to tell you soon if you need an inhaler before you go out and push too hard in the future. Hopefully she won't yell at you about it.
My pulmonologist referred me to a lab for testing, something called a "complete PFT" to do a workup on my lungs, to rule out asthma. Since I'm an allergy sufferer, there was a chance that the lung situation is not necessarily chronic.
So off I went to get a chest x-ray, and to visit the Lung Lab for a workup.
And I can honestly say it was one of the more memorable experiences I've had in the hospital.
I arrived in the morning and was the only patient in the lab, along with another pulmonologist and a Russian technician, who were processing reports at their desks. The lab had a small, clear-paneled booth (reminiscent of a telephone booth) with long plastic tubes attached to a cardboard-tube contraption hovering near a chair (bolted inside the booth) which you face while seated. Outside the booth is a computer that generates statistics of your testing, and nearby is a chair where the pulmonologist of the Lung Lab sits and yells at people all day long.
I've been yelled at in my life, but it's usually been within the context of leaving milk out of the breakfast table, or being coached through sprint repeats on a track; it's rather absurd to have a medical professional screaming loudly at precise intervals while pressing on the back of your lungs while you are fully conscious and in no hurry whatsoever.
"And now breathe out, evenly, ok, now IN DEEP DEEP BREATH KEEP GOING and now OUT! BLOW OUT! KNOCK DOWN THOSE PINS KEEP GOING KEEP GOING ok and inhale deep, ok good...."
The second step involves inhaling a methacholine aerosol mist that causes the airways to spasm, while the doctor inquires about what you do for a living. Then you're supposed to try and knock those pins over again while he screams, even closer, in your ear. For asthma sufferers, the capacity usually drops by 20%. (Mine only dropped 8%, so that was good news.) After 5 rounds of misting and breath bowling, you feel slightly dizzy, which is (as the pulmonologist joked) "exactly how he likes his women." Afterwards, he asks if you need a glass of water, which you politely decline, because you're surrounded by an arsenal of unknown prescription drugs and a loud, forgetful lung doctor who seems to enjoy dropping double entendres.
In between methacholine rounds, small talk reveals that the doctor likes to spend his weekends outside the city, and refers you to the best apple orchard in Vermont. While you may assume that perhaps small talk might relieve the yelling, each round involves more laborious coaching, as if yelling these breaths out of you will make you birth a lung baby. He asks again after round four if you need a glass of water, and despite your refusal, brings over your abandoned iced coffee, mentioning it's probably not the best thing to be drinking during this sort of test, but puts the straw up to your lips anyhow because you're "still looking piqued."
The last step in the PFT is removing all the mist you've unsuccessfully (judging by your bowling score) exhaled by way of a bronchodilator. "Lips sealed, nice and tight... just stay like that for three more minutes." He mentions that he should do a recording of his voice, or perhaps you could do a recording, so he could save his lungs from having to coach people all day long on their breathing. But he's not sure you would have the time, because he's not even sure "if you are single." You might give a tight-lipped smile, hoping he has a report to process. Probably, he will begin arguing (loudly) with the Russian technician about COPD instead.
After reviewing your computerized read-outs of your exhalations, he will assure you that your test is pretty normal, and that there is a small percentage of a chance that it could be a false negative, but you can rule out asthma, most definitely. He will then regale you with the story of how, once, he was on a bike ride in Vermont and got chased by a pack of wild dogs, to the extent where he was sprinting so fast that he felt a touch constricted in his lungs and thought it "was probably a touch of EIA", and that your experience was probably much like his, so you simply "shouldn't push so hard."
You may neglect to mention you are training for a marathon, and cover up your smirk with a cough, compliments of the bronchodilator. You might then pick up your bag, thank him, and make a hasty retreat for the door.
"Don't forget to go back to your doctor!" he will yell at you from down the hall.
All very strange, you will think. But your doctor will be able to tell you soon if you need an inhaler before you go out and push too hard in the future. Hopefully she won't yell at you about it.
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Throw in the Towel
Cross-training.
It's a lovely thing.
When you're tired of running, you can go work out in some other way.
Like in a swimming pool. There's nothing quite as fulfilling as swimming through the crisp, cool waters of an Olympic-sized pool on a bright day, swiftly gliding through the water instead of pounding the scorching pavement.
I was lucky to grow up around outdoor pools. Clean, outdoor pools. Summer meant swim team, college years involved lifeguarding, and there's nothing quite as relaxing as enjoying the newspaper in the morning, dipping your toes poolside while catching up on the funnies.
But now that I've been in the city, I've realized that a good, clean pool is hard to find. So difficult, in fact, that I often wonder if my California pool experience was some sort of weird hallucinatory dream-state induced by too many print ads. Those crystal clear waters? That slightly sweet smell of chlorine, mixed with the whirring sound of a Kirby pool vacuum? People laughing and tanned, enjoying some BBQ and a margarita poolside while watching their friends take swan dives off a 3 meter?
It might as well be Narnia.
Let me talk about trying to find a decent place to swim laps in this city.
First off, you must understand that the weather dictates EVERYTHING here. To the extent that water fountains shut off for 8 months out of the year, choosing outerwear is like buying a car, and bus stops are sheltered seating areas. Imagine then, what happens to the outdoor pools operated by the NYC Dept of Parks and Rec: much like the water fountains, they run dry for a long time, grey leaves and bits of debris littering their empty caverns, only to be swept out and revived with millions of gallons of chlorinated water by June, signaling the sweet smell of summer fun. Hark, the return of crystal clear waters!
Or so one imagines.
Try to find a place that is not only large enough to accommodate swimming a full 25 meters (standard lap) from one end to the other, but also clean. Kudos to you if you can locate a place where the depth dives to more than 3 feet, or the lanes have appropriate markers, or (that holy grail of lap swim) lane dividers.
I worked at an indoor pool for the YMCA on 14th that's actually quite lovely, but flounts questionable locker room behavior. The Rivebank State Park indoor pool is a nice find, which boasts a great facility with showers even (!), but they charge a fee. A search for masters swim teams in NYC yields one, if not two, potentially promising basement pool clubs. But all this intel has been gathered over the past 10 years, so the promise of a free, outdoor, Olympic-sized pool that offers lap swim-only hours is something of a red herring.
Yet, every June, the neighborhoods wait anxiously at the iron gates of the NYC outdoor pools, seeing for the first time in months the promise of a relaxing, sun-drenched afternoon, splashing about in the crystal-clear waters of an Olympic-sized oasis.
However, I was too early - like, by a week - and when I arrived at 7am, the pool (in all it's crystal-clear glory), was suspiciously bereft of patrons, and lifeguards, too. I asked a park attendant who was sweeping nearby about the lap swim schedule, and then discovered that my much-anticipated joy would have to wait until next Monday.
So I waited. Daydreaming about dipping into that cool, wonderful cavern of relaxation, I could hardly wait for the week to be over. And so July 7th arrived, and that's the day I wanted to weep.
Arriving that evening of July 7th at the local pool, I salmon-ed my way to the deck area, whilst the general neighborhood population swarmed past me out the gates. Regular pool hours were over, and only pre-registered lap swimmers were allowed in now. Herds of kids and teens and frazzled moms with strollers streamed past me, many in wet undershirts, soaked boxer shorts, and mismatched two-piece bathing suits. One kid was sporting only a diaper, though it looked as though he had spent all day in the kiddie pool.
I asked where the lockers were, only to find that the outdoor security space was devoid of a changing room, so I had to trek over to the other end of the park to change into my swim gear inside a 4-stall bathroom, overpopulated by vain teenagers petting down their wet hair and knotting up their wet t-shirts into cute outfits. Once changed, I trekked back to the lockers, secured my valuables, and giddily headed over to the water.
Finally arriving at the water's edge, I was surprised to find that there were only three lane lines set up for the entire pool, dividing the 50m pool into three large sections. Apparently, most swimmers were organizing themselves along the end-to-end black lines striping the bottom of the pool, swimming counter-clockwise fashion around the marker, in lieu of having no lane lines to sanction off space. Ok, I thought, this is a little...grassroots. But, I got in on the fast end, sliding into that gorgeous water for the first time, my excitement rising, a smile on my face as I was about to begin my FIRST LAPS OF THE SUMMER!
