Buffalo Marathon/Half Marathon Report

On Sunday, Geoffrey ran the Buffalo Marathon. I ran the half marathon. He signed up for it many months ago. His hope was to run a marathon that didn't break him at mile 18 or so. I signed up for the half shortly after I finished the Run for the Red marathon. Because why not. Let's start with the most important thing.

Buffalo Marathon was brutally, scorchingly hot.

It was skin-sizzlingly, pavement-meltingly, hope-crushingly hot. Water evaporated before it could make contact with your withered flesh. Folks were dropping like flies, seriously thinking they were about to discover if spontaneous combustion was real. Solar flares bathed Franklin Street with blazing white fire.

It was hot.

OK, now that we have that out of the way, let's start over. I interviewed Geoffrey, since he actually ran the marathon. Nobody wants to read about how I pranced 13 miles in a kilt. Geoffrey and I were both on our second bottle of wine when I interviewed him last night, so I hope my notes are coherent.

Geoffrey took his training seriously. He had an amazing coach, Michael Scott (Run Nerds Rock Coaching), who pushed him to do workouts he would not have imagined doing on his own. Mike had him doing combination workouts, like hill repeats combined with tempo runs. He had him doing absolutely absurd workouts like 15 repeats of 2 minutes at sub-5K pace. Geoff could not have imagined doing these (without his legs literally falling off), but Mike said do it and Geoff did it.

Geoffrey, just doing it.

I asked Geoffrey about his tapering. Runners hate tapering. Geoffrey loves tapering! Just kidding. The start of his tapering felt horrible. He felt like he lost fitness, despite doing Mike's workouts. He had a huge amount of apprehension in the 3 weeks of tapering. Up until 10 days before the race, Geoff was questioning if he would even do it.

But that changed.

A local runner friend, who had also registered for Buffalo, got injured and had no chance of doing the race. One day he posted that he got to go out and do a run, just a mile or so. Geoffrey realized that as badly as he felt and as critical as he was of himself, he was lucky enough and healthy enough to do the marathon. He couldn't let his friend down.

After that Geoff firmly decided he would show up at the starting line and do what he could do. He left behind his self-pity and disappointment and decided he would just go and do what he could do that day. And he became excited about the race! What would happen that day was a roll of the dice, but he loaded the dice as well as he could.

On Friday, we threw Geoffrey a birthday party. Meghan, his kids, and I tried to kill him with food and beer. He didn't think at all about the race. He just wanted to be with people he loved, to be festive. After dinner we went to the music studio of his daughter's boyfriend, Mark. Mark played guitar and sang songs, which he was good at. I played drums, which I'd never done in my life. Then Geoffrey took a turn at the drums and I played the keyboard, which I'd also never done in my life.

This birthday cake survived about 30 seconds.

I constantly shouted, "what key is that in?!" As if knowing the key was going to make me sound anything other than a gorilla mashing on a keyboard.

We were amazing.

Saturday morning I made blueberry pancakes. Then we drove to Buffalo. We went to the expo, which was like every other expo except bigger. We had lunch and checked into our hotel. This place was posh as heck! Our room was on the seventh floor, with a great view. We hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, then destroyed the room. Standard procedure.

"Moshi moshi!" 走子 answers the phone.

Geoff wanted to stay relaxed, to be detached from Sunday. He knew there wasn't a whole lot he could do on Saturday that would effect Sunday except to eat enough and not drink too much. Which he loves. He specifically wanted me to write how much he loves drinking, as if to say, "I want everyone to know how human I am, full of foibles and shit." Being alcoholics is one of our milder traits. Geoff got his stuff ready and went to bed early.

We got up at 4:45am. Geoff slept terribly, which is typical: A fitful, awful sleep full of bizarre dreams. I slept like a baby. My "bed" at home is a moldy paper-thin mattress on the floor, so any time I sleep anywhere else, it's always the most amazing experience of my life.

