Monthly Archives: January 2009

As you sit down to watch the Super Bowl with millions of others just remember that the game is just a battle of wills between two teams.  It is not about millions of fans to them, it is about being the better man that day.  There will be millions of watchers that day and I plan to be one of them.  The question I have is, “how many of those are always watchers?”

There are two types of people in life- watchers and doers.  I have a strong intense desire to be a doer of life.  I don’t want to sit and watch life go by and wonder how thrilling it must be to win a big game.  No, I want to cross the finish line of a 5K, 10K, half marathon, marathon or ultra.  I want my kids to be influenced to not be watchers of life.  I want to give them that same intense desire to get in the game and be a part of the race.

How about you?  Do you watch or are you playing?

So I am feeling pretty confident again and ready to go this weekend.  The clock is winding down on this training for the ultra.  Every run right now feels extra important.  I have been spending some time thinking about the pace I want to run for the ultra.  I can try to choose but I have a feeling about 30 miles into the race my body will do the choosing for me.  Right now I just think slow and steady and just finish.

I recall when watching a program on TV where someone is up really high they are always told “don’t look down!”  That is when the fear comes.  I think the same thing can apply when training for a 50 miler.  Don’t look ahead and don’t think about the 50!  At the end of my 20 miles I thought to myself, 30 more!

It is too much to think about that way.  You have to put it out of your mind and take it in small steps.  It is very helpful as I am really able to apply that to so many areas in my life right now.  It gives me a good reason to do this 50.  It helps me see clear in other areas of my life.  They are too big to look at.  They are too high and too scary.  In this run and in my life right now I have to tell myself “Don’t Look Down!”

In the past few days it has been getting better around here with the weather.  Watching the temps up North and in Canada I almost feel guilty talking about the weather and it being cold.  That being said, it is all relative.  I would encourage you to still get out and run in the cold.  Just be mindful of how you dress.  Nothing to thick, just layers and you should be good.  The worst part is just getting started.  Make sure and protect your core, your hands, your feet and your head.

The winter is great for building a strong base.  It can be difficult to do any speedwork in the winter time but you should be able to get in some good strong stready runs.

I did get my 20 mile run in over the weekend.  It went ok.  I went to fast which is usually my problem.  Put is this way I finished and thought, “you must be kidding me what was I thinking?  I will have to do 30 more miles!”  My head is better today.  As I said I have my good days and my bad days.  I just need to slow it down.  Easier said then done though.

Gotta love a good “PRE” quote.  “A lot of people run a race to see who is the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.”
Steve Prefontaine

Right now next for me is the Mississippi 50 mile trail run on March 7th.  I will be keeping up with my thoughts and training as I continue to prepare for it.  I have my different days with getting ready for this one.  There are the days and moments I feel very confident, and then I have the days I realize it is 50 miles and what the heck am I thinking.

I am not sure which days I have more of.  I am in the busiest part of my training right now.  I practiced my first 5:1 run walk ratio this past weekend with a 14 mile run.  I have 20 this weekend and keep going up to over 30 before I taper.  So far so good and I am staying pretty healthy.  I have had a good week so far with three runs of 5 miles so far this week.  It has been cold though.

Interesting article on runners world web site.  Worth a read, what kind of runner are you?

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-244–13007-0,00.html

If you go out today and run .2 miles you would think nothing of it.  Drive .2 miles and before you blink it is gone.  However tack that .2 miles on the end of a 26 miles marathon, and it is quite a different story.  Finishing a marathon is almost like sensory overload.  There are so many thoughts going through your head and so many different emotions.  After the last .2miles are finished it is almost like it was a blur.  It is hard to process that many emotions all at once.

There are many times while I am out alone for a long run early on a Saturday morning that I ask myself, why am I doing this?  Is it for ego or for pride?  If that is the reason, it’s not worth it.  I usually think about that the last few miles of a marathon.  I have several that I just always come back to. 

1- I want my boys to see me living this way.  I want to inspire them to do something big.  I don’t want them to be watchers of life.

2- In this day and age with how tough times are on so many of us, the idea of doing something that seems impossible makes anything seem possible.  So many are without hope and times are tough.  When you cross the finish line you realize so many more things are possible.

3- The process.  The finish line is just the finish line.  It is just a banner or a line in the road.  Without the months of training it would not have been possible.  Getting to the start line is the greatest battle.

4- One of them came to me this last weekend.  I was watching the movie WALL-E with my oldest son and I heard a line of the movie I have heard before but it stirs me each and everytime.  The Captain in the movie says, “I don’t want to me safe, I want to live!”  That to me captures the idea of the marathon.  You have a choice, you can watch life from the sideline or you can risk it and do what seems impossible. 

