Well that settles that.

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted in a while.  I hadn't actually realized how long until the other day when I'd hit almost two months.  Wow! 

My training has been much the same.  I've been running a lot, but just not very long distances.  I'm told that's the key to long races, long training runs.  But this has been quite the summer/fall...

Some things you may have missed:

We got a new roof. 

If you've never gone through that process, you're missing out!  It's awesome to live underneath Beirut while they're hammering and nail-gunning your house!  In our case, we decided to make it extra special, and not only were they supposed to take off the three layers of roof that had been there, but they found there was no decking there either.  Oh Boy!  So we got to (re)place decking for the entire roof.  Now they're working on the inside to clear out mold and look for anything rotten.  Cute fact about plaster... when you tear down a plaster wall, plaster dust gets EVERYWHERE!  We're one day through that process, not sure how much longer that'll take but you can tell I'm on pins and needles with excitement over it...

I've been sick.

Not sure why/what with, I hope to find out Thursday, but for the last two months or so I've been just feeling sick.  Slight sick-headache feeling, little tightness of breath like when you have a chest cold or something.  The doc-in-the-box told me I had walking pneumonia and the flu.  Both tests came back negative (what do those dumb tests know anyways!) but they loaded me up with roids, vitamins and God knows whatelse to see if anything worked.  Nothing has yet. 

Last, but certainly not least...

If you're wondering, those are my feet.

That is a boot.

Quick anatomy lesson... "You're head-bone's connected to your... Neck bone... your..."  Your calf muscles are connected to your foot via your Achilles' Tendon.  In my case, I have a hole in my tendon.  To spare my wife who may read this one day I won't go into detail, but yeah... in a boot for the next two weeks, and then back to the doctor to see. 

So I sent in my withdrawal from Pinhoti yesterday. 

When I called my wife, she asked if I was disappointed or relieved.  I'm a bit of both.  I really want to run that race one day.  But I knew I wasn't ready this year and was going to start anyways, part of being an ultra runner is the willingness to run even when you know you probably shouldn't.  So now I at least have a slight reprieve before I start in Pinhoti 2013! 

I plan to keep this blog going, because there's lots and lots of stuff I want to do between now and then.  From learning what foods I can tolerate on long runs, to an idea of running a 100 here in Birmingham to support the houseless community with a good friend's program Avail.

Check back often!!

Long time no see...

Yes.  I know.  I'm sorry... it's been a while since I've spilled my guts about this insane run I'm hoping to do.

I've been very worried.  I am pretty certain this is completely beyond me.  I have absolutely no doubt this is beyond me.  I confessed to my wife the other day that I feel certain I'm going to let everyone down, and in some way everyone will be disappointed, either in me or what I'm not sure.

See... it happened like this: Back a few weeks ago (like... 6 I think?) we were with our church small group up at Smith Lake.  I got up early that morning for what I thought was going to be a fairly easy 25 mile run.  Easy in the sense I was going to take it easy and felt no fear that I couldn't/wouldn't finish it.  At mile 8 I turned around, realizing that I didn't want to spend all day out running when I had friends and a wife sitting at the lake having fun and just generally not breaking their bodies down. 

I knew something was wrong around 15 when I couldn't run but for a few feet at a time without just completely feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. 

At 18 I was finally back at the house and feeling so completely dejected that I just kind of sat on the dock and stared at the water for a while.  I'm sure I was talking with everyone there and laughing and carrying on, but I was really just inside my head staring at the water thinking it'd be easier for me to run 100 miles on it than on a road or worse a trail.  That's about when I stopped posting.

I also stopped running.  I'd run a few miles, maybe 3-4 on a day I had 12-15 scheduled.  I slept in on Saturdays and Sundays, with 0 miles total run.  I realized how much I missed having Saturday to do stuff, even house stuff or chores. 

It doesn't help somewhere in there I got a slight cold, and for whatever reason I haven't really shaken it - maybe cause the Doctor hasn't figured it out - maybe cause I haven't gone to a doctor... who knows why this stuff happens?!?  But that gave me an excuse.  I sorta feel sick - cough cough - I'd better not run today either.

