Wise, Dumb, and Lite

Wise
I was at the Walnut Brewery in Boulder, Colorado, sitting alone, drinking a Devil's Thumb Stout, when I spotted a review by Anna Maria Basquez of a book called "Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled and Knuckle-headed Quest for the Rocky Mountain High" by Mark Obmascik. It recounts how he went from middle-aged couch potato to climber of all 54 of Colorado's mountains over 14,000 feet high. He said something very wise:

"I overcame the fear that my body was just in decline. I overcame the fear that I can't do certain things, physically, mentally, emotionally. Once you hit that time in your life when your body's best days are behind, you start to doubt yourself. It's hard because you remember what you used to be able to do. My mindset and first instinct was, 'I can't do that, that's new. I'm not up for it.' Now I start to look at things as possibilities. One of the biggest things I learned was that one of the keys to getting older is to keep doing new things because then you can't remember how good you were at the old things. If you're trying everything for the first time, you've got no benchmark. It changes the way you look at yourself and at your life."

Look at things as possibilities...a great insight for all TOJs!

Dumb
Then there was this inane filler disguised as a tip in November's Runner's World: "When you're establishing a performance goal not tied to times, make sure it's measurable, so you can tell if you've met it..."

What if your goal is to be done with measures and just enjoy running?

And here's another real gem from the same issue: "Running is a free-form activity; we alone determine how fast, how far, and how long we run. The empowerment of running is open to anyone, at any speed. Your definition of "slow" may change as you grow more fit, and will change again as you grow older."

Yeah, well, you may be empowered to change the definition of slow, but you better not look at your stopwatch.

Lite
Enough heavy thinking. Time to lighten up. In the past couple of blogs this TOJ has talked about squeezing out the empty carbs in your diet to become a lean, mean, eating machine. So what am I doing having a carb-rich stout right in the first paragraph?  Actually, just as often these days I have a lite beer found on this useful list of "The 25 Least Fattening Beers," which originally appeared in the Daily Beast.

Here's lookin' at you, kid!

Happy Trails

Closing the Gaps

Yesterday was the first day of spring. Mud season. The snow is melting fast, and the Colorado River is rising, first sign at the coming runoff. I slopped through the mud on my trail run, laughing much of the time at the slipping and sliding as my Montrails sunk into the ooze.

But today I switched gears shoes for a brisk, timed five mile run on the asphalt in my hot new Nike road shoes. The Bolder Boulder 10K is only 70 days away. It's time to close the gaps between what I'd likely run the race if it were today versus what I hope to run it in on Memorial Day, between my present per mile time and target race pace, and my present weight and anticipated race day weight.

Nowadays I only run one race per year so the Bolder Boulder's special. I'm very happy running trails most of the year, but the Bolder Boulder is so much fun -- the hoopla, the bands, the crowd, the exhibits and free goodies, the stadium finish, the elite runners -- that it calls my name. And it's a good opportunity to calibrate my running fitness from year to year. For me, it's a rite of spring.

It's not like I'm doing a crash training program because I run year around, but trail runs put much different stresses on the body than a relatively flat road race at a steady pace. This year was snowy, making my trail accessible only on snow shoes for much of the winter, so I was forced to run more on the roads, but slowly because they were snow-packed and icy. However, the past two years I have also done much more strength training than just running. I've added more muscle weight to my upper body, which is of marginal value to a pure runner, like those you see on the cover of Runner's World (actually I think they use just one skinny male body and one slim female body, then Photoshop on different smiling heads).

In preparation for the Bolder Boulder, my tried and true strategy has been to drop my per mile time by dropping a few pounds (mainly less beer per week, more veggies), go for longer runs on the weekends, and simply run more miles (steady pace and intervals). Each year as I age, it gets a little harder to pick up the pace, but I think it will still work.

I always have a target finish time and pretend it makes a difference, though it really doesn't. It's good to have a goal. Puts a little drama in your life. Makes you work harder and hurt a little. Losing a few pounds and watching what, and how much, you eat is good for your health. I'll strap on the heart rate monitor a couple times a week and see what my cruise range is.

