A little lesson in humility

The problem with having a blog is that you have to write stuff on it.  Otherwise, you probably should not have a blog.  I should not imply that there is a problem with having a blog.  The problem lies in the fact that if you have one, you should write on it.  Even if people totally ignore it.  With all that being said, what happens if you actually have nothing to say or write, yet you still feel obligated to write or say something.  Well, I guess we are about to find out.  I get tired of talking about myself.  Nobody may believe that, but it is true.  Me, me, me.  Look at me run.  Listen to me run.  Read about me running.  I think I will try to take the focus off me for today and talk about others. 

I have lost 14 pounds in the last couple months.  7 in the last month.  I am still eating well but just cut out most of the junk.  All of the junk.  I miss salt the most.  I have found that I used so much salt in the past that going cold turkey made everything taste like nothing.  A steak tasted like a shoe.  I've never eaten a shoe but I can imagine it would be fairly tasteless.  I used to love cold, leftover steak.  Pull it out of the fridge, pour salt on it, take a bite, pour more salt on it.  Etc, etc...ad infinitum.  <<<< I like using Latin phrases and words when I can.  It makes me look more smarter, I do believe.  As in, I used to eat steak fat, pork rinds, a carton of Ding Dongs, et al.  Et al is one of favorite Latin situations.  Now, I think I remember an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies where Jethro was speaking Latin.  Here's what I remember.  Granny, "Jethro, where did all the vittles git to."  Jethro, "Dang Granny, I et em all."  I learned a lot from the shows of the sixties. 

My running seems to be getting better.  I am definitely feeling more motivated again and started setting realistic goals.  For a pretty long time, I was eating lots of food, et al, and not running in a focused manner, ad infinitum, and sitting around wondering why I wasn't getting faster and/or losing weight.  Ibid.  Goals do not reach themselves.  Motivation mostly comes from yourself.  Something has to click.  I feel that something finally clicked.  I know that when I push myself, all aspects of my life seem to get a bit better.  Under acheiving makes one feel like crap. 

I will leave everyone with this.  Oofum, Daglus, Mootanufus.  This in Latin means, You do not get stronger without getting stronger, hard work pays off over time.  The people who made up the Latin language had a way of condensing  many thoughts and words into little, concise phrases.  For example, when Caesar said, "Et tu, Brutus?", I would have said, "What the hell Brutus?  Your stabbing of me is not only leaving me in physical pain but my feelings are hurt as well.  If you really did not like me, maybe we could have sat down and had a talk.  Now, please stop stabbing me because I feel as though I could die soon."  Instead, Caesar just said, "Et tu, Brutus?"  Short, to the point, remembered for centures.  If I could do that, my posts would be about three lines of verbiage.    So, to sum and conclude, I say again,"Oofum, Daglus, Mootanufus."

"Running keeps me sane."  House Vandeweghe

Race day report

Well, today was race day.  I am going to give a full and detailed report of my run.  But first, I'm gonna need to talk about what happened after the run.  Most of our running group went out for lunch afterwards.  I have spent this week eating much healthier and I actually lost about 4 pounds.  In the long run, this is going to be great.  Not sure if it sapped some of my energy for the run, but that is an excuse for another story.  The point of what I'm trying to get across now is that I ate way less food this week.  Then today, I ran a half marathon and went out to lunch.  In my mind, the eating healthy and the 13.1 miles meant that I could eat whatever the hell I wanted today.  In the olden days, people would go fairly long periods without eating much.  Then finally, they would catch a bison or an elk or maybe a huge tuna and they would eat the heck out of all that.  This is where the words feast or famine came from.  People were hungry and they were famished and then they caught a warthog and really ate it.  The stories of this always made me hungry.  Stories of roasting a warthog over an open fire on a spit.  Reading of our forefathers and mothers chewing on a greasy leg of an albatross made me really hungry.    Anyway, if we can flash forward to today, I ordered a pierogi casserole.  I think the recipe for this was as follows.  Take 100 pierogies.  Add copious amounts of cheese and onions.  Stuff them in a casserole dish and serve to the masses.  I think what the recipe was calling the masses, were my love handles.  Let's just say they were happy.  My love handles are saddle bag-like remoras of skin and lard.  In times of strife they feed off the potato chips and gravy drippings that don't make it into my mouth.  I think they call this a symbiotic relationship.  I don't know because I haven't taken science since 1956.  All I know is that my love handles need me to drop food to them and I need them for this particular post.  In all actuality, I would like to get rid of them but due to the pierogie pie thing, that won't happen for awhile.  I'm going to try and upload a picture of the casserole, but if you can just imagine a throw pillow of cheese, potatoes and pierogie, that is what you have.

