Things I picked up on the trail today

Hello defeat, thine name is Nutrition

I hit a wall today, hard.  Around 9.5 miles, I was just barely over halfway into my run this afternoon and bam, I was done.  It comes on just that quick.  I'm about certain it was a lack of food, I had only had one slice of pizza and a egg and chicken bagel from Chick-fil-A at that point and those were several hours earlier. 

I have always struggled with nutrition and finding the right balance between eating enough to fuel, and eating till I'm full, which is usually more than I really need.  That's defintely going to be a struggle through this process.

My 1 Kings 19 verse popped into my head when I finally gave up running and just started walking out of the trail to my car.  The Angel woke Elijah and told him to eat, that the distance was too great for him.  Kinda made me ok with having to walk out of the woods defeated today, knowing that even Elijah with his terrific relationship with God still has to eat too.

I really put my foot in it...

Back in 2009 I was running my second 50k here in Birmingham at the Oak Mountain 50k.  I was running with a good running friend of mine, Heather, and we had picked up another guy running along with us.  I can't remember his name but the two things I remember the most about him were his running style, and he didn't waste any time trying to skip from stone to stone when crossing water. 

Heather and I and all the other runners out that day were spending a awful lot of energy trying to step from stone to stone desperately trying to not get our feet wet in the creek crossing.  He just jumped right in and walked beside us chuckling the whole time.  For whatever reason I still find myself trying to stay dry even to this day.  I was going across a probably 15-20 foot wide crossing in the Moss Rock Preserve today and was about halfway across, feeling very impressed with myself at those feats of bravery I was acomplishing by staying dry so far... then slip, blooosh.  Dry, no more.  But what I found was that really made my feet feel good!  I was a like an ice cold bath, but just perfect!  I started running when I got across, and what do you know, my feet didn't fall off, and I think my shoes may even be cleaner now.  Huh!  Maybe I'll skip the stones all together from now on??

What?!?!

My cat Sebastian has the most amussing kitty personality ever!  First off, he's as stubburn as an animal can be.  When he decides he's going to get in your lap, he's gonna do it.  There's no two ways around it!  Ask my wife and right now she's chuckling at the fact that it's true, he'll just make up his mind and we better just move around him cause that's it.  But you can also tell him no, and I swear he understands it.  I'm not saying he does it, at least not all the time, but he knows the intent.  He'll shoot you a look like 'WHAT?!?!?  I'm sitting here, leave me alone!' 

I ran into an owl today.  Almost literally.  My run today started late and it was around 6:30 as I was walking out from my aforementioned defeat, and I came around a corner and this HUGE owl just swooped in, grabbed something from the side of the trail, looked at me and then flew off.  It was breathtaking, and I'll admit, I may have wet myself I was so startled.  But the look the owl gave me was priceless.  'WHAT?!?!  I saw it first, it's mine!!'  I swear!  I looked about 20 feet down the trail and there was another owl sitting in the trail looking at me too.  It's expression was more of, 'yes?  Can I help you?'  Made me laugh out loud, that's how both my cats are, one says he's doing whatever he wants, the other just kinda oblivious and then bolts away, just like the owls.

But it was impressive watching those two birds fly off.  They each had to have had 6-7 foot wingspans.  So beautiful.  I'm not sure who was scared more, me or them, but I know who got the most style points for their exit!

Aside from the joy of walking the hills, the best part of trail running is nature.  No cars to puff smoke at you, no hot asphault burning your feet, no annoying car drivers yelling "run Forrest, run"... just you and whatever God made for as far as you can see (until you turn a corner and see the parking lot ahead...).  

God Save the Queen!! And other reasons to run 100

A few days ago I mentioned the extra .2 was the Brit's fault, well, I looked it up just cause I couldn't remember the entire story.  Goes something like this...

So we all know who Pheidippides is, right?  You missed him in your ancient Greek class?  Well, he's the reason we run marathons.  Or at least where the name marathon came from.  See, he was an Athenian runner, he actually got paid to run (man am I jealous!) who ran from Marathon to Athens Greece to let tell the king of the victory over Persia.  He then promptly died.

In honor of his historic and monumental feat (feet??) the Greeks held, during the first Olympics in 1896, the first modern marathon, having runners go 40k (24.8ish miles) from the Marathon bridge to the Olympic Stadium in Athens.  The next few marathons (Boston began their race in 1897, 1900 & 1904 Olympics, etc) were a fairly standard 25 miles.  But in 1908 when the Olympics went to London they had a course set out that was extended to 26 miles.  It was set to end at the front of a stadium, but the royal box was at the other end of the stadium, 385 yards away.  Enter Queen Alexandra. 

A tradition I hadn't previously experienced but I'm pretty sure I will spearhead here in Birmingham: at mile 24 a tradition developed to yell out "God save the Queen!"  If it weren't for her after all we'd be done now.

In the 1924 Olympics the distance was standardized to 26 miles, 385 yards (42.195 kilometers).  I suppose we should be happy.  Apparently the track the race ended on (where the royal box was 385 yards away) was round and the racers could have been made to run around the other direction, and it could have been even longer!  God save the Queen!!

