The Steady Pace

The first three miles of the Navy-Air Force Half Marathon last month in DC had taken my training partner Lia and myself from the Washington Monument across the Potomac and back and up Rock Creek Park getting the two of us free of the constricting masses at the start of the race, to where we had more room to run.  We settled into a quickening pace where Lia was now leading the two of us in picking off runner after runner instead of me leading us in gliding from tiny open space to open space.  (We passed by the Lincoln Memorial, pictured during a summertime training run, twice in the first three miles, with one more passage by it coming up in the latter part of the race as we headed for the dreaded Haines Point.)

Going the next three miles up Rock Creek Park we noticeably got under a nine-minute per mile pace, which boded well for breaking two hours in the 13.1 mile race, which requires a 9:09 pace or better, to where we had a two or three minute cushion already in our quest.  Lia made me smile when upon seeing the turn-around cone up ahead she said, "Now our work really begins because we'll be going uphill on the way back."  (I had practiced running around the desolate Haines Point, pictured during a training run in May, but I always hated it because of its length and the wind blowing in unpredictably off the water.)

I assured her we would now be going downhill, or downstream, as soon as we rounded the cone and she immediately started attacking the race at that point, taking advantage of the downhill aggressively, a superior tactic that I would not have done on my own because I was getting tired by then and starting to flag.  I hung on following six feet behind her for the next couple of miles as she barreled past runner after runner, always looking for someone else to pass.  (Lia running strongly during a training run in April.)

By the seventh mile I was used up though and I caught up with her one last time and told her to go for it and leave me behind, to make the race her own now and break two hours if she could sustain the pace.  She somehow increased her pace further and soon she was out of sight ahead of me, and I settled into getting through the grueling middle part of the race, slowing down necessarily due to fatigue but hoping I could hang on to break two hours myself, watching runner after runner pass me, and I passed the ten-mile marker at 1:26:44, an 8:40 pace, formerly a common mark for me but one that was now undreamed of by me ever since suffering my injured ankle, a chronic injury, five years earlier at the 2009 ATM.  (As the race crossed by the Lincoln Monument the third time beyond the eight-mile mark, I was trying to hold onto a sub-two hour pace while my training partner was long gone enroute to smashing her PR by a staggering amount.)

Running will do that for you

It's another sweltering July in DC; running on the Mall during the noon hour leaves me literally reeling from the soupy heat by the fifth mile. This morning I got up a 4:30 A.M. to run 5 1/2 miles and although it went better, still for an hour afterwards I left behind little pools of sweat wherever I paused for moment.

But I'm glad to be back to running, although my troublesome ankle is still giving me trouble despite the cortisone shot a few months ago. I guess its effect is wearing off, leaving me with only the surgical option if my chronic tendinitis disables my running again.

This week I finally hit 20 miles, running my new-normal four times a week (I used to run five times a week). Although I am much slower than I used to be, running 10:10 miles now instead of 8:50s, and my conditioning (endurance) still sucks, miles is miles as I tell my running buddy at work as we jog down the Mall getting passed by everybody.

Next week I'll be in Minnesota attending a grave side service for my uncle who passed away a few months back, and I'm sure the many cousins who will be present will be checking each other out to see how we're all weathering our fifties. Fortunately I'm not as roly-poly as I was at the beginning of the year, as I have dropped 26 pounds in the last 13 weeks thanks to my return to running.

Sag you too.

After we picked up T at Saturday's SunTrust National Marathon, we drove up in the Sag Wagon behind two women and followed them for awhile as we approached the DC waterfront. One was a lady in her 60s, always traveling with a running motion although going very slowly, and the other was a 30s-something woman who was running some and walking some. She was barely ahead of the elderly lady. No one else was in sight, as the juggler had surged ahead of these two.

By now the long lost Sag Wagon 1 had joined our procession. The convoy of race vehicles, street sweepers, police cruisers and sag wagons followed the two women for a short bit, past MP 18. I confirmed that they were several minutes behind the course closure time for that point in the race. There seemed to be no prospect that they would make up the time, given the painful nature of their shuffling gaits.