Whoosh, off I went, gliding under the water in a streamline, gazing down at the black stripe on my left, making sure I was steering clear of the swimmers passing on my left, gazing down at the bottom of the pool...
which for some reason looked a little cloudy and here I am swimming past the halfway mark and ohmyGod what is that
I sputtered up, mid stroke, and pulled a large tangled clump off my face.
A tangled clump of hair.
Someone else's hair that had somehow managed to starfish suction its way onto my cheekbone.
That image of the kid in the diaper flashed across my mind.
I started swimming for the end of the lane, trying to quickly end this first lap.
Oh look, there's a scrunchie, roaming along like sagebrush by the 30m mark.
And there's a family of Band-Aids, having lost the original owner, drifting along in the choppy waters.
Now another clump of hair has latched onto my hand, happily along for the ride, and I can't shake it off mid-stroke.
Nope, not going to flip-turn here, for fear that something will end up in my nose and detonate in my sinus tract.
This water is looking cloudy and murky, and I'm pretty sure those are human skin cells, not dust.
1500 meters later, I jumped out, down-trodden by the cloudy, dirty waters I had just forced myself to endure. I had waited so long, and for what? Was this what I had to look forward to for the next two months?
...
The reality of the outdoor pool situation is tainted by a little problem called "improper pool attire."
It's a lovely thing.
When you're tired of running, you can go work out in some other way.
Like in a swimming pool. There's nothing quite as fulfilling as swimming through the crisp, cool waters of an Olympic-sized pool on a bright day, swiftly gliding through the water instead of pounding the scorching pavement.
I was lucky to grow up around outdoor pools. Clean, outdoor pools. Summer meant swim team, college years involved lifeguarding, and there's nothing quite as relaxing as enjoying the newspaper in the morning, dipping your toes poolside while catching up on the funnies.
But now that I've been in the city, I've realized that a good, clean pool is hard to find. So difficult, in fact, that I often wonder if my California pool experience was some sort of weird hallucinatory dream-state induced by too many print ads. Those crystal clear waters? That slightly sweet smell of chlorine, mixed with the whirring sound of a Kirby pool vacuum? People laughing and tanned, enjoying some BBQ and a margarita poolside while watching their friends take swan dives off a 3 meter?
It might as well be Narnia.
Let me talk about trying to find a decent place to swim laps in this city.
First off, you must understand that the weather dictates EVERYTHING here. To the extent that water fountains shut off for 8 months out of the year, choosing outerwear is like buying a car, and bus stops are sheltered seating areas. Imagine then, what happens to the outdoor pools operated by the NYC Dept of Parks and Rec: much like the water fountains, they run dry for a long time, grey leaves and bits of debris littering their empty caverns, only to be swept out and revived with millions of gallons of chlorinated water by June, signaling the sweet smell of summer fun. Hark, the return of crystal clear waters!
Or so one imagines.
Try to find a place that is not only large enough to accommodate swimming a full 25 meters (standard lap) from one end to the other, but also clean. Kudos to you if you can locate a place where the depth dives to more than 3 feet, or the lanes have appropriate markers, or (that holy grail of lap swim) lane dividers.
I worked at an indoor pool for the YMCA on 14th that's actually quite lovely, but flounts questionable locker room behavior. The Rivebank State Park indoor pool is a nice find, which boasts a great facility with showers even (!), but they charge a fee. A search for masters swim teams in NYC yields one, if not two, potentially promising basement pool clubs. But all this intel has been gathered over the past 10 years, so the promise of a free, outdoor, Olympic-sized pool that offers lap swim-only hours is something of a red herring.
Yet, every June, the neighborhoods wait anxiously at the iron gates of the NYC outdoor pools, seeing for the first time in months the promise of a relaxing, sun-drenched afternoon, splashing about in the crystal-clear waters of an Olympic-sized oasis.
I signed up eagerly for the free NYC summer lap swim program online, locating a pool in close proximity to the office, so I could choose to swim in the early morning, or late evening, bookending my work day perfectly. The lap swim program in the summer is free, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to have a cross-training option that involved being outdoors in the glorious sun, out of the humidity for a whole two months until the fall returns. I had rigorously researched location, vainly seeking out pictures of each pool, trying to determine how well they would suit all the required criteria. I had stumbled across this one near work while out for a run one afternoon, surprised that it looked so promising.
Bring a lock, towel, and suit, instructed the registration page.
Off I went, early one morning, to check out the scene.However, I was too early - like, by a week - and when I arrived at 7am, the pool (in all it's crystal-clear glory), was suspiciously bereft of patrons, and lifeguards, too. I asked a park attendant who was sweeping nearby about the lap swim schedule, and then discovered that my much-anticipated joy would have to wait until next Monday.
So I waited. Daydreaming about dipping into that cool, wonderful cavern of relaxation, I could hardly wait for the week to be over. And so July 7th arrived, and that's the day I wanted to weep.
Arriving that evening of July 7th at the local pool, I salmon-ed my way to the deck area, whilst the general neighborhood population swarmed past me out the gates. Regular pool hours were over, and only pre-registered lap swimmers were allowed in now. Herds of kids and teens and frazzled moms with strollers streamed past me, many in wet undershirts, soaked boxer shorts, and mismatched two-piece bathing suits. One kid was sporting only a diaper, though it looked as though he had spent all day in the kiddie pool.
I asked where the lockers were, only to find that the outdoor security space was devoid of a changing room, so I had to trek over to the other end of the park to change into my swim gear inside a 4-stall bathroom, overpopulated by vain teenagers petting down their wet hair and knotting up their wet t-shirts into cute outfits. Once changed, I trekked back to the lockers, secured my valuables, and giddily headed over to the water.
Finally arriving at the water's edge, I was surprised to find that there were only three lane lines set up for the entire pool, dividing the 50m pool into three large sections. Apparently, most swimmers were organizing themselves along the end-to-end black lines striping the bottom of the pool, swimming counter-clockwise fashion around the marker, in lieu of having no lane lines to sanction off space. Ok, I thought, this is a little...grassroots. But, I got in on the fast end, sliding into that gorgeous water for the first time, my excitement rising, a smile on my face as I was about to begin my FIRST LAPS OF THE SUMMER!
Whoosh, off I went, gliding under the water in a streamline, gazing down at the black stripe on my left, making sure I was steering clear of the swimmers passing on my left, gazing down at the bottom of the pool...
which for some reason looked a little cloudy and here I am swimming past the halfway mark and ohmyGod what is that
I sputtered up, mid stroke, and pulled a large tangled clump off my face.
A tangled clump of hair.
Someone else's hair that had somehow managed to starfish suction its way onto my cheekbone.
That image of the kid in the diaper flashed across my mind.
I started swimming for the end of the lane, trying to quickly end this first lap.
Oh look, there's a scrunchie, roaming along like sagebrush by the 30m mark.
And there's a family of Band-Aids, having lost the original owner, drifting along in the choppy waters.
Now another clump of hair has latched onto my hand, happily along for the ride, and I can't shake it off mid-stroke.
Nope, not going to flip-turn here, for fear that something will end up in my nose and detonate in my sinus tract.
This water is looking cloudy and murky, and I'm pretty sure those are human skin cells, not dust.
1500 meters later, I jumped out, down-trodden by the cloudy, dirty waters I had just forced myself to endure. I had waited so long, and for what? Was this what I had to look forward to for the next two months?
...
The reality of the outdoor pool situation is tainted by a little problem called "improper pool attire."
It's no joke, folks. When your local pool crew tells you to wear a swim cap, you can do us all a favor by complying. You can do my face a favor, in fact.
Today, I'm headed back, if only to despair once again at the state of the waters. Fingers crossed it's a bit better, but if not, I'll have to resume the hunt for that elusive perfect outdoor NYC pool.Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Hunger Games
Running almost every day makes you hungrier, and at weird times. And by weird times, I mean, like all the time. It's a logical enough equation: expend calories, get hungry, refuel body's caloric deficit, resume life. But I think my body is confused about when it's okay to get hungry, and when it's not okay to get hungry.
It feels sort of like having a sugar-drunk toddler hanging onto your leg while you try and answer emails.
"nuugghghhhhhh! fooooooood....!" it wails, throwing back its fat little head, shaking your pant leg.
It's 9:38am. I just ate breakfast an hour ago. There was enough protein on my plate to kill a small Shetland pony, and somehow this hunger-beast is wailing for more.
