Isn’t it funny where you find yourself sometimes?
At 7:00 p.m. on October 3 of this year I found myself standing by my car, completely naked despite the 50 degree weather, pouring water over my head from a plastic bottle, and scrubbing mud from my shins with my sweatshirt. I was in Cook Forest, Pennsylvania and the truth is that I never really planned to be there. I surely hadn’t planned to put in the 20 mile run that I had just completed. The day started in State College, Pennsylvania where I presented a paper at an ethics conference. The conference was nice. Sometimes I write very good ethics papers but the one I presented that morning was average at best. I didn’t find the subject matter particularly interesting and the room gave me the praise I deserved. Then we went to the basement and ate prime rib at 11:30 a.m. After the prime rib they brought out some sort of pudding, or yogurt or some such thing and I had to use a different fork than we had used on the prime rib for some unspoken reason. I didn’t want to use a fork at all. I wanted to use a spoon but that would have been wrong for the same reason I suppose. Everyone seemed to know about using the different fork, including me. I also knew to wear a necktie and I knew that I should open with an ethics joke, but not one about priests, or rabbi’s, or nuns, or popes. Really though, when you exclude that group the ethics joke universe shrinks a bit. I told one about a bear and a rabbit. It was a poor joke but everyone laughed a little bit and then those with glasses draped on chains took the glasses off and settled in to my talk, where they learned that the joke was kinda gonna be the highlight. Everyone was so darn nice. The ethics world is kind of like the ultra world because there aren’t many of us and so we all kinda know each other. It was nice seeing everyone. I’ll go back to the conference next year if they let me because I’ll want to see my friends again. After I was done with my pudding they handed me a mint. It was given to me to cleanse my palate. It worked I guess but I’ve found that cleansing your palate is a lot like making your bed. It doesn’t last long.
On October 3rd my car drove itself more than I drove it. In fact it took two unplanned turns. The first unplanned turn was the sudden right I took to get to Cook Forest. When I was a kid we passed through Cook Forest and I remember almost nothing about it except that my Dad bought me some Mexican jumping beans. We weren’t really poor but there really wasn’t a lot of money either so I learned not to ask for things. But Dad bought me the jumping beans and the forest was dark and the leaves were green and life was mysterious and it was perfect and I never forgot it.
Standing naked by my car didn’t cause me the least bit of concern or fear of arrest. For one thing I couldn’t be arrested for public indecency since I hadn’t seen the public in well over three hours. For another thing I was a man with not much to lose. This blog is about running and it will remain about running. But I have a non-running life and part of it has been troubling and hurtful and as a result I had no place to go where I was particularly needed. Thus the planned 45 minute run turned into an hour and then two hours, then three. The air was pine filled and the forest trails were endless and soft. Everything was calm and still and perfect. It was self centered. But self-centeredness in less evil when said self is not requested by others and so Cook Forest worked its magic on me again.
The second turn that my car took was, plainly and simply, a brain-stem response. The impulse to turn never made it to my mind. The sign said that I could go I-76 toward Akron and then on toward home, OR that I could stay on I-80 by veering right and go to Cleveland. The car veered right and, after it did, I figured I’d go say hi to Mike.
My buddy Mike Keller was running in the North Coast 24 hour Endurance Run and I knew that it was in progress at that moment. I hadn’t thought about it all day and here it was, 10:30 P.M. and I was headed to the race where I would, I imagined, give Mike an attaboy and go home. The North Coast 24 was serving as the National Championship this year and there was a lot on the line. The first three runners would make the national team that would go to the world championships, provided they also ran a minimum of 135 miles. The idea of three runners covering the distance seemed virtually assured given the entry of U.S. National Record holder Mark Godale, seven-time Western States 100 mile winner Scott Jurek, and a virtual who’s-who of the nations best vying for the title and a spot on the team. By the time I got there, shortly before midnight, Jurek and Godale had decided to leave their best efforts for another day, which just goes to show that even the greatest runners on earth can have an off day. None of the ghosts that drifted by me as I slowly walked a loop of the 0.9 mile course seemed troubled by the absence of these stars.
It was actually a bit macabre walking in the silent darkness as faceless runners whispered past me on their way to the once-per-loop aid station. The gentle breeze off the cool lake seemed to make the loop a lonely place, until the runners hit the bright lights, companionship, buffet of food and drinks, and overall sophistication and well-being of the race headquarters. A moment later, however, they were out on the furthest reaches of the loop, 0.45 miles removed from love and comfort. The race energy seemed to me to be a quasar; when the energy pulsed on it was all-powerful and when the energy pulsed off it was the loneliest object in the Universe. I ran into Mike, walked another lap with him and, purely on a whim, asked Joe Jurczyk if I could help in any way. Joe didn’t get to be the best race promoter in Ohio by turning down help and so, moments later I was introduced to Shannon Fisher, the volunteer coordinator. Shannon is really one of the loveliest people one could ever hope to meet and, I imagine, it must be hard to say no to her. It might have been Shannon or it might have been the “use whatever fork you want” nature of the event, or it might have been my need to be around other lonely people but I simply jumped at the chance to relieve T.J. Hawk at the course’s only road crossing, which marked, almost precisely, the halfway point of the loop.
I will write more soon. There were so many people, so many stories, so much good Karma in this event that even writing up the 1/3 of it that I saw will take another installment. I need to tell you about Connie and Kim
and Philip and a couple of Dans and John and Jill and Anna and Debra and Suzanne, and Ron, and Liz. I’m gong to love telling you about Liz. Also I think you should know about Wyatt and Mike and so many others that visited me, time after time, throughout the night. I’ll get to it soon. I hope you come back and read it.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Dr. Pepper: My RWS Race Report
Consider the peak of a very high mountain. It is usually very beautiful and it is usually very hard to reach. It can be the most beautiful part of the mountain. From the peak you can attain a perspective that is impossible to gain from a lower place. The peak can be, and often is, a risky place; windblown and crumbly. The path to the peak can prevent you from reaching it and if you do manage to get there the inclement weather or wear and tear of the journey can do you in. You cannot hang out at a peak for long without risk overtaking reward.
If these things are true of a literal peak then the peaking that occurs in our sport is a near-perfect metaphor. Most seasons end without a peak due to injury, exhaustion, poor planning, or bad luck. The peak is a beautiful place but when you attain it, by definition, descent follows almost immediately.
Standing at the starting line of the Run With Scissors Double Marathon-plus I definitely felt like a man who had reached a peak. This year has easily been my best year as an ultra marathon runner. The Fools Run, held in early April along parts of this same course, seemed like years ago, as did the Forget the PR 50K. I failed to finish Mohican in June but, in so doing, I decided that despite my 14 years in this sport, it was time to become a student of long distances. I spent the rest of the year experimenting with running form, diet, and mental attitude. I read of the resilience and looseness of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico; I decide they had the correct approach and tried to copy it. More than any other change, though, I made ultra running friends this year. They encouraged me and I grew to truly love them and this sport. Standing on the starting line looking at 53.4 miles I felt fit, fragile, peaked, and hopeful that I could squeeze one more race out of my body. I felt like the day could end in success or in injury…and it did.
In one of my first blog posts of the year I mentioned that if you don’t know Roy Heger you need to get to know him. If you haven’t gotten to know Roy yet, make it a goal in the coming year. Roy is a beatnik. Roy is a genius. Roy is hilarious. Roy is soft spoken. Roy is wise. Roy is kind. Roy will throw your ass out of his race for littering (he really will). Roy has ten buckles from the Massanutten 100 mile run, eleven buckles from Mohican, has well over thirty 100 mile finishes overall, has finished in the top ten in a national championship race, and yet does not feel that competition is reason enough to run ultras. Roy can command the attention of a large crowd but just as often gets lost in a crowd of three. Roy can finish an hour behind you in one race and an hour ahead of you in the next. Roy drives a beautiful but somewhat unreliable vintage pickup truck. Roy suffers no fools. And Roy is the race director of the Run With Scissors. He doesn’t talk much but when he does you should listen. Sometimes he speaks with his actions and examples, and when he does you should pay attention.
Did I mention that Roy believes in safety? He does. But Roy doesn’t particularly feel that discomfort is dangerous. For this reason the Run With Scissors started at 5:00am on October 25 (2.5 hours BEFORE sunrise). It also traversed a course that had it all: freezing cold at the start, shirtless running by the finish, it was hilly, it was flat, it had fields, mud, and sections where ankle deep fallen leaves covered human-head sized rocks, it had river crossings. It also had wonderful aid stations and terrific volunteers. The course was spectacularly beautiful…one aid station was a covered bridge…and it had peak fall foliage. In trail ultra-running, unlike road marathons, evenly distributed energy expenditure is not always the best way to run, and on a course like the one we were running, such an ‘Even-Stephen’ strategy might do you in. On this course its best to “make hay” on level, safe sections and ease-off on highly technical terrain…saving the legs for the next run-able portion.
