My Mile

I'm about to embark upon two weeks of travel with only one night's return to home so I'm kind of busy preparing for that. No time today for my customary Monday noontime run on the Mall.

So I ran a mile this morning in my neighborhood, to save time, get a run in and see where I'm at. In August I ran my neighborhood mile in 8:01 and I was satisfied with that then.

Today it was hard, as I think my ninety minutes of Bikram (hot) Yoga yesterday still has me wiped out. I brought my run home in 7:55, which I'm happy with since I wanted to do it in under eight.

That's not much progress since August as I return from my year's layoff due to injury and it's almost a minute off my old standard (break seven) but it's where I'm at. As I close in fast on 60, at least I'm out there, sucking the cool morning air into my aching lungs, legs burning, chest heaving, body alive and pushing, watching the canopy of autumn leaves with their brilliant fall colors pass by overhead.

What is the longest word in the English language?

Smiles. It has a mile between the S's.

An old injury reared its head recently--my left ankle swelled up and started hurting, the one I sprained last summer when I stepped in a hole while training for the Chicago Fun Run. I think its recurrence is from overuse, as I put in a 40 mile week followed by (for the first time ever for me) a 50 mile week.

Over the course of several consecutive weekends, I had put together long runs of 13.1, 20, 15 and 16.2 miles. Suddenly I woke up and couldn't walk without pain, much less run a marathon on the suddenly bum-again ankle. So I have been laying off of it.

I started wearing a heavy ankle brace and running miles. As in solitary miles. As in speed work.

I have also been attending yoga classes, at the community center, Which is exactly a mile from my house. How handy.

Tuesday I ran to yoga class at a comfortable lope, in what I hoped was an eight-minutes-per-mile pace. In fact it was 7:45. I ran home afterwards, all relaxed from the savasana, in 7:24.

Wednesday my ankle was a little swollen but it also felt a little bit better. So I attended my club's weekly track workout. The schedule called for four one-mile repeats, with a brief recovery run between each mile, on the nearby hilly Custis Trail (there was a lacrosse game in progress at the high school so the track was closed). I cut down the warmup, recovery and cooldown runs to save mileage. My splits were 7:26, 7:40, 7:49 and 7:51. No negative splits there!

Today I ran the mile to yoga in 7:17. Returning home all warmed up from an hour of stretching, I pushed it and turned the mile in 6:54.

I don't feel bad about causing my malady's onset, because how do you prepare for a marathon without running long, often? Lots of people run 50 miles per week while getting ready for marathons.

My injury is getting better. I couldn't run a marathon right now but I hope to be able to soon. I'm taking it one day at a time, one mile at a time.

Turning right while looking left

I was not hurt but last night it finally happened after 8 years of running. I got hit by a car.

I was going to yoga class at the Community Center after work, running along a secondary arterial road, next to the curb by the sidewalk on the left side. From there I could watch for approaching traffic and if I came upon a parked car that would force me into the traffic lane when a car was coming, I could get up on the sidewalk. An SUV was driving up to a stop sign on a side street on my left that I was starting to cross.

I couldn’t see where the driver was looking because this gas-wasting Detroit monstrosity was too frickin’ tall. I now suppose that the driver was merely looking to her left as she approached the stop sign at the T-intersection, making sure that she didn’t get hit by an approaching vehicle with the right-of-way as she made a right turn onto the through-street I was running along. Pedestrians to her right crossing the side street? Let them eat cake!

A car was approaching. I guess the SUV driver decided that, having slowed for the stop sign, she should accelerate into her turn to beat the oncoming car. I was watching her vehicle and had skirted out into the roadway a little to give it some leeway but suddenly there was this wall of metal coming right at me.

"Hey!" I yelled as the bumper came into me and I put out my hands to fend off the car. The SUV was pushing me and I didn't want to fall underneath it. Really, I had nowhere to go.

I grabbed a fistful of grill with one hand and pushed off to see if I could somehow propel my body around to the side of the SUV. Its hood was too high up to try to hop onto but I used my other hand to whack it with my water bottle. The vehicle lurched to a sudden stop.

I screamed, "What’s the matter with you!" and flung my water bottle into the SUV’s bumper. It rebounded and rolled away rapidly across the road. The approaching car also stopped. I ran after my water bottle, retrieved it and stood up to glare at the offensive driver. She sat there immobile behind the wheel, face frozen, staring at me with both fists crammed into her mouth.

Fortunately I wasn’t injured, although I had jammed the middle finger of my right hand. So I couldn’t even give her the bird. What are you gonna do?

After scowling for a second, I ran off to my yoga class, after which I ran a measured mile back to my house in 6:54. It felt good to be alive.

Hill Workout

It's been a busy week. Sunday I held a hill workout for the two Programs I coach. Only two runners showed up and they didn't run many repeats before they left to go on a long flat run.

(Left: One half of a boomerang.) Running up the steep part of Highland Avenue and then down short, steep Mt. Daniel (pictured) is 0.3 mile. Each really steep part is about 500 feet long. Because the hill repeat involves a right turn (left turn coming back), I call that way of running the hill a boomerang. The other way to run the hill is to just continue straight on Highland, down a gentler slope 0.4 mile to the bottom. Those repeats up and over Highland are half a mile long, with a short steep climb or descent on one side and a long gradual climb or decline on the other.