Let's pretend it wants water, I think as I pick up my water bottle for hydration, let's hope that drowns out the feeling of my stomach walls collapsing in on each other.
It's unfathomable to me how I can have a full, macros-balanced, delicious breakfast, and then have hunger again an hour later. It's not a fiber issue, it's not a protein issue; I can only assume that my body thinks it's operating on a different time zone.
Now it's 10:24 where I am, but it's apparently lunchtime wherever my stomach is, so obviously we have to start feeding again, or so I'm told by this tiny monster that has moved from wailing to teeth-gnashing.
11:15 rolls in, and it's now growling at me. Time to seek out the nearest vending machine full of whole food proteins...
Whoops: that doesn't exist.
How about a cup of tea instead, I try to reason with my irrational hunger.
Have you ever tried to reason with a toddler? Yeah, it's a lot like that:
Me: It's 11:17 and we can have a cup of tea with some milk in it, because you are not allowed to be hungry right now, so shut your little trap before I end up shoveling you full of Twinkies from selection aisle D3.
Hunger: nuugghghhhhhh! fooooooood....! nuugghghhhhhh! fooooooood....! nuugghghhhhhh! fooooooood....!
This has gone on for two weeks now.
And when you have a child behaving in this manner, there's really only one way to enforce discipline: you ignore the bad behavior. You give it no respect, nor notice. You let that little beast throw any manner of public or private tantrums, and simply turn your head as it exhausts itself, finally shuts up, and goes to sleep.
Eventually it will learn to be self-sufficient.
I'm surprised no one has put together the correlation between parenting and negotiating with your stomach, because for me, they are basically one in the same at this point - and it's enough to convince me to abstain from having children. (Unless they are quiet monsters who will always operate on my time frame and do whatever I tell them. But, we don't really get a say in that, do we? I've been blessed with a rouge beast, and the irony is that there's no one to blame but myself.)
So, I'm proud to say that, after two weeks, not only have I learned to ignore my hunger pains, but the hunger itself puts up a fuss for about 30 minutes, and then gives up.
I'm hoping it's learning to feed itself.
It feels sort of like having a sugar-drunk toddler hanging onto your leg while you try and answer emails.
"nuugghghhhhhh! fooooooood....!" it wails, throwing back its fat little head, shaking your pant leg.
It's 9:38am. I just ate breakfast an hour ago. There was enough protein on my plate to kill a small Shetland pony, and somehow this hunger-beast is wailing for more.
Let's pretend it wants water, I think as I pick up my water bottle for hydration, let's hope that drowns out the feeling of my stomach walls collapsing in on each other.
It's unfathomable to me how I can have a full, macros-balanced, delicious breakfast, and then have hunger again an hour later. It's not a fiber issue, it's not a protein issue; I can only assume that my body thinks it's operating on a different time zone.
Now it's 10:24 where I am, but it's apparently lunchtime wherever my stomach is, so obviously we have to start feeding again, or so I'm told by this tiny monster that has moved from wailing to teeth-gnashing.
11:15 rolls in, and it's now growling at me. Time to seek out the nearest vending machine full of whole food proteins...
Whoops: that doesn't exist.
How about a cup of tea instead, I try to reason with my irrational hunger.
Have you ever tried to reason with a toddler? Yeah, it's a lot like that:
Me: It's 11:17 and we can have a cup of tea with some milk in it, because you are not allowed to be hungry right now, so shut your little trap before I end up shoveling you full of Twinkies from selection aisle D3.
Hunger: nuugghghhhhhh! fooooooood....! nuugghghhhhhh! fooooooood....! nuugghghhhhhh! fooooooood....!
This has gone on for two weeks now.
And when you have a child behaving in this manner, there's really only one way to enforce discipline: you ignore the bad behavior. You give it no respect, nor notice. You let that little beast throw any manner of public or private tantrums, and simply turn your head as it exhausts itself, finally shuts up, and goes to sleep.
Eventually it will learn to be self-sufficient.
I'm surprised no one has put together the correlation between parenting and negotiating with your stomach, because for me, they are basically one in the same at this point - and it's enough to convince me to abstain from having children. (Unless they are quiet monsters who will always operate on my time frame and do whatever I tell them. But, we don't really get a say in that, do we? I've been blessed with a rouge beast, and the irony is that there's no one to blame but myself.)
So, I'm proud to say that, after two weeks, not only have I learned to ignore my hunger pains, but the hunger itself puts up a fuss for about 30 minutes, and then gives up.
I'm hoping it's learning to feed itself.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Free Breadsticks at Olive Garden
There's this joke about elite athlete heart rates...
Question: What does (insert Olympic athlete's name here) heartbeat sound like?
Answer: Boom. (pause 5 seconds)...Boom.
The joke being that it only takes one heartbeat every 5 seconds to circulate the blood instead of the regular-human, two-beat cycle every 2 seconds.
Let's talk about heart rate.
The basics:
Heart - the boom-boom thingy in your chest, protected by your ribcage. One of the strongest muscles in your body, besides the tongue and glutes. It's got four chambers (atriums and ventricles), and an aorta, and blood is rushing through it all day, everyday...as long as you need oxygen, that is.
Electricity - energy, basically. The heart runs on it (yah, truth. Betcha didn't know you were running on electricity, eh?) and there are other things in the heart's wiring like S-A and A-V nodes and a His-Purkinje system, but that's just boring Cook-Family dinner table banter.
Blood - that reddish fluid in your veins, made of plasma and cells, that travels around the body, cleaning out cells while delivering nutrients and O2. Like your friendly sanitation team. Only, they drop off vitamins while collecting that week's worth of composting.
Respiration - breathe in. breathe out. Congratulations, you've just respired. Now would also be an appropriate time to mention something medical professionals like to call the "cardiopulmonary cycle" - lungs and heart jam session, I call it.
Exercise - exerting yourself. See also: climbing stairs, swimming through rip currents, and yelling at the ref of every World Cup game.
Good, you have the basics. Now let's give you a little overview of what happens to produce your heart beat...
You breathe in. Ahh, delicious fresh air. Lungs expand, oxygen is incoming and Boom that heart contracts and that incoming oxygen hits the blood flow currently going through your heart and Boom, say sayonara to that newly oxygenated blood being sent back into the body, while you breath out. Ahh, see ya later carbon dioxide. Like a nicely functioning wait staff at your local Olive Garden: order up to the heart, blood delivers the free breadsticks, cleans off the muscles, and waits until you're ready for a free refill. Every few seconds, boom-boom on autopilot - that's your heart rate.
Electrical charges help automatically regulate that heartbeat so that the blood keeps flowing and your breathing keeps going, but the heart rate may get adjusted, based on how much oxygen you need at any given time. For example, try holding your breath for as long as you can...
At some point, your body is gonna start screaming for a refill on O2 - and you're gonna be sucking in that air like you've never known relief. You might find the heart rate speeds up a bit after you've gotten those huge gulps of air back into your lungs. Herein lies the crux of exercising:
See, when you start exercising, more blood in your body gets directed to the muscles so that they can function better, making your breathing heavier as blood flow increases. Imagine dinner rush at the Olive Garden.
Your Blood is just hanging out, happily attending to the tables, when, whammo! Hyperspeed Delivery System alert...
Your Muscles start yelling, like, "Yo! I need some oxygen up in here!", like some hungry, disgruntled bachelor with no sense of table manners.
The Blood is like, "Oh yes, yes, right away!" and starts rushing around like the attentive front-of-house wait staff, ignoring the other Organs that are just awaiting their soup and salad refill, and sends a message to the Kitchen (heart and lungs) that they better get some bread sticks (oxygen, if you haven't figured that out) pronto for that Muscle over there in the corner.
And Kitchen gets all huffy, like, "Joe! More bread sticks for that table with legs!"
And Joe (your breathing) is like "Yah, ok! SPEEDING UP!"
And then there's those screaming Muscles, shoveling down the bread sticks as fast as they can, and throwing up crumbs all over the place, so Blood comes over and is like "Ugh god, they're making a MESS over here. Bob! Cleanup on Aisle 3!"
And Bob (Hemoglobin, Blood's back-of-house busser) rushes in, and takes all the gunk off the table and back to the Kitchen....
And those Muscles are just gonna keep refilling on the free bread sticks until the Kitchen can't make anymore...
And so it goes until dinner rush is over and Blood can resume normal service.
