Relay For Life and One More Birthday

What a great birthday week for me.

Spent the weekend of my 50th birthday down in Manteo with just about my whole family and a bunch of friends.  I also got to spend a good bit of time on Saturday and then again Sunday morning helping out at Dare County's Relay For Life event.  And what an incredible event it is.  It's kind of surprising how much positive feeling can be generated by hearing about, and seeing, such terrible life experiences.  But that's exactly what happens.

It seems to me that we tend to find the greatest strength and hope in the face of adversity.  Of course it's easier to push back against the weight of the world when there are others facing something so similar to yourself.  The whole "strength in numbers" thing.  And events like this leave me feeling humbled and empowered at the same time.

I remember the first one I attended here.

I had just finished up my radiation treatments, gotten over "the plague", and had worked my way up to walking three miles in a row.  I'd also gained back about 20 of the 40 some pounds I had lost.  I was driving in between contracting jobs and heard an ad for Relay on the radio.  "That's perfect!" I said out loud to myself and jotted down the website address so I could sign up when I got home which is exactly what I did.  I didn't join a team, or create one, or anything.  I just signed up.

Because somehow I thought it was a 5K.  And I could walk a 5K and maybe even jog some!

The next Saturday I heard another ad and heard the words "24 hours."  WTH?  Seriously?  Who the hell does any running or walking for 24 hours?  That's when I decided to actually read the website.

"Oh," I thought.  "I'm going to need a team."

So Sunday morning I stood up in church during the prayers and concerns, admitted to everyone that I was an idiot and needed help forming a team and raising money.  A dozen or so people joined up just about immediately.  It was great.

One of those folks was my Cancer Compadre, Shane.  He and I co-captained the team and did a pretty decent job of fundraising bringing in almost $ 1500.  We also had a good time camping out together that night and talking about ways to do a better job the following year, now that we understood what the hell it was we were supposed to do.  Shane and I walked a lot, too.  Hours and hours together and taking turns.  I don't know what got into me, but I started walking at the noon kickoff and just didn't stop.

While Shane and I talked about things I had mentioned that I wanted to get back to running because the past six months had given me all I ever wanted of feeling helpless and weak.  I talked about what I used to do in high school and Shane even said that he could never really be a runner because his knees always hurt and he just knew he'd hate it.  Well, as we walked a thought sort of got in my head and I wanted to see what would happen if . . . I just didn't stop walking.  How far could I go beyond the three miles I had done a few times that past week?

Turns out that was 105 laps around the track.  26 and a quarter miles.  A marathon.

I was so exhausted and limping, but I made myself do it.  Then was in agony for the next several days, but hey.  I walked a marathon.  Having done that I decided it was time to train and do something even better.  That's another story, but six months later I ran my first and only marathon. 

One year and one day after being diagnosed with cancer.  3:48 and change.

Shane started running after that day, too.  He said he was inspired by me and my efforts and since then the guy has just blown me and himself away.  He's done marathons, Half's, ultras, and even a 200 mile relay!  Had an article written about him in Endurance Magazine.  Totally cool.  He also created the Cupcake 5K as the team's fundraising tool for each year's Relay For Life.  Now it's also become the "big finish" for the weekend.  He and his wife's efforts, along with a long list of others, has taken something as rough as cancer and created a shining diamond of a moment for many, many people.

This year we sold out weeks before the event with 400 runners.  Next year we'll have to go even bigger!

So this entry doesn't go on forever, here's some pictures from the weekend.

There's Shane with the mic getting the volunteers together.

 

 

 

 

Happy Faces at the Starting Line

 

 

The fast guys take off.  Blue shorts up there, Chad, won it.  Second was Millar the guy in black there, and third went to my motivation/inspiration, 48 year old Keith in the white with black shorts.

 

 

 

On the far right edge of the picture is the Mile 1 sign.  Missed it by that much.

 

 

It's an "out and back" course, so here's heading out...

 

 

...and heading back.

 

 

The course finishes on the track with all the attendees hanging around and walkers still on the track, too.  The runners move out to the outside lanes and through the finish line by the main stage.

 

 

In my last post I talked about coming in last on purpose to encourage the folks that were struggling to finish and take the pressure off anyone who was worried about that stigma.  Well at the Cupcake 5K, the last place finisher gets the biggest applause and is accompanied by almost all of the other people who have all ready finished the race!  Another of Shane's brilliant ideas.  The race has always had people in it that were currently going through some serious cancer treatments, so there has always been people using that event, that moment, as a way of showing they were still there and still fighting.

 

This year was no different.