I have no desire to be safe and feel good.  I don’t desire to watch others take a risk and wonder how it feels.  I want to live.

So we reach the Hollywood Studios and not a second too soon.  When you enter one of the first stops is for candy!  Chocolate!  Which I was unwrapping when I looked to my right and saw a young fellow on all fours losing everything that had been in his stomach.  I decided I just lost my appetite.  It is really tough for me to eat or drink this late in the race.  I am usually so tired I don’t want to.  I have to force it down.  I just want to be left alone and finish!

For some reason I seemed to get a second wind while leaving the Studios and felt pretty good heading to the Boardwalk.  However as I got closer my calves started talking to me again.  They let me know if I wanted to finish running and not walking I would best slow down.  We have had this talk before and my calves don’t negotiate.  I slowed down again.

The next two miles seem like the longest two miles I ever run.  We finally get to the Beach Club and Yacht Club and my leg are just going through the motions at this point.  One in front of the other.  There is one last water stop as you enter Epcot.  When I made this stop I felt the legs ready to cramp.  They were pretty much in full cramp mode, front calves, quads and hamstrings.  The best thing I could do was keep moving.  Again I seemed to catch a little bit of a second wind again (Hate to say it was Billy Idol music doing that) but I tried to play it smart.

For some reason and maybe it is because it was a challenge today I begin to get emotional.  In October at Greenville I broke fours hours with ease and just did not have much in the way of emotions.  Today I would squeeze in just under four again but because it was a battle the whole way I was feeling the emotions.  I ran through Epcot thinking about everyone and everything.  My wife, my boys and my family are all in my thoughts.  I remember why I do this, it makes everything else seem possible.  I always remember this down the stretch.

It is not about a goal or a time, it is about life.  I run to grow spiritually, mentally and physically.  This is why I keep coming back.  I see my parents down the final stretch, I am almost there.  There is always the last .2….

When it comes to marathons it is said that runners hit the wall at mile 20.  For me at Disney miles 13-16 are torture.  and 16-22 does not get much better.  We are on an access road and there is just nothing back there except for things you don’t want to see or smell!  The sun is out and the shade is gone.  There are no cheering fans.  It is just a tough stretch of miles.  I always feel that once I get past this I will be ok.  The Animal Kingdom is ok to run in.  For me it is just the worst park to run through.  First your body is challenged and the end if no where in site.  Second it just seems really hot.  Until you get close to the 22 mile marker this is just really tough. 

You leave the Animal Kingdom to run in the sun with no shade on a big wide road with a couple of hills.  I see a lot of walking during the stretch after you leave the Animal Kingdom.  The overpass bridges are really tough on the legs since you are not used to the hills.  The water stops also seem to be fewer.  They probably are not but they sure seem that way.

There is a tough out and back before mile 21.  Again this is just a stretch of the marathon that I would just assume not see.  However the good news is once you turn onto (World Drive? i think?) it is rough.  Right now I am just putting one foot in front of the other.  I have decided to slow down the pace a little more.  The overpass hills are taking a toll on my calves.  This is where the lack of hill training got me.  My legs are used to one motion today and the hills are not it.  I feel if I don’t slow it down, cramping is in my near future.  So, I slow down!  NO LIKE CRAMPING!  However I see mile marker 22 and Hollywood Studios is just around the corner!

So I always get excited as I go through the Magic Kingdom parking lot.  The first year I did not know what I was in store for.  Getting to the TTC is just incredible.  The crowds begin to line up in the Magic Kingdom parking lot and stretch all the way into the TTC.

They are loud and it really is exciting.  I have to watch my pace through there as it always seems to pick up a bit in the next few miles with all the excitement.  However right after the excitement comes the torture of our first hill of the day in front of the Contemporary Resort.  The problem is not the hills, the problem is the lack of hills and the shock that comes to your legs when you do get to one.  I did not hill training which was a mistake and one I will not repeat.

As we got into the Magic Kingdom, I am not sure what it is but it went quicker than I remembered.  Maybe it was because I was running with the pace group but I just don’t remember much except almost getting pushed down going into the castle.  That was it for me and the pace group.  Getting almost taken to the ground was enough for me so I just disconnected with the pace group.  As we left the Magic Kingdom as always it is a little rough.

You have a long ways to go and little support from here on out.  As you exit you have competed 11 or 12 miles.  The next support comes at the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian.  I again saw Mom and Dad so it is one last encouragement before you turn into no mans land headed toward the Animal Kingdom.  So at this point I have 13 down.

