Archives for November 2010

Tarmac Meditations-Evolving and Resolving Inside a Mystery

November 18, 2010 By longrun Leave a Comment

Another long night. Ran to my meeting . Left the house at 6 something. Didn’t look at the time when I arrived. Felt good although the onset of cold and wet weather makes my breathing complicated. It helps to take walk breaks to ease the back tension which eventually closes down my breathing. Age and injury are not for the faint of heart. Going to investigate a project possibility that entails training for and running a marathon, a fifty K (50K) trail run and a 50 mile trail run in aid of running a 100K (62.5 miles) on or around my 65th birthday next August. This is the beginning of a plan that seems doable if I remember that I have traveled great distances from where I was to where I am and that getting to the start line and eventually getting to the finish line are the important metrics. Time over distance is not. Distance over time and attention paid is what I am after. The medals, should there be any, will last longer than I will, but the deed, the doing of it, is all that matters to me. Take a step. Take another step. Breathe in and out. Look around. Repeat.

Tarmac Meditations-So it Begins-Again

November 17, 2010 By longrun Leave a Comment

Slept lousy if at all. Made crummy coffee at 3:30 AM. Burnt the toast. Went down to office to work. Stubbed a toe in the dark. Turned on the light. Stubbed the other big toe. Sat down to work bumped my knee. Computer was resting, did not want to wake up. Cursing and general bad attitude forced the computer to respond. That and turning it on. Finished the weekend shoot. Emailed the customer base. Decided not to run the Boston Marathon as a charity runner. Must qualify (old dude values to be sure). Lifted, lunged, made manly grunting noises. Went out for a quick 2-3 miles. Spent an hour on the roads. Made random turns. Listened to Van Morrison and Eric Clapton. Instead of point to point or an established route I re-discover the aimless run in the early morning, drifting, checking things out, letting the day come to me. Part of the plan will be days like this when there is a plan to run but no plan as to where or how much. Answer the why of it and the rest will take care of itself. Coffee leftovers, more burnt toast, some web building, and now it’s 9:37. Back still hurts, thinking of taking a nap. The day is either well started or in the bag. What’s next? Oh yeah, right! Write now. Nap later. Plan or no plan, time happens( John Lennon among many others).

The Golden Hills Trail Marathon 2005

November 16, 2010 By longrun Leave a Comment

November 16, 2010

I was reading a piece at La Sportiva Mountain Running and it brought to mind my own experience at Golden Hills. As hard as it was then, it seems like it would be impossible now. When I was finished reading “pantilac’s” article i went into the archives and found the piece below. Better than I remembered it being, it also told me to stop thinking about “can’t”, to start thinking again about “can and will” and to lace up and get out the door. Inspiration is where you find it I guess.

October 16, 2005

I wrote what follows as a kind of report on the race for my running buddies. Going out now to look at Ipod Nano’s which I swore I would buy for myself if I ever crossed the finish line. I like the black ones…

The Golden Hills Trail Marathon 2005

or, it’s soooo beautiful … will this race EVER frickin end?

Yesterday’s Golden Hills Trail Marathon was the toughest ever for me. Toughest race, toughest run. All hills, no flats, including the five mile uphill from the start, the numerous valley descents followed by the numerous, Oh god not another one ascents and the extraordinary beauty of the redwoods and the burnt brown summer hills in the distance. All redwood and pine, endless valley hillside vistas, and up and down. Unbelievably beautiful and not so easy to run, at least for me. The winner of the fifty mile did it in seven hours so maybe he found it more to his liking or maybe he is a creature from another universe…I quit half a dozen times including going to one of the race people at 15 miles and telling them I was out of the run. There were no cars to get me to the finish so I had to walk to the next aid station where there would be cars. I walked, ran with a 75 year old veteran of 200 ultras and marathons, Dick Laine. He had dropped out of the fifty miler at 42 miles and had to walk to the lake to get home. Dick has that “spirit”, youthful and alive, aware of the possibilities that things would change as they always have and that he would be there with them so long as kept putting one foot in front of the other. He agreed with me that dropping out was ok, calling it a good training run and getting on to the next. At the next aid station there was a tall thin guy named Ken who asked me what was wrong, so I told him about the cramps and the spasms and the throwing up and then I started to tell him about the bad stuff. He looked at me and said, have one these potatoes with some of that salt and drink some and see how you feel. He walked with me a moment and said, that will take care of the cramps, here are some salt pills with stuff, some advil and don’t stop moving around until you decide to drop out! I asked how far to the end he told me it was nine miles. As I turned to go I heard him say run a little, walk a little, or more if you have to and have some more potato and salt at the next station. And drink. And then he smiled broadly, nodded his head, gave the runner finger waggle salute.