 

The last place finisher went the whole way using a walker and hauling her oxygen tank along with her.

 

 



 

When she finished she took the mic from Shane and encouraged all of us to take advantage of our lives and live them to the fullest.

 

 

 

That wonderful experience was enhanced because I had another friend who came down from Maryland to run the 5K and support me and the team.  My fraternity Little Brother, Blake.  If you've read my book he played a significant part in a turning point for me during my treatments.  He and I walked together behind this woman and chuckled at each other because we were both crying behind our sunglasses.

 

 

 

And heeeeerrrreee's Blake!

 

 

 

All in all I couldn't have asked for a nicer way to spend my birthday weekend.  I even was able to win my age group.  Of course it helped that I wasn't lumped in with Keith anymore.  ; )

 

 









2013 Monument Avenue 10K Results

There.  That title should help with some web searches out there...

What a terrific weekend!

As I approached this year's Monument Avenue 10K I felt sure I could beat my time from last year, which was a 44:04, because I knew I'd been training with more distance and tempo runs.  Optimism.  Then I looked at that pace, 7:04 per mile, and how in my last three tempo runs I couldn't hold a sub 7 minute mile for more than 3 miles.  Hell, my last one I only made two miles!  7:04 for over six miles seemed a little out of reach.  Anxiety.

So I pulled up my training log from last year and found I hadn't run crap over 7 miles back then, and I've been getting in at least one 7+ mile run or workout in every week since January.  Optimism.  I also have been able to negative split my 10 mile runs finishing them at about 7:30 pace overall and even got a couple of sub 7 final miles in there.  More Optimism.

Then on Thursday night something weird happened I still can't explain.  I came home from having dessert with my grand kids and their parents, walked upstairs and almost couldn't get back down!  I had this very sharp, stabbing pain in my left heel where my Achilles tendon connects to my heel.  I tried stretching it some and that was horrible.  I hadn't twisted it, strained it or anything and yet it was if I had a very bad case of tendinitis.  Anxiety.

I took a handful of ibuprofen, and put a bag of Brussels sprouts (I couldn't find any ice packs) on my heel and watched some TV.

It felt a little better.

Before I got in bed I smeared a glob of Blue Emu cream on it and went to sleep.

It still hurt the next day, but only when I tried to stretch it out or walk down stairs.  Walking and even hopping a little didn't bother it too much but it felt hot.  I decided that after work and hitting the expo for packet pickup I would buy some ice and soak this piece-of-shit-old-ankle-that-got-injured-for-no-damned-reason when I got home at night.

During the day my leg didn't feel too bad, but I was careful not to stress it and just limped whenever I had to go down some stairs.  Fortunately, the expo was all on one floor and I was able to move around that with no problem.

I love running expos.  All the people (read that "all the cute running girls"), the energy, and the stuff!  I love stuff.  Especially buying it.  And I found one piece of stuff that I had hoped to find and picked it up pronto.  It's called The Stick.

The Stick is a massage tool that looked to be a very effective piece of plastic and fiberglass.  And all the cool kids at Indoor Nationals had them, so I knew I should have one, too.

The sales people they had at the booth were actually very knowledgeable about physiology and massage therapy.  I told the lady about my Achilles and she said, "you're going to roll this up and down the back and both sides of your upper calf."

"Ummm. OK."

"When you do that you're going to find a trigger point (sharp pain) in one of these three spots," as she pointed to the back of my calf muscle under my knee and off to the outside about three inches below my knee.  "Those spots are where knots form that tighten up your calf and restrict blood flow to your tendon."

Damn if she didn't nail it.

That spot on the outside of my calf made me jump when I hit it.  I went more gently and after a few rubs it worked out a little.

I bought The Stick.

Now I look like the cool kids when I stretch after a run.

On my way out of the expo I met a guy named Daniel Komen.  He was manning a booth with a sign "Train With the Kenyans."  Google Daniel Komen.  Holy cow.

I was standing there chatting with the only human ever to put two sub 4 minute miles back to back.  The world record he set in the two mile back in the 90's still stands, along with his world record in the 3000.

He was super nice and he and his booth-mate David Cheromei run a running camp that is put together as part of a mission trip experience to raise money for the school that Komen started for orphans in Kenya.  My wife and I, along with some friends of ours in our church in Manteo, sponsor a child through Heart for Africa and he was familiar with that and spoke highly of it.  He asked me to come and support his school and said the kids get a lot out of seeing people there to help them and run with them.  He smiled and said, "Kenya make you fastman!"  I've got all their info for doing a trip to Kenya for the camp and then working with the kids at the school or doing grounds/building work while there in hopes I could actually do that some day.

