What It Takes

There is a DVD released out there called What It Takes. It follows four Ironman triathletes around for a year in preparation for the Kona World Championships. I only remember hearing about it but I believe it follows the lives of Heather Fuhr, Lori Bowden, Peter Reid, and Luke Bell. I’m sure it’s a great documentary but these are top notch world class athletes, so gifted with endurance, speed, and focus that their entire lives are now eat, sleep, and train, repeat. Sure there are injuries to contend with and sponsorship deals to work out. They also have appearances to make and flights to get to on time. Aside from the injuries and the occasional flight I have nothing in common with these folks.

Don’t get me wrong I love my life and would not change a thing. I have a gorgeous sometimes understanding wife and three beautiful kids but my entire athletic career is built around family and job. To that end I don’t have time to train when I would like to, I train when life lets me. My running shoes haven’t seen the sunshine in months. All training must be completed and I’m showered, shaved and ready to go by 7 a.m. when the first child wakes. On some days where long travel is necessary then you wake up even earlier to get your run in. Some weekends you beg your now less understanding wife to drop you off at some point on the way home from a family outing just to get the long run in. As penance for leaving her with three bickering children, God plays his hand. It’s these same drop offs where the heavens open up and a torrent of rain falls down before your feet and into your shoes.

I was stopped by my next door neighbor the other day. Kevin is a twenty something kid renting the basement of his parents place. He is a really friendly guy, who is always quick to say ‘hello’. He’s in construction so I always see him early in the morning loading up his truck or pulling away as I’m coming back from my morning run.

Usually it’s nothing more than ‘Hey’ or the ‘How’s it going?’ but this day he stops me and says, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Of course not, what is it?” I reply a bit bewildered.

“How do you do it? . . . How do you get up so early and go running? I mean I can barely function driving to work let alone exercise. And you’ve already finished a run. So how do you do it?”

I was a bit dumbfounded by his query. We’ve hardly had a conversation let alone asking a question that runs so deep to the core. I wanted to say something prophetic. I wanted to say something inspirational. But all I could muster was, “If you want something bad enough . . . you have to do what it takes”.

iPod Inspiration

Magazine art and advertisements are there for a reason. They (the collective advertising media) want to make you think, they want to inspire you and of course buy their products. The magazine is a product in itself, the flashier the photos especially the covers the wider the appeal. You want picture yourself like the person on the cover.

One such cover that made me think every time I picked it up was the back cover of TrailRunner magazine from a few months ago. On it was Monica Scholz winner of Badwater Ultra in the women’s division. First of all there is nothing sexy or alluring about the photo, the woman is on Whitney Portal Road which I’m guessing from the blur of desolate landscape in the background is in the lower section still in Death Valley.

What I find interesting is what she is wearing. Her feet although it doesn’t say it looks like she’s wearing open toed running shoes. Which would prominently display her Injinji running socks (her sponsor)? It looks like she’s running in a skirt, a black one which sounds weird. Maybe it’s a gimmick maybe its not but it does make me think. She of course has on the white hat with flap on the back to protect the neck. She’s got on some nondescript sunglasses which once again makes me think. They aren’t Oakley’s or Bolle or some other sport sunglasses company. These thing look like something my Mom would wear. And lastly she has on her iPod shuffle (old style) complete with sport case.

I guess the reason I study photos like these is because I want to know what these Ultra folks wear to keep comfortable. They wear this stuff not because of sponsorship but because it is the most functional. Badwater is an extreme ultra in that its 135 mile which is long by ultra standards and the searing heat of the Death Valley floor make it cruel and punishing. I would think most of the garb worn for this ultra is ideal only for Badwater: the hat, the open toed shoes, even the sunglasses (who need shades in the forest).

The iPod was a bit of a mystery and I guess if I ever got a chance to interview Monica I would ask her. Why the Shuffle with its flash memory it only has at most 5 to 6 hours of battery life at best. Most people doing Badwater take over 24 hours to complete. My next question would be how often you would listen to your iPod. I don’t care about her playlists that a personal choice and highly subjective. As for myself, I take my iPod on every run whether it’s twenty minutes or three hours that thing is playing in my ears. Sure on occasion I love to hear the sounds of nature especially when I’m in the trails. I love to hear the sound of my dog’s paws and pants. But most times I can’t or don’t get to the trails and its street noise that I don’t want to hear.

So I pose the question, if you train with an iPod are you not training for iPod conditions? Your cadence and rhythm are dictated by what you listen to. Your focus or your state of mental relaxation is often controlled by your iPod. So if it is such an integral part of your being, is wearing an iPod during a race a social faux pas? I can imagine if you’re doing a short 10K or 5K and you are surrounded by happy, social runners then it might be considered rude. But let’s get a reality check here. How much conversation really goes on during a road race? Unless you’re ‘aping’ someone and going stride for stride rarely are you within ear shod of other runners. Even the guy you are pacing off of isn’t going to want to talk except maybe to give you a quick verb and adverb for not taking the pace. (true story)

So in the end you either have to do what you want. I’ve got a race this weekend, a half marathon. Last year it was quite a conundrum the night before the race. The clothing part was easy it was cold race morning so I wore a jacket and toque but the iPod. I didn’t want to seem rude so I put it away. Only at the start line did I see a growing percentage of runners wearing theirs. So this year I’m going to wear my iPod. I going to load it full of upbeat music for before and during the race and maybe even throw in a short podcast. After race I’ll put it away and be social.

This Week

The week ahead is going to get hairy. Long work days I'm not looking forward to it. The plan is to fit 4 mid week runs in. These are going to be easy as I've got save something for the work day. Thus no intervals or hill repeats this week.

