BENNETT'S POND ON GARMIN CONNECT:
BENNETT'S POND:
Monday, September 27, 2010
MINOR MISCALCULATIONS AND MAJOR REPERCUSSIONS (BRAIN VS. iPHONE)
It looks like training has finally begun. I have 26 weeks to prepare myself to run 31 miles through the Maryland woods. My runs at Birch Hill Orange and the run I did this weekend at Bear Creek in Macungie, PA have been pretty technical and fairly steep. The Bear Creek trail climbs a series of switchbacks up the side of a ski area and Birch Orange has more elevation gain but less roots and rocks. As I was running Bear Creek on Saturday, trying not to split my head open on the very fucking gnarly trails, I started thinking about the absolute stunning firepower of the human brain and its' comparison to crap that we regularly stand in awe of (iPhone, Fast Computers, Automobiles). It all reminded me of how, when I was training for the Philly Half, I would leave the house far before sunrise and I'd marvel at the extraordinary number of calculations that have to be made to do something as "simple" as put a key into a lock in the dark. The number of steps to pull off this feat of engineering genius is staggering.
So... As I was visiting lovely Macungie, running downhill at a pretty good clip on twisting root and rock filled "trails" sometimes not more than an arms length wide, I thought back to the key in the lock. I became awed by the human brain, the human body (even one as old and graceless as mine), and the solitary hour I am allowed to spend in the woods. I started to think about the way that every foot fall requires that the eyes relay to the brain a series of important variables (fallen tree, rock field, tree roots, uneven footing, mud, snake, elevation gain/loss, etc), and then, once the brain has received those variables, it begins it's calculations to keep the vessel (me) upright. Once the brain chooses the correct place to plant the foot it has to shoot the information down the length of my spinal cord, down not one, but two legs, and, with an extraordinary success rate, gets every calculation completely accurate nearly every time. When you consider that I also remember to breathe, am able to talk to myself, take in the spectacular views and have time to think all of the above nonsense you begin to realize that there is no feat of engineering that will ever top what we have rolling around in our skulls.
So next time you want to gush about how your iPhone can tell you where to go for dinner or whether some douchebag friended you on Facebook, think instead about the greatest machine in existence, and then think about how it allows you to play with said iPhone, while at the same time thinking about what you might have for lunch, listening to your favorite Lady GaGa song, AND not dumping you on your ass while navigating a flight of stairs.
MINOR MISCALCULATIONS...
MAJOR REPURCUSSIONS...
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
MISSING IN ACTION...
AUGUST 28, 2010
Sometimes I'll read Gym Jones or Simple Iron Truth and I'll try to create that mindset. Singleness of vision, laser focus; but I'm a different beast. After the ego bruising has washed away, and the inferiority complex subsides, I take a long look. I claw away at what I am, and in brief moments, "moments of grace", I see myself as I am. I am a misanthrope that delivers compassionate and quality health care. I am alternately satisfyingly solitary and crushingly alone, I am the undisciplined writer and the ritualistic runner. I will lace up in cloistering humidity and temperatures that challenge the solubility of mercury but I am also the same child that can't fall asleep without the soothing monotony of the television. I gorge myself on sugar when life gets too tough. I see injury in every tiny little fucking discomfort. I have survived more than most, hardened myself mentally to a life that gave nothing back, and now I have begun the spiral into what Pink Floyd calls "alcohol soft middle age".
Perhaps these spiking contradictions could be filed down. Perhaps I could throw away the TV, clean out the refrigerator, exile myself to darkness, but at what cost? The battle between discipline and chaos has always been a part of my life, it is my foundry. It is why Starkweather songs can be in excess of 28 minutes of twisted guardrail wreckage. It is why the book is called "Pulling Scars From The Nighttime Sky". It is why the TV will continue to flicker into the night. It is why my workspace is fanatically kept. It is also why I will run long miles on too few hours sleep. It is why, when I am poked with needles, I feel nothing but satisfaction. And it is why I know, when I hit the starting line, that I will see the finish.
To favor one over the other, chaos or discipline, would be to drown one half of me. The struggle between the two, uncomfortable and disappointing as it sometimes is, is not without its' own satisfaction. There are battles without measure that have been won. There are failures so great that not 1,000 lifetimes could undo them. There are sublime moments that erase every battle and every failure; crossing the finish line in the Philadelphia Half Marathon, writing and recording the 30 minute epic "Drug Holiday", the 400 plus reeling pages of "Pulling Scars", and the moments of clarity that I have alone in the woods traveling under my own power.
"Drink deep, it's just a taste, and it might not come this way again/
I believe in moments, transparent moments/
Moments in grace when you've got to stake your faith."
Rites Of Spring, D.C. Hardcore. Revolution Summer, 1996.
AUGUST 29, 2010
It was too nice out to sit inside so I decided to drive up to Pawling, NY to check out a section of the Appalachian Trail. I never realized that only ~20 miles from my front door was a beautiful section of the AT that was easily accessible from the same road I drive to get to the Birch Hill trails that I run. The first 1/4 mile is a wooden bridge over a swamp and at the end of that is what I consider the trail head. It starts with a half mile of beautiful single track, very few roots and rocks and a gentle series of switchbacks. After that 1/4 mile is a half mile of pretty steep grade with lots of trail rubble and sharp switchbacks. Some of this will have to be walked I suppose. Once this climb levels out it puts you into a field with a nice view of the kind of dense and leafy rolling hills that I grew up with.
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010
The momentum seems to be building toward a move to Colorado. Things are slowly coming undone here and I'm finding fewer and fewer reasons to stay rooted to the place where I grew up. I never thought it would be Colorado. For the most part I hated living there in the early 80's. I was an East Coast Hardcore dude, they were Mid West pussies that liked and played horrible music and Denver was so small and so desolate on the weekends that it drove me out of my mind. I had no idea that I was living in one of the most beautiful trail running places in the world (Boulder) with some of the best weather on the whole earth.
SEPTEMBER 13, 2010
It's been difficult writing recently, hence the incomplete 8/28 and 9/1 topics. It's been a combination of action (running/playing with the band) and complete inaction because some of the demons have come calling again. The good news is that I'm running and that the injury I had (posterior tibialis pulling from bone) is getting stronger every day. The bad news... a series of disheartening shows with Starkweather, a 3 week layoff from rehearsal because our drummer occasionally tries to saw/grind/burn his limbs off at work, and an event that put my job in jeopardy. I've spent more time with my head burrowed under the blankets with the shades down than I have putting in miles or playing my guitar.
Below is something I wrote after playing a 3 day hardcore festival in Philadelphia, one of the most dispiriting shows we've played in a very long time. It won't make sense if you don't know this world, or know that I started listening to hardcore punk in 1980 when I was 15 years old. It won't make sense if you don't know that I've spent the better part of two decades creating music that has best been described as "Beautiful, Repulsive, Hateful, And Soul Wrenching" with the most talented group of musical freaks that have every dragged themselves into a recording studio or onto a stage. It won't make sense to you if you don't know that the ideals I was introduced to back in 1980 reside in every tendon, every bone, every artery, and vein in my body. Or that the middle finger I've held up to cheapness, compromise, and the path of least resistance has made life far more interesting and far more difficult than it had to or could have been. At the end of the day, when my head hits the pillow, I'll always know that the scales' balance between ideals and the death of those ideals will forever tip in my favor. If you get it, great. If you don't, that's cool too...
THIS IS HARDCORE 2010, PHILADELPHIA, PA
August 14, 2010. Our first time playing a festival since Europe. We were the outliers on this bill. Again, hardcore ethic and some twisted form of metal as music. Blank stares, folded arms, and an emptied room. The decades may pass but the reaction is still the same. I'm usually numb to the indifference but I've never felt like more of an outsider in a scene that I was part of almost from it's first breath. It's not good or bad. It's not necessarily that the old bands are better than the new; it's just different. Shedding skin and moving on is easy but where do we move on to? My vote for the last few years has been to retreat to the rehearsal room and recording studio. There's no financial incentive to play live anymore. Our days as a (marginal) headliner are a decade behind us so we're not gaining new fans, and we certainly don't enjoy the long hours, long drives, and the hauling around of our gear. Our tribe resides within the 4 walls of the rehearsal room where we create self indulgent self satisfying music with not an ounce of marketable potential.
Twenty seven and a half weeks until the Hinte-Anderson Trail Run 50k race. One more week before I start my formalized training. I know already that I'll battle fatigue, doubt, and injury over the next 27 weeks. I have burned myself to ash and I'll spend the next 27 weeks rebuilding. The physical challenge will be difficult. I know that it isn't wise to jump from 13.1 to 31 miles. I know that there are phyical limits, and I am searching for them. More than the physical discomfort will be the nagging nightmare factory in my head that plays the words can't/shouldn't/won't in an endless loop, poisoning breath and bone.
"Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never pushed through the obstruction." William James.
"Between the desire/And the spasm/Between the potency/And the existence/Between the essence/And the descent/
Falls the Shadow." T.S. Eliot.
That's enough for today.
Sometimes I'll read Gym Jones or Simple Iron Truth and I'll try to create that mindset. Singleness of vision, laser focus; but I'm a different beast. After the ego bruising has washed away, and the inferiority complex subsides, I take a long look. I claw away at what I am, and in brief moments, "moments of grace", I see myself as I am. I am a misanthrope that delivers compassionate and quality health care. I am alternately satisfyingly solitary and crushingly alone, I am the undisciplined writer and the ritualistic runner. I will lace up in cloistering humidity and temperatures that challenge the solubility of mercury but I am also the same child that can't fall asleep without the soothing monotony of the television. I gorge myself on sugar when life gets too tough. I see injury in every tiny little fucking discomfort. I have survived more than most, hardened myself mentally to a life that gave nothing back, and now I have begun the spiral into what Pink Floyd calls "alcohol soft middle age".
Perhaps these spiking contradictions could be filed down. Perhaps I could throw away the TV, clean out the refrigerator, exile myself to darkness, but at what cost? The battle between discipline and chaos has always been a part of my life, it is my foundry. It is why Starkweather songs can be in excess of 28 minutes of twisted guardrail wreckage. It is why the book is called "Pulling Scars From The Nighttime Sky". It is why the TV will continue to flicker into the night. It is why my workspace is fanatically kept. It is also why I will run long miles on too few hours sleep. It is why, when I am poked with needles, I feel nothing but satisfaction. And it is why I know, when I hit the starting line, that I will see the finish.
To favor one over the other, chaos or discipline, would be to drown one half of me. The struggle between the two, uncomfortable and disappointing as it sometimes is, is not without its' own satisfaction. There are battles without measure that have been won. There are failures so great that not 1,000 lifetimes could undo them. There are sublime moments that erase every battle and every failure; crossing the finish line in the Philadelphia Half Marathon, writing and recording the 30 minute epic "Drug Holiday", the 400 plus reeling pages of "Pulling Scars", and the moments of clarity that I have alone in the woods traveling under my own power.
"Drink deep, it's just a taste, and it might not come this way again/
I believe in moments, transparent moments/
Moments in grace when you've got to stake your faith."
Rites Of Spring, D.C. Hardcore. Revolution Summer, 1996.
AUGUST 29, 2010
It was too nice out to sit inside so I decided to drive up to Pawling, NY to check out a section of the Appalachian Trail. I never realized that only ~20 miles from my front door was a beautiful section of the AT that was easily accessible from the same road I drive to get to the Birch Hill trails that I run. The first 1/4 mile is a wooden bridge over a swamp and at the end of that is what I consider the trail head. It starts with a half mile of beautiful single track, very few roots and rocks and a gentle series of switchbacks. After that 1/4 mile is a half mile of pretty steep grade with lots of trail rubble and sharp switchbacks. Some of this will have to be walked I suppose. Once this climb levels out it puts you into a field with a nice view of the kind of dense and leafy rolling hills that I grew up with.
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010
The momentum seems to be building toward a move to Colorado. Things are slowly coming undone here and I'm finding fewer and fewer reasons to stay rooted to the place where I grew up. I never thought it would be Colorado. For the most part I hated living there in the early 80's. I was an East Coast Hardcore dude, they were Mid West pussies that liked and played horrible music and Denver was so small and so desolate on the weekends that it drove me out of my mind. I had no idea that I was living in one of the most beautiful trail running places in the world (Boulder) with some of the best weather on the whole earth.