Each year I have to figure out and practice a sustainable pace. Today at daybreak was chilly. I ran the first mile too fast, even though I felt really good. If you run too fast too soon, your time falls off later in the race because the lactic acid builds too fast; you may gain 15 seconds in the first mile, but you lose 30 seconds in each of the last two miles fast. I was a sprinter in high school and never have been great a pacing because my instinct is to go fast and over stride. The excitement you feel when your wave goes off in the Bolder Boulder makes you prone to start too fast, which I've done many times in past years.

70 days is plenty of time to close the gaps. Trying to close the gaps is half the fun. As the poet Robert Bronwing said, "Ah, a man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for?" Come Memorial Day, a few pounds lighter, I'll float like a butterfly. With the discipline of a Zen Master, I'll start slower, even though I've got fast shoes. I hope.

Breaking the Time Barrier

A wonderful thing happened -- the wristband on my Timex Ironman watch broke. So my watch stayed behind when I headed out the door with my dog just before dusk to run my favorite local trail.

I was primed to get outside and run because I had just returned from a several days of travelling in a car and sitting around a conference table discussing contentious stuff like health care reform. Before I started up the trail, I reflexively pulled back the sleeve of my windbreaker to reset the stop watch function, having forgotten it wasn't there.

I time runs out of an old habit. I keep a notebook log where I record the place, distance, time elapsed, time of day, temperature, and other noteworthy events, like animals sighted. But I didn't need the watch. I have run that trail so many times that I know the approximate times, plus or minus 30 seconds or so, that I will arrive at a certain tree, rock, or turn.

And I hadn't run too far before I realized how nice it was to not have it. It was great to just be out there running. The sun was setting, throwing dark shadows on the mountainside and chilling the air. My feet crunched rhythmically over a thin crust of metamorphosed snow from a storm a week earlier. I passed one trail marker after another oblivious to the time.

Athletes in general, and runners in particular, tend to suffer a little obsessive-compulsive disorder when it comes to time. You pick up a Runner's World and the pages are riddled with references to race times, splits, interval targets, and records. People are introduced by name, age, and his or her PR in the 10K or marathon. Much of the information, whether on training or nutrition, is mainly intended to shave minutes and seconds off a race time. Many of the interviewees are happy or sad based on time or eagerly looking to the future to see if they can beat a time.

On the cover of Trail Runner magazine, you always find a runner passing trough a spectacular landscape, like the Dolomites in Italy or vast aspen stands in Colorado. It conjures visions of stories about beauty and adventure waiting inside, but most of the pages are devoted to recaps of ultramarathons and finish times. Pain, injury, and disorientation from sleep deprivation or dehydration are frequent topics. It is the only magazine where you'll find the exact time it took a guy to run all the way around Grand Teton National Park or through Death Valley. In its pages, ultrarunners bag distances like hunters bag trophy elk heads.

It dawned on me as I trudged along the trail that a focus on time can be a barrier to the sheer fun of just running. Time can put unnecessary pressure and expectations that lead to disappointment. I recalled that I have found myself pushing harder up a hill to reach a marker because the watch indicates I'm off a certain self-expected pace. Running can lose its stress-busting magic if you create additional stress by focusing too much on time. Looking at a watch distracts from enjoying the beauty of a place, its contours and attractions.

And no doubt many injuries and illnesses (including mine on occasion) are caused people pushing too hard, day in, day out, to cover a certain distance at a pace that is too fast for them. Healthier runners are probably slower runners. Obviously competitive athletes need to train hard for events that are measured in seconds, minutes, and hours to win scholarships, money, and endorsements. But most of us are better off keeping the time obsession in check, especially TOJs, who should know better because any high stakes are purely imaginary.

Running without a watch let's you tune into your body, detached from the monotony of measured time, and find a pace that ebbs and flows naturally with the terrain, distance, and your biorhythms. Your body is rich with sensory information that goes far beyond numbers blinking on a screen. You can feel when to run hard and when to back off. It doesn't take a watch to know how you feel.

Back home, after my dog and I finished the run, I opened my log. In the column where a time is usually entered, I put a quick slash. I'll get a new band for my watch sometime soon -- don't want to late for a meeting! But nearing a new year, I resolve to run more without it. Each slash will indicate runs that were fun and timeless.