To a steal a line from Bruce Murray of the Running Shoe podcast, the three rules of a marathon: 1- Start slow, 2- Start slow and 3- Start slow.  I train that way and try to race that way.  As I heard our pace leader talking before the race, he mentioned that he wanted to start quick to make sure he stayed ahead of Corral D, I knew that would be trouble.  I decided to stick with it anyway.  I also did not realize that there would be so much concern about how close to stay to him.  It was like a massive pack of runners.

In my first 5-6 miles I saw three people fall.  Most of it had to do with it being so crowded around the pace leader, there was a little pushing and you just could not see in front of you.  All that combined with not enough talking about speedbumps or things to be watching for made it a tough run.

Running through Epcot was great.  My first year I ran right through the entrance of Epcot and right through the middle.  The past two years I have taken the back way in and around world showcase.  As we came back around to the start area I knew we were going at a pretty fast clip.  I figured our pace leader was not concerned about a negative split.  I was staying hydrated pretty good from the start and also eating.  That has burned me in the past.

We got to World Drive and I was feeling good.  I did however know that I would not stay too long with this pace group but I thought I would stick around til about the 12-13 mile markers.  As we approached mile 8 I really wanted to take in and enjoy the next few miles.  From mile 8 to mile 13 are just about my favorite miles that we do.  We were in the Magic Kingdom parking lot and beginning to approach the Ticket and Transportation Center.  I knew this would be a good energy booster with all the cheering, crowds and I knew my cheer group was there as well. (Mom and Dad)  Much thanks for that!

I actually slept pretty well on Saturday night, of course it probably had something to do with me getting up at 230am that day.  Getting to the start area was pretty easy and this is the first year I drove my car there.  This actually turned out to be a blessing as I had more flexibility with what I took and gave me a nice warm place to sit for a while.  I did go hang out for a while in the gathering area and there was plenty of excitement.

It might have been just me but from that time to the time we began to walk to the start area I would go through cold flashes!  Not sure what was up with that.  As we began to walk to the start area I was really getting ready and very excited.  I decided I would start running with the 3:30 pace group.  I knew I would probably not stay with them but I would at least start there.  This was my first time running with a pace group so I had no idea of the chaos to follow at some point.  I was not alone in running with this group I would find out.  The start went well and we were on our way.

For some reason the pace leader was determined to get off to a quick start, I think it was because he was concerned about the merging of the two courses.  This was my first warning.  Everything I have been taught is to start slow.  That was not going to happen today.  I looked for my mom who was coming out for support and did not see her near the start but that is hard to do in the dark.  So off we went…

One of the things I really enjoy is the whole marathon experience at Disney.  The expo was great this year with a larger location and more room to look around.  We spent some time at the Expo on Friday and had a great time.  On Saturday I actually went to the start area for the half to hang out with my dad.  My dad ran the half for his 2nd year in a row and showed a lot of toughness.  He set a PR by 37 minutes!  He also did that with a blister bigger than a golf ball on the bottom of his foot that popped during the race.  He is the man!

It was quite the performance and I am proud of him for just getting to the start line much less finishing under those circumstances.  Even though I was not running it was a lot of fun to hang out at the start area before the half. 

Things I learned on Saturday at the half and before the marathon:

1- My dad is tough like I thought

2- Taking it easy the day before you run really is important.  (I learned that the hard way in 2008, more to come on this)

3- Cheering and following the runners is more fun than I could have imagined.  It is just great to be involved.

Another highlight of the day was seeing Team Hoyt during the Half on Saturday, what a great story.  Look it up if you don’t know it.  It is worth your time.

Saturday was an easy day and I had a great time getting ready for the marathon.  I would really go into this marathon unsure of many things.  Could I finish without the best training and without being truly prepared, could I run at a good pace and could my body truly take it.  I had not done so before so I was a little concerned.  When I went to bed (830pm!!!) Saturday I had no idea what to expect.

I will be sharing this week a little more, but needless to say it was another great experience.  Disney does a fantastic job and knows how to do it.  It was fun and it was tough.  However it seems like the tougher it is, it makes it that much better when crossing the line.  For some reason I was a little bit more emotional this time that before.  A few months ago I really coasted and never experienced any hardships during my Greenville marathon.  That was different in this one.

I am guessing there is a connection there.  You can certainly appreciate the battles.

“The Truth is that Running Hurts. No one gets faster without meeting their personal pain barrier straight on.”
Manciata, www.10ktruth.com

A fresh start to a new year.  As I begin to pick out races and events it is always exciting to think about the new challenges for 2009 and a new year.  I look back at 2008 and it was good and bad.  I did however learn how to push myself correctly which is very important going into a year where I will be running my first ultra.

First step is a marathon with just over two months rest.  In the past I have struggled with this but I have learned a lot about how my body responds.  The key is pushing and knowing the limits.  I am pushing so again we will see if I really know my limits as I get ready for this weekend.  I will let you know!