Pretty good intervals on a bad day, trading Voomaxer for Sporttracks, tapering for the race

There are mornings when you don't even feel like you can jog – much less run intervals.  That was what I felt like when the alarm went off at 5:30 today.  And what I felt like while I was lacing up my shoes, pounding a shot of coffee, eating a slice of bread with peanut butter, stretching.  And it's what I felt like for most of the run, too, slogging up hills and through rain showers.  But despite the feeling that intervals were totally beyond me today, somehow I got through them.  Not my best times, but not my worst either. The times surprised me. I feel like hard workouts like this are part of the equation, necessary for growth.  Then again, doesn't the initial narrative underscore the idea that feelings alone do not always define the reality of a situation?

No more Voomaxer updates.  

I've been logging my training using Voomaxer, a Facebook app, since last fall.  It's a great app and I recommend – but I'm moving on.  Kris got me a Garmin Forerunner 205 for my birthday and this GPS enabled training watch connects directly to my home computer after a run and automatically logs my pace, distance, etc. and calculates my route on a map.  (All using the Sporttracks training software – thanks Malcolm for the suggestion!)   I'll write more on the Garmin later … but suffice for the moment to say the thing is awesome, and the real time pace readout is improving my training significantly.

Time to taper…

After today's intervals, just a few more short, easy runs and then I'm resting until Tuesday night's ten-miler in Newburyport.  Phew…

Wendell Berry on Brothers, Sons, Perseverance

There’s a beautiful, sad story called “Stand by Me” by Wendell Berry in The Atlantic summer 2008 fiction issue.  The voice is first person rural poetry, simple and pragmatic, and tells a story about brothers and sons and death and living through it.  It’s the kind of story that is either beautiful or cheaply awful, depending on how good the writer is.  In this case, it’s beautiful.  Here’s a passage that I wanted to think about again: “They stay with you, and in a way you go with them. They don’t live on in your heart, but your heart knows them.  As your heart gets bigger on the inside, the world gets bigger on the outside. If the dead were alive only in this world, you would forget them, looks like, as soon as they die. But you remember them because they were always living in the other, bigger world while they lived in this little one, and this one and the other one are the same.”

Marathon Training Update: Registered for the Race, Pizza Theory Continues To Hold True

I registered for the Maine Marathon (Oct. 5) today.  I've twelve more weeks to finish getting in shape for my first marathon.  I'm pretty confident I can handle the distance – maybe a little less confident that I can do the distance in under 3:15 (which is 7:26 minute miles, and a Boston qualifying time for my age group).  But I have a lot of faith in training, and I've seen changes in my shorter distance race times that I would have considered impossible, all just due to miles, systematic training routines (long run, speed work, tempo run, rest run and off days) and … pizza and beer (more on that in a minute).

More than forty miles this week

This week marked a big milestone – first week of training since I really got serious about running last November (in order to prepare for the Half at the Hamptons in February) that I ran more than forty miles.  Seems like a psychological barrier gone.  How do you make time for this kind of training?  You start getting up really early every day and run before anyone else is even awake.  How do you keep your body from breaking down with fewer rest days? (I ran five days this week instead of four, and will work it up to six, with some of those days being easy/rest runs.)  So far, it seems like easy runs in between training run days are actually helping to keep my muscles loose and limber and they don't seem to be impeding my recovery between hard runs.

Pizza and beer theory 

This morning's long run wasn't a long, long one – but at 16 mega-hilly miles, it was long enough to test my pizza theory again.  By mile ten last week I was feeling tapped, and by the time I finished all 18 I had totally run into the wall.  This week after ten miles of near constant hill climbing, I felt really strong.  Strong enough to be pushing for tempo on the flats and declines.  And I still felt strong at the end – well enough to run the last couple miles at my tempo pace.  The main difference between this week's run and last week's?  More hills, a little cooler, and I ate four huge slices of pepperoni and sausage pizza and drank a few Sam Adams beers last night, then went to bed early and got eight hours of sleep.  I have never had an energy problem during a long run after that exact diet regimen the night before. Pasta?  Lean chicken and vegetables?  All things I like, but they just don't seem to carry me through a long run like a big greasy pizza.  Is that weird?  Not that it matters.  Weird or scientifically valid (or both), I'm convinced and that's going to be my race eve meal…

Also registered for the Yankee Homecoming 10-Miler in Newburyport July 29.  Should be fun!     