This was my last race of the year and, just this once, I wanted to run with the leader for a little bit to see what it was like. I kept pace with Dave Peterman for about 200 meters at what I felt would have been a good 10k pace for me before immediately backing off. I ended up running in about 15th place with Terri Lemke and three men for the opening miles. They were moving too quickly for me but the group’s five lights combined to make the forest floor well lighted and safer so I figured that staying with them for the first 13-14 miles was energy well spent. At daylight I dropped back a bit and the first 26.7 mile loop went pretty uneventfully. I felt sluggish but was moving well nonetheless.
Sometimes I need to remind myself that although a few others read this blog, the main reason that I write it is so that I can remember what ultra marathons were like some day when I cannot run them. I will say here that I want to remember the second half of this race for as long as I live, because it was all so strange…
I hit the midway aid station feeling OK. I was tired and beat up and dehydrated. I had another marathon ahead of me but I was PERFECTLY relaxed and confident that the energy would come from…somewhere. I had cramps and fatigue but no worries at all. In fact, what I had was euphoria. I had danced through leaves and around invisible rocks all morning and had not fallen or stumbled. My trail legs were tired but my trail legs were somehow just fine as well. There is an old adage in ultrarunning that says “It never always gets worse”. That’s what the second half of this race was like. I pushed along at a fairly decent pace and awaited the oncoming crisis. It never came. I recently read an article on an elite marathoner who described a perfect race when the miles flew by as being like “catching lighting in a bottle". Today my lightning in a bottle was more like the miracle of a car running on empty for mile after mile after mile without ever stalling. No fuel, just power. My form never dropped off. I suffered for hour after hour and the crash never came. I realized, as the hours rolled by, that I wasn’t feeling better, I wasn’t slowing down, I wasn’t going to slow down and, in fact, I didn’t slow down. During the worst of the pain and feelings of dessication I would look down at my legs and there they were, churning away and seamlessly shifting gears as terrain moved from uphill, to downhill, to rutted, to smooth. It felt like a trance.
At one point I knocked the head off the skeleton that was placed in the middle of a creek holding a book that we were required to cut a page out of with scissors. I stood for a moment and watched the head begin to float downstream and wondered, if littering would earn me a DQ, what the punishment would be for committing a skull-ectomy? Another time I ran off-course for about 18 minutes. And do you know what? I didn’t care at all. I didn’t mutter any cuss words, I didn’t roar into a new gear to catch up, I didn’t whine. And when I regained the course and realized that the turn I missed was marked by almost ridiculous amounts of ribbon and multiple pie plates (seriously, you could have spotted the turn from the space shuttle) I didn’t get mad at myself for missing it. It was as though the act was more important than the result. I was concerned with completely emptying my tank before the finish line and beyond that simple goal any other outcome did not matter. After the finish I realized that this must be what the Tarahumara feel a trace of when they talk of "racing not to beat each other but to be with each other". I think I might have become a real ultramarathoner in Roy’s race.
A few miles from the finish line I jettisoned the last of my water and gave my waist pack belt a tightening tug. I had lost a good bit of weight and was running shirtless, an absurd act in 60 degree weather but on October 25th, I figured, there was no sense using sense. I was hot for some reason involving a poor thermoregulatory system but with 30 minutes to go in the season I simply didn’t care. I stopped briefly to toss a gu packet into the trash. In the trash bin there was a nearly empty can of Dr. Pepper and in the can were a few bees clambering for the low quality sugar along the rim of the can. If fireflies signal the arrival of the main part of the ultra marathoner’s year then perhaps bees signal the end. These bees had no access to pollen. They had somehow survived a few frosts. They were past their peak and running on empty. The were seeking energy in the lowest places they could look. They could surely not survive much longer. I should have seen this as a sign.
I felt a thrill at this particular finish line that I have not felt before. I believe I have run better in races but I don’t believe I have ever pushed through nothingness for so long and so utterly without panic. And all of this happened in the final race of the Western Reserve Trail Running Series. It was perfection. I’ll ask other readers to please forgive my indulgence or any appearance of arrogance. My performance was only impressive to me but I want to remember it when I am 70 and so I am writing of it here. I felt that for the first time in my life I used every part of myself utterly and completely up. 2009 was a terrific success.
Two days after the race I awoke with a lump in my right groin. Two days later I was diagnosed with an inguinal hernia, and yesterday I had surgery to repair it. The doctor asked me how I strained it. I told him of the race and he told me that rather than injuring it with one single tearing motion I most likely fatigued the inguinal ligament by repeated stressing it. He used the analogy of bending an aluminum pop can back and forth until it finally fatigues and breaks.
I wondered how the bees were holding up.
If these things are true of a literal peak then the peaking that occurs in our sport is a near-perfect metaphor. Most seasons end without a peak due to injury, exhaustion, poor planning, or bad luck. The peak is a beautiful place but when you attain it, by definition, descent follows almost immediately.
Standing at the starting line of the Run With Scissors Double Marathon-plus I definitely felt like a man who had reached a peak. This year has easily been my best year as an ultra marathon runner. The Fools Run, held in early April along parts of this same course, seemed like years ago, as did the Forget the PR 50K. I failed to finish Mohican in June but, in so doing, I decided that despite my 14 years in this sport, it was time to become a student of long distances. I spent the rest of the year experimenting with running form, diet, and mental attitude. I read of the resilience and looseness of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico; I decide they had the correct approach and tried to copy it. More than any other change, though, I made ultra running friends this year. They encouraged me and I grew to truly love them and this sport. Standing on the starting line looking at 53.4 miles I felt fit, fragile, peaked, and hopeful that I could squeeze one more race out of my body. I felt like the day could end in success or in injury…and it did.
In one of my first blog posts of the year I mentioned that if you don’t know Roy Heger you need to get to know him. If you haven’t gotten to know Roy yet, make it a goal in the coming year. Roy is a beatnik. Roy is a genius. Roy is hilarious. Roy is soft spoken. Roy is wise. Roy is kind. Roy will throw your ass out of his race for littering (he really will). Roy has ten buckles from the Massanutten 100 mile run, eleven buckles from Mohican, has well over thirty 100 mile finishes overall, has finished in the top ten in a national championship race, and yet does not feel that competition is reason enough to run ultras. Roy can command the attention of a large crowd but just as often gets lost in a crowd of three. Roy can finish an hour behind you in one race and an hour ahead of you in the next. Roy drives a beautiful but somewhat unreliable vintage pickup truck. Roy suffers no fools. And Roy is the race director of the Run With Scissors. He doesn’t talk much but when he does you should listen. Sometimes he speaks with his actions and examples, and when he does you should pay attention.
Did I mention that Roy believes in safety? He does. But Roy doesn’t particularly feel that discomfort is dangerous. For this reason the Run With Scissors started at 5:00am on October 25 (2.5 hours BEFORE sunrise). It also traversed a course that had it all: freezing cold at the start, shirtless running by the finish, it was hilly, it was flat, it had fields, mud, and sections where ankle deep fallen leaves covered human-head sized rocks, it had river crossings. It also had wonderful aid stations and terrific volunteers. The course was spectacularly beautiful…one aid station was a covered bridge…and it had peak fall foliage. In trail ultra-running, unlike road marathons, evenly distributed energy expenditure is not always the best way to run, and on a course like the one we were running, such an ‘Even-Stephen’ strategy might do you in. On this course its best to “make hay” on level, safe sections and ease-off on highly technical terrain…saving the legs for the next run-able portion.
This was my last race of the year and, just this once, I wanted to run with the leader for a little bit to see what it was like. I kept pace with Dave Peterman for about 200 meters at what I felt would have been a good 10k pace for me before immediately backing off. I ended up running in about 15th place with Terri Lemke and three men for the opening miles. They were moving too quickly for me but the group’s five lights combined to make the forest floor well lighted and safer so I figured that staying with them for the first 13-14 miles was energy well spent. At daylight I dropped back a bit and the first 26.7 mile loop went pretty uneventfully. I felt sluggish but was moving well nonetheless.