SEPTEMBER 13, 2010
It's been difficult writing recently, hence the incomplete 8/28 and 9/1 topics. It's been a combination of action (running/playing with the band) and complete inaction because some of the demons have come calling again. The good news is that I'm running and that the injury I had (posterior tibialis pulling from bone) is getting stronger every day. The bad news... a series of disheartening shows with Starkweather, a 3 week layoff from rehearsal because our drummer occasionally tries to saw/grind/burn his limbs off at work, and an event that put my job in jeopardy. I've spent more time with my head burrowed under the blankets with the shades down than I have putting in miles or playing my guitar.
Below is something I wrote after playing a 3 day hardcore festival in Philadelphia, one of the most dispiriting shows we've played in a very long time. It won't make sense if you don't know this world, or know that I started listening to hardcore punk in 1980 when I was 15 years old. It won't make sense if you don't know that I've spent the better part of two decades creating music that has best been described as "Beautiful, Repulsive, Hateful, And Soul Wrenching" with the most talented group of musical freaks that have every dragged themselves into a recording studio or onto a stage. It won't make sense to you if you don't know that the ideals I was introduced to back in 1980 reside in every tendon, every bone, every artery, and vein in my body. Or that the middle finger I've held up to cheapness, compromise, and the path of least resistance has made life far more interesting and far more difficult than it had to or could have been. At the end of the day, when my head hits the pillow, I'll always know that the scales' balance between ideals and the death of those ideals will forever tip in my favor. If you get it, great. If you don't, that's cool too...
THIS IS HARDCORE 2010, PHILADELPHIA, PA
August 14, 2010. Our first time playing a festival since Europe. We were the outliers on this bill. Again, hardcore ethic and some twisted form of metal as music. Blank stares, folded arms, and an emptied room. The decades may pass but the reaction is still the same. I'm usually numb to the indifference but I've never felt like more of an outsider in a scene that I was part of almost from it's first breath. It's not good or bad. It's not necessarily that the old bands are better than the new; it's just different. Shedding skin and moving on is easy but where do we move on to? My vote for the last few years has been to retreat to the rehearsal room and recording studio. There's no financial incentive to play live anymore. Our days as a (marginal) headliner are a decade behind us so we're not gaining new fans, and we certainly don't enjoy the long hours, long drives, and the hauling around of our gear. Our tribe resides within the 4 walls of the rehearsal room where we create self indulgent self satisfying music with not an ounce of marketable potential.
Twenty seven and a half weeks until the Hinte-Anderson Trail Run 50k race. One more week before I start my formalized training. I know already that I'll battle fatigue, doubt, and injury over the next 27 weeks. I have burned myself to ash and I'll spend the next 27 weeks rebuilding. The physical challenge will be difficult. I know that it isn't wise to jump from 13.1 to 31 miles. I know that there are phyical limits, and I am searching for them. More than the physical discomfort will be the nagging nightmare factory in my head that plays the words can't/shouldn't/won't in an endless loop, poisoning breath and bone.
"Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never pushed through the obstruction." William James.
"Between the desire/And the spasm/Between the potency/And the existence/Between the essence/And the descent/
Falls the Shadow." T.S. Eliot.
That's enough for today.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
CALL OF THE WILD
The great undoing hasn't started yet. I'm passing my time with a little cross training and reading. I just polished off The Catcher In The Rye a few nights ago and, having lived large portions of that novel, I was again mesmerized. I'm not sure if it's a novel for boys, for misfits, or those so attuned to their own suffering as well as the suffering of others but whatever the case, it is timeless and as brilliant today as it was when I read it in high school. Next in the queue is Call Of The Wild and White Fang by Jack London. Only 30 odd pages in and I can already tell that this will have a huge influence on my training. The concept of "devolving" from the polished and pretty to the animals that we inherently are is fascinating. Whether it's a spoiled dog dragged into the Yukon to discover its' ancestors, the dudes in Fight Club discovering the transformative powers of a punch in the face, or running enormous miles through the woods with nothing more than shoes, shorts, shirt, and water bottle, the end result is a huge extended middle finger to the endless stream of tv shows/advertisements/commercials that attempt to lure us into being pretty little lap dogs rather than the absolute fucking beasts we always were.
I'm as much at fault as anyone. I work an easy job where I suck up the hospitals air conditioning when things get to hot, and siphon off their heat when it gets a little chilly outside. There are nights that I get home from work, unwilling to think anymore, and I will sit in front of the TV for hours to keep the inner and outer chatter at bay. There are days when I crave the comfort of another human being so badly that I will compromise any ethics, standards, or beliefs to achieve that goal. In AA they talk quite a bit about 'keeping your side of the street clean' and there are days when my side of the street looks like the remnants of a bomb blast. At the end of the day my only hope is that the good pile is stacked higher than the bad pile. Sometimes it's just that simple.
I'm glad that I've finally gotten this site back on course. It was never meant to be a training log. It was meant to explore my life's fractures and my attempts to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. What's so complicated though is that the things that make me whole (running, playing music, practicing medicine), that make me better than what I have been, are so far beyond the confines of language that trying to describe them just cheapens them. In a more skilled writers hands the immeasurable can be captured by our paltry vocabulary, but in these hands I can only fall short.
"And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time when wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat as they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fight with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had fought forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and the old tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks. They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had been his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolf-like, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of the stillness, and the cold, and the dark." Jack London
I'm as much at fault as anyone. I work an easy job where I suck up the hospitals air conditioning when things get to hot, and siphon off their heat when it gets a little chilly outside. There are nights that I get home from work, unwilling to think anymore, and I will sit in front of the TV for hours to keep the inner and outer chatter at bay. There are days when I crave the comfort of another human being so badly that I will compromise any ethics, standards, or beliefs to achieve that goal. In AA they talk quite a bit about 'keeping your side of the street clean' and there are days when my side of the street looks like the remnants of a bomb blast. At the end of the day my only hope is that the good pile is stacked higher than the bad pile. Sometimes it's just that simple.
I'm glad that I've finally gotten this site back on course. It was never meant to be a training log. It was meant to explore my life's fractures and my attempts to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. What's so complicated though is that the things that make me whole (running, playing music, practicing medicine), that make me better than what I have been, are so far beyond the confines of language that trying to describe them just cheapens them. In a more skilled writers hands the immeasurable can be captured by our paltry vocabulary, but in these hands I can only fall short.
"And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time when wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat as they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fight with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had fought forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and the old tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks. They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had been his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolf-like, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of the stillness, and the cold, and the dark." Jack London
Monday, July 19, 2010
STRESS FRACTURE #2
"The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome,
to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering." Ben Okri
I'm injured again. Tibial stress fracture. Left leg. I saw it as soon as he pulled the film up on the computer screen. I knew it prior to that in the cluster of symptoms that tell you very clearly that you have fucked up. The kaleidoscope of symptoms that tell you that you should not have done back to back to back hard runs so early in your training, that you should not have run downhills like Franz Klammer on the Hahnnenkam downhill course at the 1976 Olympics, that you should not run 9 when you should run 7, not 8 when you should run 6. Physics was the winner. The force of bone against immovable object was the winner. Gravity was the winner. I was not. I'm supposed to toe the line in two days in Pennsylvania for an ultra gnarly 10k at the Bear Creek Resort. Instead I will be home. I will be reading endless articles about recovering from this injury. I will be readingendless articles about pool running, cross training. I will be developing the mental discipline to not only get through the next few months of numbing cross training but also the desire to fight off the downward spiral that inevitably occurs when I can't do what I love.
"Ring the bell that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in. " Leonard Cohen
The impact causes the bone to break down, the recovery causes the bone to remodel. When done properly these two principles dovetail perfectly and what you are left with is stronger bone, a better frame to hang ligament, tendon, and muscle from. When done improperly the microfractures in the bone don't have the required time to rebuild and what you are left with is 4 to 8 weeks of mindfucking anxiety. The doubt, like an infection, has already begun seeping between the joints. I'm feverishly doing math, addition and subtraction of miles, the subtraction of weeks from the third week in March 2011, from the 31 miles that I promised I will run. I repeat, the thirty one miles I will run.
There are things I must be certain of. These things are as follows: I will run 13.1 miles. I will run 26.2 miles. I will run 31 miles. I will run 50 miles. I will run 62 miles. And, in time, I will run 100 miles. I will run miles on bones that want to surrender to force, muscle that wants to atrophy rather than rebuild and renew, run them with eyesight that is failing with time, and most importantly, run them with the unflinching calculus of a reptile. For the time being I'll spend my minutes running nowhere in the pool, I'll burn minutes on the rower, climb the sky on the stairmaster, and finally start lifting weights. I will run 31 miles this coming March.
"We will set out with a fire in our hearts
When this darkness gives way to the dawn
In the light we are united as one
The kingdom of heaven must be taken by storm." The Amebix (June 1985)
7/17/2010
Today is day one of the reconstruction. Up at 5:20, at the gym at 6:15; cardio/weights/stretching and out by 8:00. The alarm said yes and I nearly said no. I can start Monday. I need to sleep because I'll spend most of the night driving to Philadelphia and back. I need to check with the Doctor to see what is safe. Cross training is painfully boring. The excuses lined up like soldiers and I cut them down. "We will set out with a fire in our hearts...". I had some help in dragging my ass out of bed this morning, out from the comfort of blankets, the luxury of air conditioning. That help was in the form of a website by Rob Fusco, a guy I know from my years in Starkweather and his years in One King Down and Most Precious Blood. It wasn't until recently that I became aware of Rob's interest in personal training and nutrition. Even after our brief conversations I knew of Rob's interest in those topics but not a commitment that goes beyond mere motivation and seems to me to be a very clear life philosophy. One phrase that appears frequently on his site (www.simpleirontruth.com) is 'paying what you owe' and as I've gotten to know Rob through his writings, he does indeed pay what he owes.
"It’s crucial to ask one’s self before any serious undertaking what one is willing to spend, give, sacrifice and suffer through. The question is not whether or not one has enough to spend. There is ALWAYS more to spend, more depths to probe, more imperfections and inaccuracies to search for and correct… the planes of the ashlar are forever imperfect and coarse - this fact does not dissuade those of obsessive resolve to continue the polishing process ad infinitum.
This is no secret. There is no starting point but birth and no final destination but the grave. What you do with the fleeting hours between is your choice.
When the last shovel full of earth lands and settles six feet above you, what will you be remembered for?" R. Fusco
Like many long distance runners and other athletes at the fringes, Rob understands the transcendence and insight that comes from suffering and daring to take that one footstep beyond what is possible. It is this philosophy that helped to get my feet on the floor this morning and I owe him a debt of gratitude. The true motivation for pushing through has to come from within but if I need to be influenced by outside stimuli it may as well be from a guy like Rob who is hardcore in the truest sense of the word.
That is all.
to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering." Ben Okri
I'm injured again. Tibial stress fracture. Left leg. I saw it as soon as he pulled the film up on the computer screen. I knew it prior to that in the cluster of symptoms that tell you very clearly that you have fucked up. The kaleidoscope of symptoms that tell you that you should not have done back to back to back hard runs so early in your training, that you should not have run downhills like Franz Klammer on the Hahnnenkam downhill course at the 1976 Olympics, that you should not run 9 when you should run 7, not 8 when you should run 6. Physics was the winner. The force of bone against immovable object was the winner. Gravity was the winner. I was not. I'm supposed to toe the line in two days in Pennsylvania for an ultra gnarly 10k at the Bear Creek Resort. Instead I will be home. I will be reading endless articles about recovering from this injury. I will be readingendless articles about pool running, cross training. I will be developing the mental discipline to not only get through the next few months of numbing cross training but also the desire to fight off the downward spiral that inevitably occurs when I can't do what I love.