I popped out of the bus and ran up to the elderly woman and walked alongside her. I remembered her from when she passed by me at MP 15 while I attended to the course clock there. She was very dignified and distinguished looking.

I asked her what her name was and told her the bridge, more than a mile ahead, was going to be opened soon and that she couldn't get there by then. Without arguing that point she said, "But there's a sidewalk on it."

Meanwhile the other woman had come back to us and joined our conversation. I agreed the bridge had a walkway but said that the road by the waterfront also needed to be opened and the support people should be released. I said that both of them had had wonderful long runs of 18 miles, quite a feat, on a beautiful morning and asked them to please get on the bus for their safety and support. I sorrily informed them that they wouldn't get a finishing time, no matter what. The younger woman looked stunned.

The elderly lady wanted to continue on the sidewalk, but only if she had company. She still had to go through SE Washington, after all. She looked at the other woman for support, but that woman shook her head and glumly climbed aboard the bus. The first woman followed suit. It was over for them.

Once everyone was aboard, the tail of the SunTrust National Marathon started to move with a little pep. Gears ground and gas pedals were pressed down. We drove over the streets by the waterfront and then turned onto a broad cement walkway along the river. There we came upon the juggler, and the vehicular juggernaut snugged in behind him at 4 MPH.

B, the elderly lady, cried out that we couldn't pick him up. He is well known and a mainstay at many local races. Ominous thoughts of newspaper headlines about the juggler being jerked off the marathon course by the DCRRC president flashed through my mind. Fortunately the juggler was many minutes ahead of the rolling course closure time and seemingly traveling at a pace that would carry him to the finish line on time. It was going to be a long seven miles though, even with the distraction of watching a traveling vaudeville act for over an hour. (Above: The juggler at a 2007 race in Anacostia River Park.)

We crawled by the Nationals' ballpark and creeped over the Frederick Douglass Bridge into Anacostia River Park. The younger woman was seething at having her marathon ended, although she claimed not to be mad at me. She wouldn't talk, except to say that she'd run marathons before. B, however, was quite pleasant and loquacious.

She said she had done 64 other marathons, well, actually 66, because the one she did on the Great Wall of China didn't count ultimately and now there was this DNF. But she had started this morning's marathon as a long training run and she was okay with being swept off of it. She was hoping to match her age soon in number of marathons completed. She was actually training for a 50-miler.

She was fascinating to talk to. She had done marathons on all seven continents. I asked about the one in Antarctica, and she said that one was very dangerous. They had arrived in their cruise ship off the Antarctic peninsula and a lead party had gone ashore to set out the milemarkers. The support stations were going to be the various national research stations. I guess you don't just set up water tables in the Antarctic. But then a storm system had descended upon the area and a three-day whiteout ensued. They barely got their advance party back. When it came time to sail away, with the storm barely abated, they gave the runners this choice to complete their Antarctic marathon. 422 laps around the ship's deck. She took it.

She had raced in Rio, and run by the Pyramids in Egypt and over to Gaza. In China, the marathon had started on the Great Wall and then traveled through a long series of rural roads before winding back to the Wall for the finish. However, she arrived back at the Wall four minutes after they opened it up to tourists for the day and they wouldn't let her pass by to complete the marathon. That was her only prior DNF, before Saturday.

We passed by a water station at MP 22 staffed by enthusiastic young men and women. I asked them to bring fluids to our wounded warriors and these eager children swarmed over the buses, offering up water and Gatorade. I asked Sag Wagon 1 to complete the mission of succoring any remaining runners on the course and we drove our three weary runners back to the finish area.

B was upbeat about it all, very positive, taking the situation as it occurred with a positive frame of mind. That's why we run.

Been Running?

In case you're wondering if I have been running since I got back from my summer vacation a month ago, you're not the only one. I have been wondering too.

Clearly there was no running in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. But what's my excuse since I got back?