I've mapped out my long run on Google Maps and I'm looking forward to it.. My long run progressions since the New Year have been good 9 to 11 to 13 to 15 then back down to 12. Now I'll be going up to 18. Too much? We'll find out.

Lists of Running Blogs

I love to peruse the running blog website. It lists well over a thousand links to blogs of runners like you and me. There are so many blogs to read. Just like a busy person with email you can't read all of them, so you scan some and actually read others.

Which one's to read becomes somewhat of an advertising game . Obviously you want to read about something that interests you. So you try and pick a blog title that catchs your interest. Or you read the little thingy after the title and pick from that description.

Therefore it becomes important, if you want your blog read, to pick a blog name that is eye catching. Also important is to pick is to fill that description thingy with something of equal interest.

Not to single anyone out I'll make up a fictitious blog. For example, if you call your blog 'The Runner' well that maybe okay in the general population but it gets lost in a list of running blogs where a large percentage have the words run, runner, or running in them. Now if you called it 'Trail Runner' you've delineated yourself between road, track, and trails. That would catch my eye.

As for the description thingy well I'm no expert because as of this writing I don't have one. But the one's I've seen and the one's I've read you've got a finite amount of characters to describe your blog and to catch an audience. I saw one blog where he had a description that did not fit the space allowance so his point was lost in cyberspace.

I think once I have something interesting to say I'll change my blog description to suit. I'll also lengthen my blog name to become more precise.

Let's see:

Ultra dad- Quest for 100

A dog, a runner, and the road

I could never live in the city. I commute to Vancouver about twice a month by train. Packed into a crowded train, listening to the sounds of steel wheels on rail being drowned out by the endless overheard conversations of complete strangers. So many conversations, that after awhile it just sounds like white noise, indistinguishable constant.

I think that's another reason why I run before dawn, to escape the white noise. I love to run the trails and I live about a mile and a half from the nearest forest. The trail system however is from end to end only about a mile at best. So for most of the morning runs I take it to the streets. Before the cars and traffic, before the dog walkers and just after the hardcore partiers go to bed I'm out on my run with dog in tow. I use to think it was for the sake of the dog but really it's for me. Running is my solitude, a time to erase the white noise from the memory banks. Like many runners if I don't get in my daily run I'm cranky and irritable.

My dog is a two year Golden Retriever, Koda. He's a great running companion. He's a swimmer but a poor retriever. I'm not talking bad retriever as in chasing a ball down and not returning it. I'm talking about full on lackadaisical despondency for the ball. He could care less about balls, sticks, and stuffed toys . . . whatever. You throw it and he'll look at you like you just did a nasty in your pants. This is not for lack of trying. Believe me in his puppy years when he was too young to run I bought Frisbees, tennis balls, the whole gambit of throwable objects. It bore no fruit. And so my dog became a runner . . . and nothing else.

This suits me just fine. A dog, a runner, and the road.

The Dreadmill

Here I am stuck in Kelowna BC. Under any other circumstances Kelowna is an athlete's dream city. In the summer they host several Tri's, a marathon, several fun runs. It's about half an hour from Penticton home of Ironman Canada. It is beautiful up here. Except when several freeze-thaws have left the streets with an inch of ice and the current temperature is -20C not including wind-chill.

Yeah I'm a wuss but I'm not a quitter so I head off for the dreaded treadmill. The dreadmill. No matter how you slice it: Steep incline, faster speeds, ESPN blaring from the TV in front of you. It truly earns the moniker.

Every winter for at least a couple of days in a row either snow or ice prevents the run from happening. I think my karma says it's time to put your feet up. First karma gives you subtle hints that you are pushing it. You know soreness that won't go away. Insomnia. You don't listen and push harder. So Karma deals you a full on snow storm. So you go inside to the dreadmill.

The dreadmill deprives you of everything sweet about running. The sights, the sounds. The wind in your face, the deep coolness of the air you breathe. That rush from charging up a small easily conquered hill. Give me the outdoors any day.

I'll be back. Yeah I’ll be back

Blogging?

I love to write. I wish I could write better than I do. I've got a buddy who is a writer, a professional. Actually he's an editor for a newspaper. It's pretty cool when you think that every week somebody reads your stuff whether it's an editorial piece or a news bit he gets to write. It is read with interest and then in some way you've changed a life by what you've wrote or how you conveyed the facts. Think about the responsibility, the accountability. Putting things into perspective my editor friend says he has to take things with a grain of salt. When he rubs someone the wrong way he'll say to me, 'Remember. . . today's headlines will lining the bottom of birdcage tomorrow.'

That's why blogging is so cool. Almost complete anonymity and freedom to write. What's the deal with Blogging anyway? Do you think people want to read your thoughts, are you fulfilling a service, or is it merely a selfish pursuit to pander one's own ego? I believe there is some catharsis in it. You can call it therapy or self-indulgent. What ever the case there are thousands of blogs out there. I have read well written ones and some not so well written but they are all good. They all provide insight into the blogger's psyche or their soul for lack of a better term.

Do you think if you write a blog you should be inclined to read as many other blogs? After all if you believe your stuff is a literary masterpiece then there has got to be others worth reading too.

But what about the creepy factor? The otherwise 'stalking' part that you lay it all out there and share part of your life only to have someone else soak it up like some predator. I guess that's why most of us use an alias, a 'nom de plum'. One can never be to safe to protect the privacy not meant for the web to see. It's a double edged sword indeed.

So I remain embattled with my editor friend. We both write, his readers far out number mine. I'm anonymous and therefore will never be famous for what I write. Nor do I want the fame or even credit. He may never be famous but at least it pays the bills.