We got ourselves ready. Geoffrey was clinical in his preparation. He knew he would have to hydrate well to survive the race. He drank water until 45 minutes before the race, knowing that was the perfect window so he wouldn't have to stop to pee. I went to the bathroom four times. Geoff had his two packets of oatmeal. I ate a banana.

走子 watches us run.

I threw my kilt and bib on haphazardly. Geoff decided to forego his kilt because it would weigh a thousand pounds after hours of sweating. He put his bib on. It was wrinkly. It bothered him. He took all the pins out and put them back in again. He went through the same process tying his shoes.

We walked the short distance to the start and joined the gigantic mob of fellow, soon to be overheated runners. Geoffrey got kisses from his favorite person, Meghan. No kisses from me, because I'm a jerk; just a high-five. We met a fellow LUNAR. I did a quick warm up jog. We got in the starting corral with about 7,000 runners. Then the fireworks started.

The Race

After the pomp and ceremony, the statements from the race director and an adorable seven year old girl, the Star Spangled Banner, and fireworks that surprised and terrified the aforementioned seven year old girl and all the rest of us, we got ready.

Photo Cr. Geoffrey

The gun fired.

Seven thousand people streamed across the starting line.

Geoffrey (whose race I'm going to focus on here) originally had a pace goal - and had been training for - 7:55 minute miles. But he knew it was going to be hot, so he went out at a conservative 8:20 pace. I shot out at sub 7:00 minute miles and vanished from his universe.

8:20 was perfect. Geoffrey felt great. The run felt easy. His breathing cadence (which is the metric he usually judges by) was right on. The first 5k was on. 10k was on. 15k: super even split.

Mile 10 is when it fell apart.

That's when the course goes out along Lake Erie. The air was dead and the sun burned through whatever few clouds had given us meager comfort. Geoffrey knew it was about to get really hot. At mile 10 he got the sensation in his legs (for me it's a tingle in the scalp) that told him to dispose of his goal of 3:40.

By mile 11 Geoffrey knew that his only goal for the race was to finish it. That's how fast the heat got him.

Even these horses would've struggled.

At the half marathon mark, he had a strong urge to go left and finish at the halfway mark and say, "that's enough for today." I had crossed that line myself about 20 minutes before. But he didn't. Geoffrey turned right. He said, "I don't quit. I don't stop."

His pace had already dropped dramatically, a "jog" as he called it. His only goal was to finish this without walking. He had yet to finish a marathon without taking a walk break, either due to injury or inexperience. That was his goal and he didn't care how slow he was going. He just didn't want to walk.

At a water station between mile 17 and 18, he had to walk.

He felt broken. He felt defeated. He felt like he had let himself down and had let his loved ones down. Because we knew that his most important goal was to run a strong marathon without breaking down and walking. Of course Meghan and I could never be disappointed in him. But we weren't there at that water station.

But his feelings changed.

They changed when he saw how many other people had been destroyed by the marathon. He realized he was in a crowd of people who amazed him by how hard they pushed themselves. He was surrounded by people who were a million times stronger and better than him. And they were still doing it, despite walking. They weren't stopping. So Geoffrey couldn't stop. If they didn't stop, it was his responsibility to them to keep going. And to encourage them to keep going.

Geoff saw two friends who had come to spend time with us and to see him run: Truly amazing folks whose names I won't mention for privacy reasons. Geoff saw them spectating from a park. He walked over to them and said, "I'm dying."

"It's your day," they replied. Geoff was delirious. But seeing them gave him the fuel he needed to keep running.

Throughout the race, Geoff had been playing marathon hockey with a guy named Dan. He had seen Dan on and off since the halfway point, and he had seen that Dan was having a really hard time. They would pass each other, as their respective energies waxed and waned. Finally at about mile 19 they connected.

They both acknowledged that they were having a really hard race. But in connecting they silently told each other that they would get it done. Geoff realized that Dan was having a harder time than him. He chose to stay with Dan because he thought that Dan was doubting whether he could finish or not. And Geoffrey decided that Dan would finish, and that he would stick it out with him. Dan: A random guy he met.

