My run yesterday reminded me a bit too much of Jack London's short story

To Build a Fire.

It was 1°F and snowing lightly when I headed out at 11:15 AM. Not windy at all. It was supposed to warm up into the teens sometime, so I expected to benefit from that before I was done, so I didn't bother with the balaclava or the strip of polar fleece I tie around my face to protect my nose and cheeks. And I didn't wear the safety vest, because it was daylight.

Everything went along just dandy for four miles, then the wind picked up. I managed another two miles into that before I gave it up as a bad job and headed back home. The plan was to run another three into that wind, but my beard and mustache were iced up - I mean solid - like a half inch thick - and my energy drinks were already turning to slush, so they'd be worthless, excess weight if I didn't head straight back right then.

When I got back to Thirty Sixth Avenue, about three miles from my house, I decided to walk for a bit and finish off my first slushee. The wind quickly bit through the layers wet clothing - the outer layer was wet with snow melt (even though I looked like a walking snowman) and the inner three layers were wet with sweat). At the verge of shivering I had to start running again.

Like Jack Frost's sled dog, I had to keep up a good pace all the way home, or feel the bite of the lash. Running over the railroad bridge at two miles was a bitch, because I was completely exposed to the wind. I tried walking again at a mile, but I got chilled even quicker that time.

Oh, I should mention that the first time I started walking, besides to drink, it was because the restriction of my vision caused by my hood pulling my hat brim down, a slight fogging of my glasses and the fact that the whole world was white caused me to miss the fact that the sidewalk dipped down suddenly to the street and I had a rather jarring landing that caused my hip to hurt.

Another post-mortem thought - a lesson I need to take - is that I really didn't power-up enough for the run. I only had one medium-large bowl of cereal to eat for breakfast. Even though I run slow, with the low temperature, I was probably burning more that 100 Kcal/mile.

I wish someone had snapped a picture of me when I got in the door. I got that wet crap off me as quick as I could and jumped in the shower. I still had ice chunks to pick out of my beard as the water was heating up.

I've started running again.

Yes, in the middle of the godawful cold of the coldest weeks of a godawfully cold winter. Ya bundle up. And don't try to set any records.

I've been running about every other day, averaging about four miles per run, since the 14th. Actually the every other day thing bounced me over the 24-below day, so I didn't have to decide whether to skip a run or not that day. The two 'abouts' a couple sentences ago I feel the need to explain: the first one is because I've actually run more than that - I ran back-to-back days twice, and the second one is because the route I've run most is 4.22 miles, according to MapMyRun. I did 2 shorter routes (3.05 and 3.88) and one slightly longer (4.29).

The longest route is the nicest, it goes the long way through a long park along Shingle Creek, but, when the temp's below 15 and there's any kind of wind, you don't want to go that way. There's no view when you've got your hood pulled tight around your face and your hat brim is blocking out everything beyond ten feet in front of you.

The passion's back, though. I was getting the urge to go out again late this afternoon. I suppressed it by sitting down to watch the Packer game. They held on to beat the Bears for the NFC Championship. They're going to the Superbowl!

Been running a lot lately.

Well, not a lot compared to what I will be doing. For those who haven't seen the other blog lately, I've signed up to run another TCM. The TC 1-mile is tomorrow. I had today scheduled as a rest day, but I didn't feel overtrained in the slightest, so I decided to go run a slow 2 miles (+ whatever - I ran for twenty five minutes; half street/half trails so it's hard to measure) tonight. I ran it all straight away from the house and then walked back in 45 minutes.

I need to keep records of all that because the company is offering fabulous prizes for people who do a crapload of that sort of thing. Speaking of which, I haven't told the form that I ran 32 minutes Saturday, and 26 each yesterday and Monday.

No adventures so far. I'm too experienced at this to screw it up. [I'm tweaking my inner gremlin. Hope he's got a sense of humor. "(Snort!) Sense of humor?! I'm THE ONE with a sense of humor around here? You'd better hope I have a sense of humor, with you callin' me a gremlin all the time." Well, let's not put the therapy session online.]

Well, I ran the TCM today.

I notice that my thighs are sore already, a sure sign of over-training. If I'd done that over the summer, I might have had a decent time. As it was, I almost missed the cut-off for getting a finishers shirt and medal. The "gun time" was showing 5:56:something when I went past. [Hey! Look at this! They've got the chip times up already!]

I must have been just a flash going through, because my wife, who was waiting at the finish line, didn't see me. I also don't remember hearing them announce my name, and obviously she didn't either, but then the blatherers who were doing the announcing had to say things to keep the crowd interested. And I was a bit busy collecting my loot.