Now what does this have to do with running 100 miles, you ask?  Well... that's the interesting part!  See, I've known the story of Pheidippides (or Phidippides or Philippides) for a while now.  Or so I thought...

The real story (and probably the reason the guy died...) was that Pheidippides was really tired when he ran that marathon.  See, earlier that week, he was sent to request the help of the Spartans in defending Athens.  So he did.  In roughly 36 hours.  He covered over 250 kilometers, or roughly 150 miles to the other Americans out there, in 36 hours.  The Spartans said no.  Or rather, they said not yet, that they couldn't march until after the new moon in like 2 weeks, but then they would.  He then promptly turned around and RAN BACK!  He made it back in time to join in a surprise attack by the Athenians who routed the Persians!  He was then sent to Athens to report of their victory.  He covered the 40k, arrived at the kings foot and said something like "victory, we won!"  And gasped his last breath. 

So now there's this race called the Spartathlon that recognizes the really amazing part of the story.  It's a 153 mile race held late September in Greece.  It has a cutoff of 36 hours.  That sounds really daunting, doesn't it?  It's only an average pace of 14:07 minutes per mile.  To just qualify for Boston I'd have to run 7:03 min/mile.  Sounds easy, no?

Reading about the other side of Pheidippides' story brought so many emotions to the surface.  First off a little defense, to all the people who tell me it's crazy to run 100 miles, I can say oh yeah, well 2500 years ago they did it three times in a row, so there!  It also makes me wonder about the Spartans and their mythical status.  If a guy just ran 150 miles to come ask for my help, I think I'd be obliged just on principal.  But most of all, it fills me with dread.  I'm gonna get killed when I ask my wife to go with me to Greece, not for a family vacation, not for an anniversary or something special, but just cause I want to be a SPARTATHLETE!!

God truly answers prayers...

So this morning I was SLOOOOOOWWWWWW getting out of bed.  I stayed up too late last night reading and when the alarm went off I suffered for my poor choices. 

I was supposed to go running with some friends like I do every Wednesday (every being very, very, liberal...).  Luckily, it was raining this morning; I mean, darn.  So yeah! got to go back to sleep for about 20 minutes, until it was time to get up and go run on the treadmill at work. 

But... that's not the way God was answering prayers.  Not that I wasn't kinda hoping it'd still be raining this morning, but He fed me.

I'm walking out of the house knowing that I don't have anything to take with me for breakfast.  I debated for a second if I should stop by Arby's and just leave it on my desk while I ran, but I just said aloud... "God'll provide.  I'm good." 

While I was running I just assumed after I got off that I'd go for a biscuit run or something and assumed a few of my coworkers would want something too.  But the first person I asked said no, she'd brought something.  The second person was talking about this huge breakfast casserole they've been eating on for days (not a nice thing to talk about to a hungry person, just sayin...).  Then, I asked the third person.  He yelled back from his office that he already had a biscuit, for me.  He just happened to have bought an extra egg mcmuffin for me.

Yep.  God provided for me.  Maybe in a way the rain this morning was His plan so I'd see He will provide.  Had it not been raining I would have run with my friends, then stopped by the coffee shop where we finish and I would have gotten breakfast there.

Something I do every time I go to a Zaxby's drive-thru is pay for the next person's (or 2 sometimes...) order behind me.  I don't do it every drive-thru I go through cause I just can't roll like that.  But the wife and I love Zaxby's so we go there fairly frequently.  I'm hoping when I do that the person behind me thinks the same thing.  Dunno for sure cause as soon as they hand me back my card and I drive off with my food I high-tail it out of there just cause I think it'd feel weird to still be sitting there.  But that's my hope.  Today though I got to tell my friend that he got to be a part of God's plan this morning...

I know... a biscuit, and technically not a biscuit but an English muffin, isn't even a concern to God... but it's just so nice and so very comforting to know that I don't have to worry.  It just blows me away how concerned He is for me. 

So I thought I'd share my training plan for the rest of the year.


 

I was so sad on Thursday.  I had a rough time crawling out of bed so I ended up just running 2 before work, thinking I only had to do 4 total that day.  Nope... 6.  That meant I had 4 more after work!!  NO!!!!!

Yes... I know, that's a lot.  I do have a few marathons slipped in there.  The weekend before Thanksgiving up in Nashville is the funnest, quirkiest, marathon of them all.  It's call the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon and it's just outrageous, complete with my good friend Janice Posey dressed up as Dorothy, complete with red slippers and everything!

One of the reasons I love trail runs are the people.  I ran a trail marathon for my third marathon back in 2008.  I was caught completely off guard by the winners who were... well, nice... I mean, they said hi, were encouraging, one even stopped and got out of my way!  If you've ever run any kind of road race, you'll know there's nothing like that on the road.  But, that is completely common on a trail race.  Harpeth Hills is one of the exceptions, I think.  Now granted, the winners are usually running too fast to be encouraging, but it's the only race I've ever seen where the winner is still there watching and cheering in the other runners even 4-5 hours after they've finished!  That doesn't happen at any other marathon I know of...

