An hour of conversation

 The convenience store in the rural coastal village in the Carolinas where I visited my college roommate last month is a central meeting point for the good ol' locals who gather there at around 5 p.m. when the chartered fishing boats have come in and the carpenter hammers have fallen silent. Although my long-time friend is a New Yorker, as am I, he almost achieves a local status among the locals there because he is so personable. They like him. Maybe in another 20 years. 

We both spent an hour in the store sitting around when I was there, and I graduated from a feigned elbow bump upon introductions to a fervent hand clasp when we left because we both were very voluble and cogent among these equally intelligent Americans in the ensuing hour-long free-ranging conversation. The only time we both fell silent was when the discussion turned to whether the descendants of slaves in the vicinity were better off than if their forebears had never been abducted from Africa by slavers.

The consensus from these higher-degreed, educated boat and business owners was that yes, the likely-not-college-educated local blacks who mostly lived at or below the poverty level in America, given their opportunities here, were definitely better off here than if they had been born centuries later in their forebears' native continent, with their relative prospective opportunities there. 

It was a fascinating hour I spent listening that I'll never forget.

2018 Movies

I saw six movies at the theatre in 2018, two of them very excellent films.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri.  Although this was a 2017 film, I saw it early this year and I thought it should have won the Best Picture Oscar for last year.  It's a very complicated film, and very violent, which has created a lot of controversy about it, but doesn't that describe the way life is?  Anything with Frances McDormand is bound to be a riveting film.

The Green Book.  This is my choice for Best Film this year.  It's also a complicated film with violence, injustice, suspense and subtle humor, and which involves loyalty to clan, duty and self, as well as growth and redemption.  Its depiction of an at-heart-a-good-man Italian bouncer, trying to support his family in 1960s New York City through dubious enterprises and low-level crime while remaining true to his tribal community, is fascinating and the film features jarring culture clashes from which compromises, accommodations and friendships emerge.  I am sad to say that until I saw this movie, I had no knowledge of the Green Book, although I was fully aware of Jim Crow America.  It features noteworthy performances by Viggo Mortensen as the Italian protagonist Tony Vallelonga, who drives and protects black classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley, portrayed by Mahershala Ali, on his musical tour of Southern American towns.

First Man.  This film features Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon as he famously said, "A small step for a man, a giant leap for all mankind."  This is a film depicting a different America, a crew-cut time of greatness when America could and would accomplish astonishing things like landing a man on the moon within ten years of setting out to do so.  Included are the heart-breaking setbacks like the module fire that killed three astronauts to the soaring triumphs like the successful moon launch.  This is nothing like the current America.  A fun, quasi-suspenseful look back.

The Nutcracker Suite and the Fourth Realm.  A musical, live and animated action mashup that was entertaining for its 90 minute length.

Vice.  (Seen December 31st.)  A movie about a dark and truly evil man, Dick Chaney, basically a psychopath turned vigilante says one reviewer, who was instrumental in leading our country down the path towards ruination as Dubya's VP and the chief whisperer to that reckless fool.  I thought it might be funny because if you can't laugh at tragic events you are just left to cry.  But it's not funny, except for a few guffaw moments like watching Dubya try to shuck and jive his way through his handed-to-him-by-Scalia presidency.  This black biopic just gets grimmer and grimmer as we watch our nation get taken down a darker and darker inglorious path by power-drunk powerbrokers.  I might as well as have spent 132 minutes in a dentist's chair as looking backwards at this grim exposition of America's tragic missteps so far in this century.  

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  An animated tale of petty revenge and venality perpetrated by a crabbed, self-centered man living alone by circumstances and choice trumped by redemption engendered by love, devotion, civility and inclusion.  This obviously is a morality tale on how the current America might yet emerge back to greatness. 

The 4.01K Race.

Prudential put on a 4.01K race at RFK yesterday morning, a 2 1/2 mile romp around the parking lots at the stadium in essence.  It was designed to highlight the looming (or occurring) retirement crisis in America where nobody has enough money to be able to actually stop working, except maybe the one percenters.

It was free, and you could create a team.  I created a team called January Ninth, which refers to the last day of the federal leave year this year.  I even activated my race wrist band on-line and printed off my bar code to bring with me to the race check-in.