Neo-Amish Digital Dropouts

Via Greenflame – Check out this post by Kevin Kelly on "Neo-Amish Digital Dropouts."

Seems like the closer you are to totally plugged in, the closer you'd be to wishing to unplug entirely.  In my life it feels like I ride through surges of intense connectivity followed by spates of odd revulsion to being so connected...

Text Messages Not Destroying Formal Language

Via the LanguageHat blog: David Crystal of the UK Guardian writes: "Research has made it clear that the early media hysteria about the novelty (and thus the dangers) of text messaging was misplaced. In one American study, less than 20% of the text messages looked at showed abbreviated forms of any kind - about three per message. And in a Norwegian study, the proportion was even lower, with just 6% using abbreviations. In my own text collection, the figure is about 10%..."  And in general: "A trillion text messages might seem a lot, but when we set these alongside the multi-trillion instances of standard orthography in everyday life, they appear as no more than a few ripples on the surface of the sea of language. Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster."

Running errands ... sort of...

Coffee, hot chocolate and checkers at Starbucks with David.

Beware The Clown! And Love The Vacation

Well, it's taken three full days back from vacation before I've found five minutes to actually post a note about vacation! It was a busy time, with two weekends of family get-togethers (great to see you all again! happens too infrequently!) and birthdays (mine included... am finally officially reconciled to being old - ha, never, will outrun it yet!) and travel and adventures in between. One of our adventures included a day at Storyland -- which the kids loved and were the perfect ages for. Pictured are David and Sofia, appropriately wary of the strange creature sitting next to them...

Kris has a post about the trip here as well.

A Professional Religion Writer With Zero Understanding Of Catholic Beliefs About Communion

And it seems, very little respect for the beliefs and traditions of other people. These would be traits one would expect to be present in greater quality and quanity in a professional religion writer. Washington Post/Newsweek writer Sally Quinn on taking communion at Tim Russert's funeral: "Last Wednesday at Tim's funeral mass at [Holy]Trinity Church in Georgetown (Jack Kennedy's church), communion was offered. I had only taken communion once in my life, at an evangelical church. It was soon after I had started "On Faith" and I wanted to see what it was like. Oddly I had a slightly nauseated sensation after I took it, knowing that in some way it represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Last Wednesday I was determined to take it for Tim, transubstantiation notwithstanding. I'm so glad I did. It made me feel closer to him."

There are so many things wrong with this (many summed up in the comments on TNR's post on the subject, that include's Quinn's response)... Melinda Henneberger has a great column on the fracas (and how it seems to a unifying point for liberal and conservative Catholics) in Slate. 

Gin event makes for nice transition to summer

An annual part of moving from spring to summer for me is the ritual transition from the beloved warm amber of the single-malt Scotch to the icy clear shimmer of the gin martini, up, dry, with a twist of lime. Which is not to say that I’d decline a Scotch June, July or August, or a martini at Christmas time … any more than I’d refrain from red wine with fish if that’s what I was in the mood for; sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants. But generally speaking, I do martinis in the summer.

Which made New Hampshire Business Review’s most recent Top Shelf Tasting event a perfect compliment for the season– a gin tasting on a warm June evening at Cotton (www.cottonfood.com/) , along the banks of the Merrimack River in Manchester’s historic Millyard.

Check out the rest at The Telegraph's After Hours blog.