Sometimes I need to remind myself that although a few others read this blog, the main reason that I write it is so that I can remember what ultra marathons were like some day when I cannot run them. I will say here that I want to remember the second half of this race for as long as I live, because it was all so strange…
I hit the midway aid station feeling OK. I was tired and beat up and dehydrated. I had another marathon ahead of me but I was PERFECTLY relaxed and confident that the energy would come from…somewhere. I had cramps and fatigue but no worries at all. In fact, what I had was euphoria. I had danced through leaves and around invisible rocks all morning and had not fallen or stumbled. My trail legs were tired but my trail legs were somehow just fine as well. There is an old adage in ultrarunning that says “It never always gets worse”. That’s what the second half of this race was like. I pushed along at a fairly decent pace and awaited the oncoming crisis. It never came. I recently read an article on an elite marathoner who described a perfect race when the miles flew by as being like “catching lighting in a bottle". Today my lightning in a bottle was more like the miracle of a car running on empty for mile after mile after mile without ever stalling. No fuel, just power. My form never dropped off. I suffered for hour after hour and the crash never came. I realized, as the hours rolled by, that I wasn’t feeling better, I wasn’t slowing down, I wasn’t going to slow down and, in fact, I didn’t slow down. During the worst of the pain and feelings of dessication I would look down at my legs and there they were, churning away and seamlessly shifting gears as terrain moved from uphill, to downhill, to rutted, to smooth. It felt like a trance.
At one point I knocked the head off the skeleton that was placed in the middle of a creek holding a book that we were required to cut a page out of with scissors. I stood for a moment and watched the head begin to float downstream and wondered, if littering would earn me a DQ, what the punishment would be for committing a skull-ectomy? Another time I ran off-course for about 18 minutes. And do you know what? I didn’t care at all. I didn’t mutter any cuss words, I didn’t roar into a new gear to catch up, I didn’t whine. And when I regained the course and realized that the turn I missed was marked by almost ridiculous amounts of ribbon and multiple pie plates (seriously, you could have spotted the turn from the space shuttle) I didn’t get mad at myself for missing it. It was as though the act was more important than the result. I was concerned with completely emptying my tank before the finish line and beyond that simple goal any other outcome did not matter. After the finish I realized that this must be what the Tarahumara feel a trace of when they talk of "racing not to beat each other but to be with each other". I think I might have become a real ultramarathoner in Roy’s race.
A few miles from the finish line I jettisoned the last of my water and gave my waist pack belt a tightening tug. I had lost a good bit of weight and was running shirtless, an absurd act in 60 degree weather but on October 25th, I figured, there was no sense using sense. I was hot for some reason involving a poor thermoregulatory system but with 30 minutes to go in the season I simply didn’t care. I stopped briefly to toss a gu packet into the trash. In the trash bin there was a nearly empty can of Dr. Pepper and in the can were a few bees clambering for the low quality sugar along the rim of the can. If fireflies signal the arrival of the main part of the ultra marathoner’s year then perhaps bees signal the end. These bees had no access to pollen. They had somehow survived a few frosts. They were past their peak and running on empty. The were seeking energy in the lowest places they could look. They could surely not survive much longer. I should have seen this as a sign.
I felt a thrill at this particular finish line that I have not felt before. I believe I have run better in races but I don’t believe I have ever pushed through nothingness for so long and so utterly without panic. And all of this happened in the final race of the Western Reserve Trail Running Series. It was perfection. I’ll ask other readers to please forgive my indulgence or any appearance of arrogance. My performance was only impressive to me but I want to remember it when I am 70 and so I am writing of it here. I felt that for the first time in my life I used every part of myself utterly and completely up. 2009 was a terrific success.
Two days after the race I awoke with a lump in my right groin. Two days later I was diagnosed with an inguinal hernia, and yesterday I had surgery to repair it. The doctor asked me how I strained it. I told him of the race and he told me that rather than injuring it with one single tearing motion I most likely fatigued the inguinal ligament by repeated stressing it. He used the analogy of bending an aluminum pop can back and forth until it finally fatigues and breaks.
I wondered how the bees were holding up.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Winging it
Wednesday, March 2, 1143 B.C., 9:13 a.m., Isle of Crete
Daedalus was nearly finished with a project that been many months in the making. The final construction took only a few hours and the gathering of feathers was easy. It was the constant tinkering with the base material that had troubled him. All types of wood had proven too heavy, animal bones too fragile to bind reliably, and bamboo simply wouldn’t hold the feathers.
It was going to have to be wax.
Wax took bees and bees took time. But time was no issue. He and his son had little other than time in this island prison. The worrisome thing about the wax was that it could melt, but only if his son, Icarus, flew too close to the sun. All the lad had to do was play it safe. All he had to do was maintain the status quo, walk the line, stay well above sea level, but not too high above sea level, and get the job done. If he pulled this escape off he would have the rest of his life for adventure. Surely the boy would do the right thing. Wouldn’t he?
Friday, March 4, 2:04 p.m., 1143 B.C., One mile off the coast of the Isle of Crete
The freedom was too much. Years of confinement left Icarus as he did another loop and let out a final yelp of pure unbridled joy. He soared to impossible heights and then he plunged to his death.
Thursday, May 28, 1983, 3:27 p.m., Athens Ohio
“Every morning when you wake up this summer there will be a certain amount of training that you should do to attain fitness by fall. Too much is not good, too little is not good. Your job is to wake up every morning, determine what the proper amount of work is, and go out and do it.” –Elmore Banton, Head Coach, Cross Country and Track, Ohio University.
Saturday, July 11, 1983, 8:37 a.m., lying beside a dumpster behind Marathon Gas Station, Berea, Ohio
I lay on the ground on my back looking straight up at my feet propped against the dumpster. I’d averaged 112 miles per week for the past six weeks and this is where it brought me. I was beaten into oblivion in the Berea “Between the Lakes” 4th of July race by a pack of mugs, including J.V. runners from my old high school. The answer had to be more mileage and so I was attempting to cover 150 miles this week. I ran to work, slept in my lifeguard chair all day long, ran home, slept, and went out for another 10 miles at night. Today I stared at my shoes for 45 minutes before I put them on. I was moody, thirsty at all times and, strangely ONLY felt good when I was running. Trashed, tired, depressed, but hopeful when running; ill at all other times. Now I was 4 miles from home and staring at my shoes again. The sun was getting high in the sky and scratchy summer heat was becoming a factor. My gaze shifted to the Marathon logo and the irony hit me. I stood up, wiped the gravel from my bare back, found a dime on the pavement, went into the gas station, bought three tootsie rolls, and ran home. The next time I had a weekly total over 40 miles was three months later.
Tuesday, October 8, 2009, 10:23a.m., The University of Findlay, Findlay, Ohio
“Collagen based tissues, such as tendons, ligaments, and bones, hypertrophy at a much slower rate than muscle tissue or vascular structures. Furthermore they have poor sensation. If you are not careful your patient’s fitness can outstrip their skeletons and stress reaction injuries will result…you really have to progress training slowly, methodically, and in response to their symptoms. It pays to be smart.”—Me, lecturing physical therapy students at UF
Tuesday, October 8, 2009, 8:17 p.m., The North Rim Trail, Mohican State Park, Ohio
I am climbing a mud-slicked hill on my hands and knees, flashlight clenched between my teeth, to guard against the pitch-blackness. There is no defense against the pouring rain or 52 degree temperature. I am 16 miles into a 20 mile run and I’m feeling more certain than ever that the pain in my left foot, specifically the ventral aspect of my 5th tarso-metatarsal joint, must be a stress fracture. I’m trying to regain the lost trail, and despite it all I am at peace. This is killing me. It must be good training for…something.
As I was climbing the hill I flashed back to my time behind the Marathon Station. I also recalled that my shoes were the Nike Pegasus. What is it with our sport and Greek Mythology? Pegasus was a winged horse, Nike the goddess of victory, Marathon the legendary battleground that resulted in the death of a messenger and gave birth to the most epic race on earth.
Nothing is named after Icarus though. Alas.
I guess that tragedy as a result of bad judgment doesn’t make it as a brand name in corporate America. It’s a pity though isn’t it? If Icarus was tragic and Icarus was irresponsible, wasn’t he also passionate and adventuresome? Shouldn’t that count for something? Was there something even remotely noble in Icarus’ failure? Do I get a simple attaboy for the drive that led to my crash behind the marathon station? Was my risky run in the rain completely without honor just because it was stupid?
