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...

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

HIT THE BRICKS...

I'm in the middle of my 2nd week back. The pain that I'd felt in the days before Philly and the days after the race caused me to go to an Orthopedist to see why I was still limping. While running has done wonders to help shut down the nightmare factory in my mind, I've come to depend on it so much to quell the demons that I've become a bit of a hypochondriac. Every twinge, every aching muscle is a possible runners death sentence and I've become horrible at separating true injury from psychosis. After an initial visit and an MRI (in which I had to sit still for a gargantuan 30 minutes) the doctor pointed to a hazy shadow on my tibia and told me that I had a stress fracture that was well on its way to healing. I have just enough of a medical background as to be dangerous and in my mind my meniscus was torn, my ACL was in shreds, I needed the whole thing replaced... It was a relief to be told that I just needed a few more weeks rest and I was good to go. They were long, long weeks stretched over a part of the year that makes me feel anxious and angry. There's almost nothing worse than being told how happy and thankful you should be when you're not. Fuck that. To be able to run through (or away from) the stretch between Thanksgiving and New Years would have been a gift. It was not. To keep sane during my time off, I'm pretty sure I read nearly every book ever published about running.

Here's my reading list for the past 5 weeks:

1. "Born To Run": Christopher McDougall
2. "Once A Runner": John L. Parker
3. "The Runners Guide To The Meaning of Life": Amby Burfoot
4. "Zen And The Art Of Running": Larry Shapiro, PhD.
5. "Why We Run": Bernd Heinrich
6. "Nancy Clark's Food Guide For Marathoners": Nancy Clark

Of all the books I read, I was most inspired and affected by "Born To Run". The novel made me question the way I ran, the shoes that I wore on my feet, and more importantly, what I was mentally and physically capable of. It took me all of 6 hours to read it's 287 pages.

Here's an excerpt from the dust jacket:

"Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born To Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world's greatest distance runners, and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong".

Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico's deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able to not only uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime; a fifty mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder."

I also entertained myself doing something that I swore I wouldn't do. When it comes to my guitar gear I can be a tech nerd; trying every new technology, every obscure technique, chasing what doesn't exist anywhere other than in my head, hands , and heart. I promised myself when I started training that I wouldn't become obsessed with fancy and expensive clothing, the latest shoe designs, or any nerdy gadget that monitors heart rate/distance/pace/elevation. The beauty of this is that it requires nothing more than lungs, legs, and a proper fitting pair of shoes. As I got deeper into my training I allowed myself a few trips to Marshalls and TJ Maxx to buy some moisture wicking shirts, a jacket to run in the rain, and a hat to keep my head warm. Fairly inexpensive and definitely money well spent. After a couple hundred miles on my first pair of Saucony Pro Grid Guide 2 shoes I purchased an identical pair to carry me through November. That was my most extravagant purchase. It was in my forced break that I started looking at the Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch. I like to run alone and don't even like crossing paths with other runners when I'm out so I wanted to head off the beaten path while still knowing how many miles I ran. The Garmin takes care of that as well as showing my heart rate, my pace, my route transposed onto Google Maps, and a slew of other pieces of data that don't mean much to me. I still haven't dropped the hammer on the Garmin but I'm watching the price. The day before Christmas it was down to $130 and I figured it would drop a few more bucks the day after. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. It shot up to $180 and is holding fairly steady. Fuck. I'm still not convinced that I need it and am afraid that maybe all that technology will separate me from the peace and silence of my long hours alone on the road. Oh yeah, I also got a new pair of shoes. And they're less cushioned. And they're BLACK. And they're made by Brooks. And they make me run like a gazelle. Well, at least they're less cushioned, black, and made by Brooks. They come in on Saturday so I have a little something to look forward to.

