trails and more trails

Back on the bike…for about 6 weeks now, and yea it was running injury influenced I’ve been bouncing around endurance sports for the past 20 years now – triathlon, running, bike racing, trail running,  back and forth around the various forms of heavy breathing. It is so good to be back for a lot of different reasons. For one – I am really enjoying being around my bike riding friends again, and also meeting a lot of new ones as there are quite a few new people involved in the 4+ years I was gone. And oh my, the mountain bike sure is fun. Bombing down a bumpy single track trail with the bike dancing all sorts of way underneath you is such a fun experience. Elbows up, body centered, like a surgeon planting your tires between trail hazards and hitting the perfect line, only to completely drill something you didn’t see and flip over the bars the next second is still so much fun.  Hell, I’ve been pedaling on dirt for about 30 years now, ever since we made a supercross track for our BMX bikes in the fields behind Cloverbank school back in good ole NY.

  Riding on dirt or mud is always the most fun, but the road has been surprisingly fun if I get on the correct road meaning a steep incline or decline, or tailwind, or fast group ride. Well the more I think about it all of it is enjoyable except for trying to ride directly into a huge headwind. It will be nice when I get my good road bike back also (Are you reading this Gaby??????? : ) as I do have my Ksyriums all ready to rock that 15 pound rocket stip. OK, it probably isn’t quite a rocket anymore as I am working the engine, but it is certainly at least a Cessna, or maybe one of those gliders that get pulled a long because I am fairly certain that I can still suck wheel pretty well. I’ve been riding with other people so much that I am sort of missing the singular experience of the solo jaunt. I get a couple night time solo rides per week – but I’m thinking more along the lines of a solo mountain bike ride in the daylight. I’ve only done one of those since I’ve been back and ended up breaking a finger so maybe that’s telling me something.

STORY TIME

I don't want to limit this thing to just writing about running, or pedaling or whatever. No one reads these musings anyway - so I am just going to write whatever the hell(o) I want to write about. So suck on that people! : )

Damn do I have a story to tell. Some of my closest friends used to tell me "Dude - you need to write a book about all this crap!" And like a lot of poseur's in the world I always wanted to write a book, never was too sure exactly which kind to write though. I have so many unifinished manuscripts lying around - I lost count.  And it's the one thing that has come easily to me in life - writing, but not finishing. So I actually started one, and it's not exactly one I am hoping to sell, or even independently publish - but it sure is a damn deep and emotional story that I am never at a loss for words on how or what to say - at least internally. And yes, it will have running in it - what's a book without running? Of course many other things. It's a story I need to tell even if no one reads it, although I will make a few close friends read it, and if anything it will be hugely fun to write. But it's a story about me at my worst (and looking back and seeing how much of a mess I was will be comical now) and weakest to a depths of hell that I never knew existed until I actually lived there for a long time -  so I'm not sure how exciting that will be - but it's not the events that make up the story, it's the way the story is told that determines how good it is or will be. And if I am completely honest I will understand how big of an eff up I was at one time - but that's quite ok and I am happy with how things turned out from the central point of this story. Because the one thing I have learned is that no matter how bad one thinks things are - they can ALWAYS get worse. yep - that's a joke but also true. It's nice that I can look back at things and laugh now. Always have to laugh! and smile. Life is so much more fun that way : ) It sure is fun to write though, and the emotion behind it, the depth the little black words on a page can bring out, whether written (or read) is always a passion I will have).

Randumb Tuesday thoughts....

Random thoughts running through my head…OK, it’s not all running related, but I’m sure I can get it there,  but running is really such a small part in my life, and the most meaningless in my hierarchy of needs – or at least to what’s really important in life.  It’s a good thing when I am able to think about running or training or racing, because that generally means everything else is going ok. But just because the opportunity is there, it doesn’t meaning the running is going to go smoothly. For something the human form is supposedly Born to Do  (see what I did there?) it is also the most frustrating at certain times.