Wrong turn turns planned ten mile run into a 17-miler; worries wife; delivers new product idea

It was one of those days where you end up wanting to run just a bit further… and a bit further. And then suddenly you have no idea where you are and only a very general sketch of the map in your head. You know you can get back to the start, but you're not sure if it's going to be three more miles or ten…

It's Monday, a vacation day, and Kris and the kids let me sleep late. Coffee and a good breakfast. "How far are you going," Kris asks. "Long run?" (I'd skipped Sunday since we were visiting down at Kris' mom's house with Kris' sister and her family back from Ohio.) "I don't know exactly. But not that, no. At least six. Maybe a few more. Depends on how I feel."

I ran south along the river, along a path I'd never taken before. Then east into the city and finally north again to hook up with some of my standard route. After crossing the Amoskeag Bridge, where I usually turn south again and head for home, I figured I'd keep going west a bit farther and loop wider around. After all, I was feeling good, easy (exploring always seems to make me want to run just a little further), and there'd have to be a cut over at some point. There wasn't. At one point I tried for one but just ending up running a half mile down a very steep hill and finding a loop road at the bottom that led me straight back up said steep again on the other side.

Big hills are a pretty standard feature on Goffstown back roads, it turns out.

About an hour and a half into the run, with clearly a ways left to go, I began to seriously worry that I was going to be seriously worrying Kris by the time I got back. After all, I hadn't said exactly how far I was going, but my implication had been that I was keeping it short-ish. No phone. No payphone. And no water or food, which I would usually either carry or loop back to the house for on any run longer than 12 miles. Just more back roads. Kris would have expected an hour and a half. Two hours? Maybe… but longer than that… not typical without the food and water setup.

Finally, at two hours I find my way back onto a familiar stretch of state road. I'm three miles from the house. I crank them out and feel pretty good, especially since I had no mid-run snack or water. Thus proving my pizza and cocktails hypothesis (I have never lost my steam on a long run when I ate just a bit too much pizza and drank just enough cocktails the night before.)

The upside? Being just lost enough -- again. And having a sense that I could keep going long enough to get home, however long that was. And finding out the long runs are getting easier each time. I may almost be ready to hit my goal time at Portland this October. The downside? Worrying Kris – who was ready to get into the van and come looking for by the time I got back.

NEW PRODUCT IDEA

Time to start carrying a phone with me? Probably not … but Kris suggests a watch that not only has built in GPS, maps and pace and distance calculation – but also a text messenger: "k running late, fine – but where does back goffstown rd come out? love, e" Are you listening, Garmin?

Newspaper Death Watch Asks: Murdoch Industry Saviour?

Seems plausible ... radically reworking existing models seems like something that needs to happen and something Murdoch is willing to do, especially considering the diversified media power he controls. Paul Gillin writes "[...] Murdoch could do some interesting things to leverage economies of scale. And those properties could do a lot worse than to have Rupert as the boss. When you consider the alternative scenarios of bankers or professional investors taking over businesses they know nothing about, then the prospect of ownership by a savvy and successful media tycoon looks pretty palatable. As controversial as Murdoch’s tactics sometimes are, the man has a remarkable track record and a vision for the future of media. He is also one of the few publishers in the world who is investing in newspapers right now."

The Future of Newspapers

I love the current flood trade articles that begin by positing they’ve uncovered: “the future of newspapers.” Particularly given the diversity of single magic bullets and the number of futures predicted… one would have to conclude that the newspaper industry exists in a sort of Schrödinger's Cat box of infinite quantum possibility – in which an infinite number of futures are not only possible but also true – at least until the box is open.

Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give

The skin between the matter of the world and the mystery that lies behind it was thin today. So thin that the forests, the ferny, mist-shrouded vales, the high fields that presented mighty views across green Central Massachusetts valleys, all pulsed with it, hummed with life, whispered spirit. It was Father's Day, and after breakfast with Kris, the kids and Kris' mom, then Mass, I was running. Our weekend travels had led us back to Central Mass., where Kris' mom lives, and I was climbing through the first five (all uphill) miles of a fifteen miler… and I've never felt happier running uphill in my life. The weather was gray and cool, perfect for a long run, and when a light breeze came up, it would shake water off the trees that leaned in close on either side of the narrow, winding road; one faded yellow line down the middle of the cracked blacktop that ran between crumbling stone walls and tangled old apple trees left to grow wild, now in full bloom. There were hardly any cars – the only sounds were the occasional cacophony of birds and squirrels, and my own breath in my ears blending with the sound of the air rushing past as I ran. Perhaps it was church earlier, or Father's Day, or being down at Kris' childhood home, or how great the kids were being, or the wedding we'd come out to be part of the preliminary get together for, or all of those things, but that rushing air, breathing with my breath, made me think of God breathing, the roaring whisper of the holy spirit. Little by little my head and heart emptied out everything except the road, the trees, the high gray sky, and gratitude. A line from one of the readings at the morning Mass came back to me … "Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give." I got it finally. Halfway through the run, Kris and the kids pulled up in the van – offered a water bottle, orange sections, a handful of cashews. She'd insisted on coming out. A Father's Day treat. The kids piled out the van and gave kisses and high fives. And I don't know what else to write that wouldn't just be a gush of sentimentality; I don't know how to end this post … partly because I don't want it to end. So I'll leave it unfinished, like ending a melodic phrase on a half cadence … I hope it hangs, echoing, rushing in my ears like that harmony of respiration and inspiration, and then the chorus round again.

The Healthful Benefits of Getting Lost

Ever since the last race, my runs have felt unusually grueling; totally lacking those occasional moments of fleet-footedness, the mild euphoria, the sense of strength. Topping it off, there's been a lot to do (I know – who doesn't have more on their plate than they feel like they can stomach these days!), and for some reason sleep's been coming hard.  Last night, for example, I lay there tossing and turning until at 11:30 I had to get up and read Will Durant's history of Rome starting with the Etruscans (Caesar and Christ) until almost one before I was ready to lay down again.  Given all this, I felt like I was going to fall asleep at the dinner table.  By the time the dishes were cleared and the kids were on their way to bed at 8 p.m., I was ready to bag tonight's run all together.  But there's no time tomorrow, and I needed one more before Sunday's long run – so I went.  And it was awesome.  I didn't think about speed, let my tempo be whatever it wanted to be.  And I didn't think much about my route. I just ran – toward the river because I wanted to be near the water, I guess.  Over the new footbridge that connects the West Side to the East south of the Fisher Cats Stadium.  Up through the Millyard.  Through the parks.  Always with the smell and the roar of the big water of the Merrimack along side.  Past the kids on their bikes, the students, the homeless men with their beer cans and sleeping bags, the old men walking with their canes, the guys working on the parking lots in front of the old brick mills, the women walking their dogs; and then looping around to come like an arrow down Elm Street past the people on the stoops in front of the apartment buildings, teenaged girls and boys, sullen young men smoking and scowling, wearing sunglasses in the dark, little kids playing on the sidewalk in their pajamas, then into the bright lights of downtown, cruising back over the bridge as real dark settled in, through clouds of hatching mayflies coming off the river, bugs drowning in the sweat pouring off my face, bugs in my eyes and mouth, then back onto the West Side and heading toward home again.  Time came back a little.  And then I was home.  Wasn't a particularly fast run; but it felt fast in that good way that doesn't feel like hard work but feels a little like payback for all the other miles you've run in the past.  Like every once in a while you get a free one.  Thanks for that.  I'm pretty sure I'll sleep fine tonight.