"Ring the bell that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in. " Leonard Cohen
The impact causes the bone to break down, the recovery causes the bone to remodel. When done properly these two principles dovetail perfectly and what you are left with is stronger bone, a better frame to hang ligament, tendon, and muscle from. When done improperly the microfractures in the bone don't have the required time to rebuild and what you are left with is 4 to 8 weeks of mindfucking anxiety. The doubt, like an infection, has already begun seeping between the joints. I'm feverishly doing math, addition and subtraction of miles, the subtraction of weeks from the third week in March 2011, from the 31 miles that I promised I will run. I repeat, the thirty one miles I will run.
There are things I must be certain of. These things are as follows: I will run 13.1 miles. I will run 26.2 miles. I will run 31 miles. I will run 50 miles. I will run 62 miles. And, in time, I will run 100 miles. I will run miles on bones that want to surrender to force, muscle that wants to atrophy rather than rebuild and renew, run them with eyesight that is failing with time, and most importantly, run them with the unflinching calculus of a reptile. For the time being I'll spend my minutes running nowhere in the pool, I'll burn minutes on the rower, climb the sky on the stairmaster, and finally start lifting weights. I will run 31 miles this coming March.
"We will set out with a fire in our hearts
When this darkness gives way to the dawn
In the light we are united as one
The kingdom of heaven must be taken by storm." The Amebix (June 1985)
7/17/2010
Today is day one of the reconstruction. Up at 5:20, at the gym at 6:15; cardio/weights/stretching and out by 8:00. The alarm said yes and I nearly said no. I can start Monday. I need to sleep because I'll spend most of the night driving to Philadelphia and back. I need to check with the Doctor to see what is safe. Cross training is painfully boring. The excuses lined up like soldiers and I cut them down. "We will set out with a fire in our hearts...". I had some help in dragging my ass out of bed this morning, out from the comfort of blankets, the luxury of air conditioning. That help was in the form of a website by Rob Fusco, a guy I know from my years in Starkweather and his years in One King Down and Most Precious Blood. It wasn't until recently that I became aware of Rob's interest in personal training and nutrition. Even after our brief conversations I knew of Rob's interest in those topics but not a commitment that goes beyond mere motivation and seems to me to be a very clear life philosophy. One phrase that appears frequently on his site (www.simpleirontruth.com) is 'paying what you owe' and as I've gotten to know Rob through his writings, he does indeed pay what he owes.
"It’s crucial to ask one’s self before any serious undertaking what one is willing to spend, give, sacrifice and suffer through. The question is not whether or not one has enough to spend. There is ALWAYS more to spend, more depths to probe, more imperfections and inaccuracies to search for and correct… the planes of the ashlar are forever imperfect and coarse - this fact does not dissuade those of obsessive resolve to continue the polishing process ad infinitum.
This is no secret. There is no starting point but birth and no final destination but the grave. What you do with the fleeting hours between is your choice.
When the last shovel full of earth lands and settles six feet above you, what will you be remembered for?" R. Fusco
Like many long distance runners and other athletes at the fringes, Rob understands the transcendence and insight that comes from suffering and daring to take that one footstep beyond what is possible. It is this philosophy that helped to get my feet on the floor this morning and I owe him a debt of gratitude. The true motivation for pushing through has to come from within but if I need to be influenced by outside stimuli it may as well be from a guy like Rob who is hardcore in the truest sense of the word.
That is all.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
FALLING DOWN...
MAY 30, 2010
Apparently falling down in the woods will not be an isolated incident. I wasn't gonna run today because my right calf is completely locked up from playing in Manhattan on Saturday but I iced and Ibuprofen'd and decided to give it a whirl. I was motoring along when I kicked a stump. As I kicked it I thought 'wow, the Montrail's sure do offer better protection in the toe than the Cascadias...'. and before the thought was even finished I was laying on the ground (again) and checking for blood/bones but found nothing but mud. I was a little bit bummed about missing my weekend long run, especially as a result of another bullshit fucking show with the band. It's not that I hate the actually playing so much (but I kind of do), it's the stage fright that seems to be getting worse rather than better, and the pressure to make sure I get everyone home in one piece. It didn't help that it was Memorial Day Weekend and the traffic was ridiculous. It took us almost 40 minutes to get through the Holland Tunnel and once in Manhattan the traffic was equally as shitty. It's always the same. We get to the club we unload the shit we loaded in 2 hours earlier, then wait for hours to play while trying to find a place to use the bathroom/get something decent to eat/try not to throw up from the escalating stage fright, play for 40 minutes, load the gear out, drive back to Philly, unload the gear into the rehearsal room and then drive back to NY.
It never fails that by the time we finally do hit the stage I'm already exhausted from the load in/load out/drive/wait. Even though I've been running a fair amount recently, nothing I've ever done is more strenuous and challenging than playing a 40 minute set with Starkweather. When I describe it to the shrink what it feels like I use words like grenade, exorcism, and bloodletting. It's a difficult thing to describe. Imagine starting a stopwatch and spinning around, hyperventilating, fighting off dehydration and exhaustion and then stop all of this when the watch hits 40 minutes.
It would be amazing if there were something transformative or cathartic about it but there isn't. The only relief is in the fact that it's over and the knowledge that I've left everything I have on the stage in footprints, spit, and sweat. Running through pain and exhaustion can be a very powerful experience. I learn about finding my limits and then pushing past them. I sometimes, on the luckiest days, find a sense of inner peace that I've never experienced, and even on a bad day I have the satisfaction of completing my mission. I don't know that I've ever learned anything from playing shows other than the pride of meeting our obligations and the satisfaction of completely depleting myself mentally and physically for our music. There are no epiphanies for me onstage, no insight into who or what I am, and no drug like wash of endorphins. It's a struggle with nothing gained mentally, physically, or spiritually when it's done.
JUNE 2, 2010
I fell in the woods again. This time I had an audience. I was running, she was walking her dogs. I looked at her, looked at her dogs, and proceeded to fall in front of her. I assured her that I fall at least once per run and I went on my way. Do I need to wear a fucking helmet? Anywhoo, back to the run. I needed to put in a good 4 miles to make up for missing my long run over the weekend so I did the pond loop coupled with the bridge loop. The back side of the pond really is a pretty fucking rocky, rooty, overgrown area and not really part of the Bennett's Pond trail system. I ran as much as I could without splitting my head open (about 75%) and practiced my hiking on the rest. All in all it was a pretty good run. I managed an 11:08 pace despite walking and running very slowly around the pond. My heart rate stayed at a reasonable rate as well so it was a good day.
The album (This Sheltering Night) came out on Tuesday and the reviews have been pretty amazing. If we got paid by the review we wouldn't be the bottom feeders that we are. I've also been doing quite a few interviews lately and a few of them have asked me about running and about Running With The Devil. I'm not sure what the thread is but there is a definite thread that runs from medicine through music and running. It's hard to believe that I've been free from the ever looming hospitalizations, self destructive outbursts, road rage, and shade shutting depression for almost a year. It's something that had seemed out of reach from the time I was a teenager. I'll always find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop but until it does I'm going to run and play my ass off. To keep the hounds at bay I've been more careful recently to not dredge every horror of my life up in interviews and have managed a degree of restraint that I never have in the past. It's hard to describe why I write the music I do without excavating some of the shitty parts of my life but I don't feel the voyeurs' need to spew every painful detail of my life.
I've tried to be more gracious toward the people that like the band. I need to remember that even though they have nothing to do with why I write music it is very humbling and flattering that anyone would give a fuck about what I do. I tried to practice this new attitude on Saturday. On show days a combination of stage fright, stress, and unhappiness turn me into a fucking monster to spend time with. I tried (and failed) to enjoy the experience of playing shows but I behaved better than I have in the past. I have been nasty, violent, depressed, and manic. I've at times required a babysitter to keep me from doing awful things to myself and other people (right Mr. Murren?) and most of that seems to be fading away. I still rank playing shows down there with sharp sticks in eyes and painful dental work but at least now there's a purpose. We have an album to promote, we're playing songs that people will actually know, and it will give me a chance to conquer some of my stage fright demons. In the grand scheme of things these are just the miniscule problems of a guy with too much time to sit around and think about them. So be it.
JUNE 4, 2010
81 Degrees, 7 miles, slow pace, no falls. I learned some important things on this run. It had rained pretty hard the night before and I was a little bit worried about the wet rock on the far side of the pond. I tightened my shoes down like they were ski boots and started on my way up the bridge loop, the most significant climb on my route. I learned two important lessons in the first 1/4 mile when I acquired some brutal shin splints. The first lesson I learned is that most of my shin splint issues in the past have been due to tying my laces too fucking tight. The shin splints taught me lesson three bit more on that later. The second lesson was to not start my run with a decent sized climb/downhill. Too much too soon. Back to lesson number 3. I'd planned on doing a 6+ mile run and with shin issues a few minutes in, I started to panic. I finally loosened my laces, walked a bunch of climbs that I would normally have run, and slowly my shins returned to normal. This rough spot so early in my run reminded me of something I'd read in UltraRunner magazine that said things WILL go wrong and the trick is to find the solutions/mental toughness to over come these spots. Running long distances is about problem solving. As I began to feel better I started ingraining in my psyche the idea that short walk breaks are like a reset button and that every time I started running after a walk break it was like I was starting a new run. My final lesson involved clothing. I like to go to Marshalls and by discounted clothes. I love buying shorts, socks, shirts for under $10 each. Sometimes I hit the jackpot ($45 Brooks shorts for $7), and sometimes I pay much more than that. Take the "moisture wicking" Fila tank tops I bought last weekend. By the end of my run they felt like a combinaton of a soaked dish rag and steel wool. Lesson learned. So how did it feel to run 7 miles for the first time since training for the Phily Half? Amazing. I can feel myself reeling in the HAT Run 50k a mile at a time and today was the first time I felt like I was well on my way. Only 25 miles to go!!!
JUNE 7, 2010
I twisted my ankle on Saturday somewhere about 6 miles in but was determined to hit the 7 mile mark so I kept going. Just a little strain so I took the day off. I probably could have run but I'll just shift my run days to Tues/Wed/Fri/Sat. I'm trying to find a trail half for the Fall to test myself a bit but the race calendar info is very scattered compared to the well organized but uptight road racing calendars I've seen. I also decided that I'm going to take some time off from work toward the end of the summer and run the 2 HAT Run training loops (6 mile and 11 mile loops). Maybe I'll do the 11 mile run on Saturday and the 6 mile loop on Sunday. It should give me a way better idea of whether I'm preparing myself properly and alleviate some of the anxiety I'm already feeling about whether Bennett's Pond is a tough enough training ground for HAT.
I spent 50 minutes (and a $25 copay) trying to find something positive and rewarding about playing shows. The only thing we were able to accomplish was driving my shrink to want to rip her fucking hair out. She asked if I found it satisfying to play well. No. She asked if it was satisfying playing in front of people that came to see us. No. She asked if there was any physical rush that came from playing live. Other than nausea, no. She asked if it was fun to see old friends at shows. No. We were at an impasse. Running removes all of the things I hate about playing shows (crowds, reliance on unreliable people, crowds, people, people, people) and rewards me for the parts that should be rewarding when hitting the stage. It gives me a sense of accomplishment at completing my mission, even when it's unpleasant, it provides an enormous and addictive rush of endorphins, hours and hours of self reflection, and the sense of balance that comes from being far, far away from the human plague.
"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."
Joseph Conrad
Apparently falling down in the woods will not be an isolated incident. I wasn't gonna run today because my right calf is completely locked up from playing in Manhattan on Saturday but I iced and Ibuprofen'd and decided to give it a whirl. I was motoring along when I kicked a stump. As I kicked it I thought 'wow, the Montrail's sure do offer better protection in the toe than the Cascadias...'. and before the thought was even finished I was laying on the ground (again) and checking for blood/bones but found nothing but mud. I was a little bit bummed about missing my weekend long run, especially as a result of another bullshit fucking show with the band. It's not that I hate the actually playing so much (but I kind of do), it's the stage fright that seems to be getting worse rather than better, and the pressure to make sure I get everyone home in one piece. It didn't help that it was Memorial Day Weekend and the traffic was ridiculous. It took us almost 40 minutes to get through the Holland Tunnel and once in Manhattan the traffic was equally as shitty. It's always the same. We get to the club we unload the shit we loaded in 2 hours earlier, then wait for hours to play while trying to find a place to use the bathroom/get something decent to eat/try not to throw up from the escalating stage fright, play for 40 minutes, load the gear out, drive back to Philly, unload the gear into the rehearsal room and then drive back to NY.