You've got to consider that doing dinner service like that, all the time, or at least for 30 minutes, 3 times a week, makes the staff more efficient - which is true. Your whole cardiopulmonary system will learn to functioning more efficiently during the high stress time, and your muscles will be more polite about putting up such a fuss. Technically speaking, all that stress makes your left ventricle adapt to hold more blood, and pump out a higher volume with each beat. So, the more you speed up that heart rate and work those muscles out, the more O2-bread sticks your Blood can crank out of the Kitchen with any one order.
Hence, you get a lower resting heart rate at the end of the day.
(Which makes those Olympic-athlete cardiovascular systems seem like mild-mannered, Early-Bird-Special diners.)
This leads me to my main realization concerning last week's runs: my body is learning to be more efficient, but until the staff learns to operate calmly, I'm gonna be huffing and puffing for a while. Part of the stress comes from the anxiety of knowing that I'm not getting enough O2 into my system fast enough, which causes enough panic to make anyone abandon ship and start walking. The other dread comes from understanding that this metabolic-cardiopulmonary/vascular system doesn't take kindly to change, and so every time I start to exercise, there will be an elevated heart rate. The revelation is that I've been working at 80-90% of my max HR during most every run, trying to maintain a race pace, or endure for more than 5 miles consistently, when I might benefit faster by training my body at 60-70% exertion, so I don't burnout my resources before happy hour.
It's like that saying: If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger.
Or that other saying: If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Or that one I like to say: It takes immortal strength to refuse Olive Garden bread sticks.
Question: What does (insert Olympic athlete's name here) heartbeat sound like?
Answer: Boom. (pause 5 seconds)...Boom.
The joke being that it only takes one heartbeat every 5 seconds to circulate the blood instead of the regular-human, two-beat cycle every 2 seconds.
Let's talk about heart rate.
The basics:
Heart - the boom-boom thingy in your chest, protected by your ribcage. One of the strongest muscles in your body, besides the tongue and glutes. It's got four chambers (atriums and ventricles), and an aorta, and blood is rushing through it all day, everyday...as long as you need oxygen, that is.
Electricity - energy, basically. The heart runs on it (yah, truth. Betcha didn't know you were running on electricity, eh?) and there are other things in the heart's wiring like S-A and A-V nodes and a His-Purkinje system, but that's just boring Cook-Family dinner table banter.
Blood - that reddish fluid in your veins, made of plasma and cells, that travels around the body, cleaning out cells while delivering nutrients and O2. Like your friendly sanitation team. Only, they drop off vitamins while collecting that week's worth of composting.
Respiration - breathe in. breathe out. Congratulations, you've just respired. Now would also be an appropriate time to mention something medical professionals like to call the "cardiopulmonary cycle" - lungs and heart jam session, I call it.
Exercise - exerting yourself. See also: climbing stairs, swimming through rip currents, and yelling at the ref of every World Cup game.
Good, you have the basics. Now let's give you a little overview of what happens to produce your heart beat...
You breathe in. Ahh, delicious fresh air. Lungs expand, oxygen is incoming and Boom that heart contracts and that incoming oxygen hits the blood flow currently going through your heart and Boom, say sayonara to that newly oxygenated blood being sent back into the body, while you breath out. Ahh, see ya later carbon dioxide. Like a nicely functioning wait staff at your local Olive Garden: order up to the heart, blood delivers the free breadsticks, cleans off the muscles, and waits until you're ready for a free refill. Every few seconds, boom-boom on autopilot - that's your heart rate.
Electrical charges help automatically regulate that heartbeat so that the blood keeps flowing and your breathing keeps going, but the heart rate may get adjusted, based on how much oxygen you need at any given time. For example, try holding your breath for as long as you can...
At some point, your body is gonna start screaming for a refill on O2 - and you're gonna be sucking in that air like you've never known relief. You might find the heart rate speeds up a bit after you've gotten those huge gulps of air back into your lungs. Herein lies the crux of exercising:
See, when you start exercising, more blood in your body gets directed to the muscles so that they can function better, making your breathing heavier as blood flow increases. Imagine dinner rush at the Olive Garden.
Your Blood is just hanging out, happily attending to the tables, when, whammo! Hyperspeed Delivery System alert...
Your Muscles start yelling, like, "Yo! I need some oxygen up in here!", like some hungry, disgruntled bachelor with no sense of table manners.
The Blood is like, "Oh yes, yes, right away!" and starts rushing around like the attentive front-of-house wait staff, ignoring the other Organs that are just awaiting their soup and salad refill, and sends a message to the Kitchen (heart and lungs) that they better get some bread sticks (oxygen, if you haven't figured that out) pronto for that Muscle over there in the corner.
And Kitchen gets all huffy, like, "Joe! More bread sticks for that table with legs!"
And Joe (your breathing) is like "Yah, ok! SPEEDING UP!"
And then there's those screaming Muscles, shoveling down the bread sticks as fast as they can, and throwing up crumbs all over the place, so Blood comes over and is like "Ugh god, they're making a MESS over here. Bob! Cleanup on Aisle 3!"
And Bob (Hemoglobin, Blood's back-of-house busser) rushes in, and takes all the gunk off the table and back to the Kitchen....
And those Muscles are just gonna keep refilling on the free bread sticks until the Kitchen can't make anymore...
And so it goes until dinner rush is over and Blood can resume normal service.
You've got to consider that doing dinner service like that, all the time, or at least for 30 minutes, 3 times a week, makes the staff more efficient - which is true. Your whole cardiopulmonary system will learn to functioning more efficiently during the high stress time, and your muscles will be more polite about putting up such a fuss. Technically speaking, all that stress makes your left ventricle adapt to hold more blood, and pump out a higher volume with each beat. So, the more you speed up that heart rate and work those muscles out, the more O2-bread sticks your Blood can crank out of the Kitchen with any one order.
Hence, you get a lower resting heart rate at the end of the day.
(Which makes those Olympic-athlete cardiovascular systems seem like mild-mannered, Early-Bird-Special diners.)
This leads me to my main realization concerning last week's runs: my body is learning to be more efficient, but until the staff learns to operate calmly, I'm gonna be huffing and puffing for a while. Part of the stress comes from the anxiety of knowing that I'm not getting enough O2 into my system fast enough, which causes enough panic to make anyone abandon ship and start walking. The other dread comes from understanding that this metabolic-cardiopulmonary/vascular system doesn't take kindly to change, and so every time I start to exercise, there will be an elevated heart rate. The revelation is that I've been working at 80-90% of my max HR during most every run, trying to maintain a race pace, or endure for more than 5 miles consistently, when I might benefit faster by training my body at 60-70% exertion, so I don't burnout my resources before happy hour.
It's like that saying: If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger.
Or that other saying: If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Or that one I like to say: It takes immortal strength to refuse Olive Garden bread sticks.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Typed Out
I have a tiny notebook calendar I carry in my gym bag. If you leaf through it, from now until November, each day has a note written on it. The note, in my handwriting, tells me what type of workout (or rest) is on tap for that day. Each day. For the next 20-something weeks.
I leafed through that tiny notebook calendar this past weekend, reviewing that little piece of stapled-together papers that will, starting today, dictate my every waking thought for the next six-ish months.
"Today, I have to run 2 miles."
"Thursday...Thursday....sprint intervals at the track."
"Better pack my gym bag tonight for the strength session tomorrow...."
"Saturday night? Oh no, sorry, I've got to get to bed, to rest for my 18-mile run tomorrow."
I've planned to try and get the workouts done in the morning on most days - setting a recurring alarm for 6:30am to make sure I get it out of the way before the rest of the day goes into blitz mode.
It sounds crazy, but this is the kind of preparation that I'm hoping will make life easier in the long haul of weeks to come: preordaining the workouts so I can track the progress and avoid potential hazards.
Seeing the course already set out on paper is equal parts relieving and terrifying: viewing my life, plotted out day-by-day - through the next two seasons of weather, even.
Why is it relieving? I don't have to scramble to piece together a workout for Wednesday, four weeks from now.
Why is it terrifying? I know exactly what I'm doing on a Wednesday evening, four weeks from now.
I like to believe I'm relatively spontaneous and easy-going, living each day as it comes, not worrying too much about next week or even two months from now. I try not to stress too much, and if there is a crisis, I'm usually the calm one around, soothing everyone else with a no-worries attitude. So, knowing what's supposed to happen on July 23rd is a little unnerving. And why?