The temps were awesome for a race, ranging from the low fifties at the beginning to low sixties by the end. I could have done without the two hour thundershower, though. It made my shoes heavy. Apparently it hit the top finishers the same way, the winning time was 2:16. I wonder if Fernando Cabada will try to bury that on his resume.

The rain and the cold wind made it tough to enjoy running by the lakes in Minneapolis. All right, impossible. Oh, I guess it was 48 degrees at the start. I tossed my sweatshirt in the start corral, because it wasn't that cold and I figured I'd be plenty warm by the time it started raining. I was wrong. The weatherman had to go and nail it dead-on, drat him.

Another thing that slowed me down was that I had to hit the "head" five times. Largely due to trying to avoid the embarassing problem I mentioned in the other blog. And any other embarassing problems that haunted me as I went along. It was a difficult operation with numb hands. I forgot my gloves. I picked up a pair of discarded gloves after a while, wrung out the water and put them on. They helped a lot.

I saw that my dream house is for sale. I'll have to go make an offer. Oddly enough, I can't find a listing on the web. You should see it, half-timbered with fancy brick work, on the east side of Lake Harriet... [Lost in dream-land.] Maybe it's not a single-family dwelling.

I made a point of thanking every volunteer and spectator I could. If they were still out there when I was, they deserved an open display of gratitude. Maybe even a big smooch, but I was too busy to pass out any of those.

Some remarked that I was still smiling. Unfortunately, that brought up the thought, "yeah, it's because I'm not working very hard." The sore legs say otherwise. Maybe I'll post a full litany of excuses later.

Oh, well. The wife cooked me something. I'd better go eat it.

Here's a pic of me in my TCMarathon finisher's shirt

Make that the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon. I'm generally a deep admirer of Medtronic. Like any company, they've had difficulties. Unfortunately, when your products are medical devices, discovering after the fact that something is wrong with one of them is rather a big deal. I admire the hell out of the people in that company who keep trying to save lives in the face of that liability.

Anyway, since Probligo at least wanted to see them, here's me in my shirt with my medal:


Running a marathon in almost six hours is harder than running it in almost five. That's my experience. I want to compare those experiences to running one in almost four.

Well, that's over.

Summary

Number of finishers: 7215
Number of females: 2825
Number of males: 4390
Average time: 04:48:

As for me:

5K Split 35:00
10K Split 1:10:24
13.1 Mile Split 2:34:52
30K Split 3:53:47
20 Mile Split 4:12:21
Finish Time 5:39:48
Pace 12:58

That was awesome.

The heat and the knee killed me. And the fact that the knee kept me from training very well for the past month.

Aches & pains?

1. The knee.
2. My feet are killing me, just generally.
3. One blister on my toe. (I gotta spread the word about those socks!)
4. New shirt and drawers chaffed off some hairs that old stuff hadn't taken care of.
5. Fanny pack buckle dug a hole in my back. I discovered those last three spots when I got in the shower and hit 'em with the water.

6. No blood this time. Band-aids and vaseline took care of that.

7. Sunburn.

It was supposed to cloud up and thunderstorm by 9:00 (the race started at 8:00), but instead, we dealt with warm, sunny and humid-as-hell until 11:00. Then, all-of-a-sudden, it was cloudy. It felt good, but it was too little, too late. I saw a lot of sunstroke victims on the side of the road. All of whom were being professionally (I mean that in the most complimentary way) attended by EMTs.

I noticed that all of them (the runners lying on the side of the road) seemed to be in better physical condition than I.

They announced at the beginning that "Today is not the day to go for a PR!" [Personal Record]

Great. What am I doing here? I figured, even with the bad knee, I had to do better than last year.

Nope.

Well, my wife was happy I survived. [That's a good thing.]

Update: Hey! I kind of like this thing! They knock 19 minutes off my time for being 44 y.o.

Update: One more thought, from the article linked in the next post, there were plenty of spectators sprinkling and hosing us down. Thank you for that.

I seem to be having a flare up of

Iliotibial band syndrome. [Yes, I cut and pasted that.]

The exercise on that page has me feeling better already. Don't anybody say anything about the placebo effect.

Marathon Sunday. My plan is mostly to do that exercise and some other stretches, and rest until then; let that muscle strengthen and heal. Hopefully I can get in a seven and a two mile run in, but I'll just have to skip 'em if the leg hurts. Maybe I can do some pool running at the city swimming pool. The girls'd like that.

Hey!