I stopped and thought about this while at physical therapy one day. I have no less than 8 people that I work with keeping me running. I have numerous physical therapists, athletic trainers, massage therapists. That’s a lot of people’s talents and education and hard work all trying to keep me running and happy and healthy. And yet I am still broken. I have had 3 separate issues in the past 10 days which directly impacted my running. My ongoing knee, blah blah blah, that’s fine if I avoid the trails, my calf / Achilles – but that’s no big deal. And now my foot. Seriously! How the fudgsicle do I get a knot in the tendon of my foot? I am getting really close to just hanging up the running shoes for a while. I have lots of bicycles that are needing some love thrown their way. But man, bike riding is such a massive time suck. And I still tend to ride a bicycle like I’m 20 at times; meaning I’m not always smart enough to slow down to go faster, instead hucking myself into some precarious moments which include bouncing off the ground at 25 mph or more.  Dirt hurts. Pavements is worse.

Why do all these girls wear those tall boots? Nearly everywhere I look they all have them. This is perhaps the largest most blatant evidence of the term “group think” that I can ever remember seeing. Even cattle when out in the field stray from one another now and then. . Do they all shop together? Because one girl got some everyone has to have them? Sorry but they look stupid. Maybe it’s the old punk rocker in me or some innate individualistic gene I possess, but those things just look plain silly when everyone looks the same. Why do all these women want to look like everyone else does? Don’t these women know that tryouts for ZZ Tops video “Legs” already came out 30 years ago.   Move on….

A quote I came across the other day stuck in my head…”There are two kinds of people in the world, the ones who go into a room and turn the TV on, and one that enters a room and  turns the TV off.” I am definitely a turn the TV off person, although living (mostly) by myself it’s never really on. I generally cannot sit still long enough to watch a movie, nor do I care to for the most part. But I can sit still and read a book. Not really sure what the difference is although culturally it is more acceptable to read a book -   for whatever reason sitting on your ass reading is better than sitting on your ass watching a movie.  Am I making myself smarter? I don’t know about that.  But watching TV seems like a passive thing to do in life, and I tend to take a proactive approach to everything I do. Nothing ever got done just talking about it. Or watching it unfold in some electronic form. But reading tends to enlighten and inspire? I dunno about that. I’ll just go outside and do something hoping that will satiate whatever desire I have to feel like I did something with my day.

Knees - Pffft!!!

Somewhere in here is the problem.
But where?

Being injured and not being able to do what you want is hugely depressing. Yes, I can still run, but I can’t run what I want to run, and the what I want to run is the basis for why I even run in the 1^st place. I am no happy plodding down a flat road, or running around a town (although that IS a good way to get errands done).

I have been dealing with some sort of knee pain in relation to running single track for over 4months. I can run up, I can run flat, and I can run a lot of miles, but running any “real” downhill like the kind often found when running single track just isn’t working. I took a month off of trail running, and stuck to the flats, and yes, my knee was getting better so I thought so I tried running trails – and nope! Not working. It was pain free for maybe 2 miles, but the first long 800 foot of vertical descending did not make my knee happy. It wasn’t horrible, but it’s not like 2010 where I could just let the stride open up and haul butt down a mountain.

  I have been pretty good with my physical therapy. Certain issues are ruled out such as patella tendonitis, and confirmed by an ultrasound that the swelling of said tendon is minimal. I’m at a loss of what to do at this point outside of hopping on the mountain bike and getting into the good stuff that-a-way. It’s not the way I want to do it  though, and anytime you have to stop doing something on your own terms it never makes one happy. I don’t know if I am quite at that point, but I do know I am close enough that I am actually thinking about this.  That scares me.

Teeter-tawtering




This is all the motivation I need



It’s a boring and conflicting time of year. Fog. Cold. Wet. Dark. Motivation sometimes rises and falls with the amount of sunshine, and then all of a sudden with no warning it is off the chart again.

One day I am in the middle of running 27 miles and feel completely burned out, then the following week I run 82 miles and just want to keep running.