Because I've realized, staring at this little calendar, that I'm certifiably Type-A. And I've essentially condemned myself in the mere creation of this calendar. All those years of valiantly staving off the impending doom of being labeled "uptight" and "control freak"...and here I am, staring at my own handwritten verdict of a personality disorder.
I was under the false assumption that my easy-going nature inclined me to plot out this little notebook, because I don't freak out, so naturally, I have a plan somewhere drifting through my consciousness. Might as well jot it out on paper.
I now realize that it's because I'm Type A and will know what's happening four week from now which is exactly why I'm NOT freaking out when that Wednesday rolls around - because I'm pretty sure I've already made sure it's going to be a non-issue, and every day will go exactly according to my plan since it's written right here, in red pen on paper. Red pen on paper means, obviously, that is the authoritative verdict for that day, this is the right way to do things, and you can't go back and change your answer.
I mean, mind. You can't change your mind.
I realize now that if I didn't know what was happening on that Wednesday night, and if there was something shocking or unexpectedly bizarre or otherwise a major roadblock to my training, I'd definitely be letting my Type-A flag unfurl in all its glory, red pen or no. I'd be that one silently freaking out in the corner - because what am I supposed to do, now that I don't have a workout plan for Wednesday? Because I also have to take into account that this will affect the rest of the week, and ohmyGod potentially the rest of the entire four months that are left, andholycrapnowIhavetoreconfigureeverything...
Let's just say, at the end of the day, my every waking Type-A thought is not only dictated by this notebook, but also soothed into a subtle undertone of calm, knowing that at least I have a plan.
So, fingers crossed that there are no major roadblocks.
And that I will obey my 6:30am alarm for the next six(-ish) months.
I leafed through that tiny notebook calendar this past weekend, reviewing that little piece of stapled-together papers that will, starting today, dictate my every waking thought for the next six-ish months.
"Today, I have to run 2 miles."
"Thursday...Thursday....sprint intervals at the track."
"Better pack my gym bag tonight for the strength session tomorrow...."
"Saturday night? Oh no, sorry, I've got to get to bed, to rest for my 18-mile run tomorrow."
I've planned to try and get the workouts done in the morning on most days - setting a recurring alarm for 6:30am to make sure I get it out of the way before the rest of the day goes into blitz mode.
It sounds crazy, but this is the kind of preparation that I'm hoping will make life easier in the long haul of weeks to come: preordaining the workouts so I can track the progress and avoid potential hazards.
Seeing the course already set out on paper is equal parts relieving and terrifying: viewing my life, plotted out day-by-day - through the next two seasons of weather, even.
Why is it relieving? I don't have to scramble to piece together a workout for Wednesday, four weeks from now.
Why is it terrifying? I know exactly what I'm doing on a Wednesday evening, four weeks from now.
I like to believe I'm relatively spontaneous and easy-going, living each day as it comes, not worrying too much about next week or even two months from now. I try not to stress too much, and if there is a crisis, I'm usually the calm one around, soothing everyone else with a no-worries attitude. So, knowing what's supposed to happen on July 23rd is a little unnerving. And why?
Because I've realized, staring at this little calendar, that I'm certifiably Type-A. And I've essentially condemned myself in the mere creation of this calendar. All those years of valiantly staving off the impending doom of being labeled "uptight" and "control freak"...and here I am, staring at my own handwritten verdict of a personality disorder.
I was under the false assumption that my easy-going nature inclined me to plot out this little notebook, because I don't freak out, so naturally, I have a plan somewhere drifting through my consciousness. Might as well jot it out on paper.
I now realize that it's because I'm Type A and will know what's happening four week from now which is exactly why I'm NOT freaking out when that Wednesday rolls around - because I'm pretty sure I've already made sure it's going to be a non-issue, and every day will go exactly according to my plan since it's written right here, in red pen on paper. Red pen on paper means, obviously, that is the authoritative verdict for that day, this is the right way to do things, and you can't go back and change your answer.
I mean, mind. You can't change your mind.
I realize now that if I didn't know what was happening on that Wednesday night, and if there was something shocking or unexpectedly bizarre or otherwise a major roadblock to my training, I'd definitely be letting my Type-A flag unfurl in all its glory, red pen or no. I'd be that one silently freaking out in the corner - because what am I supposed to do, now that I don't have a workout plan for Wednesday? Because I also have to take into account that this will affect the rest of the week, and ohmyGod potentially the rest of the entire four months that are left, andholycrapnowIhavetoreconfigureeverything...
Let's just say, at the end of the day, my every waking Type-A thought is not only dictated by this notebook, but also soothed into a subtle undertone of calm, knowing that at least I have a plan.
So, fingers crossed that there are no major roadblocks.
And that I will obey my 6:30am alarm for the next six(-ish) months.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
HIIT Me Baby, One More Time
I've been doing base training before I kick off the official marathon training. Base training has consisted of some running, a bunch of rest days, and recently, some HIIT workouts - which some people may know as "High Intensity Interval Training", but should actually be called "Horrifically Insufficient Inhalation Trials."
For those of you who are not familiar, HIIT workouts are usually cardio-based - you spend a few minutes (an interval of time) firing your heart rate up, then take a tiny bit of rest, then repeat the procedure. The goal here is to keep the heart rate up, even when in active recovery - this helps build your lungs, blah blah blah VO2 Max yadda yadda... basically you torture your lungs for a few minutes, then rest in the fetal position while gasping for breath, and then go back to feeling like your heart is gonna expel itself out your ribcage.
HIIT workouts differ from "circuit training" (which traditionally incorporates more resistance-based exercises - like lifting weights), but it is not solely an "interval training" scheme, as it straddles the two genres; some workouts can have only aerobic exercises incorporated, while others may add in simple resistance exercises like lunges, push ups, or burpees. Boot camp workouts are good examples of HIIT workouts - a series of high-intensity exercises with bits of active recovery in between.
A HIIT workout could look something like this:
400 meter sprint x 100 meter recover x 4 cycles
Or it could look something like this:
30 push-ups + 20 box jumps
30 sec sprint
10 burpees
30 sec rest
Repeat 3 times
(And note, HIIT workouts are not relegated to land - swimmers use them, too!)
Last weekend I participated in back-to-back HIIT workouts, sponsored by 2 different workout groups. When I initially signed up, I was uncertain whether completing 2 of these workouts within 24 hours was a good idea, but decided to test myself. The Saturday group was a "Spartan Race Training Run" - which is as aggressive and as intense as it sounds. The Sunday group was sponsored by a friendly, neighborhood based boot camp workout group, helmed by a local yokel.
The Saturday Epic workout (as I'll call it) was a training "run" for something called the Spartan Race - much like a mud run, or obstacle-based foot race, the Spartan Race takes its cues from pretending that everyone involved is a Grecian Warrior, and will enjoy not only throwing spears and climbing walls without assistance, but also crawling in the mud underneath barbed wire while being hosed down by a maniacal retired drill sergeant. (Yes, I already completed a Spartan race, and no, I did not enjoy those walls.) While I'm fairly certain Spartans never encountered barbed wire, much less a high-pressure garden hose full of freezing water, let's ignore the blatant disregard for historical accuracy and concentrate on how one prepares for said Spartan Race:
First of all, the Epic group consisted of three young women training for their first Spartan race, four older seasoned-Spartan warrior men, and me, the one in the 5K tee and no water bottle. We did the whole workout outside at a local park, which was great and also awful, since every jogger in Manhattan had time to gawk at us. And by us, I mean me.
We got partnered up by the coach (a 5' 1" former gymnast with biceps the size of my head), and were split into A and B designations. Partners A would start cycling through box jumps followed by push-ups (box jumps = impossible), until Partners B got back from their 400m hill sprint, complete with burpees at the end.
Luckily for me, I got paired with the slowest runner in the group, and enjoyed attempted box jumps until I defaulted into crippling box step-ups. (As every male chauvinist expects in physical test of strength, the women in the group were lagging a bit behind the men, but, in our defense, we were competing against deranged warriors with no sense of historical reality.)