But it was raining yesterday morning, and no work running buddies were going to come anyway.  So I didn't drive all the way across town to go to the race site.

But I did design a 4.01K race course in my head that left from my driveway and finished there.  Actually, since I was now the race director of this alternate run, I took note of the rain and reduced the course from a 4.01K to a 2.005K course, or a hairsbreadth over 1.2 miles.  Choosing to lay out the course as my standard neighborhood mile with two extra blocks thrown in, I lined up in the rain and off I went.

I ran pretty hard, since I was cold and getting wet, and I got into the run and was working it, just like in the old days of the last decade.  Soon my breathing became less ragged, I was focusing on turnover and I reached the halfway point of my little 2.005K course at the point where my mile run intersects briefly with the W&OD Trail.

Why not make it the real race distance of about 2.5 miles, I thought.  The MP 7 marker was down the trail about a quarter mile, and if I went past it to MP 7.5, turned around that and came back to here, that would add the extra 1.2 miles I needed to turn my 1 1/4 mile run into a 2.5 mile run.  Obviously my math was fuzzy, since in actuality I was adding about 1.5 miles instead of the necessary 1.2 miles, but it made sense to me at the time as I was redesigning the course on the fly.

It felt good to be going down the trail at speed.  I felt like I was doing 8-minute miles, or more probably about 8:10s.

Soon I was turning around MP 7.5 and then I was approaching the spot again where I had mentally reconfigured the race course to make it the appropriate distance.  My time running seemed to belie the pace I thought I was running at, because I was taking too long to be at this late spot in the race, so I picked it up a little more.  Down the last long straight block I could see the finish line stretching across my driveway and I sprinted the last 100 yards to bring the race home in 24:52.

Hmm.  A 9:59 pace, if the course was truly 4.01K.  I know I ran way faster than that so I decided the course was long, way long.

What a clown the race director was, I thought, to lay out such an obviously long course.  But I was pleased with my first-place showing.  And don't you know, in this virtual race, I was also DFL!

The Commish, Part Five.

Race day for the team 3-miler dawned.  I was the coach for my agency's entry in the ACLI Capital Challenge and I got up early to take Metro to Anacostia Park so I could cheer my team members on, especially the captain, Commissioner McSweeny, who I had solicited to head up the team and been training with since she was new to running a competitive race.  (The last time I actually ran the race was in 2009 when I finished the 3-mile course in 22:54, my slowest time in the series.)

The race started at 8 o'clock in the morning and I exited the Orange Line at the Eastern Market stop and jogged down Pennsylvania Avenue the mile and a half to the race site, running across the bridge over the Anacostia River which afforded me a grand view of the entire 3 mile race course.  It was a simple one and a half mile run down the embankment-hugging roadway entrance to the park, a turn around a cone set in the road, and a return to the start line which now would be the finish line.  (Meb was there that year, fresh off his NYCM win.)

The team members showed up early, all but one.  The commissioner was already there, and Phil, Tom and Greg soon showed up, with only Andy being tardy.  (Where was Andy?  Should we be worried?)

As race time approached, I warmed up with the commissioner so she could get off to a fast start because the way she runs, slow to start but strong to finish, her first mile would be crucial.  She had been worried about her pacing that first mile and since she didn't have a sports watch with a stop-watch timer or pacing-distance calculator, she had hit upon the idea of wearing her I-Phone tunes with a specially selected music selection which as it played out as soon as the race start gun went off, would alert her by the conclusion of the first or maybe second song to the arrival of the seven-minute and thirty-second mark, which was the goal time we had set for her her for the first mile.  (Our team captain in 2009 was Commissioner Harbour.)

Going Out

At the Navy-Air Force Half Marathon in DC last month, my training partner Lia and I were four minutes late in getting to the starting line which meant we got in among the plodders and walkers.  We passed the starting gate at just under five minutes into the official race time, which wouldn't affect our official (net) time but it would affect our placement in the race and our age groups because those measures use official (gun) time. (It was a beautiful day in DC on race day.)

We were late because we had to use the facilities and the lines were long but that gave me an opportunity to see how Lia fueled up for 13.1 miles and it was a revelation.  I had consumed two 6-ounce cups of diced fruit in heavy syrup earlier but Lia ate a baggie of dry cheerios as her meal of choice, although I suspected she had forgotten food in leaving her house and found a leftover bag of cereal in her car that she had meant to feed to her toddler at some point.  (Hustling to the start line.)