Now for the race.  I felt pretty good for the start of it.  Then for the next 13.1 miles I felt like shit.  When I crossed the line and stopped, I felt good again. 

I have felt like I have been overly sappy lately, but here is the reality of today.  I saw people do incredible things.  Lots of people getting pr's.  People busting their butts to get across the finish line.  People doing whatever it takes to get over the line.  People helping other people to get to the line or get medical attention.  People running that should not have been running.  Gutting it out.  Friends coming out to cheer us on.  The moments of silence for Boston before the race brought tears to many people's eyes.  When I say silence.  I mean there was not a sound.  It was really something.  You could just feel the emotions the crowd was feeling.  I have incredible running friends.  This is one of the few times that I didn't care that much about my time.  Not that I didn't try, I was spent, but just finishing was enough.  To sum it all up, it was one of those days that will leave an impression on me.

In conclusion, it was a good day.  The bad news for my love handles is that their remora days are over. Their days of wine and pierogie pie is done.  I'm on a mission to do some serious stuff.  

I think I should be one of People Magazine's most beautiful women and not Gweneth Paltrow

As I start obsessing over what will be my 8th official half marathon, I had a thought.  It is well documented by whoever listens to me that I keep swearing off anything with the word thon in it.  I actually swore off them after my first half marathon.  My first half marathon came after my first marathon.  My first marathon was the worst experience of my life.  It took forever.  I think my time was three and a half days.  As we all know, the crowds for these events are incredible.  It seemed that all of New York was out that day in 2007.  They were all cheering for me.  At least I'm pretty sure they were.    This cheering went on for the first part of the first day.  By day two, people had kind of forgotten about me.  Day three of my marathon came and the people were getting hostile.  They wanted me out of their city.  They finally said take your medal and get out.  I did, and I swore off thons.

There is an old saying that goes something like this, "If one cannot lie to oneself, then who can one lie to?"  It is old and someone said it.  No one knows who and no one really cares.  It is one of those things that someone said around a fire or beside a river and the scribes wrote it down and it got lost in the translation over time until I found it again and put it here.  I'm bringing it back because it applies to me. I lie to myself all the time.  I keep telling myself that I am not going to run this stuff anymore and then I do.  Right now I'm mad at myself because I don't feel that I am well enough prepared to do what I want to do.  Every race I run, I want it to be faster than the last.  I'm pretty sure that isn't going to happen this time.  I try and tell myself that I don't care.  That I can just run and be satisfied that I did it.  But that isn't me.  In addition, I'm just never that happy running 13.1 miles.  I am the happiest guy in the world when I'm done.  Well, about 20 minutes after I'm done, but not when I'm running.  I have moments, for sure, but it ain't every mile.  I've done enough half marathons, that I know when I'm at the starting line on Sunday, I am going to say, "what am I doing here?"  I also realize that I'm lying to myself again because I know why I do it.  Because I like a challenge.  I like to push myself.  I love the feeling when I'm done.  I say this to anyone...just running 13.1 miles is an accomplishment.  There was a time that I could barely run from telephone pole to telephone pole.  I know there are many people who can relate to that and I appreciate all the work that runners put into running.  I appreciate all the work people put into life.  It is not easy.

I have set a new goal for myself and that is to try to eat healthier.  I've rationalized long enough that I can eat what I want because I exercise a lot.  At my age, that is not the case.  It is hard to keep the weight off.  I have a goal weight in mind.  I want to make sure that I'm getting proper nutrition to ensure I keep muscle on while losing the weight I want.  I really want to see how fast this old body can go.  I do not feel I am at a plateau yet and I feel the need to really push.  I hope I have the will power to push it where I want it to go.  I would like to know, just once, that I reached some sort of potential that I have.  I love the quote by Steve Prefontaine.  "To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift."  We all have gifts, very few really appreciate them or use them to their potential.  I know I haven't.  I don't think it matters whether you are faster, stronger or smarter than someone else.  What matters is that you are as fast, strong or smart as you can be.  Wasted potential is a sad thing.  As you get older, it becomes more profound.   The feeling of lost potential.  You cannot get that time back, but, if you are lucky, you do have tomorrow.  I have tomorrow and there are some things that I want to do.

In conclusion, my concentration has been ruined by Jeopardy.  It is on, and I am trying to finish this and answer questions to Trebek.  If I were on that show, the realization has hit me that he would say, "Nourse, stick to running and lifting weights."  I'm okay with that.