In Explorers of the Infinite Coffey reveals the spiritual and paranormal experiences of extreme athletes

I did not enjoy my run yesterday. It was my long run of the week, and it was intensely humid, even early in the morning. I felt tired before I got off the front porch. Every mile was hard work; some might have even qualified as grueling. Along the way, aches and pains that have not cropped up for months returned, en masse it seemed, to remind me over the course of two hours, of every single running injury I've ever sustained. And at least once or twice during the run, that old question resurfaced: "Why am I doing this?"

My current best answer to this question occurred to me while reading Maria Coffey's Explorers of the Infinite. The book focuses on the spiritual and paranormal experiences of extreme athletes, including mountaineers, cyclists, ultra-marathoners, and the like. And while I don't presume to lump my quite moderate addiction to distance running in with their experiences, there's common ground and language, enough to make the stories both compelling and somehow useful in understanding my own compulsions.

Coffey documents these experiences in terms of the causes (fear, extreme focus, suffering) and the experiences themselves (intense connection, precognition, other types of extra sensory perception, ghosts). This matrix of spiritual and extreme physical that underlies the book touches on a number of religious traditions and world-views and illuminates common experiences. Coffey also presents skeptical, scientific explanations (many of which seem like the most likely explanations) for a number of the seemingly paranormal experiences.

The answer to "why am I doing this," is related in a number of ways to the answer to a deeper "why" - the core "why" that drives all religion and philosophy. And as a Catholic who practices the tradition of fasting during Lent, for example, I've long accepted that physical deprivation could lead to spiritual re-awakening and reconnection with God - one of many examples of the tangible intersection of the physical and spiritual in my own religion, and one that can be found in many others as well.

In her chapter on suffering, Coffey quotes climber Joe Tasker, who wrote of an expedition up Kanchenjunga in 1978: "I could not answer my own questions of whether I was here because I really wanted to be here or whether I felt I had to drive myself on, no matter the suffering involved...I wondered if climbing one of the world's highest mountains made one a better person, if it would give me courage and strength in other aspects of life. Only reaching the top would answer that and I no longer knew what the motivation was which would enable me to put one foot in front of the other when there was only pain, and shortage of air, and no fun or enjoyment."

From the traditions of Tibetan mystics to Manchurian shamans to Christian saints, suffering in wild places is tied to religious and metaphysical experience. In the early 1900s, Igjugarjuk, an Inuit from Northern Canada told Knut Rasmussen of the shamanic initiation he'd undergone: "All the true wisdom is only to be found far from the dwellings of men, in the great solitudes, and it can only be attained through suffering. Suffering and privation are the only things that can open the mind of man to that which is hidden from his fellows."

I don't want to imply the book (or endurance sport in general) is about masochism; it's not. Suffering is a symptom, and sometimes a means, not the goal. Which brings us around again to the question of why. The answer found in many of the tales in Coffey's book lies in one of the effects suffering has - it strips away the superfluous and allows for connection - connection to the absolute present, to the earth and environment, to the self - to something beyond the self (for some of the athletes, it's the universe, or God). This is a similar effect to the one produced by extreme focus or concentration, which the sports Coffey writes about also demand.

As you continue on, the question of "why" (thinking) fades in importance relative to the distance traveled, the degree suffered, the layers scraped away, until the question is gone, lost in the stunning immediacy of "I am." The ontological beauty of this perfect immediacy contains the answer to the why.

Or put perhaps more succinctly, as when Coffey quotes Duncan Ferguson at the outset of one of the last chapters of the book: "Climbing is the lazy man's way to enlightenment."

In the end, life itself is an extreme endurance sport - anybody who's gotten up morning after morning through a dark stretch of days, wondering how they'll get through the coming hours, and had to contrast that with those brief, spectacular moments of euphoria that mark the other end of the emotional spectrum has a good analogy for a marathon or a mountain ascent. Because of that, Coffey's book has something to say to a reader with a few deep "whys" rattling around their heads and hearts, regardless of whether they participate in extreme endurance sports, run the occasional 5K or simply prefer their Everest expeditions via the Discovery Channel.