Once underway on the race course, we were immediately jammed up behind walkers four abreast and slow runners two abreast.  We swiftly quickened our pace and started doing what I call sideways running, darting from open space to open space and utilizing the grassy strip next to the curb to get around groups of slower runners, never venturing into the middle of the roadway where passing opportunities are almost non-existent unless we were of the sort to rudely elbow our way through the slow-moving pack.  (We had put in plenty of miles getting ready for this race.  Here is the start of our 11-mile run two weeks earlier.)

Lia followed me from spot to spot at this point because I am better at this type of work early in a race due to my being much more experienced in racing than her.  This was a good warm-up so early in the race because we had to start moving quickly to get through spaces but we weren't yet pushing the pace, and at one point I even called Lia back and told her to slow down a bit, to save her push for awhile to conserve her energy because it was too early to go out hard yet.  The first mile was a slow 10:04 because of the crowd, but then our time started dropping as we passed the 2-mile point at 18:22 (9:11 pace) and 3 miles at 25:59 (8:40 pace), now ahead of our necessary pace to break two hours.  (Our training runs had taken us around Nats Stadium.)

Race Day

Race day arrived and I met my friend Lia, who I had trained with getting ready for this half marathon, and we walked over to the start line in the early morning gathering light.  This would be the longest race I had done since the 2009 Army Ten-Miler, the race at which I got injured permanently, coming down then after a decade of hard running with a chronic ankle injury which I now manage rather than recover from.  (The start line in the shadow of the Washington Monument.)

Indeed, this 13.1 miles would be the farthest I had run in five years, the prior recent long run being eleven miles with Lia two weeks earlier, with a couple of ten milers and nine milers thrown in during this calendar year.  Now I had bursitis in my knee to contend with as well, which had hampered my training, but we had a plan enroute to trying to break two hours, which Lia had never done and I had never failed to do in six prior HM's, stemming from the salad days of my running which ended half a decade ago.  (Lia and I go back a long ways as running buddies, as shown by this Holiday Lights Run I conducted for my agency in December 2009.)

As previously noted in these posts, a two-hour HM is a 9:09 pace.  I had urged Lia to start slow, so as not to burn up in the adrenaline rush of the first couple of miles, try to settle in at nine-minute miles and then miles down the road, if she or we were feeling good, kick it up a notch in the second half of the race.  (Lia smashed her goals, the result of training long and hard including cross-training.)

In other words, I told Lia to run with me for at least the first few miles, as I had the racing and coaching experience necessary to set up a negative split, although I rarely run negative splits myself (it's a classic Do as I say, Not as I do thing).  It turns out I ran with her after the first three miles until I could no longer keep up with her pace, then I told her to go on and she seemed to kick it up as she disappeared in the distance and I started grinding down to a plod, but we both more than achieved our aims in the race.  (I met my goals.)

Going Long

Since injuries had disrupted my training for a half marathon in mid-September, I had to do a couple of long runs and leave it at that.  Three weeks before the race I ran 10 miles with Lia on a weekend, then two weeks out I ran eleven miles in two hours and ten minutes with her, truly the definition of a long slow run.  (Happy to have my ten-mile long run in the bank.)

As I have stated before, our goal was 1:59:59 for the half.  I had noticed that Lia was definitely profiting from her training and I started to tell people that she was going to beat me.  (My running buddy took her running to a higher level than mine.)

During our weekday runs, Lia would surge on all hills we ran up and I wouldn't be able to keep up.  She also did a weekend 10-miler at which she reported averaging under nine-minute miles.  (Our taper run through DC under a turbulent sky.)

This was a tremendous step forward for a previously plodding runner who was now starting to come into her own as an athlete.  After a taper run of seven miles one week out, and a race-pace three-miler two days beforehand, race day arrived and we met at a pre-arranged spot and proceeded to the start line, full of confidence but also trepidation now that the completion of our journey, the denouement, actually was at hand.  (Dawn on race day.)