Not sure what triggers this – but am just glad I am going all out again with seemingly unlimited (sometimes too much) motivation to run.

Lance has finally admitted the 30% truth, because really, with his arrogance and narcissism he must think we are all a bunch of idiots to believe he is telling us the complete story. I could write forever about this dude, and compare and contrast him with other people that I once knew, and that would be so much fun. I would love  to write it, but I won’t waste my time on him or anyone else that is either too dumb, too arrogant, or too callous to even get it. I wasted enough words on that, but did I mention how fun it would be? Go rot in obscurity after making amends with the lives your ruined – although that’s not really possible.

Call me pessimistic, but do people really honestly believe there is no PED use in ultrarunning? Really? Again. Really? And how long did it take you to understand that Lance was NOT clean. Or Marion Jones. Or Ben Johnson. Or...(the list goes on). I hate to pat myself on the back, but I think I had been a non believer since at least 2001. Add the facts up and sometimes things that are too good to be true are just that. I would never name a name without proof, but some of these times from 2013 are just plain crazy fast.  And the amount of improvement people make from year to year is astonishing. Hours improvement in a single year? I’ll remain skeptical about a lot of these runners and really just hope I’m wrong.

Back to my running. Mine mine mine. My running. Like it is a physical object that I can wrap my arms around or something.  The truth is far from anything like that – I have never been able to settle all my running riddles, and currently I am in a huge one. Patella Tendonitis…patella tracking issues…whatever. The only thing I know is that I CANNOT run downhill without pain. And it’s not a little bit either, it’s the stride altering kind where I run like I have a peg leg, but nope, it’s just my leg, no peg. Physical therapy gets me to cross train, I have always been such a slacker in that regard, and avoiding elevation does seem to help.  But gosh darn it, I miss the single track. If I was ever patient enough I would just go to Tiger Mountain and walk to the top of it, and gingerly walk down.  At least I’d get some single track back into my soul. But I know I would end up peg legging downhill – and of course the knee would be stressed.

Oh! Did I mention with this injury I am still able to run 80+ miles per week? Yep, I cannot understand this one either. Although I think someone should just permanently attach whatever kinesio tape job is always on my knee. Riddles. I like easier riddles. Like I’m hungry so I should eat. Or I need to be here so I need to leave at this time. This one is above my knowledge base, and I’m not quite sure the people I have been working with are entirely successful in decoding my knee dilemma.  I have eight weeks left to train for a 100K – I’m not worried about running 62 miles, I’m worried about the descending and climbing within that 62 miles. I could always powerwalk it, uphill no big deal but it would be so painful (mentally) to have to walk or run gingerly  downhill.

  Maybe I can find a run across Nebraska? Or Kansas?



 

Pigtails 50K

I don't have any pictures for this race...I could get some easy enough, but just picture a flat trail through the woods, well, mostly flat anyway. And a stream next to it surrounded by Evergreens and other fauna - that was the gist of it.

