The perfect 10

The other day I got it into my head to write about the sublime moments in life -- for example, sitting outside on a perfect evening sipping a beer with friends, watching the kids play together, holding hands with my wife during an unexpected moment together, enjoying a certain breeze or sensation on a pleasant run.  You get the picture.

Then I got to thinking about the "perfect day," which in the pre-lottery winning era goes something like this:  wake up after a good night's sleep, enjoy a hard workout, have a good breakfast and a cup of strong coffee, spend a some time with the family, and head to work or the day's activity.  The great thing about that kind of day is that no matter what happens afterwards, it is hard to mess up a start like that.

But who am I really kidding?  We all know that there is one thing that belongs on both of those lists but is missing because of squeamish social convention:  a nice, "perfect 10" crap.  You know, the kind that starts building at a time when you are both able to go immediately and relaxed enough that it comes out perfectly;  the kind that is substantial and not too hard or soft;  the kind that leaves no mess and barely takes one square of toilet paper.  Even better is the rare but strangely beautiful footlong or thirteen-incher that you have known you are due for for days.  I think the buildup is key -- the physiology of defecation is fascinating, with a complex interplay of neural stimuli that build to the "mass movement" (yes, it really is called this).   We all know that you have to take advantage of the moment, when you can poop it out without straining or pushing, but well before you are crowning and have to let it sneak back up inside.

So many factors play into the perfect 10 that, for me at least, it is not an everyday experience.  Maybe I'll have a few good days in a row (usually weekend or vacation days!), but a good crap on a daily basis is a goal that seems to evaporate when I come too close.  Perhaps that is why it is so sublime.  So I'll pause and enjoy it when I can, suffering through the strained and messy affairs of those other days so I can enjoy one of life's true pleasures.

Happy Run

I can honestly say that I have never regretted a run - as far as I can remember, anyway.  It is like a chemical reaction with a variable activation energy but a predictable release of energy once complete.  Yesterday, after a rewarding but long weekend with the kids, with the weather hot and sticky for the first time this season, I was tired.  After dinner I felt the old familiar urge, laced up my shoes, and took off.  The warm up was painful and I thought about "just taking a walk", but my body responded and after half a mile I was feeling great on a trail under a canopy of trees.  I read recently about the various chemicals released during a run - endogenous opioids / endorphins for pain control and the "runner's high", serotonin, catecholamines, and finally endogenous cannabinoids for the sense of well being lasting up to 48 hours.  I wonder what the chemical profile in yoga is, as it is the only thing that leaves me feeling even close to a good run.

Working out with Jess over the last few weeks has been fun - she has started p90x and I have been doing some of the workouts with her.  More importantly I have been getting up early before work, at least most days of the week, and really enjoying the time, exercise, and shared challenge of a tough workout.  This is paradoxically important when I am busy and sleep-deprived; despite my own self-sabotagiong when the alarm goes off, the hour of exercise and reflective time is almost always worth the lost hour of sleep.

Saturday: AM: p90x "arms and shoulders"  PM: indoor bike 30 min

Sunday: AM: 37 burpees  PM: run 3 mi

Today: 14 burpees / rest

Tomorrow: yoga and pullups

Trail of Payne and more

My March postings in this blog have been lacking,  though not for lack of desire or (at least mildly) interesting thoughts to share.  I've been busy, mostly with work.  Here is a run down of the month's activities so far:

GARDEN
We planted our family's Spring garden, and our first garden in Florida.  This is our most ambitious one yet, a 12 x 12 foot patch in a sunny part of our backyard.  I tilled the soil with hand tools, took out some roots, and added topsoil, peat moss, organic fertilizer (mostly chicken shit as far as my nose could tell) and some cow manure.  Our own compost will be a periodic addition once it processes a little bit more.  Cadien helped me dig the soil, and both Rowan and Cadien helped plant seedlings today - many herbs, tomatoes, cucumber, beans, blueberry, strawberry, watermelon, broccoli.  We'll add a few more things, and then see what grows well!

RACE
Jess and I ran a trail 10K - the "Trail of Payne" through Payne's prairie - yesterday.  It was a perfect morning, about 60 degrees, and a nice trail.  It was really nice to run a race with no pressure or expectations - in fact we ran together for four miles and then I split off for a couple.  At the finish we ran into people from several areas of our life - work, church, running friends, and other acquaintances.  Brunch afterwards was gut-busting, but fun.

TONY
Jess has started P90X and I am doing it with her, as my knee and work schedule permits.  Maybe this will be the push I need to start getting up early to exercise before work!  (Of course when I did P90X two years ago it was supposed to do the same thing, but I just ended up doing a lot of the workouts in the evening!)  Burpee war has also started again - an Ides of March tradition.