My First Trail Run

Earlier this spring I ran my first trail run race, a 5-miler in Virginia atop a hill in the woods where an old prison used to be.  I run at work at noon on the Mall with a coworker who was signed up to do the 10-mile version of this race but I could tell she wasn't going to be ready for it and I told her so.

I urged her to drop back to the 5-mile version so she wouldn't have a dreadful experience or worse, injure herself.  I said I'd run the 5-miler with her if she did.  (I told my friend she wasn't ready for 10 miles.)

She agreed.  I signed up.

On race day I swung by her place and discovered that a) her niggling nagging injury was still present so she gave her bib to her husband, not a runner but a fit guy because he plays basketball all the time in leagues and b) a true runner, a friend. was coming with us.  Okay, I'd be running with S, her non-runner husband and the friend would run off and leave us.

It worked out wonderfully.  The friend disappeared at the start and threw down, like, a 34 minute time so he was way out of our league. 

I ran with S, and the race started at the top of the mountain next to the abandoned prison (Lorton) and immediately ran down to the stream below.  That loss of elevation would be made up for later.  (S is on the right.)

S hung with me, and ran right behind me.  The run shortly got into single track running on narrow footpaths up and down the forested or grassy hillsides and once we fell in with a group of runners after the first mile, there wasn't a whole lot of places being changed.  We tried to get over as a courtesy for runners coming through.

Down and up we went.  S was always right behind me, and I started to think I was holding him back.  We passed the halfway mark at about 24:58 at a waterstop and I took a momentary break to drink some gatorade.  I was grateful for the break because did I say, the course was up and down?

S took the lead.  I hung on as best I could, but at the four-mile mark, I waved him on, telling him that "I'm not feelin' it today."

S wasn't having any of that though and he let me get back in front of him.  Although he's a basketball player, he's fit and thirty years younger than me.  He's also a gentleman.

So I was leading a string of runners at about our pace up and down these switchback narrow trails.  At 4 1/2 miles we ran over a stream and I knew that meant a low point with a half-mile climb to the top of the mountain.  I had my sights set on breaking 50 minutes and it was doable.

Up and up we wended.  We debouched onto a grassy field with the prison above and ahead of us and my watch reading in the mid-49 minute range. 

I was even with S, but I wanted to break 50 minutes.  I ramped it up and surged past him.  I felt terrible because, well, I was breaking past him.

It didn't matter.  My time, despite my best effort, was 50:03.  Maybe I took 4 seconds to pass the start at the start but I don't calculate like that.  My time was my time.  I beat S, or should I say his wife, by 2 seconds.  I appreciated running with S.

It was a good race.  I have run with my coworker and S before, during Cherry Blossom time, and S could keep up.  I noticed that. 

Maybe next time I'll break 50 minutes for a 5-mile trail run.  (S and his wife on a cherry blossom run around the Tidal Basin in April.)  

Four Miles in Forty Minutes

A local running store, Pacers, puts on a series of road races throughout the DC region, and they were sponsoring a 4-mile Dad's Day race in South Arlington this morning. It started and ended at the old Gotta Run store I used to use as the home base for the training programs I formerly conducted for my former running club. I love running down there, by the Pentagon.

I wanted to run the race, although I knew I wouldn't have a good time given my overweight condition and lack of a base. An hour before the start it was threatening to rain and since nobody I knew was going to be there, I decided to run a virtual 4-miler on the W&OD Trail behind my house instead and save the entry fee.

The trail is mostly flat and has half-mile markers, so it's easy to keep track of your time. I walked out my door and within a minute and a half was at mile marker 7.

I punched my Timex Ironman and ran east to mile marker 6 in 9:36. The morning was overcast and deceptively humid. Turning around and running westbound, I was passed by a runner and I passed another runner. Just like a race! my mind enthused to my tiring body.

I passed mile marker 7 at 19:45, halfway through the "race." I seriously considered making this a 2-mile race instead as I looked longingly at the back of my house when I passed it (coffee inside! food! McDonald coupons!)

However I soldiered on, slowing considerably. I arrived at mile marker 8 and turned around at 31:58, an ugly mile but now three quarters done. It had started raining and I was drenched.

As I shuffled my way back eastbound, I mused about my coaching days. Oftentimes when I encountered a runner plodding along in a fatigued rut, I would suggest varying the pace to break the painful mental monotony the runner's tiredness had induced. Speed it up a little, in other words, because it's rejuvenating plus you "get there" sooner.