Read Marginal Utility Is Not Rocket Science!

There's your economics for today.

You want to learn about running? Check out Training for your Marathon, by - and/or edited by - Jay Hendrickson. It's a 100-some page .doc ebook that the guy ought to be selling for money. His key point is: optimal stress + optimal rest = optimal progress.

The rest of the book is about what "optimal" means.

I love the quote he starts his "philosophy" article with:

"Take a primitive organism, any weak, pitiful organism. Say a freshman. Make it lift or jump or run. Let it rest. What happens? A little miracle. It gets a little better. It gets a little stronger or faster or more enduring. That's all training is. Stress. Recover. Improve. You'd think any damn fool could do it, even...

But you don't. You work too hard and rest too little and get hurt." - Bill Bowerman

[Emphasis Hendrickson's, I believe.]
There's a Runbayou blog as well. Though he hasn't said much since his kid won the 2007 UIL Division 1A Texas High School Tennis Championship in early May. Before that he writes about the Boston Marathon.

I know a guy who ran Boston in 3:45. But I haven't asked him about it. I've only talked to him once. That doesn't hardly constitute a relationship in my book.

You have to run a 3:30 to even qualify to enter Boston, but if you read Hendrickson's description of the race conditions you can see why a good runner (great runner from my viewpoint) would have trouble getting there there on that day.

The subtitle of H's book is "Information for the Obsessed Athlete." Does it seem like I'm getting there?

Oh, that crunchy knee?

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

My new Runner's World magazine has a stretching exercise that seems to have made that go away. Instead of stretching your quads by pulling your heel to your butt, just stand with your hands on your thighs, use one hand to help brace yourself bend your knees and lean forward slightly and raise one heel behind you as high as you think you should. Hold for a second or two, then do the other leg. 10 times/leg.

I also learned a foot stretch a while back that has significantly reduced a budding case of plantar fasciitis: sit down and cross one leg over the other knee, grab your toes with the hand of the same side and pull them back. Don't overstrain, but make sure you feel the stretch. 20-30 seconds each side, three times a day.

I bring these up because the improvements from each have been almost instantaneous.

Now for some sleep.

Well, I ran the Manitou 15K in White Bear Lake yesterday.

That's 9.3 Miles, for those of you who don't like metric conversions.
I finished in 1:28:35. One minute 25 seconds better than my goal. 9:31/mile.

Not bad. I mean, it's good for me, but I came in 19th out of 20 in my division - 108th out of 130 finishers (and 7 missing - there was speculation that they stopped at one of the dozens of garage sales that were starting up as we slower people went by).

Oh, here are the results. Let me find mine.... Here:

bib number: 302
age: 43
gender: M
location: Brookly Center, MN
overall place: 102 out of 134
division place: 19 out of 20
gender place: 70 out of 79
time: 1:28:36
pace: 9:31

I suppose you noticed that I was I little off. And, apparently we located 4 out of the seven missing.

Every time I checked my split-time I was pretty much on that 9:31 mark. I was trying to go faster ["...but my legs just wouldn't go any faster!" as J. Beebe would say.] No, I wanted to run between 10 and 8 minute miles, and I did. Now I need to push that closer to 8.

Of course, today I have a crunchy knee, but you take the good with the bad.

I gotta get ready to go here.

Ah, heck, as long as I'm here, I'll talk about how my running is going

I'm still working on making a habit of running at least 2 miles a day. I missed Thursday (but I would have anyway - it was raining cats and dogs), but otherwise I've been kicking butt on that goal. The goal of running every day is a rule meant to be broken. Weather, health and other plans and issues are always going to get in the way, but if you've run two out of the last four days, who cares, eh?

Here's a quickie mileage log, that'll be useful to me if nobody else cares:
Starting a week ago last Friday: 2, 7, 0, 0, 2.5, 5, 0, 2, 7, 3.

I have numbers before that written somewhere else, but I'm not overly concerned about them. I have a tendency to always average 10 minute miles, though, of course, I've done eights and nines.

I'm going to get up early and run a slow 2 in the morning, and then go out looking for Rosie's flowers. And the missing parts for my trailer. So, off to bed I go.

Oh, I'm going to run a 15K next Saturday. That strikes me as the sort of oddball distance that will only draw serious runners, so don't be surprised if I come in dead last.

Well, I've finished a Marathon.

As often as I'm asked, I'll tell you right now that that's a 26.2 mile (or somewhere around 42km) run. Supposedly the distance from Athens to Marathon (Google Pheidippides for the story).

I'll try not to write as if I were the Grand Old Man of Marathoning now.