If our sport is rife with examples of bad judgment can we, or should we, improve our decision making skills? I have heard ultra running described as an “extreme-sport” but I doubt that I will ever see it televised on MTV’s “X-Games”. I cannot decide if our sport is truly extreme or if it is not extreme at all. Surely running all day and all night in all temperatures, sometimes without adequate oxygen, sometimes in high humidity, always on poor footing doesn’t place it in the middle of any bell-curve. But don’t we also achieve what we achieve through a careful and miserly meting out of our resources? Doesn’t patience and wisdom usually prevail? Then why does the compulsive behavior and drive that can push judgment to the bad side of the tracks seem to reside in nearly all of us?
I don’t know the answer to these questions and I have recently decided that I no longer care. I’m not foolish. I don’t court injury but I don’t yet fear injury either. Everyone seems to know the story of Icarus. Most of us remember the part where Icarus was warned against “flying too high” but the part that struck me upon re-reading it was the warning to also avoid flying too low. I wonder if other cultures recall the metaphor of not excelling too much and forget the part about keeping well above sea level the way we have. I wonder if we fear success more than we fear failure. Icarus was a fool. There is no doubt about that. We can say that Icarus should have known better and we can extrapolate this need for conservancy to risky business ventures, unwise love affairs, or going for a touchdown when a field goal seems like guaranteed points.
But I don’t think knowing is enough. After all, let us never forget that Icarus was warned.
On the day of my Mohican 20 miler I stood on a sore foot and lectured about stress reactions. After the lecture I grabbed my gym bag and sped to the Mohican forest. I knew my situation well enough to name the injury in detail. And yet sometimes my soul needs to fly no matter how unwise. That’s how it has been lately. I needed to take off the tie and grovel in the mud. I had so much fun being borderline hypothermic and lost that I wonder if my mind didn’t lead me, literally and figuratively, down the wrong path so that I could have the adventure my heart needed. Maybe someday I will fear injury. I feel certain that someday my running will fall to earth. But in the meantime I have to acknowledge that it might be sinful to ignore the miracle of flight.
This paradox dooms me to a life of monitoring softening wax.
Coaches speak of building character and tolerating pain. Nike’s own commercials show athletes heading out to train in the rain, Hollywood makes a movie about a guy pounding raw beef with barely bandaged hands in a meat locker. If such behavior is considered heroic on celluloid shouldn’t our real life heroics be admired in some sense as well? Perhaps the passion is part-and-parcel with who we are…and how we should be. Maybe its evil to try to bottle passion.
I wonder if Icarus would admit to any regrets? I like to believe he wouldn’t.
I like to believe that I won’t regret a moment of it either.
Daedalus was nearly finished with a project that been many months in the making. The final construction took only a few hours and the gathering of feathers was easy. It was the constant tinkering with the base material that had troubled him. All types of wood had proven too heavy, animal bones too fragile to bind reliably, and bamboo simply wouldn’t hold the feathers.
It was going to have to be wax.
Wax took bees and bees took time. But time was no issue. He and his son had little other than time in this island prison. The worrisome thing about the wax was that it could melt, but only if his son, Icarus, flew too close to the sun. All the lad had to do was play it safe. All he had to do was maintain the status quo, walk the line, stay well above sea level, but not too high above sea level, and get the job done. If he pulled this escape off he would have the rest of his life for adventure. Surely the boy would do the right thing. Wouldn’t he?
Friday, March 4, 2:04 p.m., 1143 B.C., One mile off the coast of the Isle of Crete
The freedom was too much. Years of confinement left Icarus as he did another loop and let out a final yelp of pure unbridled joy. He soared to impossible heights and then he plunged to his death.
Thursday, May 28, 1983, 3:27 p.m., Athens Ohio
“Every morning when you wake up this summer there will be a certain amount of training that you should do to attain fitness by fall. Too much is not good, too little is not good. Your job is to wake up every morning, determine what the proper amount of work is, and go out and do it.” –Elmore Banton, Head Coach, Cross Country and Track, Ohio University.
Saturday, July 11, 1983, 8:37 a.m., lying beside a dumpster behind Marathon Gas Station, Berea, Ohio
I lay on the ground on my back looking straight up at my feet propped against the dumpster. I’d averaged 112 miles per week for the past six weeks and this is where it brought me. I was beaten into oblivion in the Berea “Between the Lakes” 4th of July race by a pack of mugs, including J.V. runners from my old high school. The answer had to be more mileage and so I was attempting to cover 150 miles this week. I ran to work, slept in my lifeguard chair all day long, ran home, slept, and went out for another 10 miles at night. Today I stared at my shoes for 45 minutes before I put them on. I was moody, thirsty at all times and, strangely ONLY felt good when I was running. Trashed, tired, depressed, but hopeful when running; ill at all other times. Now I was 4 miles from home and staring at my shoes again. The sun was getting high in the sky and scratchy summer heat was becoming a factor. My gaze shifted to the Marathon logo and the irony hit me. I stood up, wiped the gravel from my bare back, found a dime on the pavement, went into the gas station, bought three tootsie rolls, and ran home. The next time I had a weekly total over 40 miles was three months later.
Tuesday, October 8, 2009, 10:23a.m., The University of Findlay, Findlay, Ohio
“Collagen based tissues, such as tendons, ligaments, and bones, hypertrophy at a much slower rate than muscle tissue or vascular structures. Furthermore they have poor sensation. If you are not careful your patient’s fitness can outstrip their skeletons and stress reaction injuries will result…you really have to progress training slowly, methodically, and in response to their symptoms. It pays to be smart.”—Me, lecturing physical therapy students at UF
Tuesday, October 8, 2009, 8:17 p.m., The North Rim Trail, Mohican State Park, Ohio
I am climbing a mud-slicked hill on my hands and knees, flashlight clenched between my teeth, to guard against the pitch-blackness. There is no defense against the pouring rain or 52 degree temperature. I am 16 miles into a 20 mile run and I’m feeling more certain than ever that the pain in my left foot, specifically the ventral aspect of my 5th tarso-metatarsal joint, must be a stress fracture. I’m trying to regain the lost trail, and despite it all I am at peace. This is killing me. It must be good training for…something.
As I was climbing the hill I flashed back to my time behind the Marathon Station. I also recalled that my shoes were the Nike Pegasus. What is it with our sport and Greek Mythology? Pegasus was a winged horse, Nike the goddess of victory, Marathon the legendary battleground that resulted in the death of a messenger and gave birth to the most epic race on earth.
Nothing is named after Icarus though. Alas.
I guess that tragedy as a result of bad judgment doesn’t make it as a brand name in corporate America. It’s a pity though isn’t it? If Icarus was tragic and Icarus was irresponsible, wasn’t he also passionate and adventuresome? Shouldn’t that count for something? Was there something even remotely noble in Icarus’ failure? Do I get a simple attaboy for the drive that led to my crash behind the marathon station? Was my risky run in the rain completely without honor just because it was stupid?
If our sport is rife with examples of bad judgment can we, or should we, improve our decision making skills? I have heard ultra running described as an “extreme-sport” but I doubt that I will ever see it televised on MTV’s “X-Games”. I cannot decide if our sport is truly extreme or if it is not extreme at all. Surely running all day and all night in all temperatures, sometimes without adequate oxygen, sometimes in high humidity, always on poor footing doesn’t place it in the middle of any bell-curve. But don’t we also achieve what we achieve through a careful and miserly meting out of our resources? Doesn’t patience and wisdom usually prevail? Then why does the compulsive behavior and drive that can push judgment to the bad side of the tracks seem to reside in nearly all of us?
I don’t know the answer to these questions and I have recently decided that I no longer care. I’m not foolish. I don’t court injury but I don’t yet fear injury either. Everyone seems to know the story of Icarus. Most of us remember the part where Icarus was warned against “flying too high” but the part that struck me upon re-reading it was the warning to also avoid flying too low. I wonder if other cultures recall the metaphor of not excelling too much and forget the part about keeping well above sea level the way we have. I wonder if we fear success more than we fear failure. Icarus was a fool. There is no doubt about that. We can say that Icarus should have known better and we can extrapolate this need for conservancy to risky business ventures, unwise love affairs, or going for a touchdown when a field goal seems like guaranteed points.
But I don’t think knowing is enough. After all, let us never forget that Icarus was warned.
On the day of my Mohican 20 miler I stood on a sore foot and lectured about stress reactions. After the lecture I grabbed my gym bag and sped to the Mohican forest. I knew my situation well enough to name the injury in detail. And yet sometimes my soul needs to fly no matter how unwise. That’s how it has been lately. I needed to take off the tie and grovel in the mud. I had so much fun being borderline hypothermic and lost that I wonder if my mind didn’t lead me, literally and figuratively, down the wrong path so that I could have the adventure my heart needed. Maybe someday I will fear injury. I feel certain that someday my running will fall to earth. But in the meantime I have to acknowledge that it might be sinful to ignore the miracle of flight.