Shortly thereafter (i.e. without a rest interval), we were issued more hill sprints, in increasing distances - meaning we ran up 10 meters, jogged down, repeated that 3 times, ran up 20 meters, jogged down, repeated that a few times, sprinted up the whole frickin' hill and puked on the way back down, begged for mercy in between, and had the former gymnast lie to our sweaty faces that it would be over soon. (Lies, blatant lies she admitted to midway through the third-to-last cycle. Meanwhile, the Hulk-men were chomping at the bit for another cycle.) At that point, I believed I was the only sane person there, but that's what happens when you're the only one who believes that it's 2014, and not 441 B.C.
This torture continued as she then tricked us into doing wall sits for 2 minutes, after which we ran even longer hill sprints, complete with burpees and squats at the top of the hill. Let me reiterate: HIIT workouts usually include a rest period, but this gymnast was perhaps operating under the assumption that, in ancient Greek, "rest" stems from the root for "more sprints." I was also quite certain, by this point, that the Spartan men were each packing an extra set of lungs.
Thankfully, after an hour, it was all over and we could walk back to the gym. I was thankful that I could even walk, seeing as how my quads were giving out on me during the last cycle of "sprint rests."
I realized two things, on my walk back: 1) that I had rightfully earned a bagel, and 2) that I would be facing five more Saturday sessions with this crowd....this crowd that seemed to do dead lifts in their sleep, and eat hill sprints like candy.
Waking up Sunday morning, I wasn't sure what I was in for with the local boot camp in Prospect Park, but I was certain it could not be worse than the suffering I had endured nearly 24 hours previously. In fact, I assured myself, this was great mental training for the marathon, since I really didn't want to complete another intense session of not breathing, but that's what happens at mile 21, so I got out of bed and headed over to the park. Luckily, this group consisted of sleepy-eyed locals who were half-heartedly completing knee push-ups: we had actual rest intervals that more closely aligned with the traditional Latin root for "requiem", for which I was eternally grateful.
While we did some light stretch-band exercises and ran to a tree, I was so much at ease that I could challenge myself more than I expected. The whole workout felt more like active recovery from the Epic run, rather than another grueling workout. I actually did break a sweat and feel some muscles screaming from PTSD, but I ended the weekend without too much residual pain, and even signed up for two more boot camp sessions that week.
My workout mindset, I realized, depends on previous performance. If I complete a grueling workout and have to follow up with something that is not as demanding, I'm more inclined to not only enjoy the second one, but also commit to doing both workouts (rather than opt for sleeping in on my beloved weekends). Ok, that's not entirely true: I would rather sleep in, but holding myself accountable was not as insufferable as I expected. And that's what it really comes down to when you're training yourself - finding and clinging onto whatever will help keep you accountable. Whether you're motivated by money, personal gain (or loss), or just simply need an excuse to be outside and/or socialize, I believe that finding your accountability factors and keeping them in perspective can help you build a habit. While I have a few more sessions lined up with the local yokel boot camp, I'm actually looking forward to them in comparison to the Epic workouts I will endure over the next few weeks of base training (especially since I now know how awful my lungs can feel). And even then, while I acclimate to hill sprint recovery, I'm sure it will all be put in perspective when I ramp up my mileage for the old 26.2.
For those of you who are not familiar, HIIT workouts are usually cardio-based - you spend a few minutes (an interval of time) firing your heart rate up, then take a tiny bit of rest, then repeat the procedure. The goal here is to keep the heart rate up, even when in active recovery - this helps build your lungs, blah blah blah VO2 Max yadda yadda... basically you torture your lungs for a few minutes, then rest in the fetal position while gasping for breath, and then go back to feeling like your heart is gonna expel itself out your ribcage.
HIIT workouts differ from "circuit training" (which traditionally incorporates more resistance-based exercises - like lifting weights), but it is not solely an "interval training" scheme, as it straddles the two genres; some workouts can have only aerobic exercises incorporated, while others may add in simple resistance exercises like lunges, push ups, or burpees. Boot camp workouts are good examples of HIIT workouts - a series of high-intensity exercises with bits of active recovery in between.
A HIIT workout could look something like this:
400 meter sprint x 100 meter recover x 4 cycles
Or it could look something like this:
30 push-ups + 20 box jumps
30 sec sprint
10 burpees
30 sec rest
Repeat 3 times
(And note, HIIT workouts are not relegated to land - swimmers use them, too!)
Last weekend I participated in back-to-back HIIT workouts, sponsored by 2 different workout groups. When I initially signed up, I was uncertain whether completing 2 of these workouts within 24 hours was a good idea, but decided to test myself. The Saturday group was a "Spartan Race Training Run" - which is as aggressive and as intense as it sounds. The Sunday group was sponsored by a friendly, neighborhood based boot camp workout group, helmed by a local yokel.
The Saturday Epic workout (as I'll call it) was a training "run" for something called the Spartan Race - much like a mud run, or obstacle-based foot race, the Spartan Race takes its cues from pretending that everyone involved is a Grecian Warrior, and will enjoy not only throwing spears and climbing walls without assistance, but also crawling in the mud underneath barbed wire while being hosed down by a maniacal retired drill sergeant. (Yes, I already completed a Spartan race, and no, I did not enjoy those walls.) While I'm fairly certain Spartans never encountered barbed wire, much less a high-pressure garden hose full of freezing water, let's ignore the blatant disregard for historical accuracy and concentrate on how one prepares for said Spartan Race:
First of all, the Epic group consisted of three young women training for their first Spartan race, four older seasoned-Spartan warrior men, and me, the one in the 5K tee and no water bottle. We did the whole workout outside at a local park, which was great and also awful, since every jogger in Manhattan had time to gawk at us. And by us, I mean me.
We got partnered up by the coach (a 5' 1" former gymnast with biceps the size of my head), and were split into A and B designations. Partners A would start cycling through box jumps followed by push-ups (box jumps = impossible), until Partners B got back from their 400m hill sprint, complete with burpees at the end.
Luckily for me, I got paired with the slowest runner in the group, and enjoyed attempted box jumps until I defaulted into crippling box step-ups. (As every male chauvinist expects in physical test of strength, the women in the group were lagging a bit behind the men, but, in our defense, we were competing against deranged warriors with no sense of historical reality.)
Shortly thereafter (i.e. without a rest interval), we were issued more hill sprints, in increasing distances - meaning we ran up 10 meters, jogged down, repeated that 3 times, ran up 20 meters, jogged down, repeated that a few times, sprinted up the whole frickin' hill and puked on the way back down, begged for mercy in between, and had the former gymnast lie to our sweaty faces that it would be over soon. (Lies, blatant lies she admitted to midway through the third-to-last cycle. Meanwhile, the Hulk-men were chomping at the bit for another cycle.) At that point, I believed I was the only sane person there, but that's what happens when you're the only one who believes that it's 2014, and not 441 B.C.
This torture continued as she then tricked us into doing wall sits for 2 minutes, after which we ran even longer hill sprints, complete with burpees and squats at the top of the hill. Let me reiterate: HIIT workouts usually include a rest period, but this gymnast was perhaps operating under the assumption that, in ancient Greek, "rest" stems from the root for "more sprints." I was also quite certain, by this point, that the Spartan men were each packing an extra set of lungs.
Thankfully, after an hour, it was all over and we could walk back to the gym. I was thankful that I could even walk, seeing as how my quads were giving out on me during the last cycle of "sprint rests."
I realized two things, on my walk back: 1) that I had rightfully earned a bagel, and 2) that I would be facing five more Saturday sessions with this crowd....this crowd that seemed to do dead lifts in their sleep, and eat hill sprints like candy.
Waking up Sunday morning, I wasn't sure what I was in for with the local boot camp in Prospect Park, but I was certain it could not be worse than the suffering I had endured nearly 24 hours previously. In fact, I assured myself, this was great mental training for the marathon, since I really didn't want to complete another intense session of not breathing, but that's what happens at mile 21, so I got out of bed and headed over to the park. Luckily, this group consisted of sleepy-eyed locals who were half-heartedly completing knee push-ups: we had actual rest intervals that more closely aligned with the traditional Latin root for "requiem", for which I was eternally grateful.
While we did some light stretch-band exercises and ran to a tree, I was so much at ease that I could challenge myself more than I expected. The whole workout felt more like active recovery from the Epic run, rather than another grueling workout. I actually did break a sweat and feel some muscles screaming from PTSD, but I ended the weekend without too much residual pain, and even signed up for two more boot camp sessions that week.