My six miles of hills in one hour left me sore for days. Because of the extreme slope, I was almost as slow going down each steep part (sixty seconds) as running up it (70 seconds). I need to do hills because Bex has assigned me leg six at the Lake Tahoe relay in June. It's five and a half miles of flat running followed by a five miles of hills. The last mile is a run up a mountain pass while gaining 500 feet in elevation. Leg two has a 700 climb, but that elevation gain is spread out over 3.5 miles. Hmm, I wonder what leg Bex has me penciled in for next year? (Right: My former running buddy Bex.)

Doing my first track workout in several weeks on Wednesday (8X400 at 1:45, 7:02 pace) didn't help my aches and pains. I worked out some soreness yesterday by going back to Yoga after a two-month layoff. This class is held at the community center, a mile from my house. I jogged there in 7:54 and then when I was all loose and relaxed from yoga, I ran the mile back home in 6:56. It was my first sub-7 mile in awhile.

Goodbye Yoga

I had my last yoga class tonight for awhile. Back when I was running really well in 2006, I was training really hard (doing track workouts) and doing yoga at least once week. It made a real difference in my times by increasing my core strength, helping my flexibility, allowing me to cope with a hamstring injury through stretching routines and teaching me better breathing techniques.

I take a Vinyasa Yoga class at my town's community center from 8 to 9 pm once a week. It forces me to leave work at 7 o'clock to get to it on time because otherwise I'm in no particular hurry to go home to an empty, cold house. (I can't get the thermostat below 49 degrees so sometimes the heat comes on and heats the entire house no matter what I wish.)

Why this brand of yoga? I like the instructor, LR. She doesn't ignore the two men in the room and she doesn't get uptight if things get a little disrupted, like people coming in late. The last class I took, the instructor locked the door right on the hour and I experienced stress whenever I heard the doorknob turn as people tried to enter at one minute past the hour. I didn't like the fact that they were shut out.

Tonight was the last night of class until February and it was a good workout. Me and Larry sort of flopped around while the rest of the class flowed through the mini-vinis. Afterwards I walked out the door of the community center and immediately broke into a run to do the town's 3K Memorial Day Fun Run course. I do that race every year and it's free, self-timed and you get a T-shirt at the end, gratis. It's also flat and short by about 500 feet, so you can get a really good time. Not that any of it is official.

The route leaves from the community center and returns there. All the Moms in the class know my routine and I think they congregate briefly in the parking lot to watch me take off running after every class. I have no doubt they have a good laugh about me after I streak off. (I have determined it is bad form to run to yoga class because no one wants to start a yoga class with a guy in there breathing heavily and already sweating up a storm.)

It's great to run footloose and carefree after spending 55 minutes stretching and 5 minutes luxuriating in a final relaxation pose (which is akin to taking a nap). The kinks are already all worked out.

Tonight I pounded out the 3K in 13:59 (7:30) in the dark. I had no drive in my legs after last weekend's exertions of 30 miles. But the run felt good. I was feeling like such a slug after not running yesterday nor this morning. Maybe I should get a life. (Left: Last Memorial Day, May 28, 2007, I ran a 12:52 (6:54) in the daylight.)

I'll miss yoga til it resumes again.

The nighttime encounter

The policeman peered through the windshield of his marked unit at the man in the parking lot who was undressing in public in the dark. It was 8 pm, the cop was just coming on duty, and he had barely climbed into his squad car, parked in the town hall lot, when a man had emerged from a pickup truck parked directly across the travel lane from him, twenty feet away.

The man threw down the tailgate of the truck and sat on it. He pulled off his shoes and peeled off his socks. A few people from an exercise class at the nearby community center milled about in the parking lot.

Standing on the pavement in his bare feet, the man unbuttoned his dress shirt and shrugged it off. Was he wearing anything underneath? It was hard to tell in the gloom but it seemed he was wearing a cream colored t-shirt with writing on it.

The man unbuckled his belt and undid his trouser button. Unzipping his fly, he opened his pants. The policeman's hand tightened on the car door as he stared hard through the night.

The man dropped his trousers and stepped out of them. The policeman started to open his car door. Did the man have on anything covering his lower extremities? Was that a shadow or something form-fitting and dark?

The cop’s hand came back off the door handle. The man was wearing black Lycra shorts underneath high-cut black running shorts. The man went to the cab of his truck, threw his discarded clothing inside and reached for something. He emerged with a yoga mat, wheeled about on his bare feet and strode away towards the community center.

The cop ran the plate to see where this male yoga practitioner lived, then fired up his cruiser and swung out into the street for the start of his shift. Yep, the guy lived in town all right. The cop made a mental note to drive by the address later and check out this guy’s house.

[My brother believes I dislike authority. I don’t know about that, but I do firmly believe in questioning authority. When I saw the cop watching me last night as I sat in my parked car preparing to go to yoga class, I just had to get out of my vehicle and get ready in front of him. Sort of a statement. I wasn't doing anything wrong. Funny thing is, I used to be a cop. Now I’m a lawyer. Sigh. If you’re ever in danger and need help fast, go find a cop because a cop will act swiftly to resolve the situation. On the other hand, a lawyer will be worse than useless.

Last night was only my second yoga class in the last six months. It felt so good to be back at it!]