It never fails that by the time we finally do hit the stage I'm already exhausted from the load in/load out/drive/wait. Even though I've been running a fair amount recently, nothing I've ever done is more strenuous and challenging than playing a 40 minute set with Starkweather. When I describe it to the shrink what it feels like I use words like grenade, exorcism, and bloodletting. It's a difficult thing to describe. Imagine starting a stopwatch and spinning around, hyperventilating, fighting off dehydration and exhaustion and then stop all of this when the watch hits 40 minutes.
It would be amazing if there were something transformative or cathartic about it but there isn't. The only relief is in the fact that it's over and the knowledge that I've left everything I have on the stage in footprints, spit, and sweat. Running through pain and exhaustion can be a very powerful experience. I learn about finding my limits and then pushing past them. I sometimes, on the luckiest days, find a sense of inner peace that I've never experienced, and even on a bad day I have the satisfaction of completing my mission. I don't know that I've ever learned anything from playing shows other than the pride of meeting our obligations and the satisfaction of completely depleting myself mentally and physically for our music. There are no epiphanies for me onstage, no insight into who or what I am, and no drug like wash of endorphins. It's a struggle with nothing gained mentally, physically, or spiritually when it's done.
JUNE 2, 2010
I fell in the woods again. This time I had an audience. I was running, she was walking her dogs. I looked at her, looked at her dogs, and proceeded to fall in front of her. I assured her that I fall at least once per run and I went on my way. Do I need to wear a fucking helmet? Anywhoo, back to the run. I needed to put in a good 4 miles to make up for missing my long run over the weekend so I did the pond loop coupled with the bridge loop. The back side of the pond really is a pretty fucking rocky, rooty, overgrown area and not really part of the Bennett's Pond trail system. I ran as much as I could without splitting my head open (about 75%) and practiced my hiking on the rest. All in all it was a pretty good run. I managed an 11:08 pace despite walking and running very slowly around the pond. My heart rate stayed at a reasonable rate as well so it was a good day.
The album (This Sheltering Night) came out on Tuesday and the reviews have been pretty amazing. If we got paid by the review we wouldn't be the bottom feeders that we are. I've also been doing quite a few interviews lately and a few of them have asked me about running and about Running With The Devil. I'm not sure what the thread is but there is a definite thread that runs from medicine through music and running. It's hard to believe that I've been free from the ever looming hospitalizations, self destructive outbursts, road rage, and shade shutting depression for almost a year. It's something that had seemed out of reach from the time I was a teenager. I'll always find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop but until it does I'm going to run and play my ass off. To keep the hounds at bay I've been more careful recently to not dredge every horror of my life up in interviews and have managed a degree of restraint that I never have in the past. It's hard to describe why I write the music I do without excavating some of the shitty parts of my life but I don't feel the voyeurs' need to spew every painful detail of my life.
I've tried to be more gracious toward the people that like the band. I need to remember that even though they have nothing to do with why I write music it is very humbling and flattering that anyone would give a fuck about what I do. I tried to practice this new attitude on Saturday. On show days a combination of stage fright, stress, and unhappiness turn me into a fucking monster to spend time with. I tried (and failed) to enjoy the experience of playing shows but I behaved better than I have in the past. I have been nasty, violent, depressed, and manic. I've at times required a babysitter to keep me from doing awful things to myself and other people (right Mr. Murren?) and most of that seems to be fading away. I still rank playing shows down there with sharp sticks in eyes and painful dental work but at least now there's a purpose. We have an album to promote, we're playing songs that people will actually know, and it will give me a chance to conquer some of my stage fright demons. In the grand scheme of things these are just the miniscule problems of a guy with too much time to sit around and think about them. So be it.
JUNE 4, 2010
81 Degrees, 7 miles, slow pace, no falls. I learned some important things on this run. It had rained pretty hard the night before and I was a little bit worried about the wet rock on the far side of the pond. I tightened my shoes down like they were ski boots and started on my way up the bridge loop, the most significant climb on my route. I learned two important lessons in the first 1/4 mile when I acquired some brutal shin splints. The first lesson I learned is that most of my shin splint issues in the past have been due to tying my laces too fucking tight. The shin splints taught me lesson three bit more on that later. The second lesson was to not start my run with a decent sized climb/downhill. Too much too soon. Back to lesson number 3. I'd planned on doing a 6+ mile run and with shin issues a few minutes in, I started to panic. I finally loosened my laces, walked a bunch of climbs that I would normally have run, and slowly my shins returned to normal. This rough spot so early in my run reminded me of something I'd read in UltraRunner magazine that said things WILL go wrong and the trick is to find the solutions/mental toughness to over come these spots. Running long distances is about problem solving. As I began to feel better I started ingraining in my psyche the idea that short walk breaks are like a reset button and that every time I started running after a walk break it was like I was starting a new run. My final lesson involved clothing. I like to go to Marshalls and by discounted clothes. I love buying shorts, socks, shirts for under $10 each. Sometimes I hit the jackpot ($45 Brooks shorts for $7), and sometimes I pay much more than that. Take the "moisture wicking" Fila tank tops I bought last weekend. By the end of my run they felt like a combinaton of a soaked dish rag and steel wool. Lesson learned. So how did it feel to run 7 miles for the first time since training for the Phily Half? Amazing. I can feel myself reeling in the HAT Run 50k a mile at a time and today was the first time I felt like I was well on my way. Only 25 miles to go!!!
JUNE 7, 2010
I twisted my ankle on Saturday somewhere about 6 miles in but was determined to hit the 7 mile mark so I kept going. Just a little strain so I took the day off. I probably could have run but I'll just shift my run days to Tues/Wed/Fri/Sat. I'm trying to find a trail half for the Fall to test myself a bit but the race calendar info is very scattered compared to the well organized but uptight road racing calendars I've seen. I also decided that I'm going to take some time off from work toward the end of the summer and run the 2 HAT Run training loops (6 mile and 11 mile loops). Maybe I'll do the 11 mile run on Saturday and the 6 mile loop on Sunday. It should give me a way better idea of whether I'm preparing myself properly and alleviate some of the anxiety I'm already feeling about whether Bennett's Pond is a tough enough training ground for HAT.
I spent 50 minutes (and a $25 copay) trying to find something positive and rewarding about playing shows. The only thing we were able to accomplish was driving my shrink to want to rip her fucking hair out. She asked if I found it satisfying to play well. No. She asked if it was satisfying playing in front of people that came to see us. No. She asked if there was any physical rush that came from playing live. Other than nausea, no. She asked if it was fun to see old friends at shows. No. We were at an impasse. Running removes all of the things I hate about playing shows (crowds, reliance on unreliable people, crowds, people, people, people) and rewards me for the parts that should be rewarding when hitting the stage. It gives me a sense of accomplishment at completing my mission, even when it's unpleasant, it provides an enormous and addictive rush of endorphins, hours and hours of self reflection, and the sense of balance that comes from being far, far away from the human plague.
"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."
Joseph Conrad
CRAP POST THAT SAYS NOTHING...
5/8/2010
So I did my third run at Bennett's Pond without any major health issues. If I hadn't watched video clips of the HAT 50k Run and a few other trail runs I wouldn't have known that the trails at Baxter Pond weren't the ones I should be training on. I guess that's one of the problems with doing this by myself so I'm thinking of maybe trying to find someone to train with every once in a while or at least find a trail runner that can spare me some of the rookie mistakes I've made recently. I can only learn so much by reading books and magazines.
So what are the trails like at my new spot? I use the first 3/4 mile as my warm up because it looks like a rocky and uneven stream bed, a good place to snap an ankle if you're not warmed up. After the stream bed the trail splits, with both directions being very runnable and fun. I usually turn right onto the longer and smoother of the two. When I first found this route I felt like I'd finally found a trail that looked and felt like the trails I'd seen in Trail Runner and UltraRunning magazines. The trail is soft and wide enough that it's not one continuous ankle roll as it was at Baxter. It then turns into a fairly rocky and muddy but still runable section for a few hundred feet and then turns to beautiful rolling singletrack again. There are sections that get a little bit rooty but never so much that you can't work your way around them with a little bit of fancy footwork. It opens up again into a light downhill that you can open it up on. There are 3 choices at the end of this stretch. You can either head back, hang a right and do a pretty extended climb (for me anyway) including a section with a 15% grade or hang a left and go through/over a stream and into some ungroomed trail that's ferociously rocky and a roller coaster. Even though the combined length of all of these trails in no more than 5-10 miles, it's still an amazing place to run. The forest canopy keeps it nice and cool, the trail is soft but still challenging in spots, and you'd never know that you were a few miles from a highway and a mall.
As far as nutrition is concerned, I tried a combination of some protein powder chocolate milk, watered down Gatorade, and a Gingerbread Gu. Not a tasty combination but it got the job done. The Gingerbread Gu is fucking disgusting. I'd read that it was very tasty but it tastes like ass. The Vanilla Bean is better but I'm not sure either are better than Shot Bloks. I ordered a free Chocolate Agave #9 and got it in the mail today. I guess it has a low glycemic index which should cut down on huge sugar crashes. I'd aslo like to look at First Endurance EFS drink to replace Gatorade.
5/9/2010
I went out exploring today to see if I could find the connection between Bennett's and Pine Mountain. After heading off in the wrong direction for a half mile I got myself turned around and off toward Bennett's Pond. I went for about a mile before I turned around. The terrain is very rocky and hilly and most of it isn't runable. It will be good practice for me walking the steep climbs at the HAT Run and I'd like to get to the point where I could run the not too steep sections. For now I think I should just focus on running the trails and leave the hills until my legs are a little bit stronger. When I'm ready I'd like to race against myself from the Bennett trailhead, around the pond, down the yellow trail to the Pine Mt. Road parking lot and back and see how my times improve as I get stronger. Here are some pictures of Pine Mountain...
5/12/2010
I bagged todays run after work. The fucking traffic was backed up for miles and it was a shit day. I may just go out for a short one on Th... wow, this has really degenerated into some Twitter shit. How about this: Work sucked dick and all I wanted to do was go to sleep to forget the fucking day so I did.
So I did my third run at Bennett's Pond without any major health issues. If I hadn't watched video clips of the HAT 50k Run and a few other trail runs I wouldn't have known that the trails at Baxter Pond weren't the ones I should be training on. I guess that's one of the problems with doing this by myself so I'm thinking of maybe trying to find someone to train with every once in a while or at least find a trail runner that can spare me some of the rookie mistakes I've made recently. I can only learn so much by reading books and magazines.
So what are the trails like at my new spot? I use the first 3/4 mile as my warm up because it looks like a rocky and uneven stream bed, a good place to snap an ankle if you're not warmed up. After the stream bed the trail splits, with both directions being very runnable and fun. I usually turn right onto the longer and smoother of the two. When I first found this route I felt like I'd finally found a trail that looked and felt like the trails I'd seen in Trail Runner and UltraRunning magazines. The trail is soft and wide enough that it's not one continuous ankle roll as it was at Baxter. It then turns into a fairly rocky and muddy but still runable section for a few hundred feet and then turns to beautiful rolling singletrack again. There are sections that get a little bit rooty but never so much that you can't work your way around them with a little bit of fancy footwork. It opens up again into a light downhill that you can open it up on. There are 3 choices at the end of this stretch. You can either head back, hang a right and do a pretty extended climb (for me anyway) including a section with a 15% grade or hang a left and go through/over a stream and into some ungroomed trail that's ferociously rocky and a roller coaster. Even though the combined length of all of these trails in no more than 5-10 miles, it's still an amazing place to run. The forest canopy keeps it nice and cool, the trail is soft but still challenging in spots, and you'd never know that you were a few miles from a highway and a mall.
As far as nutrition is concerned, I tried a combination of some protein powder chocolate milk, watered down Gatorade, and a Gingerbread Gu. Not a tasty combination but it got the job done. The Gingerbread Gu is fucking disgusting. I'd read that it was very tasty but it tastes like ass. The Vanilla Bean is better but I'm not sure either are better than Shot Bloks. I ordered a free Chocolate Agave #9 and got it in the mail today. I guess it has a low glycemic index which should cut down on huge sugar crashes. I'd aslo like to look at First Endurance EFS drink to replace Gatorade.