My workout mindset, I realized, depends on previous performance. If I complete a grueling workout and have to follow up with something that is not as demanding, I'm more inclined to not only enjoy the second one, but also commit to doing both workouts (rather than opt for sleeping in on my beloved weekends). Ok, that's not entirely true: I would rather sleep in, but holding myself accountable was not as insufferable as I expected. And that's what it really comes down to when you're training yourself - finding and clinging onto whatever will help keep you accountable. Whether you're motivated by money, personal gain (or loss), or just simply need an excuse to be outside and/or socialize, I believe that finding your accountability factors and keeping them in perspective can help you build a habit. While I have a few more sessions lined up with the local yokel boot camp, I'm actually looking forward to them in comparison to the Epic workouts I will endure over the next few weeks of base training (especially since I now know how awful my lungs can feel). And even then, while I acclimate to hill sprint recovery, I'm sure it will all be put in perspective when I ramp up my mileage for the old 26.2.
Friday, May 2, 2014
Walking is a Strategy, Not a Surrender
"You ran how many miles? For how long?"
I'm still surprised when people are awed by the idea of running of marathon. Granted, 26 miles is not a short distance, but after you've run that far for that long, the shimmer of the feat wears dull. The truth is, the race is only shocking when you imagine how much time you have to spend doing one thing repetitively, along one route, with minimal breaks. (Comparably, however, Ironman races, ultramarathon-ing, or even desert relays are practically unfathomable.)
I believe the real reason people are still awed by completing a marathon has to do less with the distance, and more with the how? your body handles the task of mobilizing itself for that long, for (seemingly) no point at all.
Take last weekend, for example. I participated in a half-marathon (funny, I thought it was too early in my training to be running that far too!), and although my finish time marked needed improvement, I finished strong, my quads didn't hate me, I didn't puke, and I even managed to survive a 2-hour tap class the very next day with minimal muscle soreness. So in terms of how I managed it all, I'd credit it to strategy, a trigger-point foam roller, and lots of protein. The only remaining shimmer is in how I managed to talk myself into keeping up a slow jog during miles 9-13, when I really just wanted to walk.
There were, in fact, many moments during the race where I decided to walk for a bit - specifically around mile 6, I was coming down from a great slow incline, and had been jetting through a long out-and-back section of the course when I decided to slow it down for a moment to walk and eat a GU packet. There was a young woman, slight in frame but breathing raggedly, who saw me start walking and shout-whispered, as she slowly limped past me in her broken-form jog: "You can still do it! Don't give up!"
...while this young lady's encouragement perhaps/hopefully stemmed from a place of sincerity and empathy, it became apparent to me that we had very different perceptions about what was actually happening, mentally and physically, for me, in that moment.
Let's talk about walking during race: it can be a good strategy to walk a bit throughout the race, since it gives your running muscles a break. It's quite difficult, as many long-distance runners will attest, to start the running up again after a walk. However it's a clever mental strategy, one I've used time and time again to help my mind realize that the pain is only temporary, the race isn't going to last forever, and if I want to get running again, it will all be over sooner. Walking, for me, has always been a strategy, not some sort of defeated surrender to "not-running".
Throughout training for my first marathon, Coach Terry always reminded us: "Run your own race." This has been my guiding principle over the years, a strategy I employ as I begin every race - surrounded by energetic, nervous runners who trot out from the starting line as if they were running for 30 minutes instead of 3-plus hours. It's a weird sensation, purposefully holding back and slowing down at the beginning of a race, as trillions of people whoosh pass you like buffaloes on stampede. But, it pays off miles later when you slowly succeed in surpassing all the broken-form Quasimodos who are now heaving air through their mouths as if they were drowning. "Doing great, keep going!"
People wonder how you run that far, for that long, and I'm telling you: it's all about pacing yourself. You have to pace yourself before the race, during the race, and throughout the mental roadblocks. Strategies can manifest in walking, in whether or not you carry a water bottle, in talking aloud to yourself at mile 15, in counting backwards and focusing on form, in packing your drop bag three days before a race...every runner is different. But it's all for the sake of pushing your limits, for pacing yourself through those mind-boggling challenges that a long-distance race still inspires.
I was out for a run with some local running yokels a few weeks ago, and one of them runs ultra-distance races. I asked her how she did it, and she explained her most recent race, a 100-mile partner race consisting of running repeatedly around a 12-mile loop:
"I'd just start with one 12-mile loop, and my running partner coached me by saying, at the very beginning of the first loop, 'Ok, you're going to run these next 12 miles at a 12 minute per mile pace. Go...'", she continued, "And then when I finished the first loop, he said to me,'Ok, you're going to run these next 12 miles at a 12 minute per mile pace....' - so I just kept doing that at the beginning of every loop, and after about 8 loops, it was all over."
She also explained that she ate a lot of food while she was running, to keep up her energy - including (but not limited to): chicken noodle soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, hot dogs, and three pints of beer.
Now, I don't know if I'd be able to do 12-mile loop repeats just yet, but her strategy was reasonable - you just have to break it down into little bits, and keep your focus on that one task at hand - running that loop.
When I signed up for my first marathon, I had no agenda. In truth, I had no idea what I was signing up for actually. I only realized after I completed it how much it altered my ideas about my limitations, about what I could accomplish when I pace(d) myself, about how a strategy can make or break your efforts. And I think that's the thing most people don't consider - what they are really truly capable of in terms of "putting your mind to it."
I think beer can be a wise strategy as well, but I'll save that for another post.
I'm still surprised when people are awed by the idea of running of marathon. Granted, 26 miles is not a short distance, but after you've run that far for that long, the shimmer of the feat wears dull. The truth is, the race is only shocking when you imagine how much time you have to spend doing one thing repetitively, along one route, with minimal breaks. (Comparably, however, Ironman races, ultramarathon-ing, or even desert relays are practically unfathomable.)
I believe the real reason people are still awed by completing a marathon has to do less with the distance, and more with the how? your body handles the task of mobilizing itself for that long, for (seemingly) no point at all.
Take last weekend, for example. I participated in a half-marathon (funny, I thought it was too early in my training to be running that far too!), and although my finish time marked needed improvement, I finished strong, my quads didn't hate me, I didn't puke, and I even managed to survive a 2-hour tap class the very next day with minimal muscle soreness. So in terms of how I managed it all, I'd credit it to strategy, a trigger-point foam roller, and lots of protein. The only remaining shimmer is in how I managed to talk myself into keeping up a slow jog during miles 9-13, when I really just wanted to walk.
There were, in fact, many moments during the race where I decided to walk for a bit - specifically around mile 6, I was coming down from a great slow incline, and had been jetting through a long out-and-back section of the course when I decided to slow it down for a moment to walk and eat a GU packet. There was a young woman, slight in frame but breathing raggedly, who saw me start walking and shout-whispered, as she slowly limped past me in her broken-form jog: "You can still do it! Don't give up!"
...while this young lady's encouragement perhaps/hopefully stemmed from a place of sincerity and empathy, it became apparent to me that we had very different perceptions about what was actually happening, mentally and physically, for me, in that moment.
Let's talk about walking during race: it can be a good strategy to walk a bit throughout the race, since it gives your running muscles a break. It's quite difficult, as many long-distance runners will attest, to start the running up again after a walk. However it's a clever mental strategy, one I've used time and time again to help my mind realize that the pain is only temporary, the race isn't going to last forever, and if I want to get running again, it will all be over sooner. Walking, for me, has always been a strategy, not some sort of defeated surrender to "not-running".
Throughout training for my first marathon, Coach Terry always reminded us: "Run your own race." This has been my guiding principle over the years, a strategy I employ as I begin every race - surrounded by energetic, nervous runners who trot out from the starting line as if they were running for 30 minutes instead of 3-plus hours. It's a weird sensation, purposefully holding back and slowing down at the beginning of a race, as trillions of people whoosh pass you like buffaloes on stampede. But, it pays off miles later when you slowly succeed in surpassing all the broken-form Quasimodos who are now heaving air through their mouths as if they were drowning. "Doing great, keep going!"
People wonder how you run that far, for that long, and I'm telling you: it's all about pacing yourself. You have to pace yourself before the race, during the race, and throughout the mental roadblocks. Strategies can manifest in walking, in whether or not you carry a water bottle, in talking aloud to yourself at mile 15, in counting backwards and focusing on form, in packing your drop bag three days before a race...every runner is different. But it's all for the sake of pushing your limits, for pacing yourself through those mind-boggling challenges that a long-distance race still inspires.
