Become the path

"You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself." - Gautama Buddha

"Now bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible." - Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

"There are clubs you can't belong to, neighborhoods you can't live in, schools you can't get into, but the roads are always open." - Old Nike ad

"Never, ever, ever give up." - Winston Churchill

"It's never too late to be what you might have been." - (I don't know who said this one)

"Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible." - Doug Larson

"Happiness is pushing your limits and watching them back down" - Old New Balance ad

"I love hills.  If it weren't for hills, I'd have to bring climbing gear." - overheard at a race

"The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, ‘You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.’ The human spirit is indomitable." - Roger Bannister

"Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re probably right." - Henry Ford

"It’s elevating and humbling at the same time. Running along a beach at sunrise with no other footprints in the sand, you realize the vastness of creation, your own insignificant space in the plan, how tiny you really are, your own creatureliness  and how much you owe to the supreme body, the God that brought all this beauty and harmony into being." - Sister Marion Irvine (2:51 PR and 1984 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier)

"Sure, I 'become the path' -- every time I run trails in summer, half the path comes home stuck in my socks!" - (I just made that one up.)

Three And Ones

Sometimes I mix some walking into my run.  There is benefit to spending a certain amount of time on the legs, or covering a certain amount of distance, regardless of the effort level or aerobic zone in which it occurs.  Bones,  tendons, ligaments, muscles -- all strengthen in response to the stress of being used.

Yet at my age ( cough - mid-50s - cough ) I am extremely wary lest injury cause a setback.  The idea of doing like Prefontaine and going all out all the time is a recipe for injury.

So yesterday, for example, I did my 5 mile Sunday "long run" by setting the interval timer on my watch to repeat and alternate between a three minute interval and a one minute interval.  Run three, walk one.  That worked for where I happened to be condition-wise that day.  My overall time ended up being  right where the McMillan Running training pace thing advised me to be.

Another successful training week!

Plus, I get out and see the pretty poppies!

Wednesday's Run

I have a plan.  A running plan.  An actual written schedule for my training runs.

I'm running four times a week:  Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday.  Sunday is "long run" day, Tuesday and Friday are basically Time On Legs.  And starting this week, Wednesday is "Speed Training" day. 

I hesitate to use the word speed  in relation to bipedal locomotion done by me. 

The nice people at McMillan Running have a training pace calculator.  They are nice people because while they want to sell training advice to "serious" runners, they don't mind giving some free stuff away to those who are strictly dabblers like myself.  You put in a recent race time, an actual time over distance you've done at your current level of fitness.  Then you put in a goal time.  What comes out as a result is a table of paces for various types of training runs.

I find the McMillan paces useful for two reasons.  It can help keep me from doing my Sunday long run too fast -- and that can keep me from getting injured.  And it can also give me a mental boot in the butt to do my Wednesday run faster than I think I can. 

Wednesday was scheduled as a 30 minute Tempo run.  My "good" recent 5K time was 29:51, and my goal time for now is 28:30.  (I'm old and slow, get over it.)  So the Tempo pace range was 9:46 - 10:04 per mile.  That is quite a bit faster than my Time On Legs runs.  Nevertheless.  I had to do it.  Cry in the dojo, laugh on the battlefield, and all that.  You know.  If wishes were horses then beggars would ride -- well if wishes were training runs then couch potatoes would be improving their 5K times. 

You plan the run, then you run the plan.

I did it.  And met the pace goal.  And had to fight my stupid brain which kept telling me I was gonna die, DIE!  Take that, stupid brain! 

Next Wednesday I only  have to do 5 X 400M in something like 2:14 each.  Only. 

Progressing toward a post-surgery 5K PR at end of April. 

Dark and early...

Up at the usual time, it was of course an hour darker due to Daylight Savings Time.  There was a little sliver of nearly-new moon up just before dawn.  As I began my run, several deer unconcernedly walked up the hill to go to bed -- night shift / morning shift. 

Just to make life more complicated, the parks department has closed my favorite stretch of trail due to landslides.  That shortens my possibilities for hill runs in that direction. 

This morning I went up to the road closure, and did a double loop on another hill to make a total of 4.3 miles with 1700 ft. of climb.  Wheee! 

This makes two weeks (training weeks -- I'm back to thinking of my life as my run schedule from Monday through Sunday) of running four times a week: run Tuesday, Wednesday; weights on Thursday (half an hour of arm and shoulder work with light dumbbells); run Friday and Sunday.  I break it up like this:  short (junk miles / mental health run) on Tuesday, Tempo or Intervals on Wednesday, Moderate time-on-legs run on Friday, and Long Run on Sunday. 

Right now "long" isn't very long.  But progress is progress, and sticking to it is sticking to it. 