5/9/2010
I went out exploring today to see if I could find the connection between Bennett's and Pine Mountain. After heading off in the wrong direction for a half mile I got myself turned around and off toward Bennett's Pond. I went for about a mile before I turned around. The terrain is very rocky and hilly and most of it isn't runable. It will be good practice for me walking the steep climbs at the HAT Run and I'd like to get to the point where I could run the not too steep sections. For now I think I should just focus on running the trails and leave the hills until my legs are a little bit stronger. When I'm ready I'd like to race against myself from the Bennett trailhead, around the pond, down the yellow trail to the Pine Mt. Road parking lot and back and see how my times improve as I get stronger. Here are some pictures of Pine Mountain...
5/12/2010
I bagged todays run after work. The fucking traffic was backed up for miles and it was a shit day. I may just go out for a short one on Th... wow, this has really degenerated into some Twitter shit. How about this: Work sucked dick and all I wanted to do was go to sleep to forget the fucking day so I did.
Friday, April 30, 2010
THE HAMMER OF KARMA
4/12/2010
It felt like I was running with scuba flippers on my feet. I wanted to give up and go home. A simple 3 mile run and it was torture. The weather was perfect, I got a full nights sleep for once, and I ate before I left. I guess some days just suck.
4/14/2010
Maybe it was the cold that I had for a week and a half that gave me preemie lungs. With the cold completely out of my system, though, I ran Baxter Preserve again, 3 miles, and my heart rate stayed in the aerobic range and I wasn't gasping for air like a someone with emphysema. It was a great run. Legs sore but strong, lungs working as they should, and a few things to keep it interesting. The first was a little swampy section where I had to choose between shoe sucking mud and pricker bushes. I went with the pricker bushes. The second interesting event was getting to watch a young girl jump a stone wall with her horse, get dumped off, and then have the horse take a 3/4 mile run before the instructor caught it. Don't worry, no head trauma, no broken bones, and she eventually saddled up and got back to it. Priceless. Oh, and I did not fall down. Yet. I'm sure the hammer of karma will visit down upon me for laughing at her (see 4/19/2010 for details).
4/17/2010
This mornings run didn't start out all that spectacularly. I decided to try doing a 4 mile run at Hemlock Hills so I headed up at about 8 am in the cold and drizzling rain. I grabbed my map at the trailhead and headed off on a trail that seemed like a pretty good loop. About 1/4 mile in the trail got unbelievably rocky, wet and steep and I couldn't get a rhythm going. I was afraid I was gonna bust my fucking head open so I eventually gave up and turned around. It's too early in my training for me to try to run on such technical terrain and I have to keep in mind that right now I'm training for a marathon and not a trail race. I figured I'd head back over to Baxter Preserve and do my "long" run there. Unlike yesterday, where there were 22 cars and some sort of dog meet going on, there was only one other wacko on the trail. I did my usual warm up and got rolling. Within a few hundred yards my feet were pretty wet from the tall grass so I knew I was in for a day of running with soaked feet. Rather than looking at that as something negative I just looked at it as training for long trail runs under somewhat lousy conditions. I've been keeping a pretty steady pace at Baxter, just a bit above 10:00/mile and I'm happy with that considering that there really are no flat sections on the entire run. There were a couple of sections that I'd never run before, sections that made this feel more like a legit trail run. There was a pretty steep rain runoff hill that lead to a dead end, a stream crossing that completely immersed my feet, a nice blood drawing whack on the achilles from a sprung branch, and some shoe sucking deep mud. I looked like a 10 year old that went out in a storm and played in the mud. AWESOME.
4/19/2010
Todays run SUCKETH. I see a trend here. Almost every Monday I have shin/achilles pain that's fucking miserable. My watch shut off (or I shut it off) so I have no idea if I ran more or less than 3 miles. I had to walk once and stop completely twice to make the tight feeling go away. Also had the issue with my feet going numb. FUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKK. FUCK.
4/21/2010
See Above. Ran 1.5 of a 3 mile run and packed it in.
4/23/2010
Karma. Right ankle sprain and shin splints. Skipped my run again today. Been icing and using Tylenol. Will probably run tomorrow, at least for a little while. I'm not sure what the root cause of this is but I'm guessing it was too many trail runs too quickly? I don't even know because some of this was going on before I started running at Baxter. I guess a few days off won't kill me but I feel like a total dickhead sitting at home in bed reading Ultrarunning magazine and Beyond The Wall (a compilation of stories by ultra runners).
4/30/2010
I took the week off. I hated it but I guess it's best for me. Tomorrow I'll go for a short run and see how things feel. Today is the 9 year anniversary of me not getting fucked up anymore. It means much more than my birthday. I hope I have something positive to write about tomorrow...
Saturday, April 10, 2010
SOME LESSONS ARE EASIER LEARNED THAN OTHERS
OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD. How the fuck do people run 50, 100 miles on a trail??? This is going to be problematic. I went on a 3 mile run at Baxter Preserve and I'm crippled and sunburned. I learned a few interesting things today. The first is that one should prepare properly when the temperature climbs into the mid 80's. That preparation would include things such as way more fluids and a healthy handful of sun block. The second thing that I learned is that maybe it's a little bit premature to consider myself someone that excels at bombing the downhills. While it's true that I'm reckless enough to not give a fuck about falling down hills, maybe I should not try to accommodate for my very slow climbs with speedy descents just yet. I must look like a piano falling down a flight of stairs. Lastly, I learned that from a respiratory point of view, I have the lungs of a premature newborn. I might as well have been dragging an oxygen tank behind me. Really.
The Preserve is mainly open fields. stone walls, at least one stream, and a small lake. Not a lot of tree cover and no sizable stretches of flat trail but not one big climb. It's more a war of attrition than any one thing that hurt me. It was a lot of fun and pretty hysterical when I uploaded the route onto my computer. It looked like a drunk in a maze. I never found one large loop so I apparently spun around in a million smaller circles until the watch said 3 miles.
It took me almost a half hour to get the above display of technical wizardry onto the page. Great runner and tech savvy? Wow, how can one guy have so much while others have so little?
I iced the shit out of my legs last night and I was surprised that I wasn't sore when I got out of bed this morning. The above photo of my route is proof positive that I'm turning into a fucking nerd. What the fuck happened to me??? I also went to Wal Mart and Marshalls and bought more crap that I probably don't need (shorts/shirts/socks).
4/9/2010
I'm thinking more and more about Fucker. Reminder: Fucker is the 1/2 mile long VERY steep hill that's part of Vail Lane. I'm not sure what the grade is but it is fucking huge. I'm starting to think more about structuring my training for the marathon and beyond. Saturday will always be my long run. There's no way I'm putting in long miles on a Sunday morning after being up driving almost all night the night before. Monday will be my recovery run day, Wednesday my midweek 'longer' run, and Friday my hill training or fast run day. I have to figure out when I'll add in cross training at some point. I hate the idea but I know it will be beneficial. I'd also like to take a yoga class but I don't have the $$$ right now. I'm one of the most inflexible motherfuckers on 2 legs.
The Preserve is mainly open fields. stone walls, at least one stream, and a small lake. Not a lot of tree cover and no sizable stretches of flat trail but not one big climb. It's more a war of attrition than any one thing that hurt me. It was a lot of fun and pretty hysterical when I uploaded the route onto my computer. It looked like a drunk in a maze. I never found one large loop so I apparently spun around in a million smaller circles until the watch said 3 miles.
It took me almost a half hour to get the above display of technical wizardry onto the page. Great runner and tech savvy? Wow, how can one guy have so much while others have so little?
I iced the shit out of my legs last night and I was surprised that I wasn't sore when I got out of bed this morning. The above photo of my route is proof positive that I'm turning into a fucking nerd. What the fuck happened to me??? I also went to Wal Mart and Marshalls and bought more crap that I probably don't need (shorts/shirts/socks).
4/9/2010
I'm thinking more and more about Fucker. Reminder: Fucker is the 1/2 mile long VERY steep hill that's part of Vail Lane. I'm not sure what the grade is but it is fucking huge. I'm starting to think more about structuring my training for the marathon and beyond. Saturday will always be my long run. There's no way I'm putting in long miles on a Sunday morning after being up driving almost all night the night before. Monday will be my recovery run day, Wednesday my midweek 'longer' run, and Friday my hill training or fast run day. I have to figure out when I'll add in cross training at some point. I hate the idea but I know it will be beneficial. I'd also like to take a yoga class but I don't have the $$$ right now. I'm one of the most inflexible motherfuckers on 2 legs.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
840/26
The band played Saturday in Albany. 840 miles of driving. 26 hours without sleep. One rehearsal/One show. I convinced myself on the drive home that staying focused and positive while I was exhausted and horribly undernourished was perfect training for my long runs. The New York State Thruway is 120 miles of shitty. There are areas that look like they'd be great to run (Harriman and points North) but driving it is more mind numbing than driving in the fucking desert.
For me the whole process of playing shows is a miserable endurance test . It's a test without a payoff. I get no satisfaction from meeting most people. I still, after 20 years, have horrible stage fright that turns me into a difficult person to be around. I don't gain any pleasure onstage. The whole set feels like the last miles of a long run, and the toll on my body is absurd. We've never come close to breaking even financially in 20 years. I guess I should also mention that in the area where we were selling our merchandise on this particular night the club played the cd of the band whose singer my ex-wife married for 5 fucking hours and 19 minutes. I'm fucking serious. The SAME cd. Talk about karma. It was like an episode from The Twilight Zone. I have no fucking idea where some of the bruises on my body came from. Let's catalog some of them because they're kind of funny. Bruised right ankle: dropped a 32" TV on it last weekend. Right achilles/calf scraping: falling off stage (again). Bruised left ankle: keeping the heavy fucking cymbal case from hitting the ground when it fell out of the back of the van. Bruised right and left thighs: Maybe banging my guitar against them onstage??? Bruised right forearm: Could be anyone's guess. Here's the million dollar question that I got asked a number of times last night... If you hate it so much, why do you do it? I promote the band just enough that we can keep going into the recording studio (my happy place) and put out records. It's a necessary evil. The one saving grace is that I get to spend a bunch of hours with the guys in the band, which is always pretty fucking frightening/hysterical. I told them once that it would be more fun to just rent a van and drive around for 24 hours. Fuck playing shows, lets just drive around, make fun of each other, eat junk food, and drive recklessly. That would be awesome.
3/30/2010
I cannot believe how fucking sore I am from the show this weekend. I feel like I got thrown from a moving car. I didn't run in the monsoon yesterday and opted for a nice 2 hour nap. I felt guilty but fuck it, I really needed the rest. I got my Garmin watch on Friday, fucked with it for about 20 minutes in the rain on Sunday and will be breaking it out for real tomorrow when I finally hit the road again. I have it set to show time/distance/heart rate/average pace. I'm going to stress test myself next week to find out what my true max heart rate is and then set up some zones to run in. Geek.
3/31/2010
I'm in full tailspin mode right now. Slept 4 1/2 hours after work today rather than running. Haven't run in a full week. Feel like shit. Feel fucking old. Will hit the road Friday/Saturday. It's supposed to be about 70 degrees and sunny for the next few days. If I can't drag my lazy, shitty self outside in that kind of weather then something is horribly wrong. (Apparently something was wrong...).
4/3/2010
Alright, so I couldn't really breathe. And I was coughing up some alien looking shit. And I hadn't run in 8 days. I finally put on some fucking shorts, and some fucking shoes, and the expensive fucking Garmin watch that I've owned for 8 fucking days without using it and I went for a fucking run. It was only 3 miles and I ran slower than lava but it was AWESOME. And yes, I do realize that I used the word 'fuck' 5 times in one sentence. I'm quite proud of it actually.