KNEE
Still painful but recovering.  Definitely improved on this recent trail race versus trail runs a few months ago but still quite painful.  Hauling 50 pound bags of soil didn't help.  I'll give it another month or so and perhaps see someone.

DIET?
My weight has crept up to about 10 pounds over my "race weight" - the highest it's been in a long time and probably a good signal to focus on healthful eating.  A good friend of mine fasts once a week but I'm not sure this would work for me.  Just more attention to both quality and quantity.

That was the scattered update.  Life is good.

Back to normal (?)

After a big race there is always a time lag before I really feel normal again.  This has to do with some physical elements, like recovering from the race itself and letting the inflammation subside; some psychological elements, like the short-lived thrill and then the longer lived "what's next?"; and some outside elements like travel last weekend (Disney World), and working and living out of town most weekdays of the last month.  Part of the out-of-town situation has been me eating poorly (meaning well, depending on your point of view!), so salt overload and large meals have been adding to the slow return of normalcy.  We had a great time at Disney World, but it is no way a "normal" place!

After a great weekend at home, though, I finally think I am feeling like myself -- I got to spend a good amount of time with Jess and the kids.  We spent most of Sunday afternoon digging  a garden plot - a 12x12 foot area with many, many tree roots.  Long after the girls lost interest in helping me dig, which they did with enthusiasm for quite a while, I was  preparing for an epic battle with large root systems from two different trees.  My tools were primitive: a shovel, a handsaw, and a hedge trimmer.  I won the battle, I think, and I imagine the tree will be just fine as I barely scratched the surface.  A colleague today asked me: "why didn't you just rent a rototiller for the day" and I am afraid I didn't have a good answer.  Oh well.  We put off the planting for a few more weeks, and I am looking forward to the incredibly long growing season that our new location affords.  I am especially excited about the blueberry bush.

Next race:  the "Trail of Payne" - a local trail 10K through Payne's Prairie.  This will be coming up in a mere two weeks...

I have a lot of ideas about training that I am excited to try out; most involve regular speed/tempo work and building a more stable and permanent running base than I have had in the past.  First and foremost I am going to give this knee a break, and set a deadline to see a sports medicine doc and maybe get an MRI if it is really not a lot better.  I have to admit that I'm not too worried by the whole thing.  All the other injuries have healed on their own, and it will be a cold day in hell before I let a surgeon touch my knee for an inflammatory problem.

Race Report - Five Points of Life Marathon 2011

It is not often, at least in my running career, that a race goes so well that I am taken completely by surprise.   This time, it did.  This was one of the best races of my life, where I was able to push myself and sustain an effort with not only willpower but a body that cooperated and worked hard.  I've had my share of "just surviving" in races, or racing to finish (first marathon, 50-miler), but this was really fun.

To set the stage, I had been training not only with my usual running partners but my brother-in-law Joe, who lives geographically close but far enough away that I don't see him all that often.  We had one good run together and trained in spirit otherwise .  He and his family made the trip down for the race, and in addition to enjoying their company for the weekend we had a nice dinner with friends the night before.  Was I wrong to partake of a fabulous Fat Tire the night before a marathon?  As it turns out, no. It was utterly the right thing to do.

Those of you who read this blog will know that my training was interrupted by a knee injury, but that I got a bit of speed training and several good long runs in -- in fact one of those long runs was nearly the best long training run I've ever had.  It is kind of cool to think back to 9 or 10 years ago when I started running seriously, at how utterly daunting and exhausting a 20 or 22 mile run was.  Although I run more slowly now I think I have an easier time on these runs.  Anyway, the training felt a little haphazard (cobbled together from "moonbeams and flatus" as I heard a fairly crusty old anesthesiologist say today) -- a little speedwork, a few long runs, and a lot of ice and ibuprofen!

Race day dawned pleasantly cool but not chilly, with forecast mostly sunny and heating up to the mid 70's.  Not ideal but not terrible either.  Joe had been up for a while, eating breakfast and having coffee, and we got ready (lubed up, nipple band-aids, etc.) and drove over to the start.  I had no idea what to expect from the run, hoping for anything but a repeat performance of my last marathon. I used the port-a-let, wished Joe good luck, and took my place in the starting corral, oddly enough placed in front of the much larger half-marathon group who would be running faster and overtaking us quickly.  The only two pacers were 3:10 (hah!) and 3:40, neither of whom I expected to see again.

After the usual announcements, national anthem, and start, we were off.  I felt pretty good, having gotten adequate sleep and pre-hydrated for the last few days (beer excepted).  The first mile I ran in 9:00 or so, probably pushing harder than I intended -- I have found in the last few years that I really do need time to warm up, a concept that I scoffed at repeatedly in earlier years -- but knowing that I would need to run a 9:00 pace average to run the race under 4 hours.  I had a little conversation with myself, acknowledging the advice I got (and followed) before  previous races: "do not work at all during the first half", but decided to ignore that advice and push it a little.   So I ran the next several miles in increasing speed, from 8:40s down to 8:30s, passing the hilly section near my home and waving to my family on the side of the road.  I was feeling better and better, and rather than get tired my body warmed up and caught up to the pace.  I could almost feel my heart rate slow and efficiency improve as I ran down though downtown and the UF campus.  Several times I saw friends cheering me on, which helped tremendously.