For whatever reason I just wanted to run a sub 4 hour 50K, and although I’ve done it in training runs before - but never an “official” race so I figure this was a good place to cross this one off the list since I can’t seem to run a good 100. I did have some pretty decent fast training runs in the past few weeks so I figured I’d give this a go. Although this is nothing like I usually run, 0% single track, over 50% on paved trails, it is still fun and felt good to actually motor along at a decent pace and to run rhythmic…is that what I was doing?  The first ½ of the course is gently downhill, which was making it tough to not run too fast since I felt like I was fighting myself just trying to stay above 7:00 pace.  Although I didn’t realize it at the time, the wind was at my back also. I went through 13.1 somewhere around 1:33 something and barely felt like I was running. We turned around shortly after that and I quickly noticed I was on a gentle uphill, and a nice little head wind just for the fun of it. Occasional snowflakes dropping from the sky were much more welcome than rain would have been. The miles were still ticking by semi ok in the 7:15 – 7:25 range but as I passed mile 18 I noticed my quad was starting to tighten up. And when the legs start to tighten the mind usually does some weird thing where time slows down and the miles feel soooo much longer. But really it was fatigue setting in. I’m old. I’m getting slow. That’s life but I still run semi ok for someone just past 40, right?  That’s what I tell myself anyway. Besides, I still enjoy it just as much as I ever did.  At the mile 21.7 aid station the 50K people had to take a different trail for a short out and back to get all our  mileage in, that was a nice little (and I mean little) hill followed by more gentle uphill. Which of course we all got back on the way down. After that it was just try and hit sub  8 minute miles as best as I could and survive to the finish. I made it in 3:56 and some change which equates to about 7:30 per mile per my garmin and the mileage I had. I actually thought I would be somewhere around 3:50. But whatever – it was a fun day running, got lucky with the weather, and it’s not often that I have a sub whatever goal and actually make it. Time to rest up, take some time off, get my knee healthy, and do something else for a (very) short time before it’s back to the single track. Thanks to all the volunteers out there, there were awesome. I would have loved to hang out and talk Tiger Mountain a little longer with them like the girl at mile 21.7 and again after the 50K bonus out and back, but I needed to get the race done before the snow turned into rain. I’m still trying to figure out what to run in 2013. Zion – check. A couple small races. Check. Need something for later in the summer but not sure where I want to go?

The Waiting Game



Zion. Coming soon
 to a run near me.

 
 

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

Rumi

Wait is defined as “to postpone or delay something or to be postponed or delayed” (Dictionary.com).

Someone once asked me to wait for them. A week turned into a month which turned into many months. Then a year. Then more months on top of that. All hiding behind lies and self fulfilling agendas. I was going through a lot of stuff in life at the time besides this. I became hugely depressed. Most days I didn’t even want to wake up, and there was no denying that I was at a point where that was a distinct possibility. It turns out that person is a liar. A user. And a piece of shit that I am thankful things didn’t work out with. I was at a point where I was no longer me, but I let that happen. Lesson learned though - so I take some positive from that.

Another person asked me to wait for something just recently also. I couldn’t get an answer to what in fact I was waiting for. So the answer is no – I’m not waiting. Life doesn't wait, and most often I won't either.

How does all this tie into running? Or life since for me the two are so closely intertwined? I don’t know if I can explain it clearly (or concisely) but I’ll try. I’ve had people ask me how I am going to feel when I’m crippled at 70 years old from all the running I do now. Again – am I supposed to wait for that to happen through natural causes or osteoporosis, old age, arthritis or atrophy? Am I supposed to save my knees, hips, ankles, and whatever else I’m supposedly wearing out so I can win the weekly mall walking lap race against the other old geezers? Would that entail sitting around doing nothing now? Only to save myself for that time? So I can be an able bodied old bastard I should let present life pass by? Where is the sense in that? I don't see it.

The only thing I have figured out for myself is that life is about now, today, in this moment which I am in control of - as I get out of each day I wake up and think how awesome each moment within this day will be. I am not going to live for anyone outside of my kids and people close to me.  I am going to be there for them from the moment they were born to the moment I die, and come hell or high water there is nothing that could ever stop me if needed. And in between I am going to experience life to the fullest extent I can. I am going to see all parts of the world that I always wanted to. I look back and think of all the places I have seen a sunrise or sunset, in all different mountain ranges and all time zones. My own picture book in my head could be it's own Ansel Adams gallery. And it is still growing because I am still living for now because tomorrow is not guaranteed. Sure, I have regrets and many wasted days in the past, but the fact is I have learned so much in living life so far it makes me realize that even the bad days weren’t completely wasted because they brought me to where I am now. In a good place, seeing so many new things and meeting so many interesting people from all parts of the world and life.  It’s a pretty amazing journey I’m on right now, and this ride is just getting good. I can’t wait for it to continue. And I’m not going to either. And I still have many miles left to run.