BAXTER PRESERVE
Since I was still hacking up what appeared to be pieces of lung this morning, I figured I'd go out for a walk and maybe find another place to run. I headed over to a place called Baxter Preserve. It's a space that's open to the public in the middle of some very fancy horse country. It's rained so much in the past week that even with the 2 or 3 days of sun and warmth we've had it was stilly very fucking soggy. It was foggy and a little bit cold but there was not a person in sight. Jackpot!!! The whole preserve is made up of rolling hills, single track, and stone walls. Trails head off in different directions and I tried to create a nice loop to run tomorrow or Friday. There was plenty of horse crap to dodge as well as some pretty marshy sections. My feet were soaked in the first few minutes and it made me realize, after wearing cheap old socks this morning, that the SmartWool socks I wore last time my feet got wet do an amazing job of keeping my feet warm and fairly dry. I'm still having a hard time finding my footing on very thin trails and I feel like I'm constantly rolling my ankles but I'm sure I'll turn into a jedi warrior as time goes on.
I'm pretty sure that after I run the Green Mountain Marathon that I'll never run on the road again. I've been pretty bummed out and irritated by some of the things I've read in Runners World and especially Running Times recently. I know that Running Times is geared toward people that compete but still, how about some compassion for those of us too fucking slow to race that still want to learn how to be faster? Every once in a while there's a comment about how "joggers" and walkers cheapen the sport, especially when it comes to the marathon. Here's a quote that appeared in the Jan/Feb issue of Running Times by Adrienne Wald, a cross country coach at The College Of New Rochelle : "It's a joke to run a marathon by walking every other mile or by finishing in six, seven, eight hours. It used to be that running a marathon was worth something-there used to be a pride in saying that you ran a marathon, but not anymore. Now it's 'How low is the bar?'." To the elite shitbags that make comments like these I have one thing to say to you... MY LIFE WOULD PROBABLY HAVE FUCKING KILLED YOU. I don't give a fuck how fast you can run, how many miles you put in per week, how you don't like runners that run for charities, or don't like people that have to walk during there marathons. Fuck you. No matter how fast you're able to run you cannot outrun mental illness, substance abuse, hunger, and the loss of almost everything you ever loved. Fuck you.
"When I was born, you waited
behind a pile of linen in the nursery,
and when we were alone, you lay down
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore,
And from that day on
everything under the sun and moon
made me sad."
Jane Kenyon
Some of us run to quell our demons. Some of us only find peace in the few minutes/hours that we are alone on our runs. Some of us find that time meditative and an escape from the chaos and pain of the things we cannot outrun. I'm sorry if we get in your way. What has been drawing me to trail running, beside the nifty scenery, is what appears, at least from my outsiders perspective, to be a certain acceptance of anyone that laces up and runs their asses off. If that's the case then I've found my tribe. Up to this point I've kept this site shockingly positive but I found those comments so fucking irritating that I had to go on a little rant. I'm done. It's all puppies and daffodils from here on out. Really.
4/5/2010
I'm running out of things to say. One of the reasons that I've always run back to the chaos and distress that has made up most of my life is that without it, I lose my creativity. Antonin Artaud once sad that "No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell". That's the path that I've followed. I always felt that it was better to incinerate myself yet be able to write and play music than to achieve some sort of balance and lose those two things. Quite a predicament... It almost feels like there's an inauthenticity to my existence when I'm not hanging on for dear life. Or is it that I don't think I deserve a life free from the wreckage of my past? Blah Blah Blah. There's no possibility that I'm gonna end up in a minivan wearing Dockers anytime soon but even this last 8 or 9 months of relative calm has me feeling kind of uncomfortable and ready to pull the chair out from under me.
I need contact lenses. I can't see my guitar strings without them, look like a tard with glasses on, and can't see roots/rocks and other scary stuff when I run unless I have something in my either near or in my eyeballs. Running trails with glasses on is a fucking disaster and will probably land me in the emergency room. I can either see too far ahead of me through the glasses, which is useless, or look at the roots and rocks that will eventually land me in the ER out of the bottom of my glasses, which is blurry and equally as useless.
For me the whole process of playing shows is a miserable endurance test . It's a test without a payoff. I get no satisfaction from meeting most people. I still, after 20 years, have horrible stage fright that turns me into a difficult person to be around. I don't gain any pleasure onstage. The whole set feels like the last miles of a long run, and the toll on my body is absurd. We've never come close to breaking even financially in 20 years. I guess I should also mention that in the area where we were selling our merchandise on this particular night the club played the cd of the band whose singer my ex-wife married for 5 fucking hours and 19 minutes. I'm fucking serious. The SAME cd. Talk about karma. It was like an episode from The Twilight Zone. I have no fucking idea where some of the bruises on my body came from. Let's catalog some of them because they're kind of funny. Bruised right ankle: dropped a 32" TV on it last weekend. Right achilles/calf scraping: falling off stage (again). Bruised left ankle: keeping the heavy fucking cymbal case from hitting the ground when it fell out of the back of the van. Bruised right and left thighs: Maybe banging my guitar against them onstage??? Bruised right forearm: Could be anyone's guess. Here's the million dollar question that I got asked a number of times last night... If you hate it so much, why do you do it? I promote the band just enough that we can keep going into the recording studio (my happy place) and put out records. It's a necessary evil. The one saving grace is that I get to spend a bunch of hours with the guys in the band, which is always pretty fucking frightening/hysterical. I told them once that it would be more fun to just rent a van and drive around for 24 hours. Fuck playing shows, lets just drive around, make fun of each other, eat junk food, and drive recklessly. That would be awesome.
3/30/2010
I cannot believe how fucking sore I am from the show this weekend. I feel like I got thrown from a moving car. I didn't run in the monsoon yesterday and opted for a nice 2 hour nap. I felt guilty but fuck it, I really needed the rest. I got my Garmin watch on Friday, fucked with it for about 20 minutes in the rain on Sunday and will be breaking it out for real tomorrow when I finally hit the road again. I have it set to show time/distance/heart rate/average pace. I'm going to stress test myself next week to find out what my true max heart rate is and then set up some zones to run in. Geek.
3/31/2010
I'm in full tailspin mode right now. Slept 4 1/2 hours after work today rather than running. Haven't run in a full week. Feel like shit. Feel fucking old. Will hit the road Friday/Saturday. It's supposed to be about 70 degrees and sunny for the next few days. If I can't drag my lazy, shitty self outside in that kind of weather then something is horribly wrong. (Apparently something was wrong...).
4/3/2010
Alright, so I couldn't really breathe. And I was coughing up some alien looking shit. And I hadn't run in 8 days. I finally put on some fucking shorts, and some fucking shoes, and the expensive fucking Garmin watch that I've owned for 8 fucking days without using it and I went for a fucking run. It was only 3 miles and I ran slower than lava but it was AWESOME. And yes, I do realize that I used the word 'fuck' 5 times in one sentence. I'm quite proud of it actually.
BAXTER PRESERVE
Since I was still hacking up what appeared to be pieces of lung this morning, I figured I'd go out for a walk and maybe find another place to run. I headed over to a place called Baxter Preserve. It's a space that's open to the public in the middle of some very fancy horse country. It's rained so much in the past week that even with the 2 or 3 days of sun and warmth we've had it was stilly very fucking soggy. It was foggy and a little bit cold but there was not a person in sight. Jackpot!!! The whole preserve is made up of rolling hills, single track, and stone walls. Trails head off in different directions and I tried to create a nice loop to run tomorrow or Friday. There was plenty of horse crap to dodge as well as some pretty marshy sections. My feet were soaked in the first few minutes and it made me realize, after wearing cheap old socks this morning, that the SmartWool socks I wore last time my feet got wet do an amazing job of keeping my feet warm and fairly dry. I'm still having a hard time finding my footing on very thin trails and I feel like I'm constantly rolling my ankles but I'm sure I'll turn into a jedi warrior as time goes on.
I'm pretty sure that after I run the Green Mountain Marathon that I'll never run on the road again. I've been pretty bummed out and irritated by some of the things I've read in Runners World and especially Running Times recently. I know that Running Times is geared toward people that compete but still, how about some compassion for those of us too fucking slow to race that still want to learn how to be faster? Every once in a while there's a comment about how "joggers" and walkers cheapen the sport, especially when it comes to the marathon. Here's a quote that appeared in the Jan/Feb issue of Running Times by Adrienne Wald, a cross country coach at The College Of New Rochelle : "It's a joke to run a marathon by walking every other mile or by finishing in six, seven, eight hours. It used to be that running a marathon was worth something-there used to be a pride in saying that you ran a marathon, but not anymore. Now it's 'How low is the bar?'." To the elite shitbags that make comments like these I have one thing to say to you... MY LIFE WOULD PROBABLY HAVE FUCKING KILLED YOU. I don't give a fuck how fast you can run, how many miles you put in per week, how you don't like runners that run for charities, or don't like people that have to walk during there marathons. Fuck you. No matter how fast you're able to run you cannot outrun mental illness, substance abuse, hunger, and the loss of almost everything you ever loved. Fuck you.
"When I was born, you waited
behind a pile of linen in the nursery,
and when we were alone, you lay down
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore,
And from that day on
everything under the sun and moon
made me sad."
Jane Kenyon
Some of us run to quell our demons. Some of us only find peace in the few minutes/hours that we are alone on our runs. Some of us find that time meditative and an escape from the chaos and pain of the things we cannot outrun. I'm sorry if we get in your way. What has been drawing me to trail running, beside the nifty scenery, is what appears, at least from my outsiders perspective, to be a certain acceptance of anyone that laces up and runs their asses off. If that's the case then I've found my tribe. Up to this point I've kept this site shockingly positive but I found those comments so fucking irritating that I had to go on a little rant. I'm done. It's all puppies and daffodils from here on out. Really.
4/5/2010
I'm running out of things to say. One of the reasons that I've always run back to the chaos and distress that has made up most of my life is that without it, I lose my creativity. Antonin Artaud once sad that "No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell". That's the path that I've followed. I always felt that it was better to incinerate myself yet be able to write and play music than to achieve some sort of balance and lose those two things. Quite a predicament... It almost feels like there's an inauthenticity to my existence when I'm not hanging on for dear life. Or is it that I don't think I deserve a life free from the wreckage of my past? Blah Blah Blah. There's no possibility that I'm gonna end up in a minivan wearing Dockers anytime soon but even this last 8 or 9 months of relative calm has me feeling kind of uncomfortable and ready to pull the chair out from under me.
I need contact lenses. I can't see my guitar strings without them, look like a tard with glasses on, and can't see roots/rocks and other scary stuff when I run unless I have something in my either near or in my eyeballs. Running trails with glasses on is a fucking disaster and will probably land me in the emergency room. I can either see too far ahead of me through the glasses, which is useless, or look at the roots and rocks that will eventually land me in the ER out of the bottom of my glasses, which is blurry and equally as useless.
I HEART CAITLIN SMITH
There has definitely been less thinking/reading and more running recently. I finally ran hard enough to make my legs sore on my Sunday and Monday runs. I've been switching back and forth between the Montrails and my Brooks Cascadias and while I like them both quite a bit, I have to say that I prefer the Masochists. The Cascadias feel like trail slippers and don't have the protection for running on loose stones that the Montrails do. I still like them a lot. I feel like they each work different muscles. Speaking of muscles...
I read an article at a blog called iRunFar.com called "Apathy, Your Body, And Trail Running" and it spoke about the little things that we can do to prevent injury and make us stronger and how we (I) tend to forget about those things until the damage is done. I've been lifting weights twice a week before work but have stopped doing my hip exercises and stability ball crunches. Why? Because I'm a lazy fucking sloth. It takes about 25 minutes to do the hips/crunches and the hip exercises can be done 2-3 times per week but even that seems overwhelming. Maybe there are too many distractions at home? It would seem that getting out of a warm car into the wind and pouring rain would be more difficult than laying on the floor and exercising for 20 minutes.
My parents are moving in a few weeks and I had to dig through some of my storage boxes. In the past it has been the equivalent of walking through a minefield and has spun me far too close to the edge. I found photos, letters, and anniversary gifts (including an 8th anniversary gift of the shirt she was wearing the night we might) and somehow didn't run off the rails. I'm not sure what the difference was this time. Is it that I'm so focused on running and playing with the band that helped? Was it the punishing run I went on Sunday morning? God knows how much money I've spent on shrinks in the last decade and I still have no fucking idea what goes on inside my own head. Run, Forrest, Run!