So I broke the news to my wife.  I said, I don't think I can do this.  I really don't think that I will be able to finish this.  I even went as far as to say that I wasn't sure God was helping me with this...

And she surprised me, she said I needed to keep going.  Now, don't misunderstand, I'm not saying I expected her to tell me to quit or that I think she's a quitter, as she unequivocally is not.  But I guess I was expecting that nurturing answer of "ok dear, if you think you need to, do it..."  She suggested I just keep going, training as if I'm going to attempt it, right up until the day.  Then wake up that day, go as far as I can, and see how far that is.  I started the but... but... but... if I don't finish it'll feel like I've wasted the money... and she reminded me that if I quit without starting I've still wasted the money.  Then I think it was she who said, I wasn't going to disappoint anyone if I don't finish. 

That hit hard. 

I hadn't really put it in those terms before. 

I admitted to my pastor a while back that I know, in my heart, I'm doing this to give glory to the Lord.  He is the only reason my legs work; that I have air to breath in while I attempt this craziness.  But I get really uncomfortable when someone mentions it or if my wife brings it up with anyone else.  Whoever they are get this weird smile of what I assume is amazement and surprise (that whole, yes, I know I don't look like a runner...).  I then stumble a little and let the praise fall on me for a second before I realize it's not me, and typically I've missed the opportunity to bring up Who it's for actually.  I did realize that on that terrible 18/25 miler up near the lake, I start out thinking it's me that's doing this, and when my body is finally broken enough that I'm ready to give up, I give it over to Jesus and it's as if it gets easier and I'm still moving way past where I should have stopped.  So since then I've found it easier, much easier, to talk about why I'm doing this.  But there still must be some of me in it if I'm worried I'm going to let y'all down. 

I sit here writing this and I think about all of it and this is what comes to mind.  My crossing the finish line doesn't bring any more glory to the Lord than my being able to start it.  Assuming I'm still breathing on November 3rd, it's just God's will that it be so, and if on the next day I crawl across a line 100 miles away, again, that is His will. 

There are a few things I've learned over the last several years running on roads and trails.  Pick your feet up, for one.  You'd be surprised how often the trail reaches out and tries to trip you if you don't pick your feet up!  (Also beneficial for avoiding trail Tourette's, that undeniable curse word that flies out immediately after tripping on a rock or root)  Walk the uphills... seems pretty simple until you think you're running too slow and walking is even worse!  But most of all, don't quit on the uphills.  I've only dropped out of one race in my running career.  It wasn't on an uphill.  The thought of quitting is so much easier when you're struggling to get up this current hill.  The trick is to tell yourself that you'll let yourself quit at the top of the hill.  The reason this is a trick is cause by the time you're at the top of the hill you're so happy you overcame it that usually you keep going and before long the thought of quitting is in the past just like that hill.

My amazing wife reminded me, don't quit on the uphill.

A Thursday Bonus!

Ever click random ads on the sides of blogs?  Somehow I discovered the coolest running shirt EVER!!!

So gonna run Pinhoti in this!!

Three 5k's

Yesterday was kind of warm here in Birmingham.  I think I was told it was around 90 when I left work yesterday afternoon to go for my run.  My middle of the week runs rarely get above 5-6, even though I have high mileage on my schedule, it's usually chopped up to two or three runs.  But yesterday I decided to go out and run my 10 miles all at once.  At 4pm.  In 90 degrees. 

I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out.  Not far from my office is a public park that has a 5k course on it.  It's setup for cross-country race meets, so it's a bit mixed terrain that is accurately marked out.  I decided to see if I could run pretty even splits, which is something I struggle with.  I tend to start out at a good pace, but then die at the end.  Doesn't matter how slow I start, I always wind up dying.  But I tried to push some yesterday, and my 5k splits were 33, 33 and 36.  I can live with that! 