This paradox dooms me to a life of monitoring softening wax.
Coaches speak of building character and tolerating pain. Nike’s own commercials show athletes heading out to train in the rain, Hollywood makes a movie about a guy pounding raw beef with barely bandaged hands in a meat locker. If such behavior is considered heroic on celluloid shouldn’t our real life heroics be admired in some sense as well? Perhaps the passion is part-and-parcel with who we are…and how we should be. Maybe its evil to try to bottle passion.
I wonder if Icarus would admit to any regrets? I like to believe he wouldn’t.
I like to believe that I won’t regret a moment of it either.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Since time moves too quickly, race me instead.
I have been writing this thing about a dead guy from Greece, but I can’t get time enough to think clearly and finish it, so let me keep that one on the back-burner and tell you about 36 hours ago…when things were so simple that I didn’t need to think much at all. I was running down the trail yesterday, my heart rate pushing 190 and my core temperature probably climbing into the triple digits, and I was thinking three things:
A. Lemme see if I can get out of this without splitting my head open on a rock. AND
B. This current activity is both VERY difficult and VERY simple…I like it. AND
C. When will that sumbitch in the floral shorts finally crack? One of us has to die soon…and I want it to be him.
I wasn’t always who I am today. I was never a terrific runner but I wasn’t always the guy who was walking down the trail vomiting and worrying his friends and relatives, either. Most of my running friends don’t know this but I actually have a competitive streak. Its okay by me that they don’t know. Most of my friends figure that being slow is just fine and dandy by me. I haven’t ever lied about my competitive nature…I just never mention it. Its easy to seem non-competitive when you are very very slow and somewhat good-natured. The very best part of being an ultra marathoner is spending time outdoors and meeting both new and old friends on the trail. I’m not lying about that either. If I relied on fame and fortune to motivate me I would have run out of that particular type of fuel and ground to a halt many years ago.
I love my friends, I really do. But I also believe that every so often, even if very long intervals of time pass between occurrences, it is healthy to give your friends the beating they so richly deserve. Yep, its OK to put your chin to your chest and administer an ass-kicking. That way, when you are exchanging pleasantries at the club’s ‘Secret Santa’ cookie exchange everyone knows exactly who’s-who. I like to be humble but how can I be humble if no one has ever, not even once, seen me do something to be humble about?
Most folks probably figure that I would be a bragger if only I had something to brag about. But that’s not true. Let me write that again…its not true! And just because I’m about to brag here and now doesn’t mean that I am a bragger. I’m still humble I’m just going to pass on this rare and valuable opportunity to display my humility for the sake of this posting. Its because I love you.
You are welcome.
I almost never race ultra marathons. Or do I? If racing means leaving everything out on the course and finishing feeling as though you could not possibly take another step then I race ALL of my ultras, because after each race I am more wasted than cooked carrots at a Viking feast.
Does finishing tired mean that you raced? I believe that it does. I also think that the two most rewarding things that you can race are yourself, or a clock. But you can compete against yourself or run a time-trial any time you want to. So why race?
I went to run the Youngstown Ultra Trail Classic 50K yesterday. It was a very cool race. Everything about it was awesome. They had terrific swag, great food, neat t-shirts, and wonderful volunteers. The course was marked such that if you paid sufficient attention you wouldn’t get lost. I got lost three times. The reason I got lost was because I wasn’t paying attention, and the reason I wasn’t paying attention was because I was tired, and this time…this time…the reason I was tired was because I WAS RACING!!
I didn’t start out racing. I started out trying to be polite. I was in a long conga-line of runners on a long stretch of single track trail and everyone was flying. There were 25K runners mixed in with the 50K folks which might have been part of the reason for the fast pace. But EVERYONE was flying, and no matter how many times I stopped to let a runner who was nipping at my heels go by, there were always more people whose path I was blocking. The only polite thing to do was to go fast.
And, as I now recall, going fast is fun.
After a while the runners strung out, of course, but by the time they did I was up in a part of the pack that I never visit. I found myself running with Nick Billock and Jeff Musick. On a normal day these guys can chew me up and digest me before breakfast. I knew this, and I knew that I should back off but they were so fun, so entertaining, and so skillful that I went into debt to stay with them for as long as I could.
Running behind Nick is a lesson in what proper trail running form should be. Watch Nick for a while and you will note that he runs with a full stride through the roughest terrain. The fact that he doesn’t twist an ankle or catch a root seems, at first, to be dumb luck. Watch him a while longer, though, and you will see that luck has nothing to do with it. Nick runs with his foot strike directly below his center of gravity, lands on whatever obstacle may be there, and makes constant tiny, almost unnoticeable adjustments in his hips, shoulders, and arms such that the sum line of gravity of all of his body mass always falls between his feet…regardless of the terrain they find. Run behind Nick for a while and its impossible not to duplicate the stride. And if you manage to duplicate his stride you will not fall often, and you will appear to be as lucky as he seems to be.
Running behind this fine runner showed me that some of my slowness is not due to
fitness but due to running form. My current form, developed by me over many years and
many miles, was crafted and practiced under the banner of “safety”. I figured that it is better to be safe-and-sound, even if the pace had to slow a bit. The irony is that while watching Nick I realized that jumping for spots between obstacles is neither safe nor efficient.
If Nick was the master of the terrain then Jeff was the master of maintaining an
even keel. Jeff ran mile after mile seemingly without a trace of effort or any unnecessary expenditure of energy. He rarely walked, he rarely slowed down, and he never strained. On two of the occasions when I ran off the course it was because I had gotten ahead of Jeff and sacrificed judgment for speed. Fast runners have skill and I learned that from Nick. Fast runners also have flow and I learned that from Jeff.
And for what its worth, fast runners DO point out beautiful sights and they DO chat. They DO enjoy the moment. Nick, Jeff and I talked up a storm. Trail skills, and a proper mental outlook, allow a guy to multi-task I guess.
Another thing about running fast that I already knew, but had forgotten, is the simple fact that pain is a symptom. It’s a warning sign, but in the case of the circulatory and muscular system of a trained person the 'pain alarm' goes off far before we need it to. Because of this you can run in distress for hours on end…and sometimes you can get away with it. I did. I was so tired at 18 miles that I wanted to cry. So I settled in behind Jeff and he pulled me along for a while at a FASTER pace and I snapped out of it. The pain remained but it became a curiosity rather than something to be feared. My ability to keep on keeping on was a surprise to me, and I love surprises…even in ultras.
Now, before I go off the friggin deep end please allow me to calibrate things. Racing
must be defined by the individual. Although I was delighted and surprised by my race I need to tell you that the race winner came within minutes of LAPPING me on an 8 mile loop. I will also point out that my 10 minute miles aren’t going to earn me invited runner status at any race. But being in a race with other runners allowed me to know that 10 minute miles on this course were pretty good. Running alone I would have wondered if I was running well or merely suffering due to having a bad day.
But, regardless of pace, racing is racing and I did race the man in the flowery shorts…and he raced me back…and this time I won, and it was awesome. I raced another guy as well, he had goose bumps and he was kinda red all-over. He looked awful, and he dropped me so hard on a sloping uphill that the vacuum created by his vanishing mass caused me to slam my chest into a rock. That guy, and that rock, pounded me, and it was equally awesome. I also skinned my knee somewhere and it hurts today. I don’t remember doing it. And when you really think about it, isn’t that awesome as well?
So to answer my original question, if we can compete against ourselves or the clock any time we like, should we race? And if so why? I have absolutely no clue whether or not you should race. But since you have been kind enough to take the time to read my question, I ask you to please consider my opinion. My opinion is that we should race, at least occasionally, because it brings out the best in us, because we can make new friends in different parts of the pack, because each experience is a learning experience, because it gives us another thing to daydream about on cold winter days, because it doesn’t TAKE AWAY from our love of friends and love of the outdoors. And finally and most importantly, because surprising yourself is fun.
All my best (at least occasionally), --Mark
A. Lemme see if I can get out of this without splitting my head open on a rock. AND
B. This current activity is both VERY difficult and VERY simple…I like it. AND
C. When will that sumbitch in the floral shorts finally crack? One of us has to die soon…and I want it to be him.
I wasn’t always who I am today. I was never a terrific runner but I wasn’t always the guy who was walking down the trail vomiting and worrying his friends and relatives, either. Most of my running friends don’t know this but I actually have a competitive streak. Its okay by me that they don’t know. Most of my friends figure that being slow is just fine and dandy by me. I haven’t ever lied about my competitive nature…I just never mention it. Its easy to seem non-competitive when you are very very slow and somewhat good-natured. The very best part of being an ultra marathoner is spending time outdoors and meeting both new and old friends on the trail. I’m not lying about that either. If I relied on fame and fortune to motivate me I would have run out of that particular type of fuel and ground to a halt many years ago.