Daniel told me he would autograph my bib number and I got a picture with him.

So cool!

 

So it was home to use The Stick and ice both ankles since I discovered bad knots in both of them.

In high school I had a nice case of tendinitis in the same area and the Trainer had me do a little icing routine using a big bucket and the jacuzzi.  I shoved my leg down into a bucket of 1/3 ice and 2/3 water for two minutes, then immediately shove that leg into the jacuzzi where the water temperature was about 100 degrees.  Sounds painful doesn't it?  It is.  Ridiculously painful.  But I only had to do it twice in two days and the inflammation was gone and I raced on it like nothing had ever happened.

I don't have a jacuzzi and I remembered how much moving into that hot water felt.  I figured I'd do without all that this time and just do the ice part.  So I dumped about half a large bag of ice into a paint bucket and filled it with water.  Then I grabbed a beer and used my phone as a stop watch.  Three times in and out and that should do it.

 

 

I soaked for two minutes in and five minutes out, then just kept them in there for a full five minutes the last time.  Geez, that was something.  Brrrrrr.

 

Then I massaged with The Stick, popped a couple more ibuprofen, rubbed on some more Blue Emu then went to bed.

 

When I woke up I felt fine.

 

Moved around the room.  Stretched.  My calves felt sort of tight and sore liked I'd worked them out hard, but there wasn't any sharp pain, even when I walked downstairs.

 

Sweet!

 

The race itself went about perfect.  Just like the weather.  55 degrees, sunny and a very light breeze.

 

I decided to do this race differently than I usually do, which is out fast and see how long I can hang on, and do the negative split thing I'd been doing on my long runs.  According to the things I've been reading it's best to go out for the first quarter of whatever your running at a pace that is slower than what you actually want to average for the race.  Then you steadily speed up, but just barely.  It makes it seem easier and it feels like I always have something in the tank along with speed if I want it.  I was surprised as I got to mile 2 at 7:10 pace and had been telling myself to take it easy.  Hold back.

 

At the 5k mark and the turnaround point I was at 7:04 and felt very strong.  It was also the only point where I got a good picture.  I took about five during the run and they all looked like crap.  But this one looks cool:

 



 

Hitting the turn hard

 

 

I pressed the first half mile after the turn and didn't get passed again the whole way.  I would look at my Garmin and watch as the average time dropped steadily.  At mile 5 I was dead on 35 minutes and a 7 flat pace.  I was going to PR this bitch.

 

I reminded myself of how dead I felt last year at this point and how hard I was fighting just to hang on.  "Completely different," I said out loud.  A guy next to me glanced over and I continued, "compared to last year.  I feel great this year!"  He smiled and grunted, and slowly faded off behind me.

 

I was grinning as I looked ahead and started pumping.  My hands were relaxed (except for holding my phone), my legs were driving along, and I kept on accelerating.

 

I covered that last mile in 6:26 and was smiling ear to ear when I came across the finish line.

 

I swear there are very few feelings in this world like the one I get when I run fast.  I don't even know how to describe it except that I always remember that day I was laying at the top of my stairs exhausted, sick and weak, then compare it to what I was doing in the last strides of that race.

 

And I just smile.

 

Fun Run for a Good Cause

Ed -

I got to go back "home" to Manteo, NC this weekend and run in the All Out Pink Road Race.  It was two races actually: a 5K and an 8 Mile race.  I did the 8 Miler because I wanted to have a longer fast run as part of my training plan for next spring.  These runs are done as fund raisers for breast cancer research and programs around the Outer Banks and are put on by a local boot camp type fitness club along with a ton of sponsors.

The cool thing is that they worked in an extra feature by having contestants do a bench press contest when they pick up their bibs.  80% of your body weight as many times as you can up to 20.  With each rep you get to lower your time by 15 seconds.  You can opt out of that and just be a runner, like I did, but the Get Pumped For Pink shirts you get for that part are pretty nice.  Plus it adds something to the finish line party.

You hang out with people asking how many reps they got, talk about where you finished.  Everybody's got calculators out and talking about how great it would be to "really run a 55" for 8 miles.  Energy and fun.

Because I got the shingles this past week I followed my doctor's instructions, sort of, and took it easy.  The rash was very painful and uncomfortable, but not horrible.  And it didn't spread any more over the last couple of days, so I figure I didn't mess up by running.  It's only around my torso from my chest to my back, but the thought of lying a on a bench and pushing up a weighted bar was more than I wanted to put myself through.  Just running is fine by me.