Now I know how the moon feels

Sunday afternoon was sunny, and it had been a while since the last rain.  I decided to run fire trails in the local hills because once on top of the ridge, there would be lots of sunshine!  Wheee!  Vitamin D!

It was a lovely afternoon.  A pair of white-tailed kites and a young harrier were working the west slopes of the hills, hunting for early gopher activity.  A happy looking ash-throat flycatcher was stationed on a parks department sign at a trail crossing.  The very earliest of the mustard (or is it coming up from last year's?) is starting to bloom.

It was full sunshine at 2:30-ish when I did the out and back miles along the north-south ridge.  Heading south, my right side was toasty warm and my left side was freezing.  Vice versa on the way back.  Being a weather wimp, I admit I had to stop and turn around for a few moments, more than once. 

I wonder what kind of weird autonomic nervous system responses your body goes through when one surface of the body is so much warmer than the other.  Half my brain: "Happy, happy, sunshine, birdies, flowers, run, run, run..."   Other half of my brain:  "Stop or die! Turn around! Twirl in place! Aaaurgh!"

Resolution Runners

There is a new crop of New-Year's-Resolution runners out on the trails.  The really superior ones start a week or so before New Year's Day so as to feel all exercisier-than-thou next week. 

I can tell by the socks of course.  The beginner balks at laying out $100 +/- for a pair of actual factual running shoes, but particularly shies away from paying $9.50 for a pair of socks! 

But I can also tell by their faces, and responses to my greetings.  There is a look of fear in their faces, and there is no response to my "Hello" or "Happy New Year".  It seems to be fear of being caught in the act of something.  Fear of being recognized.  Recognized as a failure?  Recognized as a running newbie?  As for the response or lack of response, maybe I'm just so funny looking that it takes their breath away.  Maybe they are running too fast and have no breath left to take away.  But I don't even get a wave or a tilt of the head or a smile.  Just a look I call "The Pole-Axed Cow" -- the wide eyes just before the complete collapse.  (To be fair, it is not just newbies that  give me the Pole-Axed Cow look.  I get it from the IronMan guys, the deathly serious out-to-prove-something guys a decade or two younger than me (I'm 55) and still acting out their adolescent pride.)

For all the new runners out there, let me say two things. 

First, it's totally okay if the gear comes later.  When I started running in 2004, it was cotton socks, cheap all-purpose training flats, and cut-offs.  I remember doing the Couch to 5K the first time, that big day of the 20 minute run, in cut-off BDU pants that had cargo pockets and came down to my knees.  Oh, and I carried a digital kitchen timer for those first weeks of timed run / walk intervals (did not have a digital watch at the time)!  So -- gear will come later, and to suit your comfort (and income) level. 

Second, it's okay to respond to greetings by other runners.  Honestly, runners are some of the most welcoming and inclusive people!  Your local group may vary.  Maybe where I am is exceptional.  But I don't think so.  The attitude that says "Only Competitive Runners Allowed" is extremely rare.  Many race directors are or have been very fine competitive runners, and they are happy to see runners of every ability level in the field.  But it's not just race events that will welcome you.  Many runners remember their start too, since we weren't all naturally gifted talents that climbed success upon success from Middle School on.  We're glad you're here.  We hope you'll stay. 

Glorious afternoon run!

The road really does seem to go ever on and on from this vantage point.  This is what late November looks like in the Northern California coastal hills.

Since the weather was cooperating, I did my "long" run this afternoon instead of Sunday morning.  5.7 miles.  Some of the hill trails are quite steep -- I walk some of the ups and some of the downs.  Since we have had rain recently, the adobe mud was in fine shape, adding weight to the shoes with every step in some spots where it was seeping.  But since the weather has been dry for a week, there were also spots where the trail is firmly molded into whatever shape the local traffic pushed it into when it was wet.  This is park land, but they lease it for grazing.  Cattle hooves create amazing texture when the adobe is pliable, and when it dries in those craters and mounds, it is a very difficult running surface! 

I'm glad I didn't have any thought of speed workout today.  I just let my watch run while I took pictures or admired the views, and walked wherever I needed to, which included drink breaks and bird-watching.  Great aerobic workout, great strength workout on those hills, and totally awesome mental-health miles.

Plus I always feel like a real trail runner when I come home with muddy legs!

Saturday Afternoon Run

Four miles yesterday between hours of steady rain. 


My running has been infrequent.  Discretion / Valor kind of thing. 
Two weeks ago, daytime temps in the 80°F range.  Lately, we've had 40°s and fog or 50°s and rain -- and everybody at my house seems to be deathly ill with some kind of snotty, croupy cold. 
Sometimes rest is just what the immune system needs. 
But it sure felt good to get out and do some of those "mental health miles" yesterday!