Maybe it's time I talk about running? I started back to exercise by cross training for a few weeks. Ellipitical, recumbent bike, regular bike. Tedious but necessary. Those few weeks reminded me of the difference between exercising and running. Exercising is something that I do because I have to. It's good for my heart, for my weight, and sets a good example for my patients. It does nothing for my soul. It is empty hours, a means to an end. The end is to get myself strong enough that I can reduce my risk of injury doing what I love. There is nothing nourishing or transcendent about an elliptical. There is no beauty, no rush of endorphins, and it rarely gets easier. To quote one of my patients: "This feels a lot more like work than they promised it would". The transition to the treadmill was the first rush. Anxious and cautious, I fully expected excruciating pain; torn achilles, ACL or MCL tear, something; but I felt nothing more than the stiffness and soreness that comes from not doing this for a while. I'm trying things a little bit differently this time. I've changed my warm up to about 5 minutes of walking rather than risk an injury stretching when I'm cold. I've started doing hip exercises to keep my lower leg from twisting during my stride. I've started using a stability ball to strengthen my core (I've almost rammed my head into the friggin' wall trying to balance on the fucking thing). In my 13.1 miles a made a list of things that I would do differently next time, and walking and core strength were 2 of them. The third was to strengthen my quads. Holy shit those fucking hills burned! I'm also trying to eat a little bit better. I'm actually thinking about carbs and protein and eating fewer Drakes Coffee Cakes and bacon and egg sandwiches. That's a lie. I still gorge myself on bacon and egg sandwiches. And Drakes Coffee Cakes. And Diet Coke by the gallon. And popcorn. Oh, and raisins, low fat chocolate milk with protein powder, Cheerios, and orange juice. Oh, and Lamictal. And Neurontin. And Ritalin. Gotta keep the train on the tracks...

"Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed."

G.K. Chesterton

Jack London Is A Bad Motherfucker.

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

Jack London

My name is Todd. I'm 44 years old. I live in N.Y., about 45 minutes north of the city. I've lived in many places and I don't consider anyplace home. I work in a hospital taking care of cardiac patients. I attempt to provide them the comfort, compassion, and healing that I have denied myself. There's a common belief that some people are drawn to medicine to fix something that is broken within themselves. I am.

I'm also a musician. I've played with the same group of guys for over 2 decades. Our connection is nearly telepathic. To get 4 guys from 4 differnt backgrounds honed in on the same notes, same rhythms, same emotional state is something far too powerful for words. There are nights that we are so locked in that they border on the surreal. I've played in front of 5 people and 5,000. Because of the band I have been to Europe. We played France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the U.K. in a 2 week span. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. They live in Philadelphia and because of that I have travelled roundtrip to Philly nearly every Saturday for the past 10 years. I've driven the 330 miles so often that the hours in the car seem like nothing. I sometimes think that I know every curve and crevice of every mile of the Garden State Parkway and the N.J. Turnpike. The drive home is the most peaceful part of my week. I'm usually in the car after midnight and I pass the hours, and soothe the ringing in my ears, by listening to the Coast To Coast radio show with Art Bell. I listen to conspiracy theories, ghost stories, theories about UFO's, and serial killers. It's a great way to spend a Saturday night.

I'm a writer as well. I am writing a book of prose called "Pulling Scars From The Night Time Sky". It is about a boy that disappears and hopes to return. It is about falling apart in real time. It is about mental illness, substance abuse, and homelessness. I hope that it is, in the end, a story of absolution.

I have used the word "I" approximately --- times in the last 3 paragraphs. The knives will always turn inward because it's all that I know. I spend my nights at home alone. I spend countless hours driving through the night alone. I run countless miles alone. And this is why I run.

I Run Because...

I run because...

I run because it may very well save my life.
I run because the demons come calling.
I run to make peace with my history.
I run to find transcendence through suffering.
I run to punish my sins.
I run to find strength in solitude.
I run so I don't hate the mirror.
I run for the feeling of just being.
I run to find beauty in madness.
I run to move toward and not away.
I run for the stars and the silence.
I run because I am the devil.