I love my friends, I really do. But I also believe that every so often, even if very long intervals of time pass between occurrences, it is healthy to give your friends the beating they so richly deserve. Yep, its OK to put your chin to your chest and administer an ass-kicking. That way, when you are exchanging pleasantries at the club’s ‘Secret Santa’ cookie exchange everyone knows exactly who’s-who. I like to be humble but how can I be humble if no one has ever, not even once, seen me do something to be humble about?
Most folks probably figure that I would be a bragger if only I had something to brag about. But that’s not true. Let me write that again…its not true! And just because I’m about to brag here and now doesn’t mean that I am a bragger. I’m still humble I’m just going to pass on this rare and valuable opportunity to display my humility for the sake of this posting. Its because I love you.
You are welcome.
I almost never race ultra marathons. Or do I? If racing means leaving everything out on the course and finishing feeling as though you could not possibly take another step then I race ALL of my ultras, because after each race I am more wasted than cooked carrots at a Viking feast.
Does finishing tired mean that you raced? I believe that it does. I also think that the two most rewarding things that you can race are yourself, or a clock. But you can compete against yourself or run a time-trial any time you want to. So why race?
I went to run the Youngstown Ultra Trail Classic 50K yesterday. It was a very cool race. Everything about it was awesome. They had terrific swag, great food, neat t-shirts, and wonderful volunteers. The course was marked such that if you paid sufficient attention you wouldn’t get lost. I got lost three times. The reason I got lost was because I wasn’t paying attention, and the reason I wasn’t paying attention was because I was tired, and this time…this time…the reason I was tired was because I WAS RACING!!
I didn’t start out racing. I started out trying to be polite. I was in a long conga-line of runners on a long stretch of single track trail and everyone was flying. There were 25K runners mixed in with the 50K folks which might have been part of the reason for the fast pace. But EVERYONE was flying, and no matter how many times I stopped to let a runner who was nipping at my heels go by, there were always more people whose path I was blocking. The only polite thing to do was to go fast.
And, as I now recall, going fast is fun.
After a while the runners strung out, of course, but by the time they did I was up in a part of the pack that I never visit. I found myself running with Nick Billock and Jeff Musick. On a normal day these guys can chew me up and digest me before breakfast. I knew this, and I knew that I should back off but they were so fun, so entertaining, and so skillful that I went into debt to stay with them for as long as I could.
Running behind Nick is a lesson in what proper trail running form should be. Watch Nick for a while and you will note that he runs with a full stride through the roughest terrain. The fact that he doesn’t twist an ankle or catch a root seems, at first, to be dumb luck. Watch him a while longer, though, and you will see that luck has nothing to do with it. Nick runs with his foot strike directly below his center of gravity, lands on whatever obstacle may be there, and makes constant tiny, almost unnoticeable adjustments in his hips, shoulders, and arms such that the sum line of gravity of all of his body mass always falls between his feet…regardless of the terrain they find. Run behind Nick for a while and its impossible not to duplicate the stride. And if you manage to duplicate his stride you will not fall often, and you will appear to be as lucky as he seems to be.
Running behind this fine runner showed me that some of my slowness is not due to
fitness but due to running form. My current form, developed by me over many years and
many miles, was crafted and practiced under the banner of “safety”. I figured that it is better to be safe-and-sound, even if the pace had to slow a bit. The irony is that while watching Nick I realized that jumping for spots between obstacles is neither safe nor efficient.
If Nick was the master of the terrain then Jeff was the master of maintaining an
even keel. Jeff ran mile after mile seemingly without a trace of effort or any unnecessary expenditure of energy. He rarely walked, he rarely slowed down, and he never strained. On two of the occasions when I ran off the course it was because I had gotten ahead of Jeff and sacrificed judgment for speed. Fast runners have skill and I learned that from Nick. Fast runners also have flow and I learned that from Jeff.
And for what its worth, fast runners DO point out beautiful sights and they DO chat. They DO enjoy the moment. Nick, Jeff and I talked up a storm. Trail skills, and a proper mental outlook, allow a guy to multi-task I guess.
Another thing about running fast that I already knew, but had forgotten, is the simple fact that pain is a symptom. It’s a warning sign, but in the case of the circulatory and muscular system of a trained person the 'pain alarm' goes off far before we need it to. Because of this you can run in distress for hours on end…and sometimes you can get away with it. I did. I was so tired at 18 miles that I wanted to cry. So I settled in behind Jeff and he pulled me along for a while at a FASTER pace and I snapped out of it. The pain remained but it became a curiosity rather than something to be feared. My ability to keep on keeping on was a surprise to me, and I love surprises…even in ultras.
Now, before I go off the friggin deep end please allow me to calibrate things. Racing
must be defined by the individual. Although I was delighted and surprised by my race I need to tell you that the race winner came within minutes of LAPPING me on an 8 mile loop. I will also point out that my 10 minute miles aren’t going to earn me invited runner status at any race. But being in a race with other runners allowed me to know that 10 minute miles on this course were pretty good. Running alone I would have wondered if I was running well or merely suffering due to having a bad day.
But, regardless of pace, racing is racing and I did race the man in the flowery shorts…and he raced me back…and this time I won, and it was awesome. I raced another guy as well, he had goose bumps and he was kinda red all-over. He looked awful, and he dropped me so hard on a sloping uphill that the vacuum created by his vanishing mass caused me to slam my chest into a rock. That guy, and that rock, pounded me, and it was equally awesome. I also skinned my knee somewhere and it hurts today. I don’t remember doing it. And when you really think about it, isn’t that awesome as well?
So to answer my original question, if we can compete against ourselves or the clock any time we like, should we race? And if so why? I have absolutely no clue whether or not you should race. But since you have been kind enough to take the time to read my question, I ask you to please consider my opinion. My opinion is that we should race, at least occasionally, because it brings out the best in us, because we can make new friends in different parts of the pack, because each experience is a learning experience, because it gives us another thing to daydream about on cold winter days, because it doesn’t TAKE AWAY from our love of friends and love of the outdoors. And finally and most importantly, because surprising yourself is fun.
All my best (at least occasionally), --Mark
Friday, September 4, 2009
Werewolves, Teen Idols, and Us.
I just finished a run under a shining full moon. It was a perfect reminder that fall is just around the corner. I love fall. I guess all runners do. Thinking about fall got me thinking about Halloween which got me thinking about werewolves and you probably have already guessed that thinking about werewolves got me thinking about Hannah Montana. Its all so perfectly linear isn’t it?
I recently had occasion to watch Hannah Montana’s movie. I can’t remember its name because I wasn’t paying close attention but I think it might have been called ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’. Anyhow, I thought that it was just going to be another poofy meaningless tweener movie such as ‘Secret Agent Cody Banks’ or ‘The Godfather III’, but boy was I wrong!
Warning: I am going to give away the plot to Hannah Montana’s Movie here so if you haven’t seen it and don’t want me to ruin it you should go see it before reading on.
OK. Well like I said I didn’t pay close attention but the movie is about these two girls, Hannah and Miley. One of the girls (Hannah) overcomes the debilitating handicap of a dreadful singing voice to become famous and rich for some reason that I missed. The other girl (Miley) is fabulously beautiful and fun but is still, for some reason, picked on and misunderstood by all of the other children. I absorbed all of this while folding laundry and keeping up on dishes and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches mind you, but the end of the movie was a shocker….THE TWO GIRLS ENDED UP BEING THE SAME PERSON!!!! I kid you not!! I have no reason to lie to you. They were the same person all along!! No one could possibly have seen that ending coming.
So really, when you think of it, ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’ had essentially the same plot and story line as ‘Fight Club’.
I don’t know who wrote and directed ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’. I could look it up in about 2 seconds because I am currently on the computer. But I am tired from my run and from life so I’m not going to look it up. Instead I will simply assume that it was Quentin Tarantino.
We mustn’t be too hard on Quentin Tarantino for ripping off the plot of ‘Fight Club’ and using it in ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’. Divided personalities and dual identities are commonplace throughout the history of literature and the duality of man has been portrayed in every form of media from the caped crusader, to Judas, to werewolves, to the Phantom of the Opera, to Hannah Montana.