Plan Training to Build Confidence

I'm finishing up about a week of gently training my way through flu recovery and have been asked to give advice to a number of friends, family and a new member of our Master's Track team and then I read Bob's most recent post and I noticed there's a theme to all of the advice I'm giving, and using myself, these days.

Make Confidence a goal of training.  Right up there with endurance, speed, strength and weight loss.

We all have those things in mind as we map out our training plans, jump into them enthusiastically, but so often we don't achieve the goals we set because something stops us.  We fall off the band wagon, lose sight of the goal and then just go back to where we were to start with.  Not at all what we want, and yet there we are.

Why?  What the hell happens?

Looking back honestly at my own behavior I've seen injuries, illness, job changes, life changes, bad weather and just plain bad decisions derail my plans.  But I also noticed something else that is by far the biggest culprit in my failures.  The plans themselves.

With all the Sales training I've been through and taught others I can spout off all sorts of aspects to a good plan with no problem at all.  The most important one I always preach is that you must set a goal that is both measurable and has a time table.  But all my advice this past couple of weeks is about another piece of setting that goal.

Set progression goals, too.

Those also must be measurable and have a time table, and have one other very important part: they should be easy to achieve.

Progression goals help you lay out a path and time table to reach your big goal.  Making them easy to achieve will help keep you on track if something temporary, like bad weather, pops up.  If I have a weekly mileage goal that's not a huge stretch, missing a day is not going to blow my week.  And that leads me to the most important part of having easy to reach progression goals.

Little Victories.

My biggest problem in reaching goals is that I've gotten hit with something temporary or had a setback of some sort, fall off track and then before I know it I'm not getting near my goal anymore.

So with all the folks I've talked to about running the past couple of weeks I've emphasized setting easy to reach progression goals that will help them reach their big goal.  And I mean REALLY easy.  You should be able to celebrate a Little Victory every day or so.  One person I talked with wants to race a 10K next fall.  Not just finish it; she's done that before.  She wants to race one and we picked it out and have the date.  Next we talked about the sort of distances and workouts that she'd be doing, but then I went to the easy progression goals.  The first one we set was to put on her running shoes every day.

That's it.  At the end of every day she needs to have put on her shoes once that day.  No excuses.  Some of the days in that week she'll run, but every day she'll put on those shoes.  She might get sick, real busy or something and forget it once or twice but that can be handled by putting them on twice the next day to make up for it!  Little Victories!

Experts generally agree that in order for us to establish a habit we need to do something every day for 21 days.  Sounds like a piece of cake, but if the habit we're trying to form feels like work or is overly involved we probably won't make it through those 21 days with a new habit at the end of it.  But if that activity is easy and even fun, we'll get it down no problem.

And with that new habit we'll get that supremely important sense of accomplishment.  That's supremely important because it will help us keep moving towards the big goal.  Without it we will probably get derailed and lose sight of that goal.  And those easy to reach progression goals give us the opportunity to get that sense of accomplishment whenever we need it!

A variation on that theme of setting easy to reach progression goals is to plan your workouts to do the exact same thing.  A long run doesn't happen in an instant.  Hell, neither does a sprint workout.  There's time and reps and opportunities to feel good about what's happening if we plan for them.

This morning I had on my schedule to do 800's.  I wrote that done when I laid out my training plans to get me to the Indoor Nationals I'm running in at the end of March.  Then I got the flu and it wrecked all that.  Or could have.  But I have progression goals all through my plan and I've been thinking through each workout or run in a way that will make me feel like I'm getting somewhere.  So this morning it was cold and raining and I was NOT going to go out feeling like I'm 80% just so I can get sick again and lose another couple of weeks.

Instead I had figured out how I would do the same workout on a treadmill, so I was going to get this done despite the weather.  I got to the gym, got the machine going and figured out how to do the speed controls easily.  Little Victory number 1!

My original plan had me doing six 800's because I was only able to do four three weeks ago and figured I would be in better shape right now.  But I'm not.  I'm still coughing and not entirely back up to strength.  Knowing that, but really wanting to get the full workout in, I decided to make the first ones slower than I would have.  The treadmill made it easy to set a 3:20 pace so that's what I did for the first two dropping down to a walk, then jog of 12 minute pace for a quarter mile between each rep.  This meant I would be resting a little longer than my typical three minutes, but I was also covering a 400 between each 800 which I never do.  Little Victory number 2!

The first one felt tough, but the first one always feels harder than it should.  It's called warming up.  The second one felt like I didn't even really try and I was breathing pretty well with only a little bit of a cough here and there.  I picked up the pace to 3:14 for the next two reps, was breathing hard, but breathing.  It felt like running!  I knew I could get two more in no problem.  Little Victory number 3!