I heard him tell another volunteer to call in and say that 528 was back in the race. It wasn’t easy from there but it worked out.
I met Dick again on the trail, (could not figure out why he was there and not at the lake… and wound up helping him get down a particularly steep descent. His leg had stiffened up so badly that he nearly fell with nearly every step. He put his hand on my shoulder and we got down the hill. I asked him if he needed me to stay with him and said, no Michael, I’ll make it from here. Good to see you back in the run. Go get it kid! I hit it as hard as I could then and laughed out loud. Kid!

I finished in some ungodly slow time(I shut my watch off at 6:30) but I ran it in at the end, wasn’t the last runner on the course, either the marathon or the fifty, and got the congratulations of the folks who had been out there on the day. Got the coffee mug. Got the tee shirt. I realized on the drive home that Dick, who had won his age division(60+) at the 1990 Western States, had not quit either, that life was what you made of it, and that he would finish and go home and start again today, despite saying earlier on that he had got to the end of the running thing, that this was likely his last go round. I am just now feeling the accomplishment and of course the pain. Ken (maybe Ken Gregorio) turns out to be maybe a big time ultra runner, a hero to a lot of people I was told when I asked. Could be, he seemed to know, to be part of it in a fundamental way. He doesn’t know my story but he added something of value to it … the right guy at the right time with the right stuff, he gave me what was needed and acknowledged without words, by demeanor and action, that I wasn’t too old, too tired, too wore out with the all and everything of life in addiction; that recovery, one foot in front of the other and the help of some good people would make the difference. I don’t think the race was a parable per se but…

It’s tomorrow now, my legs are sore, my insides a jumble and I could use another two days of sleep. On the other hand the sun is coming up over the western ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains and the waves are breaking big down on the beach and I am lacing up my shoes for a walk in the brand new morning. Can’t beat it, no how, no way.

Mandy’s Tune

November 9, 2010 By longrun 2 Comments

“Now you know what it’s like to get f–ked for money.”

This, left on the answering machine. I guess she means the eighteen hundred bucks for rent and cable to start clean and stay clean. No such luck — she’s off the wagon now, tricking again, heading back to the outskirts of hell.

No one is spared, rich or poor, abused or shallow, broken hearted or holy. The party keeps going, there is always more.

You can hear the city whimper. Another day breaks to a rollin’ steel rhythm, a last minor chord. One more morning with the “can’t get no more, answer the f–kin’ phone” blues.

My city is dying from the inside. The suburbs keep sending the brightest and the best to fill in the ranks. Nobody knows nobody or so they say. The smoke rises, the bodies break, the hometown football warriors, the homecoming queens become ghosts. The war on drugs is just about over. All that remains is the body count and next week’s order.

“You ain’t no addict til you got no dough…”

Aloof, with their blond hair and empty eyes, they were hard muscled, lithe, gymnasts or dancers, before it all changed. Crack, strawberry licorice, cheap whiskey and salesmen from out of town become the daily protocol. The once hard bodies are now host to cold eyes and colder hearts.

_______________

God appears to the broken and the worn and offers his only answer. Faith is what is needed. Faith? they say, You want faith? Just go down the stairs and give the dude on the corner a twenty. Come back up here and we’ll cook that shit. Do you know the dude? No, but I hear he’s got good stuff. These soldiers of god have been on the road to paradise since the day they quit tenth grade and took up residence on the sidewalks, in the doorways, in the cheap hotels, seeking out the holy rock, crack cocaine.