Take Dr. Jekyll for example. Dr. Jekyll worked very hard to earn his doctoral degree from a prestigious university. In so doing he took out cripplingly large student loans, spent seven years in a dysfunctional relationship with an undergraduate modern dance major, and put up with a scaldingly abusive dissertation chair. After graduation the poor chap whips up a little celebratory homebrew and turns into Mr. Hyde, a man who is lacking a terminal degree and is, therefore, fearful and loathsome. Don’t we all relate to Dr. Jekyll on some level? Haven’t we all dated a lithe, gorgeous, total-nut-job dance major who is too crazy to live with and too sexy to leave? And if we haven’t, haven’t we always wanted to?
You see, I believe we are drawn to tales of the two faces of man because nearly all of us are two people. We see evidence in the news all the time. The loving nanny who steals from the children she is caring for, the husband who, after 20 years of love and nurturing, tells his wife it was an act all along, the priest who has performed 40 years of kind acts while also abusing children.
School started back 2 weeks ago and we’ve been having fun. I gave a 4.5 hour long lecture last Tuesday on zygapophyseal joints. The students loved it and so did I. I put on a nice comfy necktie and stood under fluorescent lights and we talked about back pain. You should have been there. But you weren’t because you were probably doing your other life somewhere as well. I’m a pretty good professor. Hardly anyone at work knows that I run. Dave Essinger knows though. He’s an English professor at Findlay and he finished Mohican this year. I see Dave every now and again and we speak in hushed tones of mud and carbohydrates and also of a mist we saw rising above a river. Then he puts on a tie and teaches writing. Dave told me he reads this blog. In my professor life it scares me that an English teacher is reading this. But my runner side doesn’t give a hoot. I hope that runner-Dave is reading this and not writer-Dave.
So if I can be a professor I wonder what else I can be? I can be a bad singer I guess. I could be an alcoholic if I decided to but I don’t think I could be violent or abusive. I can be polite in trying circumstances and I can hold my tongue in a staff meeting. I guess I could be, or pretend to be, nearly anything I like. In my life I have been a lifeguard, a pizza delivery guy, a land-crew worker, a boyfriend, a dad, a husband, a business owner, an overnight “guest” in the Summit County Jail, an alter boy, a brave, a bobcat, an oiler, a physical therapist, a recipient of an eviction notice, a professor, a patient, a race director, a faculty senate chair, a philanderer, a spendthrift, an enemy, and a friend. But in all of these roles, I held the dual identity of runner. In fact on very nearly every day that I ever portrayed any of those roles, I also ran.
I quit soccer and I quit the trombone, I quit chewing tobacco and I quit buying Volkswagon Jetta’s. I quit boxing and wrestling and basketball and football. But I never quit running. And more to the point I never quit running hard. I did, progressively and by sad degrees, stop running fast but I never stopped running to the point of exhaustion.
So if I use to be all of those things and now I’m not…and if I could be lots of other things that I currently am not…maybe I’m really a runner. It’s the only thing about me that has lasted.
I think some of you may be runners as well. You are probably other things but I bet the running has lasted the longest…or will endure the longest. Not everyone runs for a long time though. Some people run for a few months, finish that 10K or marathon, get their silver blanket and medal and head back to the handball courts. God bless their hearts. I really mean that. I hope they enjoyed their time in our sport. But the lifelong runners, the ‘identity’ runners that I know are different. They all have one thing in common. They all have suffered and will suffer again. They don’t like suffering but they do see the value in it. They go to great lengths to avoid cramping, chaffing, hypoglycemia, and anoxia. They use intervals, lubricants, tinctures, and orthotics to be pain free.
And yet…
And yet they do suffer. They have suffered and I believe that in that moment of purest suffering, that piece of aloneness, they see clearly the one and only person that they are. No necktie can ease the pain, no pep talk can lift them, its just them and eternity.
And its beautiful. And its peaceful. And it can be scary. Once many years ago I shared the lead in a small but locally important race with a friend. With one mile to go I looked over at him, sized up his long legs and bouncy stride, told myself I could never outkick him, and proceeded to set a goal of removing every molecule of oxygen from his bloodstream with an increased pace. I actually relished in the pain I was causing him. After the race I was alarmed that I could be so cruel. I have also marveled at how defeated or how lonely I can be when suffering…and how much I can love life and love God.
Some people are cynical regarding the concept of a sinner having a deathbed conversion. I’m not though. I believe that some unfortunate individuals only have the alone moment that suffering can bring on the day of their death. How sad that they might learn who they are and change only in the last moments of their lives. And how happy for us that we don’t have to wait that long. We all have the darkness and lightness that come with and from the duality of man. But some of us can, when we want to, synthesize the two by burning away the superfluous. And when we do the real us emerges. And it turns out to only be one person after all.
I recently had occasion to watch Hannah Montana’s movie. I can’t remember its name because I wasn’t paying close attention but I think it might have been called ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’. Anyhow, I thought that it was just going to be another poofy meaningless tweener movie such as ‘Secret Agent Cody Banks’ or ‘The Godfather III’, but boy was I wrong!
Warning: I am going to give away the plot to Hannah Montana’s Movie here so if you haven’t seen it and don’t want me to ruin it you should go see it before reading on.
OK. Well like I said I didn’t pay close attention but the movie is about these two girls, Hannah and Miley. One of the girls (Hannah) overcomes the debilitating handicap of a dreadful singing voice to become famous and rich for some reason that I missed. The other girl (Miley) is fabulously beautiful and fun but is still, for some reason, picked on and misunderstood by all of the other children. I absorbed all of this while folding laundry and keeping up on dishes and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches mind you, but the end of the movie was a shocker….THE TWO GIRLS ENDED UP BEING THE SAME PERSON!!!! I kid you not!! I have no reason to lie to you. They were the same person all along!! No one could possibly have seen that ending coming.
So really, when you think of it, ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’ had essentially the same plot and story line as ‘Fight Club’.
I don’t know who wrote and directed ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’. I could look it up in about 2 seconds because I am currently on the computer. But I am tired from my run and from life so I’m not going to look it up. Instead I will simply assume that it was Quentin Tarantino.
We mustn’t be too hard on Quentin Tarantino for ripping off the plot of ‘Fight Club’ and using it in ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’. Divided personalities and dual identities are commonplace throughout the history of literature and the duality of man has been portrayed in every form of media from the caped crusader, to Judas, to werewolves, to the Phantom of the Opera, to Hannah Montana.
Take Dr. Jekyll for example. Dr. Jekyll worked very hard to earn his doctoral degree from a prestigious university. In so doing he took out cripplingly large student loans, spent seven years in a dysfunctional relationship with an undergraduate modern dance major, and put up with a scaldingly abusive dissertation chair. After graduation the poor chap whips up a little celebratory homebrew and turns into Mr. Hyde, a man who is lacking a terminal degree and is, therefore, fearful and loathsome. Don’t we all relate to Dr. Jekyll on some level? Haven’t we all dated a lithe, gorgeous, total-nut-job dance major who is too crazy to live with and too sexy to leave? And if we haven’t, haven’t we always wanted to?
You see, I believe we are drawn to tales of the two faces of man because nearly all of us are two people. We see evidence in the news all the time. The loving nanny who steals from the children she is caring for, the husband who, after 20 years of love and nurturing, tells his wife it was an act all along, the priest who has performed 40 years of kind acts while also abusing children.
School started back 2 weeks ago and we’ve been having fun. I gave a 4.5 hour long lecture last Tuesday on zygapophyseal joints. The students loved it and so did I. I put on a nice comfy necktie and stood under fluorescent lights and we talked about back pain. You should have been there. But you weren’t because you were probably doing your other life somewhere as well. I’m a pretty good professor. Hardly anyone at work knows that I run. Dave Essinger knows though. He’s an English professor at Findlay and he finished Mohican this year. I see Dave every now and again and we speak in hushed tones of mud and carbohydrates and also of a mist we saw rising above a river. Then he puts on a tie and teaches writing. Dave told me he reads this blog. In my professor life it scares me that an English teacher is reading this. But my runner side doesn’t give a hoot. I hope that runner-Dave is reading this and not writer-Dave.
So if I can be a professor I wonder what else I can be? I can be a bad singer I guess. I could be an alcoholic if I decided to but I don’t think I could be violent or abusive. I can be polite in trying circumstances and I can hold my tongue in a staff meeting. I guess I could be, or pretend to be, nearly anything I like. In my life I have been a lifeguard, a pizza delivery guy, a land-crew worker, a boyfriend, a dad, a husband, a business owner, an overnight “guest” in the Summit County Jail, an alter boy, a brave, a bobcat, an oiler, a physical therapist, a recipient of an eviction notice, a professor, a patient, a race director, a faculty senate chair, a philanderer, a spendthrift, an enemy, and a friend. But in all of these roles, I held the dual identity of runner. In fact on very nearly every day that I ever portrayed any of those roles, I also ran.