I been running some, but not much. In all of July I ran 52.7 miles, and only one race (my monthly noontime 3K dash around the Tidal Basin). That's it. My one long run was ten miles of sightseeing I did along the Mall with a visiting RBFer.

When I'm not running much I cheat and get in my five times running per week by running solitary miles. I can always fit those in. Six of my "runs" in July were of the solitary mile variety. Although they were all under eight minutes, only one was under seven minutes, my desired goal.

Why the slackard month? Life is complicated. That's the sum total of my wisdom after 56 years.

I came back from my "trip of a lifetime" down the Grand Canyon and running suddenly seemed less important. I took greater pleasure in writing about the trip than in running on the roadways. All of my running buddies have moved away or gotten hurt. The ten-mile training program I direct for my club has started up and that keeps me busy, basically running with novices. I realize that people see me as a Johnny-One-Note, a running nut, so I have been working on being more variegated.

Yeah, my running currently sucks. I think life is intruding. It's either that or advancing age.

Those pesky miles

I'm getting slower. It's a fact.

2001 and 2006 were my good years. I guess good years come every half-decade or so.

In 2001 I set my 5K and 10K PRs, 21:58 and 46:01. I wasn't much good at longer distances then (my marathon PR was 5:05:20) because I didn't train "long." Most mornings I would just sprint helter-skelter for 2.1 miles and that would be it. Done for the day in 16 to 18 minutes. 12 miles was a big week for me. It kept my weight down and my speed up.

Then I turned 50 and started focusing on longer distances. I ran more miles. I threw 4-mile runs into the mix as my concession to going long, and in 2003 my marathon PR dropped to 4:16. My "speed" suffered though as my 5Ks crept into the 25 minute range. But then all of my times stagnated.

In 2006 I got serious. My long runs started having a base of at least 10 miles. No longer did a scheduled ten mile training run seem like a date that I had to circle on my calendar and watch with dread as it approached. I started track work. I did hills. I brought my marathon time down to 3:52:34. Even my 5Ks and 10Ks revved up as I came within 24 seconds and 48 seconds respectively of my old PRs. But after 10 months of hard training, I crashed and burned. I haven't been the same conscientious runner since returning from setting my then-marathon PR at the NYCM in November, 2006.

My 10-milers tell the story. From my 1:14:34 PR at Army in 2006, I slipped to a 1:16:05 GW Parkway Classic last year. This year I fell to a 1:22:44 at the Al Lewis club 10-miler.

I will tell you this, I don't think administering club training programs, which I have been doing for a year now, helps your own running much. But that's my choice, my notion of helping the community and "giving back."

I still run 5 times a week. That has always been my one constant, my interjection of discipline into my running routine. Some days it's only a mile, but at my age each mile counts. I feel each run the next day now, especially as I descend the stairs on those mornings after.

Solitary miles seem labored nowadays, even beyond the burning lungs. You know, leaden legs, feeling like I'm running underwater, the dreamlike flow of the landscape passing slowly by.

I keep at it. Yesterday I did a new mile-route around my neighborhood that involved a hill. I labored to bring it home in 8:58. Huh! My standard of a "good" solitary mile used to be a sub-seven.

Today I went back to a more familiar mile-route in the 'hood. I arrived huffing and puffing at my driveway in 7:22. Better, but I still have work to do.

My World

My running world is simple. I divide people into two groups.

Faster than me. Not.

There are some hazy persons, to be sure. Tweeners. You know the persons. Sometimes you beat them in a race or at the end of a run, and sometimes you don’t.

But you also know which camp they really belong in. Do you secretly gloat when you beat them? They’re faster. Do you worry about them all race? You’re faster, but not by much and maybe not for long.

People can move from one group to the other over time, as you get better or they get better. You see them at the track and you grumble, It's not fair! How do they have the time? So that's how they been beating me! It's time to reassign that runner.

But no one is ever not in one camp or the other for the long term. Occasional successes or failures are merely moments for euphoria or somberness. It's simple.