I think the credit though belongs to my wife.  She called me early in the first lap to say that she just got a new job!!!!   Somehow that seemed to help my pace a lot!  God and I had about an hour and a half yesterday on the trail for me to thank Him and to discuss how to use this blessing in the most responsible way.  I'm so excited at the thoughts!!!

You'd think though that this stuff would get easier.  I've run just short of 500 miles so far this year, and I'm exhausted today.  I'm not sore (which is great!) but every move seems to take twice the energy it should.

Much thanks to my running wife (Judy) for being game to walk this morning so I could rest up some!

It's official...

I've gone and done it now.  I signed up.  For Pinhoti.  In 5 months I'll either be be starting (and with God's grace and strength finishing) a 100 mile footrace; or, I just bought two VERY expensive t-shirts, that I can't wear.

Over the weekend I made my wife watch a movie.  You could call it inspiring but that would be somehow not enough of a word.  It's called Unbreakable: the Western States 100.  It is the story of the first ever 100 mile endurance race, the man who first ran it, and a journey of four elite runners who faced off for the 2010 Western States race.

It was so inspiring that it even made my wife want to go out and run after we got done!  I promised I wouldn't ever tell her secret, but she even said she could see herself running a...

Ha!  You thought I was gonna say a certain distance race, didn't you?  Nope... newly married, not dumb.

Where was I?  Oh yeah... WS100.  Ok... so quick run down, in the 50's a trail race on horses was started out in California.  In 1971 and 72 a man named Gordy Ainsleigh finished the trail on his horse.  In '73 he went back again, only this time on a different horse.  But unfortunately his horse came up lame and he was pulled from the race.  

Ever have that problem?  Think you're betting on a winning horse and all of the sudden the rug gets pulled out from under you?

In 1974 Mr. Ainsleigh decided to try it on foot.  His own two feet, to be precise.  He finished in 23 hours 42 minutes.  He even beat some of the horses on the course that day!   


For more of the story, go to the WS100 page.


I just wanted to share some about the race that started all of this.


By started all of this, I mean both ultra-running and my love of running.  The WS100 became an official race in 1977 with like 19 entrants.  Now, more than 1,000 people who meet the qualifications sign up for the 400 lottery slots each year.  There are literally hundreds of ultra-marathons (greater than 26.2miles) in the US each year with several thousand runners attempting a new and longer distance they've never tried before.  All because a man ran faster than a few horses.


But I also mean my push to run 100.  Honestly, I'm not sure it's possible.  I'm not 100% sure it's possible that any human, let alone me, can do that.  I've seen it done, yet I still doubt.


I was sitting in my dorm room in Korea in 2002 reading a Runner's World magazine.  I had a lot of time on my hands back then, life was just going from the dining facility to work to the gym and back to my dorm.  Back in my dorm I was reading the RW trying to pick up tips to run better.  I wasn't in love with running at the timec I just wanted to figure out how to make it easier so I could keep doing it to stay fit for the Air Force.  That's when I found a story about the WS100 and thought, there's no way anyone could run 100 miles!  No way!  But it intrigued me to no end.  I made up my mind, I was going to do it!  That day I went for a run, made it to 6 miles for the first time in my life, and promptly felt like I was going to die!  My legs were so shaky that night I couldn't stand for more than a few minutes at a time.  


The next month I saw an article about an 81 year old man running IronMan Hawaii... but I'll share that story another time.


The movie showed 4 guys who were trying to win the race that day.  It showed the struggle, the motivations, the pain and the triumph as Goeff Roes eventually--in relative terms--won the race, setting a new course record of 15 hours 7 minutes.  He'd beaten the previous course record by almost 30 minutes!  If you pull out your calculators, that's an average pace of 9:04/mile!  That's barely a 4 hour marathon!!!!


One requirement to race the WS is to have completed one of the listed 100-milers.  Of which the Pinhoti is one.  I guess if I survive this November, I'll have that requirement taken care of; if not then I guess it won't matter ;-)

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!!