I quit soccer and I quit the trombone, I quit chewing tobacco and I quit buying Volkswagon Jetta’s. I quit boxing and wrestling and basketball and football. But I never quit running. And more to the point I never quit running hard. I did, progressively and by sad degrees, stop running fast but I never stopped running to the point of exhaustion.
So if I use to be all of those things and now I’m not…and if I could be lots of other things that I currently am not…maybe I’m really a runner. It’s the only thing about me that has lasted.
I think some of you may be runners as well. You are probably other things but I bet the running has lasted the longest…or will endure the longest. Not everyone runs for a long time though. Some people run for a few months, finish that 10K or marathon, get their silver blanket and medal and head back to the handball courts. God bless their hearts. I really mean that. I hope they enjoyed their time in our sport. But the lifelong runners, the ‘identity’ runners that I know are different. They all have one thing in common. They all have suffered and will suffer again. They don’t like suffering but they do see the value in it. They go to great lengths to avoid cramping, chaffing, hypoglycemia, and anoxia. They use intervals, lubricants, tinctures, and orthotics to be pain free.
And yet…
And yet they do suffer. They have suffered and I believe that in that moment of purest suffering, that piece of aloneness, they see clearly the one and only person that they are. No necktie can ease the pain, no pep talk can lift them, its just them and eternity.
And its beautiful. And its peaceful. And it can be scary. Once many years ago I shared the lead in a small but locally important race with a friend. With one mile to go I looked over at him, sized up his long legs and bouncy stride, told myself I could never outkick him, and proceeded to set a goal of removing every molecule of oxygen from his bloodstream with an increased pace. I actually relished in the pain I was causing him. After the race I was alarmed that I could be so cruel. I have also marveled at how defeated or how lonely I can be when suffering…and how much I can love life and love God.
Some people are cynical regarding the concept of a sinner having a deathbed conversion. I’m not though. I believe that some unfortunate individuals only have the alone moment that suffering can bring on the day of their death. How sad that they might learn who they are and change only in the last moments of their lives. And how happy for us that we don’t have to wait that long. We all have the darkness and lightness that come with and from the duality of man. But some of us can, when we want to, synthesize the two by burning away the superfluous. And when we do the real us emerges. And it turns out to only be one person after all.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Summer Breezes
Two paths diverged in a wood…and I took the one less traveled by…
…and then I looped around and checked out the other path, because I am an ultra marathoner. I became one for real this summer. But summer is now over and its time to head back to the University of Findlay on a more regular basis starting tomorrow. There will be meetings and free donuts all next week and then the week after that the students return and things will be fun again, but there will be no free donuts. Life is like that sometimes.
The family and I just came back from Disney World and I drove all night long, which is a very ultra-like thing to do. Yep, all night long I drank coffee and listened to music. Then I listened to this guy on the radio talking about UFO’s. Then I listened to music again. It rained for a while then it didn’t rain anymore. The driver’s side windshield wiper was ineffective and the passenger side windshield wiper was in perfect shape. Alas. Then I stopped at a convenience store in Charleston W.V. to get more coffee and interrupted a lovers quarrel between two clerks. I tried to start polite and healing conversation by telling them of my experiences in the Rattlesnake 50K run, which is their local ultra. They weren’t interested.
Driving all night is a lot like running all night except that I find that there is much less puking. And the aid stations charge you money. And no matter how much money you are willing to spend they never have pierogis. Also, they try to get you to buy Lottery tickets, and the T-shirts that you can buy all have dirty words written on them.
I guess that driving all night really isn’t like running all night at all.
But I wish it was like running all night because I miss it already.
Disney World was awesome except for the smothering heat and the part where I hemorrhaged cash day after day. The kids had a blast and everything was well done. The entertainment was great. It was all packaged up for you, just like a present; an expensive present that you buy for yourself….but a present nonetheless. I got in some impossibly awful runs. Every runner knows what its like to go to an amusement park all day long and then run after getting home at 11:00P.M. But I did the run anyway because I became an ultra marathoner this summer and so running is what I do.
I spent a lot of time this summer seeing patients and rewriting a course that I teach. I also spent a lot of time this summer chasing belt buckles. Back in 1977 I spent the entire summer pursuing Halle Stordhouse. I was so unsuccessful that, even to this day, she has no idea that I was pursuing her. This summer I was unsuccessful until I finally did succeed. Sometimes you win sometimes you lose.
Actually spending a summer pursuing something isn’t that unusual for me. I have pursued other women and I have pursued other buckles so this summer was normal. The difference this time is that I didn’t just put on some shoes and set out to conquer Mohican, with every race and training run devoted solely to it. This year I met a lot of people and made a lot of friends. I had a few very good and wonderful people that I ran ultras with before this year but I never bothered to meet anyone new. This summer I think I finally learned some new things about the sport. This summer I grew to love the idea that I am an ultra marathoner. This summer I noticed that there are lots of other ultras and lots of beautiful places to run and lots of great adventures and friendships to be had. I still love Mohican and it will be a goal in 2010. But I now also love Burning River…and there’s this running with scissors thing this fall…or maybe that one in Youngstown. The whole gang will be at each of them. Hopefully I will be too.
…and then I looped around and checked out the other path, because I am an ultra marathoner. I became one for real this summer. But summer is now over and its time to head back to the University of Findlay on a more regular basis starting tomorrow. There will be meetings and free donuts all next week and then the week after that the students return and things will be fun again, but there will be no free donuts. Life is like that sometimes.
The family and I just came back from Disney World and I drove all night long, which is a very ultra-like thing to do. Yep, all night long I drank coffee and listened to music. Then I listened to this guy on the radio talking about UFO’s. Then I listened to music again. It rained for a while then it didn’t rain anymore. The driver’s side windshield wiper was ineffective and the passenger side windshield wiper was in perfect shape. Alas. Then I stopped at a convenience store in Charleston W.V. to get more coffee and interrupted a lovers quarrel between two clerks. I tried to start polite and healing conversation by telling them of my experiences in the Rattlesnake 50K run, which is their local ultra. They weren’t interested.
Driving all night is a lot like running all night except that I find that there is much less puking. And the aid stations charge you money. And no matter how much money you are willing to spend they never have pierogis. Also, they try to get you to buy Lottery tickets, and the T-shirts that you can buy all have dirty words written on them.
I guess that driving all night really isn’t like running all night at all.
But I wish it was like running all night because I miss it already.
Disney World was awesome except for the smothering heat and the part where I hemorrhaged cash day after day. The kids had a blast and everything was well done. The entertainment was great. It was all packaged up for you, just like a present; an expensive present that you buy for yourself….but a present nonetheless. I got in some impossibly awful runs. Every runner knows what its like to go to an amusement park all day long and then run after getting home at 11:00P.M. But I did the run anyway because I became an ultra marathoner this summer and so running is what I do.
I spent a lot of time this summer seeing patients and rewriting a course that I teach. I also spent a lot of time this summer chasing belt buckles. Back in 1977 I spent the entire summer pursuing Halle Stordhouse. I was so unsuccessful that, even to this day, she has no idea that I was pursuing her. This summer I was unsuccessful until I finally did succeed. Sometimes you win sometimes you lose.
Actually spending a summer pursuing something isn’t that unusual for me. I have pursued other women and I have pursued other buckles so this summer was normal. The difference this time is that I didn’t just put on some shoes and set out to conquer Mohican, with every race and training run devoted solely to it. This year I met a lot of people and made a lot of friends. I had a few very good and wonderful people that I ran ultras with before this year but I never bothered to meet anyone new. This summer I think I finally learned some new things about the sport. This summer I grew to love the idea that I am an ultra marathoner. This summer I noticed that there are lots of other ultras and lots of beautiful places to run and lots of great adventures and friendships to be had. I still love Mohican and it will be a goal in 2010. But I now also love Burning River…and there’s this running with scissors thing this fall…or maybe that one in Youngstown. The whole gang will be at each of them. Hopefully I will be too.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Ahhhh
I just finished a slow 60 minute crawl. The only way you would have been able to tell I was running was the concentration on my face. What with all of the tapering and then 100 miling and then recovering I had forgotten how good a simple jog can feel. Physically I felt terrible but I feel like a million dollars mentally. I can't wait to do another one just like it tomorrow. Are we lucky or what?
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