Innocence dies but the body carries on, crumbling to the unsteady beat of a broken heart. Dreams die hard out here. The dead are the lucky ones.

On the stroll the nightly litany begins, “Hey mister…”

One day they start showing the client the ropes and before the sun rises on the next day these beautiful and not yet broken dream queens find their fates. Suck it in slow, steady. Puff, twist the pipe, Pull, long, slow. Get it, hold it. Eyes closed. Lean back. Count to five, let it go. Blow it out, the rush begins.

It’s all high speed, everything moves in slow motion. The streams of blue smoke fill the room. Watch for the small smile, the uncurling, lengthening bodies ready to catch the light, feline, predatory, at the top of the stretch. Her eyes find yours. Relax, she says.

I don’t why I do it. I hate it…Pass me the pipe

The armies of the night take in a new angel of death. Before their twenty second birthdays they have the certain knowledge that the only heaven they will ever know is the kingdom of the fallen children of a merciless god.

You never know when the phone will ring.

Hey, you busy?

No, but I don’t have any dough.

Got any product?

No.

I’ll see you in twenty minutes.

_______________

What do you give the man who has everything, they say. Give him a crack pipe for Christmas. Next year he will have nothing and he will want everything.

Look into their eyes, feel a graveyard wind. Behind ice cold gaze you see them kneeling down in desperate prayer, lost daughters, children, dreaming of proms and homecoming; wanting to go home despite the long worn out hope that one day they will be released.

Will you stop all this lying?

No.

You will be dead in three months if you keep hitting it this way.

I know that, she said.

Photo Credit

“Strung-out” AbigailGeiger @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

Tarmac Meditations-No Plan is Not a Plan

November 7, 2010 By longrun Leave a Comment

If you have no plan, and I mostly don’t, then training is where you find it. When you are young and working out physically at both work and play, as I was, training kind of happened. When I swam competitively or ran track the training sessions were there to be attended, the events a matter of finding the competitors entrance after you got off the bus. The years gone by come to require more planning. The Internet is filled with training plans for runners. The gal in the picture probably hasn’t read one of them. She trains with the Joe Henderson Marathon Team; she has trained with them now for nearly six years. The long runs, the key to both the program’s success and the intense loyalty of its participants to the marathon and the coach, are on Sundays. She, Jean, has shown up for nearly all of them. She has run 17 marathons, some faster, some slower, all steady as she goes. Her plan requires balancing kids, her mother, her job, her commute, her social life, her fabulous chocolate chip cookies and like that. A life. I have read all of the training plans although I quit that after I started to run again for the pleasure/pain/ prayer-like aspects of running into my sixties. It occurred to me just now that I haven’t been running long( long distance) since my surgeries, but it is time to remember no plan is not a plan; that a plan can be simple. And I ought to have one. Run a mile, see how you feel is a plan. Run every weekday for a mile or more, take a day off every now and then and run longer by twice one day on the weekend is a plan. Run long on the weekend, increasing by 5% if every week, by 10% if every other week is plan. Run daily, run slowly, don’t eat like a pig is a plan. Ernst Van Aaken said that. Part of any running plan is to go to a good running store, assess if they know what they are doing; one criteria is that there are all types of people (bodies) selling, it is quiet, there is a sense of running history in the place, there is treadmill or other such for stride analysis, there are running groups for all levels that are organized out of the store. So why say all this? On account of I need to remember what I know. I took a rest day on Friday, felt lousy yesterday, Saturday, and worked early this morning; it will be three days without running, let alone running slowly or long, and the eating like a pig thing, well, it was not my best food weekend. So. A plan. Run daily, write it down. Run slowly, as if I had more than one speed. Write it down. Run long, two hours building to four on the weekend. Rest the other day. Write it down. Don’t eat like a pig; keep track of the fuel input says Matt Fitzgerald so as to support the output for more fun and better health. Write it down. Going to lift now, chop wood later, and write down my goals for the week. Now’s there’s a plan, inside the other plan if you see what I mean.