I did another recon mission looking for new trails to run. I found Hemlock Hills/Pine Mountain last week and this week I found some horse trails that will be a little bit more smooth than Hemlock. I also ordered my Garmin 305 on Saturday so I've broken two rules that I set for myself. The first was that I would not turn into Imelda Marcos and buy a shitload of shoes and the second was that I would not buy a Garmin or any other goofy and distracting electronic device. So I'm done with the shoes for a while and the Garmin will help me to map out the distance of my trail runs and make sure that I keep my heart rate in check. It would be nice to think that I'm done spending money I don't have but let's be honest...
THE TOP 5 REASONS WHY CAITLIN SMITH IS MY FAVORITE RUNNER...
1. She throws her arms out to her sides like a running back when she runs.
2. She curses quite a bit in her blog.
3. She's not above peeing on herself when she's racing.
4. She talks to her legs when they're going too slow.
5. She has a lucky thong that she wears when she races.
LESS READING/MORE RUNNING
I decided that rather than sit around reading my 8,000th ultra runner blog I'd stop being a fucking pussy and actually put some shoes on and run. Novel concept. It was 55 degrees and about an hour before sunset and a perfect end to the day. It was only a 2 mile run but before I started I kept thinking about how shitty yesterdays run felt. I spent more time warming up before I got started and I instantly felt better. My shitty/uncomfortable runs still freak me out. Alcoholics have something they call sober reference. What sober reference means is that every day that you have sober is a day that you can reflect back on and draw strength from when the wheels are falling off. I just need to develop some running reference. At some point soreness will just be soreness, a bad run will be a bad run and not some sign that I may not be a runner, and that the good runs can be just as fleeting and finite as the bad runs. I'll get there.
I read an article at a blog called iRunFar.com called "Apathy, Your Body, And Trail Running" and it spoke about the little things that we can do to prevent injury and make us stronger and how we (I) tend to forget about those things until the damage is done. I've been lifting weights twice a week before work but have stopped doing my hip exercises and stability ball crunches. Why? Because I'm a lazy fucking sloth. It takes about 25 minutes to do the hips/crunches and the hip exercises can be done 2-3 times per week but even that seems overwhelming. Maybe there are too many distractions at home? It would seem that getting out of a warm car into the wind and pouring rain would be more difficult than laying on the floor and exercising for 20 minutes.
My parents are moving in a few weeks and I had to dig through some of my storage boxes. In the past it has been the equivalent of walking through a minefield and has spun me far too close to the edge. I found photos, letters, and anniversary gifts (including an 8th anniversary gift of the shirt she was wearing the night we might) and somehow didn't run off the rails. I'm not sure what the difference was this time. Is it that I'm so focused on running and playing with the band that helped? Was it the punishing run I went on Sunday morning? God knows how much money I've spent on shrinks in the last decade and I still have no fucking idea what goes on inside my own head. Run, Forrest, Run!
I did another recon mission looking for new trails to run. I found Hemlock Hills/Pine Mountain last week and this week I found some horse trails that will be a little bit more smooth than Hemlock. I also ordered my Garmin 305 on Saturday so I've broken two rules that I set for myself. The first was that I would not turn into Imelda Marcos and buy a shitload of shoes and the second was that I would not buy a Garmin or any other goofy and distracting electronic device. So I'm done with the shoes for a while and the Garmin will help me to map out the distance of my trail runs and make sure that I keep my heart rate in check. It would be nice to think that I'm done spending money I don't have but let's be honest...
THE TOP 5 REASONS WHY CAITLIN SMITH IS MY FAVORITE RUNNER...
1. She throws her arms out to her sides like a running back when she runs.
2. She curses quite a bit in her blog.
3. She's not above peeing on herself when she's racing.
4. She talks to her legs when they're going too slow.
5. She has a lucky thong that she wears when she races.
LESS READING/MORE RUNNING
I decided that rather than sit around reading my 8,000th ultra runner blog I'd stop being a fucking pussy and actually put some shoes on and run. Novel concept. It was 55 degrees and about an hour before sunset and a perfect end to the day. It was only a 2 mile run but before I started I kept thinking about how shitty yesterdays run felt. I spent more time warming up before I got started and I instantly felt better. My shitty/uncomfortable runs still freak me out. Alcoholics have something they call sober reference. What sober reference means is that every day that you have sober is a day that you can reflect back on and draw strength from when the wheels are falling off. I just need to develop some running reference. At some point soreness will just be soreness, a bad run will be a bad run and not some sign that I may not be a runner, and that the good runs can be just as fleeting and finite as the bad runs. I'll get there.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
WITNESS/EYES/EVIDENCE
"You were my witness, my eyes, my evidence..."*
"I will lie here with the memory of every phrase that ever filled me
tortured and tongue tied
outside where packs of dogs are running loose just like we used to
I still remember your eyes."**
*TOOL
**ARTICLES OF FAITH
FEBRUARY 14, 2010
Yesterday was the longest run I've done since Philadelphia. Four miles in some pretty awful weather. It was 35 degrees, raining pretty hard, and the wind was gusting 20-30 miles per hour. None of that mattered. As I was running I kept thinking that the days run would be 1/3 of my half marathon and how I'm very slowly (wisely?) increasing my miles. This route is far different than where I did my training in the past with the majority of it being rolling hills and one slow 1/4 mile incline. The hills feel pretty good and the last 1/4 mile uphill had me gassed. I've been getting delusions of grandeur recently, thinking about running ultra's and then I remember that I'd have to tack on another 46 miles to the days run to finish. It's still a goal for 2011.
I don't know if it's the addict in me or some other force that wants me to push myself to the breaking point. It's always been that way, usually with terrible results, but it's also pushed me to write 30 minute long complex and technical songs, gotten me through 16 months of enormous sleep deprivation when I was in school, and allowed me to survive a life that would have killed most. When it comes to the monotony and minutiae of daily life I don't do all that well but when things start to collapse around me I've had the ability to focus and keep going. This, I hope, will be a useful trait in Vermont this year and who knows where in 2011.
"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
In their grey visions they obtain glimpses of eternity...They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless,
into the vast ocean of the 'light ineffable'." Edgar Allan Poe
"I will lie here with the memory of every phrase that ever filled me
tortured and tongue tied
outside where packs of dogs are running loose just like we used to
I still remember your eyes."**
*TOOL
**ARTICLES OF FAITH
FEBRUARY 14, 2010
Yesterday was the longest run I've done since Philadelphia. Four miles in some pretty awful weather. It was 35 degrees, raining pretty hard, and the wind was gusting 20-30 miles per hour. None of that mattered. As I was running I kept thinking that the days run would be 1/3 of my half marathon and how I'm very slowly (wisely?) increasing my miles. This route is far different than where I did my training in the past with the majority of it being rolling hills and one slow 1/4 mile incline. The hills feel pretty good and the last 1/4 mile uphill had me gassed. I've been getting delusions of grandeur recently, thinking about running ultra's and then I remember that I'd have to tack on another 46 miles to the days run to finish. It's still a goal for 2011.
I don't know if it's the addict in me or some other force that wants me to push myself to the breaking point. It's always been that way, usually with terrible results, but it's also pushed me to write 30 minute long complex and technical songs, gotten me through 16 months of enormous sleep deprivation when I was in school, and allowed me to survive a life that would have killed most. When it comes to the monotony and minutiae of daily life I don't do all that well but when things start to collapse around me I've had the ability to focus and keep going. This, I hope, will be a useful trait in Vermont this year and who knows where in 2011.
"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
In their grey visions they obtain glimpses of eternity...They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless,
into the vast ocean of the 'light ineffable'." Edgar Allan Poe
Thursday, March 11, 2010
HYPOCHONDRIA
I had my first really shitty run today. It was only 3 miles but every step felt like the last mile in Philadelphia. My achilles were burning so much that my feet started to go numb in the last mile. What the FUCK. The only high point of the whole morning was that I finished in spite of feeling awful and suffering from a sever case of hypochondria. I'm also waiting on the delivery of my Montrail Mountain Masochist trail shoes. Today or tomorrow. I'm probably looking for a magic bullet when the only true magic bullet is between my ears. Speaking of bullets, a patient shot a nurse at the hospital I work at today. I guess the nurse is okay and the retard with the gun shot himself in the leg. All's well that, uh, never mind.
Shoes came in yesterday. They fit great but are much more stiff and supportive than I thought they'd be, which is a good thing. The insides are so fucking bright orange that if I'm ever lost in the woods I can take them off, hold them to the sky and be seen by a plane... or space shuttle. Maybe I'll get them a little bit dirty tomorrow after work. After having tried out the Brooks Adrenaline, the Saucony Xodus, and now the Montrails, I've notice that the distal part of the arch of my left foot always falls uncomfortably on the arch of the shoe. Strange. We've already established that I'm a horrible hypochondriac but this isn't crazy man paranoia. I swear. Maybe it's time to torture my buddy, Jack, at work. Jack has been my running coach, podiatrist, therapist, IT guy, and a swell Nuclear Tech in my department at the hospital. Jack and I have spoken about orthotics so maybe that's the way to go. There's so much conversation out there about minimalist running shoes/barefoot running that I sometimes think I'm moving in the wrong direction. Oh well, with a nice hookup on the orthotics it could be a worthwhile experiment.
It feels like the sky is falling at work. The patients keep getting sicker, the management is razing the forest and the trees, and my desire to continue caring the way I should is fading. I've found excuses to not run for the last 3 days. Exhausted, worried about losing my job, my body falling apart, and my mental health definitely starting to spiral; I needed to force myself to get out there. And I did....
MARCH 6, 2010
I finally ran out of excuses to not run. No more aching legs, no more "too tired", no more being a fucking pussy sitting home reading books and magazines about running while I'm laying in bed. Fuck that. I ran 3 miles on my normal route at 9 this morning. I had the same burning in my achilles and numbness in my feet in the last 1/4 mile but it still felt pretty good. My mind is in full nightmare mode, churning out negative thoughts; doubt, anxiety, phantom pain. I finally had to convince myself that it wasn't the hilly roads, not the shoes, not the cold, but the fucking freak show in my head. It's amazing how quickly I forgot the psychology of training for my half, how the hard drive was wiped clean and how I forgot that the first mile or so of every run always felt awful. I forgot that sometimes the rhythm comes slowly, and that some days it never comes and just feels fucking awful. I should have kept a journal to remind myself of all this crap.
It did get better. It got better after I set my car alarm off with the spare key and couldn't get the fucking thing to shut off for a long 3 minutes (in a very posh North Salem, NY neighborhood). I decided to do a quick little run with the Mountain Masochists to make sure that they weren't going to blow up on me the way the Brooks did. I wore them to work this week to break them in a bit and to see if there were any immediate problems. There weren't. They felt much stiffer and slightly lighter than my Saucony's and provided much better protection from the gravel and uneven surfaces of Vail Lane. Maybe I wanted them to work better than the other shoes or maybe they just fit much better, I don't fucking know. I do know that they fit my feet well and made me feel a little bit more sure footed on the road. It's only a quarter mile or so but I like them quite a bit so far.
MARCH 8, 2010
Took my first official run in the Montrails and they felt fucking awesome. No achilles pain and no foot numbness. I felt like a little kid running toward rather than away from the mud and puddles. I wanna jump into streams, run in the rain and just get fucking FILTHY!!! Not much more to say other than that it was 52 degrees, sunny, and I ran in shorts and a long sleeve for the first time since last September/October. As much of a grinch as I am, it was a fucking blast running in the beautiful weather. I'll head out for a 3 mile dirt road run on Wednesday and then my first real trail run on Friday. I cannot fucking wait.