Telling myself to celebrate those Little Victories got my confidence rising and I decided to push the last two reps.  800 number seven I clicked through in 3:04.  That had me gasping pretty good, but I felt strong all the way through.  One more and I was going to go sub-3.  Once again I set myself up to succeed and celebrate by setting the pace on the treadmill at 6 flat, or 3 flat for the first half of the last 800.  When I had one quarter to go I was huffing, but hit the speed button just once to drop two seconds off the last "lap."  I lengthened my stride and grinned my way through that last 400.

All six 800 reps in!

Little Victory number 4!

I set the pace to 8:30 and ran the last 3/4's of a mile to get me to six miles for the morning.  That little bit put me at 11 miles for the week.  Which means I have two more days (tomorrow is a rest day for the legs) to get in 10 miles which will put me over 20 miles for the week.  And that will get me ANOTHER Little Victory!!

Dude, I'm so fired up it's funny.

Even though I'm not all that strong lung-wise right now, and I've missed two weeks of training, I still got in a full, real workout that my legs are feeling tonight as I write this.  And that will pay off Saturday when I got out to run, and pay off again next week when I hit the short hills again.

This morning's workout had pieces built in that would be easy to hit, too.  Those easy to hit targets gave me reasons to celebrate along the way, built my confidence and helped me succeed in my goal for the morning: 6 x 800's averaging below 3:15.

And that's important for the long range goals, too.

We've all got the big goal out there.  Now figure out some progression goals to work into your plan that will help you reach your big goal.  Then make sure at least some of those progression goals are easy.  Ridiculously easy.  So there's no way you can make excuses and you'll form the habits that will get you to your big goal.  And celebrate those Little Victories every time you reach one.

That will build your confidence, which builds your enthusiasm, which will carry you to success.

The story that should not be told

Bob

Okay.  Here is the thing.  My knee hurts.  It has since the marathon.  I have been running since then, but it has not been the same.  It will get better.  It does when I rest it, but what exactly is rest?   Here is my philosophy.  I have an active job and am on my feet all day, so I can't really rest.  Therefore, if I can't really rest, I may as well run.  This has worked in the past, but not so much recently.  Frustrating.  I did not run in an event on Saturday in order to rest it and not aggravate it more.  Guess what, it felt better.  But...and this is a big ole but.  I am totally aggravated.  Not running, even for a few days makes me mad.  I'm like an angry bear that got his salmon taken away.  The salmon is right there, I can taste it almost, but it got away.  Or the bear can taste it.  I get all mixed up in these analogies, or metaphors, or whatever they are.  Am I the bear?  Or am I like the bear?  Or, am I the salmon.  Or, since I am toxic, am I salmonella?  It reminds me of the old story, Salmonella and the Seven Dwarfs.  Salmonella's evil stepsisters would not let her run with her seven dwarf running buddies and she turned into a pumpkin at midnight.  Right in front of a prince.  So close to marrying a prince and she turned into a pumpkin.  Come to think of it, I could be the seven dwarfs.  When I can't run, I turn into the Sybill of dwarfs.  7 personalities of non running fairy tale dwarfs.  Wimpy, Grumpy, Gimpy, Tubby, Sobby, Ingy and Rex.  In addition, I start to get mad at other runners.  I typically love all runners.  So much fun.  So happy.  Improving.  Running. Running, etc.  But when I am not running, I think, "why are they running?  Where do they think they are going?  They are going to hurt their knee.  Running is bad for you."  I feel, in my case anyway, that the whole being smart and listening to my body thing is not my deal.  Remember Woody Hayes and his three yards and a cloud of dust philosophy?  Mine is close to that, except it is "put your head down, stupid, and run straight."  The point of the whole thing is that I will tell you and anyone else that rest is good.  And it is.  In all seriousness, I am actually kind of careful when I run.  I have been injured before to the point of not being able to run.  I made that better.  I have figured out what works for me and how to work around certain pains.  I said I would not let that happen again.  This one kind of snuck up on me.  I don't consider it an injury, but rather something that is slowing me down to a degree.  I am at the point in my life that I do not want to slow down.  I want to keep getting faster.  I got away from some of my core workouts.  My strengthening workouts.  I gained weight.  None of this is good for someone with some pre-existing problems.  I'm fixing it.  Getting stronger, watching what I eat and concentrating on my form.  The bottom line is that this pumpkin wants to be a princess again.   I really need some new slippers too, but that is a story for another day.

