Sports Frog

Welcome to AB's Running Blog! Well, maybe it just seems that way as we make a final push to Hood To Coast 2008. It's close enough to taste, and believe me, if you've ever licked the back of a collective someone who has just run 197 miles non stop, you'll know that it is not a taste that can be forgotten.

When last we left off I was showing progress but I needed to ramp up the mileage. The shortest leg of Hood to Coast (incidentally, mine) is 13.55 miles, or an average of 4.52 miles per leg. I hadn't run so much as a 5K in mid-January. So on January 25, 2008, I sucked it up. I was going four miles, pain be damned. Forty-six sixteen. Not great, not bad. The next Friday I did the same. Forty-three thirty nine. In seven days, I improved two and a half minutes. I was convinced that I wasn't pushing myself as hard as I needed to be doing.

Only that didn't work out. It worked exactly opposite of how I had hoped. I hit a wall and think I hurt myself a little. I ran only six times over the next month. Then another eight for the two months. I was hurting some and basically chickening out. My anemia was back; I was tired by six p.m. most days. Running wasn't on my priority list. Soon it was May and I was well behind in training. From February 1 through April 31st I had run just twenty-two miles. I was letting the team down, though none of them said as much.

Now we were three months out and I had a lot of work to do. I bought new shoes at a specialty running store, signaling a fresh commitment. I took the advice of a store employee and implemented the 10% rule, whereby you track backwards from a target mileage and never increase weekly mileages by more than 10%. Aiming to run twenty-two miles race week (figuring for race mileage and some training miles), I found myself needing to run 7.25 miles the first week of training. Suddenly these numbers were manageable. The original spreadsheet was calling for six and eight mile runs and I simply wasn't capable of that.

I truly believe that the 10% Rule saved my participation in this race. By breaking it down into smaller chunks I had a more reasonable goal. Seven and a quarter this week, eight next, eight-point-seven the next. Rinse and repeat. I didn't feel obliged to push myself for long distances. Then, one day, I found myself five miles down with just one day remaining in the week. So I did it. Averaged 11:29 for five miles - which I was more pleased with than I should have been.

The Hood To Coast race sheet says by signing up you have to commit to running 9:30 miles. I had run five miles, but was TWO MINUTES over the threshold. That was a lot of work for my teammates. That became my motivation. I knew I wouldn't be running 9:30 miles, but if I could get it down to 10:30 miles then that was that much less work for my teammates. That became my new goal.

I ran a 10k distance in 11:39 per mile two weeks later. I was in no better shape. Only then I averaged 11:01 for my next fifteen miles. Maybe I was. Back to 11:30 for the next ten miles. Frustration, thy name is running. At this point the race was four weeks away. I did another long run, 5.5 miles in 12:28 pace. This simply wasn't going to get the job done.

At the same time our team was in turmoil. We had lost some people due to injury and other issues life throws at us unexpectedly. TommyBoy hadn't yet done the heavy lifting in finding replacements. My boss had to drop off of the team. I was hoping someone would be able to convince Bernard Lagat to be on the team, as that was the only way someone was going to make up the time we would need to after my legs.

Then things came together. The team got settled. I buckled down. Three miles in 10:47 per. Better. Four in 10:03 per! Hot damn! Maybe I could do this! My first race was that next Saturday night. A Midsummer Night's Run in downtown Lexington. The very first time I would step onto a race course would be two weeks before Hood to Coast.

Standing in the pack about two hundred feet or so from the actual start line I was amazed at the group of people surrounding me. Young, old, fat, thin, sweaty (Already!), tall, short, easy on the eyes, and then me. Not really any of those, but some of each. I strapped my headband on and pushed play on my Ipod as the local newscaster made the start announcement. We trudged forward and then stopped as the runners pinched in to run over the start line to let it read out computer chips. Then we were loose, a ragged mass straggling through the streets of Lexington. My aim was to finish in less than thirty three minutes (10:39 pace for the 3.1 miles).

I started slow. Too sow, in hindsight. I wanted to pace myself, but I soon found myself being passed by eighty year old women who weren't even in the race. So I sped up. Then came the stitch in my side. Still I trudged. I saw the Principal at my daughter's school come running by, his bald head steaming. I noticed a small lady in what appeared to be a tennis outfit running about fifteen feet in front of me. She became my rabbit. I stayed about fifteen feet in back of her for over a mile. I passed no one while I was passed many times, overtaken as a wildebeest by a lioness (and lions). Then, with just about a mile to go, I got some motivation. It was part adrenaline, part determination, and part guilt. I wanted to prove to my team I could be decent. Though I had never met most of these guys before, I felt an obligation to prove I wasn't dead weight, but merely unconscious weight.

I sped (ok, too strong) past the green lady. I was no longer being passed at all. I was the predator now. I was looking straight ahead. Then, after a final turn, I saw it. "FINISH." Probably a quarter of a mile in the distance, illuminated by heavy flood lights. When I thought I had no more, I found some. I dug deeper. I passed more people. And then I was across. My wife later told me she and my daughters were standing on the finish line cheering, but I was in a zone. In the chute I noticed I was just behind a girl I had started beside, amazingly. We smiled at each other in recognition as we headed to the water and banana stand. I was on a runner's high. I'd had it before, but being in the lights of downtown in an actual race heightened it.

I finished in 33:11. Just over my hopes, but not bad. I kicked myself for pacing too slowly at the start. I had two weeks and was a bit off what I wanted, but it was within reach. We found out that week what legs we would be running. I was slotted into the number one leg. I would be starting the race!

As you know, the race starts at the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, Oregon and goes to the Pacific Ocean. The initiated will know that the Ocean represents 0 feet above sea level. The Timberline lodge is at 6,000 feet above sea level. In those first 5.64 miles, well, just see for yourself as to the elevation change:

Nearly two thousand feet. It'll be difficult, but I am looking forward to the challenge. Now knowing the longest distance I would need to run, I wanted to have a go. I couldn't replicate the elevation change, but I could do the distance. This past Saturday morning I did so. Fifty-eight thirty-four. 10:23 pace. I had somehow managed to get under 10:30.

There was one thing left for me to do. I knew I was a better runner. I now just needed to figure out how much better. I wanted to do a short run this week to stay on it and then take a few days off before the big event. While I was looking at my spreadsheet after Rassele posted his cumulative totals (nearly 300 miles training in the nine months, twenty pounds lost, tremendous work) I saw that my first run on December 3rd was two miles in 26:18. Over thirteen minutes a mile. I was going to do a two-miler and see just how much I had improved.

So at lunch I drove home and put my running gear on. I stretched out and hopped on the treadmill. My Ipod blared The White Stripes, The Beatles, and then, when I needed it most, with half a mile left in my run, as if by some divine providence, The Swamp reached out and pushed me across. You see, the song that came on was my favorite running song. A tremendous riff at the start, and then just hard charging rock and roll for the next four minutes. The song was "New Orleans is Sinking" and had been sent to me as a part of a Tragically Hip primer set by the Frog's own Scottie. It ended just before two miles was up, but I had all the motivation I needed. I hit two miles in eighteen minutes and fifty-eight seconds. I had broken the 9:30 mark, even if just for two miles. Seven minutes and twenty seconds better than when I started.

The best part? I had something left in the tank. I don't know how much, but there was plenty. And this is a promise, but whatever is left, I'm leaving out there along some country roads in Oregon this weekend. And when I need that extra little kick, I know I'll have Swampers with me, nine literally and countless others figuratively, to get me through it.