MARCH 9, 2010
I ran Vail Lane to the Red House after work today. Three Miles. 52 degrees and sunny. Short sleeves and shorts. I may not be the most pale guy in North America this year! Everything felt very light and fluid. Not easy but I finally feel like I'm getting back to baseline and worrying less about injury and failure. Finding the right shoes has made a big difference. It's one less element I have to worry about and now I just need to focus on heart, mind, lungs, and legs. I have to confess that I've turned into a bit of a shoe whore. I'm no Imelda Marcos but after returning the Brooks Adrenalines and the Saucony Xodus I used up my store credit on a pair of Brooks Cascadia trail shoes. They seem a little bit less stiff and more road friendly than the Montrails and they felt swell as soon as I strapped them on. I may take them for a spin before dark tonight. It's time to put a moratorium on running goodies. Heart/mind/lungs/legs/shoes... and pants. Pants are definitely a good idea as well. Especially in the fancy land where I run. I'm starting to like the rolling hills and uneven surfaces of my new routes. The road that I trained on for Philly was pretty uneven and switched between hard packed dirt and pavement. As I was running the half I kept thinking that running on more challenging surfaces made it much easier to run on the road. All I had to worry about was putting one foot in front of the other rather than worry about where each step landed. I know I'll have to hit the roads for the Green Mountain Marathon but I'm hoping I can do most of my miles in the dirt. I have plenty of time (October 17) to figure it all out. The better my runs are, the less I worry or care about the rest of my life. It seems to return everything to its proper proportion.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
POOR DECISION MAKING SKILLS
I took my first short run on my new shoes, the Brooks Adrenaline GTS 10. The original pair, which were black, were sent back because they were too small and I didn't want to wait until March 15 to get a new pair so I went with the shitty white version. It's a little known fact that black shoes make you run faster, can fight off wild animals, and attract a better class of women than white shoes. Fucked again, right from the start. What I liked about the shoes in the shop and on my short test spin were that they hugged my arch/heel very well and that they were a bit stiffer so that my ankle didn't roll inside them. I've been running pain free for the last 2 weeks; no pain in the area of my stress fracture, minimal achilles discomfort, and no knee pain whatsoever. After a long warm up and a quarter mile at my normal pace I started to feel some discomfort in my ankles and heel and I had the sensation that I was striking with my heel far more than I had in my Saucony's. I also noticed that the toe box seemed a little bit too roomy and felt my forefoot sliding around a bit. I tried tightening down the laces and this only put lace pressure on the top of my foot. FUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!
I guess I'll go back to the drawing board and try another pair of shoes. I can always go back to the Saucony's, maybe trying a different model that has a little bit less cushion/motion control. I should really just fuck it and buy trail shoes. My desire to run on the road grows less and less every day. When I'm out I don't want to see or hear anyone. No people, no cars, no fucking horses. I'm finally learning the difference between living a solitary versus a life of isolation. Solitude is a necessity for me to keep myself balanced and sane, isolated is what I am when the wolves come calling. Pretty fucking retarded for a guy that hasn't run more than a 1/2 mile on a trail since he was 15. I'll learn.
Speaking of running trails...I'm thinking of entering The North Face Challenge in Bear Mountain, New York. I'd originally considered running the 5 or 10k but I think I'll have enough time to prepare for the Half. Two things will fuck up that plan; the short training period and the pretty technical terrain. Apparently Bear Mountain is pretty rocky/crusty and I've read that many of the hills are straight climbs rather than switchbacks. I'll see how I feel by the end of the week and then decide. It would be pretty cool to run Bear Mountain because it's the place I learned to ski when I was 3 or 4 years old. Again coming full circle, whether it's Philadelphia or Bear Mountain. Maybe there are no coincidences.
It's 6:00 Tuesday and I just got up. There's a coating of snow on the ground that's covering the mud and dirty ice of the last week or so. So how do my feet/legs feel after yesterdays new shoe adventure? Not so good. I feel like a I spent yesterday long jumping onto my heels on concrete. I guess I have no idea how to pick a fucking shoe. It should be fairly simple.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
WRITERS BLOCK
I started writing this not to catalog the monotonous and tedious minutiae of my day. That's what Twitter is for. I did it to talk about my battle against the nightmare factory. The problem with this is that I have a very difficult time writing when I'm feeling better. I can't find the right words and I don't have any idea how to translate what I feel to the keyboard. I've crawled through every corner of misery writing "Pulling Scars From The Night Time Sky". I know psychic pain and disappointment so well that I wear it as skin. This feeling well, this not hating myself every waking moment is new. I have no lexicon to draw from to describe this new world and no true frame of reference. I hope I can learn.
Drink Deep
"Drink deep, it's just a taste
And it might not come this way again
I believe in moments, transparent moments
Moments in grace
When you've got to stake your faith..."
Rites Of Spring (Summer 1996)
THE WISDOM OF FRACTURED BONE
THE WISDOM OF FRACTURED BONE, FEBRUARY 17, 2010
It seems a strange thing to say but the (undiagnosed at the time) tibial stress fracture that I acquired the week before the Philly Half may have been one of the best things that has happened to me as a runner. Prior to that I was always a nervous wreck about my joints, obsessed with what surfaces I ran on, obsessed with keeping a very slow pace; I ran in constant fear. Then the fracture happened; the limping, the anxiety, the constant doubt. I didn't complete my last 3 training runs. The night before I was in such excruciating pain that I didn't even want to walk to the start from South Philly. When I got up to the Art Museum at 4:30 that morning I decided that I would run until I blew up. I didn't know if I'd make it the first hundred yards, the first few miles, or cross the finish line. It was only after the first quarter mile that I knew I'd finish. The weather was perfect, the road so much smoother than what I had trained on, and the pain of the last week disappeared, at least for the first 7 miles. I was too excited/stubborn to realize that the pain below my knee wasn't typical runners pain and I finished. It wasn't until 3 weeks later that the stress fracture was finally diagnosed. I'm not sure I would have run if I'd known about it but in hindsight it taught me a huge lesson. NEVER, EVER RUN IN FEAR. NEVER.
"Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power
we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all
because we never pushed through the obstruction."
William James
After spending the next 5 weeks recuperating I started to run again, but I began running differently than I had before. I ran 13.1 miles on an injured leg. I accomplished my mission and finished much faster than I thought I would. Finishing in spite of my fucked up leg freed me from the ever looming ghost of failure. In recent weeks my mind has been pretty clear as I hit the road. I concentrate on my breathing, imagine myself running a marathon, a 50k, a 50 miler. I think about how peaceful it is out on that dirt road and how much I love the cold weather. What I don't think about is more important than what I do. I don't pass my time reliving the failure of my marriage. I don't pass my minutes punishing myself for wasted potential. I don't question every little passing discomfort. I don't even look at my watch other than to mark the beginning and end of my run. I find myself not having to use the mental tricks that I used to get through the months leading up to Philadelphia.
One of the most important things Philadelphia taught me was to not let the watch control my pace or dictate the way I feel about a run. When I was training I figured I wouldn't be completely embarrassed if I could run anything under 12 minute miles. I'd never run faster than an 11:30 mile training and was stunned when I ran 10:30/Mile and a 9:00 last mile in Philly. Now I know that there are people that walk faster than I run but hey, shut it, I'm old and broken. What's surprised me recently is that I've stopped thinking about whether I'm running too fast or too slow and I'm just running. I'm just running. So fucking simple and so fucking complicated. What I'm finding now that I'm more at peace is that I'm running 9:30 miles as my natural pace. No push/pull and no quick glances at the watch. Start watch. Run. Stop watch. Think less. Feel more. So fucking simple.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
FEBRUARY 6, 2010
It was 17 fucking degrees when I started this morning and the sky was gun metal grey. It was my first run outside since the end of November and the first since I'd fucked up my achilles a week and a half ago. Having never run in weather this cold I wasn't sure how many layers I should wear so I went with 3 layers up top and a pair of Under Armour compression tights and shorts on the bottom. Upper body: perfect. Lower body: not so much. I'm pretty sure I may never be able to feel my balls again but it was totally worth it. I run a much slower pace on the treadmill and it seems to hurt my achilles and knees more than running outside. It's counter-intuitive but this reverse logic has defined my life. A Jeff Galloway article about running in the cold suggested walking for 5 minutes, then doing 1 minute of jogging/1 minute walking for 5 minutes, and the jogging/walking in a 2:1 ratio for 5 more minutes and then start your run. It seemed to work pretty well this morning, despite the freezing cold balls, and I could feel all of the anxiety, tension, and doubt of the last few weeks falling away. I'm constantly afraid of losing my job, afraid that some other piece of my broken body will fail me, and afraid that the relative peace and stability of the last 8 or 9 months will collapse upon me. This morning that all went away. It was me and some ice fishermen out over the Reservoir purging demons in our own very private ways.
When I first started doing this I didn't really care what the setting was; shitty treadmill, shittier highway, or fairly isolated dirt road. As long as I was putting one foot in front of the other nothing else really mattered. It's possible that it didn't matter because I was more focused on completing the mission (finishing Philly) than worrying about how I got there. That approach also assumed that running would never be anything more than a punishment, another means to the same end I've tried to reach for the last decade. If it were only meant to hurt, to build while breaking, then it wouldn't really matter where the fuck I ran so long as it was painful and fulfilled the prescribed amount of miles on my training plan. But that changed, and it changed rapidly. It became more important to escape the treadmill, more important to run during the isolated and isolating early hours of the day, and far more important to be surrounded by water, trees, and very little traffic. Reservoir Road did that for me. 1.6 miles out, 1.6 miles back. Back and forth, again and again. I knew exactly where the pavement started and stopped, knew where the edges of the road canted downhill, knew every step of every hill. All of it began to matter. It mattered in the heat of the late summer, mattered when the leaves began to turn, and mattered most when the temperature hung just above freezing on my last handful of long runs.
I suppose even more has changed since I ran Philly. I'm feeling more at peace, I'm not missing Manhattan in quite the same painful way that I have for the last 6 years, and I'm actually starting to appreciate being outside. I know how funny that may seem but I have spent most of my adult life indoors. I hate the heat of the summer time and have always welcomed the cold grey of winter. I think I've always loved the wintertime at least in part because it didn't make me feel as guilty about wanting to pull down the shades and go to sleep during the day as a warm sunny day would. When the glacial depression hits I want nothing more than to disappear and the healthiest way I know to do that to force myself to sleep. This feeling is, however slowly, fading from my life. I'll still whine about the heat and humidity of July and August but this time I'll use them as motivators, just as I've used the cold and rain to motivate me. There's something about stepping out of the nice warm car into the pouring fucking rain and wind that makes me feel like the animal that I fundamentally am. It makes me feel alive. Any run feels better than not running but the days when mother nature is uncooperative make me feel more alive. I suppose this relates to the endless conversation that my shrink and I have had over the last few years. It usually goes like this...
"Todd, you don't always have to live at the extremes. There's a middle ground that you've never experienced. It doesn't have to be right in the middle, just not something that puts you at risk".
"I understand that Susan, but this is all I know. If I'm not over stimulated I don't feel anything at all and I'd rather suffer the repercussions of a life off the rails than not feel anything at all".
So the cold, rain, wind, distance, heat, etc. make me feel more alive and make me feel more alive in ways far more healthy than ways I have sought out in the past.
Jesus Christ, did I get sidetracked. What I was getting at is that I think I want to run even further away from people than I already do, both literally and figuratively. I'd like to find some trails and am thinking about running a 10k trail run at Bear Mountain in New York. The idea of not seeing another soul while I'm out, of not thinking about cars and traffic, makes me pretty happy. As soon as my achilles stops gnawing at me I think I'll head deeper into the woods (note to self: you do NOT need new shoes for running trails. You're not an ultramarathoner, not running Pikes Peak, not running the Vermont 100. Really, you don't so just stop it).
FEBRUARY 7, 2010
So I went out on a recon mission this morning and found a few trail possibilities. The first is a rail trail on fancy Ridgefield, CT. It's 5 miles out and back run with mile markers. Not exactly trail but at least I don't have to worry about getting run over. Another option is a tangle of dirt roads in the Ridgefield farm country. There are some huge fucking hills but for the most part it's still pretty smooth. It's similar to where I did my training but the scenery is much nicer. There are MASSIVE horse farms, beautiful fields, and beautiful old houses. My last option is to run behind the horse farm next door to where I live. I've been told that there are horse trails that run all through the woods behind me. Most of them are supposed to be somewhat overgrown but I can stomp my way through.
"Poetry, music, forests, oceans, solitude-they were what developed enormous spiritual strength. I came to realize spirit, as much or more than physical conditioning, had to be stored up before a race".
Herb Elliott Olympic Champion/Poet
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)