Let's see, how many options did I give yesterday as possible outcomes of the race? Ah! Well, here are the answers: yes, no, no, no and no. The clock, as I crossed the finish line, said 5:02-something. [Update: unofficial results from the official website. Scroll to the bottom.] My chip time will be over eight minutes less, because that's how long it took to get to the starting line after the horn.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day: blue sky, trees shading from green to red, orange and gold, cool enough at the start to make me wish I'd brought gloves.

I was aiming for a 4 hour, 15 minute finish, and I held a pace rather faster than that for about 16 miles--I even made up the difference between the clock time and the chip time. Even with the fact that I had to stop at the turn to Lake Nokomis for five minutes to use the Port-A-Potty.

Then Zeus turned my legs to lead and I had to slow way down and finally walk for a while. I pretty much ran-walked the rest of the way. For the next four miles I kept trying to get running again and keep running, but I kept have to stop and walk. Finally, I decided that, since that was the way it was going to be, I systematize the process and only rest for one minute at a time, running as long and as hard as I felt like. I made better time that way.

That got me through the next six until I saw the Capitol building and the finish line from the top of Cathedral Hill. I let gravity pull me down the hill fast, till I came to a little hump, then I just held on to the finish line, only letting one guy pass me.

I think they could do away with the 26 Mile sign though. It's a little disheartening to get to that and realize that the Finish is still far enough away that you can't quite make out what's going on up there.

I think hitting The Wall resulted from a convergence of factors. First, obviously, I'd run 16 miles. That's longer than any training run I've done this year. Second, I don't know about other Marathons, but this one is a 26.2 mile-long carb buffet. I ate and drank anything anybody handed to me. I was stuffed by the end of it. And, along about Mile 16, some joker handed me a beer (in a cup-it wasn't obvious... other than the fact that they were shouting, "ICE COLD BEER!!"

I thought they were joking. They weren't. After the first sip, I said, "I guess they weren't kidding!" So I took a second sip and tossed the rest.

And, I suppose I should mention that the temp rose quite a bit around that time, and I found myself looking for every little bit of shade.

At about Mile 20 I notice a circle of blood on my chest, so I looked in my shirt and
found that I'd lost my band-aid on my right nipple. I believe I may have let a few nasty words slip. I went on with that for a while, until it occurred to me that there was no good reason to keep the shirt on, so I tied it to the back of my gel pack belt, and, everything went better after that. I was a lot cooler, for one thing.

But, I'm pretty happy with the experience. I took every piece of advice I got, band-aided up everything that chafed severely-including the afformentioned and my toes-and Body Glided everything that chafed a little...made sure I was wearing shorts that had never made a mark on me in training.

I made some new friends that I'll have to try to track down again.

But, I'm still beat now. I did soak my lower legs in the pool. I wanted to sit down in that cold water, but... Ew! I mentioned that it needed cleaning. I've mostly drained it now. I still need to mop it up a bit and then fold it up and box it for the winter.

So, anyway, nighty-night.

Oh, hey!

I just checked the Heart of Summer site, and my actual running time, from the time I crossed the starting line to when I crossed the finish line was 56:21, and my official place was 261.

Kick A! Man!

I was still 35th out of 42 in the 40-44 age class, but you get some serious competion once you step beyond the 5K range.

Old Whig could be considered synonamous with "fat geezer." I'm doing what I can prove that's not so.

I took a jog today.

150 Minutes worth. That's two hours and 30 minutes. I doubt that I maintained a pace of 10 minutes/mile, but it's the best estimate that can make. That is, 15 miles.

I kicked butt for the first hour; I ran a full mile farther than I did the last time I jogged in that direction. Everything went fine for the next hour, during which I reached my goal - a beautiful park in Maple Grove with several terraced ponds - and headed back. I returned almost exactly to my one hour mark at two hours so I was still kickin' butt.

My mind gave the tune, "One Shower! One nap! And one beer!" as a mantra.

I left the house with a 20 oz. bottle of water mixed with an ounce of liquid minerals. I sipped my third to last swig at the two hour mark. It was my intention at that point to continue running for one more hour. Oddly enough, at the ultimate [by that, I mean last] sip of my mineral-infuse water my will to continue died.

I lasted about another 200 yards. Then I started walking.

I was carrying a fiver in my pocket so I stopped at the first convenience store I found and bought a "Sports Shake". It was cold. It tasted fabulous.

It damn near made me barf.