Since I am a cancer survivor myself I'm always up for doing anything that helps fund research, treatment and most importantly to me, care for the patients and their families.  Plus the funds from this one stay local which means people I know as friends will benefit regardless of whether or not they're dealing with breast cancer specifically.

But Pink is the theme and I wanted to get into it some and went out looking for pink stuff to run in.  Did you know every freaking thing women run in has pink in it somewhere?  But there ain't a damn thing for guys!  I could buy ladies socks, shorts or singlets, but geez...  I figured if I were going to go the gay route I'd go full bore, as it were, and get a tutu, boa, and dye my hair bright pink.  Oh! And wear pink body glitter.  If you're gonna go, go big.

But I had a bunch of work to do at my house right after the race and my wife will see the pictures of this thing so I decided to try and avoid anything that big.  But I couldn't find crap.

Then a friend suggested hitting one of the big sportswear chains like Dick's and look in the football section.  Football on all levels it seems got with Nike and they have a whole Susan G. thing going on.  I was able to get a nice technical shirt that was black that said "Blitz For A Cure" on the front in bright pink.  I had black shorts (don't we all?) and got some cool Nike wrist bands also in pink.  What's really cool about them is that the words "Dedicated To:" is embroidered on them.  I had two people immediately come to mind and found a sharpie at the race.

Gay was a friend of mine from high school, an incredible person and also a runner.  Last year I happened to catch a reflection of her snapping a picture of her kids that she posted on facebook.  Her hair was gone.  I messaged her and just said I was butting in and asking because I cared, knowing that she and I hadn't traded but a couple of sentences over the past 30 years since high school.  She told me everything and wasn't really hiding what was happening, but wasn't all public with it either.  Over the next couple of months we traded many messages, a couple of cards and a letter along with my book.  She passed away so fast.  I put her name on wrist band number one.  

On the second one I wrote down "Kathy."  Kathy works at the Ace Hardware in Manteo and was there when I first set up my credit account with the owner himself by shaking his hand.  I love small towns.  Well Kathy is one of those folks who's huge on helping other people and was the team captain for the Ace stores for Relay for Life in Dare County along with every other cause that came along.  When I got sick she was one of the people who checked on me every time I came in the store and we became good friends during that first Relay I was involved with as I recovered from treatment.  Well now she's in a fight of her own.  Still working, still giving to others so I wanted to show my support for her.

 

 

 

So I had my outfit and I took off for the run along with a bunch of friends from The Outer Banks Running Club.

 

This run was an out and back across the old Mann's Harbor Bridge and offered a long straight line with a small bump as a hill.  Not thrilling by any stretch except for the view.  Unobstructed, out over the sound in the breeze on a beautiful Saturday morning.  One of those things that just makes you thankful to experience it.  You can't get this feeling from inside a car, and this feeling is one of the many reasons I run.  Without running consistently I'd never get to trot comfortably across this bridge and turn my face into the breeze . . . and breathe deep.  Loving the warmth, smell and strength I have right now.

 

And of course I remember not having anywhere near that strength.

 

So for that hour, out and back on that bridge, I remembered, prayed and appreciated all that everyone was doing that day for people dealing with cancer.

 

When I got to the finish line a friend of mine, Shane who call my Cancer Compadre since he had the same cancer I did just before me which led to our friendship, was at the finish line volunteering and jumped out to high five me.  Someone snapped a picture as I turned towards him and somehow caught the joy I felt by being there, donating a little money, and sending a ton of positive vibes out to the world.

 

 

 

I seriously love running.

 

Extreme Running

Ed -

I used to be a member of The Outer Banks Running Club in the beautiful OBX of North Carolina.  Actually, I still might be a member but I think it lapsed since I moved back to Virginia.  I still run in almost all of the races they put and have a bunch of friends there that are getting more and more into group training runs.

Several of my friends have signed on to do the Tuna Run.  I had never heard of it, but it's a 200 mile relay race from Raleigh, NC down to Wilmington, NC.  That's nuts.  200 miles and only 6 members on the team!  It's going to be a huge adventure and definitely ranks up there with extreme running.

The Captain of the team is a friend of mine named Shane.  He and I had the same cancer just a couple of months apart and that's how we met.  He was finishing treatment just as I was starting and he really stepped up with support and insight to help me through the whole thing.  After I finished up and started running for the first time in decades to rebuild my strength, Shane got inspired and started running, too.  He's now "all eaten up with it" as they say in that neck of the woods and is a running machine.

He's also one heck of a production guy and has been putting together videos to promote the Tuna run and his team.

You gotta see this!

Tuna Run Training Video

Enjoy!