Turning a negative into lemonade

Bob -

I will admit that my running has been not so eventful for awhile.  Some soreness, lots of work and other issues has kept me from exercising as much as I would like.  I tend to beat myself up over this and other things in my life that disappoint me,  until I can find some rationalization for everything.  Then, I can somehow make myself feel better.  In the past, I have referred to this phenomena as going into my man cave of denial.  This is where everything is better than it seems.  My happy place.  It just isn't real, which may or may not make me crazy.  But, like Freud used to say back when he was alive, "you ain't crazy if you don't think you are."  I really don't know if I agree with that, because my personal opinion is that those of us who admit that we are a bit nuts are far more sane than those who think they aren't.  When and if I complete my time travel mechanism, I am going to go back and have a talk with Freud and  maybe have a cigar and some scotch.  What does this have to do with running?  Who knows?  The point of it all is that I haven't run enough as of late and I feel a bit out of sorts.  So, I analyzed the situation and came up with some stuff that I can feel good about.  Instead of feeling bad about not running so much, I figured that I will focus on the positives.  For example, on Thursday, I wasn't even hungry, yet I was able to eat a double cheeseburger from Wendy's.  I then pushed myself to consume all the fries as well.  All this while driving.  I got my head stuck in the bag driving 65 mph trying to get the last fry and was still able to control the car.  This takes tremendous athletic ability and cat like concentration...or reflexes.  Whatever, I did it.  What I don't like to talk about, because it makes me seem like I am bragging, is that I ate the burger without having any ketchup or salt.  Consuming the whole thing without it having its full flavor potential was tough, but I got through it.  I pushed myself like I do for the last mile of a half marathon.  Think of the finish line.  Think of the medal.  In this case, my medal was the tomato I found plastered to my sweatshirt a few hours later.  I display that tomato with my marathon and half marathon medals.  On the wall of my office.  The great thing about a tomato medal is that you don't need a hanger for it.  You just throw it on the wall and there it sticks.  I did a double workout that day as well.  Some good friends and I ran under the stars and then went to Five Guys to eat.  I had another double cheeseburger.  With everything.  As bad as my first double cheeseburger was, the second was incredibly awesome.  Because I was sitting at a table, there was no medal.  Every morsel made it into my stomach.  Good, good day of eating.  So, my running has been bad, but I am eating like a champion.  Chariots of fire filled with fries and donuts.

Today, I decided that I have had enough of riding the gravy train.  The chuck wagon of self pity is pulling off the trail and I am putting on the running shoes.  I have been running, but my diet has been pretty awful and I can feel it in my workouts.  In all seriousness, I love to eat.  I am not going to stop, but I have been going crazy for a while.  Too many calories, not enough exercise.  Up to recently, I have been able to enjoy a lot of the food I like and work it off through running and strength training.  I said to myself today that this is it.  Time to get back on track.  As Freud loved to say, "sometimes a cheeseburger is just a cheeseburger, but with the right amount of condiments, it's a meal."  He was a strange guy.

 

Ed's lunch on Friday:  Double Cheeseburger, fries, Egg Nog Shake, and a diet coke.

This morning's run

Bob -

I got off to a rough start.  I didn't feel like running.  Legs were burning early.  I was tired and hungry and the hour was early.  I started cramping up and I felt like crying alot.  Why did I sign up for a marathon.  Running sucks.  I like running 5 miles.  I like donuts.  Who the hell wants to run 15 miles or so?  I'm old.  I should be pampered.  Someone should put Pampers on me.  I am so close to my Era of Incontinence and I am doing this?  Who came up with the whole running idea anyway.  Was it the Greek dude who ran from somewhere in Greece to somewhere else to deliver a message, and then died.  The very first marathoner, he was.  Went by the name of Phillipodopinus.  Ran til he died and then people from that point on thought it was a great idea to run.  Except for now it is not in togas and sandals, it is in fancy running gear.  I personally wore my toga this morning in recognition of the genius who started the running craze.  Up to a certain time in history, everyone walked.  There was no running.  Lots and lots of walking.  Or horse riding.  If someone had a horse, they rode it.  If someone was running, they typically got shot because it was a wide spread belief that running caused the Black Death.  Yep, the great plague was possibly caused by runners and now we are bringing all that back, but in compression sleeves and shorts.  I want to make it clear that no one actually got shot during the plague era, because guns weren't around, but people would stand on the streets and wish they could invent a gun to shoot people running with the plague, they just had not developed the mental brain power yet to do so.  It was around the time of Charlemagne they actually started shooting runners because the kept bringing copies of the Magna Carta into the porta potties to read and they were taking way too much time in there.  So, they got shot or at least winged to teach them a lesson.  So, anyway, it was a very rough morning for me.  When I actually dragged myself out of the mini van and started running, it got way worse.