Here, I had an odd experience once I stopped running. I was still 4 miles from the house and I was walking along when I saw a plastic bag billowing in the wind on the sidewalk. There was a bunch of rubbish in the woods next to it, so I grabbed the bag and started filling it with the rubbish. Then I saw, under a low branch, a dollar bill, and said to myself, "I guess I get paid for this good deed!" It was like God said, "Here's a dollar bill. If you clean up this mess, you'll find it and it's yours."

So, naturally I bought some fruit juice at the next convenience store and it gave me the energy to run some sprints as I continued on my way home. The spiritual energy gained from the idea that God rewards simple, good deeds was not a miniscule contribution.

In the end, I kept my body in motion for a full four hours. It gives me confidence that I actually can do a marathon. I think I can at least do a 25K race in two and a half. [A marathon's 42.something.]

I see that the belly's a bit flatter this evening.

I did indeed finish the Heart of Summer 10K

Some of you may understand why I don't mention the primary sponser of the race. If you don't get it, you just won't. Forget it.

Here's a link.

Katie McGregor, btw, made $7,000 on the race, I forget where it came from, but it was $500 + $1500 + $5000. Not bad for half an hour's work. Kinda makes you think about getting serious about this game.

Oh! And here's where you can verify my veracity. 2006 results will be up Monday.

Of course, it was more than a half hour of work for me. My time was 56:54 and I finished 262nd overall. Nobody considered giving me any prizes.

[Mike Nelson, of Mystery Science Theater 3000, is ripping Road House - one of my favorite movies - on the radio (on the Northern Alliance) behind me. It's quite a distraction.]

There was a 72-year-old who beat me by over ten minutes, but at least I whupped up on the truly rotund women.

[Later addition] Oh, btw, there were no truly rotund men in the race. That speaks worse of the men than of the women who had the guts to get out there. I was about the fourth or fifth heaviest guy there (though one or two of them were big linebacker types). And it seemed to me to me that nobody dropped out. There were plenty of finishers after an hour and twenty minutes. You have to admire a gal who can push that hard for that long.

I hitched my wagon to the wrong horse for this race. Although, come to think of it, I guess what I did wrong was unhitch from that horse at about 3 miles. I think it might be entertaining to talk about that horse.

I found myself, within the first mile, behind a young, hot gal in tight shorts, obviously wearing a thong underneath. I kept up with that vision for the next 2 and a half miles. Unfortunately, at that point, sexual attraction dropped below self-preservation in my priority list and I let her go.

Judging by the way I feel now [Fantastic!], I should have kept up with her. She knew what she was doing.

I won't forget that in future races: find the hottest chick you can and don't let her out of your sight. I'm good enough at running that the hot chicks are at my level; I'm not looking at emaciated freaks nor competitors with the globe.

Holy Cow! It's Wednesday!

I bet you didn't know that.

I've been kicking the Marathon training up a notch, and I've been a bit tired. There's another 10K on Saturday that I want to do. 2 laps around Lake Nokomis in Mpls. I want to see if I've improved any over my July 4th time of 58:37.

I weighed 223 lbs this morning (101.6 KG for you furriners - I made this number more accurate, btw), so I'm moving back in the right direction. I don't know how much I can or should lose by Oct. 1, but I'd like to hit the starting line at least 10 lbs lighter.

Whoop, the thing I was waiting for is done!

The Calves are lookin' good after two weeks of running.

Of course, I'm not showing you pix of my belly or my bald head--and I cut off my ugly toes--but the legs are lookin' good.

Just ignore that Kimball Organ in the background.

I ran the Medtronic TC 1 Mile today.

I think I did quite well. I haven't been running much, just walking. I did do a few (three) 10 minute jogs just to be sure I could make the minimum time. Apparently I was running farther than a mile those times though. Even when I found a route that's uphill all the way. (That made me breathe hard!)

My results were:
NO FN LN OVERALL DIVPL SEXPL TIME PACE
930 Alan Erkkila 603 56/60 370/411 8:40 8:40

I'm a bit unclear about my division. Must be 40-49 yr-olds, but I'm trying to check that out now. 56th oout of 60 looks pretty awful, though, somehow 370th out of 411 Men doesn't bother me. I knew I'd get my butt whooped if I ran with my division, so I just ran with the first wave. I had to bend down to get rid of a cramp at the end, but I...shall we say...didn't "leave it all on the track." I felt pretty good and could have done it again. I even did a little jogging on the way back to the start to pick up my sweats.

Yeah, it's gotta be 40-49 year-olds. Hey! Among 56th place finishers, I was second! Whoo-hooo!

Now I need to shower-up before my wife will let me in the bed.