I was out for a run with some local running yokels a few weeks ago, and one of them runs ultra-distance races. I asked her how she did it, and she explained her most recent race, a 100-mile partner race consisting of running repeatedly around a 12-mile loop:
"I'd just start with one 12-mile loop, and my running partner coached me by saying, at the very beginning of the first loop, 'Ok, you're going to run these next 12 miles at a 12 minute per mile pace. Go...'", she continued, "And then when I finished the first loop, he said to me,'Ok, you're going to run these next 12 miles at a 12 minute per mile pace....' - so I just kept doing that at the beginning of every loop, and after about 8 loops, it was all over."
She also explained that she ate a lot of food while she was running, to keep up her energy - including (but not limited to): chicken noodle soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, hot dogs, and three pints of beer.
Now, I don't know if I'd be able to do 12-mile loop repeats just yet, but her strategy was reasonable - you just have to break it down into little bits, and keep your focus on that one task at hand - running that loop.
When I signed up for my first marathon, I had no agenda. In truth, I had no idea what I was signing up for actually. I only realized after I completed it how much it altered my ideas about my limitations, about what I could accomplish when I pace(d) myself, about how a strategy can make or break your efforts. And I think that's the thing most people don't consider - what they are really truly capable of in terms of "putting your mind to it."
I think beer can be a wise strategy as well, but I'll save that for another post.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Spring Awakening
I sat in front of my computer last night, diligently plotting out my daily workouts for the next 7 months in preparation for the marathon. In writing, this may seem ludicrous. However, it's a necessary step in mentally and (eventually) physically preparing for the race.
Let me be clear: the marathon training is a 20 week endeavor, and tacked on beforehand is a necessary 6-8 week "base-building" phase of cardio and strength that will help launch a runner into a regular training program.
The base-building is self-inflicted, as my body learned a difficult lesson after a 10K race two weekends ago: if you don't use it, you lose it.
There I was, thinking that I could just cruise into a 10K this April, having completed, literally, 4 runs in the two months prior that summed up to about 20 miles at most all together. "I've run marathons before", I thought to myself. "This will just be a test of my mental stamina after mile 4."
NOPE.
Flash-back to two Saturdays ago, where my body forgot how to run after about an hour. Arms flailing and running strides turning into little skip leaps, I was trying everything I could to free-form my way across the finish line after a grueling hour-long stint around the park. What had happened to my stamina? I was a runner...I'd been racing in January, and kept up a minimal running schedule since then...I was surprised. However, after hobbling back home and pulling up my Nike+ record of runs, I realized I ran about twice each month since then - during the first and mid-month weeks of February and March.
Somehow, all the walking in my day-to-day had crept in as some excuse for cardio, and as my quads screamed out at me ("Slacker!"), I realized that I was: a) in no way prepared to run a half-marathon in two weeks, and b) going to need to seriously re-evaluate my weekly idea of "exercise" if I was to be running a marathon this year.
Running is a great leveler; it doesn't matter how many years you've been running for - the body has got to be trained to handle the lactose output, and the mind has to be ready to deal with the pain after that limit hits. The other component is consistency - if you don't run for a while, you start back at zero. This can be rather frustrating after a solidly defeating winter wherein a little jaunt on the treadmill foolishly tricks you into thinking you'll be able to burst onto the streets of a spring New York as if the season were just a blip on the radar.
So, last night marked the beginning of the "starting-back-at-zero" mental journey of preparing for another marathon. I've thrown any expectations out the window, save for the certainty that I've done it before, so I'll probably be able to muscle through it again.
But this time, unlike my 10K, I think my quads would prefer to be less surprised.
Let me be clear: the marathon training is a 20 week endeavor, and tacked on beforehand is a necessary 6-8 week "base-building" phase of cardio and strength that will help launch a runner into a regular training program.
The base-building is self-inflicted, as my body learned a difficult lesson after a 10K race two weekends ago: if you don't use it, you lose it.
There I was, thinking that I could just cruise into a 10K this April, having completed, literally, 4 runs in the two months prior that summed up to about 20 miles at most all together. "I've run marathons before", I thought to myself. "This will just be a test of my mental stamina after mile 4."
NOPE.
Flash-back to two Saturdays ago, where my body forgot how to run after about an hour. Arms flailing and running strides turning into little skip leaps, I was trying everything I could to free-form my way across the finish line after a grueling hour-long stint around the park. What had happened to my stamina? I was a runner...I'd been racing in January, and kept up a minimal running schedule since then...I was surprised. However, after hobbling back home and pulling up my Nike+ record of runs, I realized I ran about twice each month since then - during the first and mid-month weeks of February and March.
Somehow, all the walking in my day-to-day had crept in as some excuse for cardio, and as my quads screamed out at me ("Slacker!"), I realized that I was: a) in no way prepared to run a half-marathon in two weeks, and b) going to need to seriously re-evaluate my weekly idea of "exercise" if I was to be running a marathon this year.
Running is a great leveler; it doesn't matter how many years you've been running for - the body has got to be trained to handle the lactose output, and the mind has to be ready to deal with the pain after that limit hits. The other component is consistency - if you don't run for a while, you start back at zero. This can be rather frustrating after a solidly defeating winter wherein a little jaunt on the treadmill foolishly tricks you into thinking you'll be able to burst onto the streets of a spring New York as if the season were just a blip on the radar.
So, last night marked the beginning of the "starting-back-at-zero" mental journey of preparing for another marathon. I've thrown any expectations out the window, save for the certainty that I've done it before, so I'll probably be able to muscle through it again.
But this time, unlike my 10K, I think my quads would prefer to be less surprised.
Friday, March 28, 2014
...All those bridges will surely kill me
Seems fitting that the last post I did was nearly two years ago, to the anniversary of the NYC Marathon. Here I am, returning to these pages of my personal running history, documenting the beginning of the journey to the 2014 NYC Marathon.
The effect was not lost on me when I got the email congratulating me on my lottery-drawn win - I was standing near Astor Place, about to hop on the 6 train downtown and, scrolling through my lit of new emails on my phone, saw the announcement. I gasped aloud and, in retrospect, probably startled some people with having a very public personal moment. I immediately called home and squealed with excitement with my sister hopping up and down on the other end of the line, sharing in the news.
The question was, however, am I actually going to do this?
The questions, mind you, was not, am I actually going to do this AGAIN - it's truly a choice this year based on solidarity.
The initial impetus to enter the lottery spurred from a teary goodbye this past winter, as two of my dear International House friends were leaving NYC for sunny Australia. In a promise to keep in touch and visit each other, we decided to enter the NYC marathon lottery, in hopes that chance would reunite us. "If we get in, we can always postpone a year!", I said, allying any hesitations they had about the timing of the race. So we entered, and so it happened that chance gave us a little nudge, as two out of the three of us were drawn from the pool this week. In some fervid WhatsApp messenging, they urged me to run it without them, as they would both postpone the winning entrant's place, and reapply next year as well.
So here we go again. This time for a renowed race that marks my nearly 10th year of living in the Big Apple.
Pretty good reason to run, regardless, hey?
The effect was not lost on me when I got the email congratulating me on my lottery-drawn win - I was standing near Astor Place, about to hop on the 6 train downtown and, scrolling through my lit of new emails on my phone, saw the announcement. I gasped aloud and, in retrospect, probably startled some people with having a very public personal moment. I immediately called home and squealed with excitement with my sister hopping up and down on the other end of the line, sharing in the news.
The question was, however, am I actually going to do this?
The questions, mind you, was not, am I actually going to do this AGAIN - it's truly a choice this year based on solidarity.
The initial impetus to enter the lottery spurred from a teary goodbye this past winter, as two of my dear International House friends were leaving NYC for sunny Australia. In a promise to keep in touch and visit each other, we decided to enter the NYC marathon lottery, in hopes that chance would reunite us. "If we get in, we can always postpone a year!", I said, allying any hesitations they had about the timing of the race. So we entered, and so it happened that chance gave us a little nudge, as two out of the three of us were drawn from the pool this week. In some fervid WhatsApp messenging, they urged me to run it without them, as they would both postpone the winning entrant's place, and reapply next year as well.
So here we go again. This time for a renowed race that marks my nearly 10th year of living in the Big Apple.
Pretty good reason to run, regardless, hey?
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