At some point between miles 7 and 8 and really got into the zone, running with people going at faster paces (8:20! 8:10!), increasing my speed until I was putting the brakes on frequently.   I remember running by the bat house and smelling the guano, looping through the stadium and all of the sudden being at mile 10 and 11.  It was interesting to get constant pace feedback from a watch during the race, and I think it helped me run faster.  By the time I reached the half marathon finish, I was cruising, clocking about a 7:55 for mile 13.  I was happy, but working, and expecting everything to fall apart soon.  I told myself that if I could just hold out until mile 15 before real performance degradation set in, that I could do all right.

The race designers put a lot of though into the first half -- with 1000 people running the half marathon and only about 250 running the full, that makes sense.  But turning left when most are turning right to a much more lonesome and much less scenic course is tough.  The support continued to be fantastic, from the police to the water/gatorade stations.  I ran out the Depot Road rail trail, clocking another sub-8 minute mile for mile 14, and started feeling the heat.  We ran through the east side of town, and at mile 17 turned onto Williston


Finally I hit the last mile knowing I would finish strong, and hit the finish line with a smile on my face.  Again I saw a few friends, had some food, got the car, and we headed home.  Great race.

TIME:  3:44:13 (my watch) / 3:44:25 (official time) - average pace ~ 8:3e4
PLACE (mens 35-39): 3rd

Nutrition:  2 packs of Clif Shot blocks (new discovery for me!)
Water and Gatorade at almost every rest stop, with two additional bottles provided by family/friends at miles 5 & 20.

A post-race barbecue marked the end of a really nice run, and finding out later that day that I had placed made it even better.


Splits:


1-00:09:00
2-00:08:49
3-00:08:34
4-00:08:33
5-00:08:32
6-00:08:30
7-00:08:41
8-00:08:35
9-00:08:24
10-00:08:19
11-00:08:20
12-00:07:55
13-00:07:57
14-00:08:02
15-00:08:21
16-00:08:23
17-00:08:11
18-00:08:14
19-00:08:27
20-00:08:30
21-00:08:39
22-00:08:45
23-00:08:31
24-00:08:38
25-00:08:47
26-00:08:38

Taper

It has been an odd taper week, with work less busy (and different) than usual, so the routine is disrupted in many ways.  I can't say that I am particularly restless yet, but after tomorrow's planned 2 mile run (will I have the willpower to stop?) and a rest day Saturday I am hoping that I will feel energetic for the race on Sunday.  The weather is warming up a little much for my tastes, but I will picture a 45-50 degree start without humidity.

Tomorrow (Friday) - 2 mile easy run planned

Today (Thursday) - yoga easy 20 min

Yesterday (Wed) - 4 mile run (actually kind of hot out!), 35 pullups

Tues - pushups / core workout

Mon - 3 mile run

Sun - dumbbell bicep, tricep, shoulder workout

The race approacheth

Today (Saturday): 7.8 miles (on trails in San Felasco state park) ~ 10:00 pace

This was a nice comfortable run with friends on a familiar trail, in crisp weather at sunrise.  Sound perfect, you say?  It was not bad.  As usual with a familiar run, the psychologic topology was more varied and interesting than the physical topology.  In keeping with an unintentional and undesired habit in life, I will sometimes picture difficulties and problems with a race well in advance of the race itself.  If I feel tired for a moment in a training run, I may picture myself feeling very tired at mile 22 of the marathon itself -- negative visualization, as it were.  But, these moments are an opportunity to practice running through (vanquishing or learning to accept, depending on one's mindset) these unwanted thoughts.  It is a little silly to have thoughts like this before the actual event, but that is part of what I must learn to accept!

Anyway it was a nice run, and a fitting way to begin the true "taper" week before the race.  As I've mentioned, I have not trained as hard as I would have liked and so have a gentler taper than otherwise, but this is still a week of light exercise, reflection, and positive visualization.  The training I've done has been good, solid training, both long runs and some speedwork, so this has the potential to be an excellent marathon.

After the run this morning I stopped at Uppercrust (excellent bakery), got coffee and pastries, and went home to a wonderful greeting from my family.  Next weekend we have relatives coming to town (including my brother in law who is going to run the race too) and some good times planned with friends, many of whom are also running.  Not bad at all, I think.

----

Wed - Fri: nothing at all as I was mostly flat on my back with a flu-like illness (now  more or less fully recovered).