The following week I'm hoping to run the Memphis St. Jude's marathon.  This one has a couple of very special connections for me.  First cause it's the first road race I've ever run.  I ran it in 2007 as the first half I'd ever tried.  But, and this is the second reason I want to run it this year... in 2007 (and again this year) it was held on December 1st.  The anniversary of my mother's passing.

I think if she were around she'd just roll her eyes at me when I tell her about Pinhoti, but she'd be proud.  She'd just tell me not to push too hard or something and then laugh...

Some humor...

This is how I feel sorta...



I took a little journey up the stairs to take a shower after I got home. Took a while. How can I be so graceful running up and down trails for three hours this morning and then can't walk up and down stairs? So not fair!

Some simple steps to becoming a trail runner... This is a great site I like to go to some. The humor is well, dirty, but that may be all the trails those guys run.

So I had a pretty good run this morning. I think my average was around 13 minutes per mile. Hard to imagine that twelve years ago I was able to run two miles in the same time. But I guess back then the idea of running 10+ miles was just as ludicrous, so it works out I guess. #79 You strap on your water bottles and walk the hills... in a 5 K race and consider that your 10 minute pace is a blistering pace.

Sorry for the interruption... the pizza guy showed up. So that was random, but he literally looked at his stub and said thanks. He looked at his tip! Who does that? As my wife said, at least he didn't complain or say thanks cheapskate or something...

So this week I went and got taped. If you hadn't heard I'm trying to rejoin the ANG as a chaplain's assistant. But I have to lose some weight first. Really the weight loss isn't the goal. According to the Air Force I'm supposed to weight no more than 191 pounds. I guess I could cut off my left leg... that'd make up the difference maybe. But the other option is I can have a low enough body fat percentage. The way they check that, they measure my neck, my waist, my height, plug that into a really complicated calculation and voila, they have my percentage. I tried to ask for a waiver. I argued that if I complete 100 miles in November that surely that'd count for something. Right?

So I went up an inch from last month to this month. What?? Oh well. So back to the training plan. It practically goes up exponentially over the next few weeks so I'm sure that'll help somehow. By the end of the month I'll be up around 20 on Saturday and probably 10-15 on Sunday.

I'm actually excited at that prospect, even if it doesn't sound like it. I'm positively curious how much strength God's going to give me during this process! :-)

You're gonna do what?

I'm gonna hit the brakes, and he'll fly right on by.

Sorry, Top Gun was a favorite movie of mine as a kid...

I get a lot of strange looks when I say I run marathons.  There's the inevitable questions, how long is this one, why, who's chasing you?  All of us runners have heard these.  When I mention I'm running a 50k this weekend, the blank gaze comes on... maybe they're doing the math, yes, 31ish miles.  Yes, I'll be running for around 8 hours.  No, no one will be chasing me.  I don't really know why...

I'm going to try and run 100 miles this November.

Done thinking about how far that is?  It's from Heflin to Sylacauga if you're curious.  I'll have 30 hours to complete the distance.  I'm hoping to better my friend's time of 29.5 hours.  Yes, that's more or less non-stop.

Here's why: God.  1Kings19:7 - And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, "Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you."  I don't look like a runner.  I looked it up and I'm literally 80 pounds heavier than the average elite marathon runner, though I've completed 15 so far.  The only explanation I have is the strength of the Lord.  I'm not running 100 to test the Lord, but to praise the fact He'll give me the strength and perseverance to go the distance.   How awesome are His machines that we can run that far, for that long with so little sustenance?  On a typical 4 hour marathon I may only eat 3-4 gu's (little energy packs about the size of a ketchup pack - 60-100 calories) and aside from water or Gatorade don't drink anything.  Amazing!! 

So I thought I'd start a blog to journal this adventure and showcase what God is doing in my life.  And answer a few questions about running.

How long is this marathon: All marathons are 26.2 miles.  You can thank the Brits for the extra .2.  The nobles were too lazy to walk to the end of their driveway so they had the race extended so they could watch the finish from their balcony.  Thanks.  Halfs are, well, half.  13.1 miles.  Sometimes they come with fun names for shorter runs, like a mini-marathon for a 2.x mile run, etc.  But yes, a marathon is 26.2 miles...

Why: Mainly cause I can.  The t-shirts are cool, the medals are usually pretty cool, you can eat whatever you want during the training... take your pick.  I just do it cause it's fun and I like to see how far far is...

Who's chasing you: well... I suppose the slow people behind me.  Though as I get slower and slower each year I don't think that applies as much.  Maybe the fat kid I ate when I was kid... or again, cause it means if I run 20 miles every Saturday for 4 months in training I can eat pizza every weekend without any guilt!! :-)

Why would I ever want to run 100 miles?  Most people don't even like to drive 100 miles.  I don't either, butt always gets tired and I get really bored unless my wife is there keeping me company.  But for the 30 hours of running, I'm going to have a lot on my mind, doubt I'll get bored at all!  And I'm fascinated by the body God has given me.  As mentioned I'm not in great shape (though maybe after all this running in training...?) and I'm certainly not special (even my mom would agree with that...) but I have no doubt that with God pacing me I'll have no problems.   

So I guess as my wife would say, let the adventure begin!