I picked it up and felt better. The last mile was my best mile except for the first mile.

I diverted from the trail half a mile from mile marker 7, onto residential streets so I could finish the "race" right at my house. My watch showed 38 minutes and change with three blocks to go. I ran faster. Turnover! my mind told my body.

Silly delineations matter to runners. I certainly wanted to break 40 minutes for the "race."

I was closely monitoring my watch as my house came into view. I stepped onto the sidewalk of the block my house is on and punched my Ironman. 39:59:51. Made it!

Who could say that just because I hadn't reached my driveway yet that the 4-mile point wasn't somewhere on that block. I'm putting this sub-40 virtual 4-miler into the books.

A Victory of Sorts

Yesterday afternoon, on a crisp cool Sunday, I jogged to the start line of the W&OD Trail 5K race, 1/2 mile from my house. The W&OD is a 40-mile long flat 8-foot wide asphalt trail extending from Arlington to beyond Leesburg, a paved-over railroad bed that cuts across my back property line at MP7.

Because I hadn't raced in a year and a half and I'd only been back to running for eight weeks, I was as nervous as any novice runner. My 5K time used to average about 24 minutes, but now I was worried I was confronting my new running paradigm of a 30-minute 5K race, unexplored territory for me.

I had hydrated all day, eaten a huge bowl of pasta for lunch and quaffed an energy drink before leaving my house. I punched my Garmin when the starter gun went off and moved out with the crowd.

The first quarter-mile went by at an 8:50 pace, which I knew was too fast. I slowed as I climbed the bicycle bridge over Leesburg Pike at the half-mile mark, my breathing ragged.

I hit the western turnaround at Shreve Road at the mile mark in 9:32. I was too tired already to do the math to see if that pace would be good enough for a sub-30 minute 5K. (I needed to maintain a 9:39 pace, which I should have calculated before I went to the race.)

We ran over the bicycle bridge again as I enviously looked at my house from its height, feeling like just packing it in and going home. I used the downhill off the bridge to pick up my pace and I passed the second mile marker in 9:15 (18:47).

A fog of fatigue enveloped me as we ran eastbound past the start/finish line and proceeded to the far turnaround at Little Falls Road. I felt like I was crawling as I retraced the half mile back to the finish line, passing the 3rd mile marker in 9:51 (28:36).

My time was 29:12 (9:24), a PW but still exhilarating since I achieved my goals of a) finishing b) running all the way and c) breaking 30 minutes. I was 89/183, tenth out of sixteen in my age group.

Another Wednesday, another race.

Last Wednesday was the monthly running of the noontime Tidal Basin 3K. It's a 2.6 mile warmup run down there from my building for the 1.86 mile race, then a 2.6 mile cooldown run back to work. It's a full midday workout alright.

I ran into our agency's rock star G on the way down there. He is nice enough to run slower when he falls in with us mere mortals, so we hoofed it down there at a slow 7:40 pace. Some warmup! My tongue was already hanging out when we lined up at the start.

The race was much like the other 77 I have done. I chased my doppelganger Peter the entire way and never caught him. I was overtaken in the last quarter mile by a charging man and then a woman. I let them go by because I was used up. I finished in 13:38 (7:19), a six second improvement over last month but still a far cry from my gold standard of sub-13 minutes. This race had technical difficulties that were kind of funny though.

For starters, a tour bus was trying to drive through as we were lining up in the roadway at the start. Usually we clear the roadway to let them by but this time someone yelled the G word and half the crowd broke. Then the rest of the pack followed. Meanwhile the starter hadn't started the clock yet, so it was 10 seconds off the real time. It was windy too. By the Jefferson Memorial the wind hit the runners full blast and actually slowed us down. The wind blew the finishers' cards, which designated the runners' places, out of the hand of the official handing them out and they got all scrambled up. With the finisher cards so out of order, and the time off by so much, the race result was chaotic. I just know how fast I went and who I finished immediately behind. You know, same old same old. (Above: The wind hit us hard on the homestretch. There's Peter, my doppelganger in the white shirt wearing gloves.)

G finished in his usual 11:00 (5:54). He relented on the way back to our agency and dawdled along with me at an 8:40 pace.