I know you, reader, are excited to hear about the end of the race. But that's not how interviews go, especially when you're drinking wine. The more you talk about an experience, the more you remember. I could reorganize these notes chronologically, but I'd rather share them in the order that Geoff did.

At the halfway point, Geoffrey remembers hoping to see Meghan. She had actually been there, standing next to me and our friends, waiting to watch him pass. But she also knew that he would need water. Desperately. So she went to get water for him.

She didn't get back in time.

So much water! Just not for Geoffrey.

But I was there. He waved and shouted to us. Then he passed the halfway point where many folks were peeling off for the half marathon finish. And he knew he would have to do all of that again. I knew he would be struggling, so I sprinted after him.

"Awesome," Geoffrey recalls thinking, "Peter's going to run a block or two with me and say something encouraging." But then I kept running with him. I kept talking him and telling him that he'd kill the race. At mile 14 I was still with him.

Geoff told me that to be sent off on the second half of his marathon by me after I'd already kicked the shit out of the half fed him so much. More than I could believe, he told me. He doesn't know if he could have finished if it wasn't for that.

But I didn't stay with him the whole time. I was tired too. I left him at about 14.5, leaving him with as many encouraging words as I could. So he ran alone, suffering alone, except when he encountered Dan.

Then, around mile 21, out of nowhere, Meghan showed up. She wasn't dressed to run. She was dressed to spectate. But there she was. One moment Geoffrey was focused on running with Dan, and the next he heard a voice yelling, "Geoffrey!"

"Thank god," he thought, "my angel."

What is she doing? He wondered. And then she started running with them! And all she kept saying was, "what do you need? Are you OK? What do you need?" And he literally felt saved. The course support was amazing (water, gatorade, ice, etc.). The volunteers were amazing. But what Meghan brought was this: To let him know that she wasn't going to let him feel alone.

Geoffrey's eyes were moist with tears at this point in the interview.

Meghan would sprint ahead to water stops and come back and dump ice and water on his head. And just kept asking, "what do you need? What do you need?" She didn't say what he should or shouldn't do. She just said, what do you need. And made sure Geoff had it. She'd already been standing on the course and walking in the same heat for hours.Then she came out to run the rest of the course with Geoffrey.

I showed up again at mile 23. I had already run 16 miles that day. I was going to run 3 more. I ran next to him and Meghan, telling Geoffrey, "you're crushing this. You're destroying this. You're amazing. You're doing a marathon in this heat that's killing people." And Geoff recalls thinking, please don't stop talking.

"OK, just stop talking long enough for a pic."

Geoffrey had me and Meghan on either side of him, and he thought, "I can't possibly not do this now." He knew he was going to be OK. With both of us on either side of him, he knew he was going to be OK. He knew he was going to finish this marathon.

Geoffrey really wanted to run mile 24 to the end strongly, but he wasn't able to. He'd run his regular pace, but couldn't do it for more than a quarter of a mile. The heat broiled him. He ran as hard as he could for as long as he could, walk it off, then do it again. He then decided he would run the 25th mile. I sprinted off at this point to get pictures of him at the finish.

At 25.25 Geoffrey got the worst side stitch of his life. It doubled him over on the course. He didn't know if he could move, much less run. He walked, and breathed it off. He still wanted to at least look like a strong runner at the finish.

Geoffrey knew that it was late in the race, that so many other runners were struggling. It didn't matter what he felt like. Pain didn't matter. Nothing mattered except running to the end. He wanted to look better than he felt. There were people around him who needed him to look better than he felt. They all needed to get to the end of the marathon.

Geoffrey finishes.

Then he was done.

Anti-climactic? Marathons are the same way for me too. You suffer for what seems like all eternity, and then suddenly, it ends.

His first thought was, "I'm not dead." He was more than 30 minutes off his goal time. He didn't care. It didn't matter that he'd been slow. He realized that, after hearing about elites breaking down and passing others who had broken down, he hadn't done that badly. All things considered, his finish was OK. It was alright.

After collecting his medal, Geoffrey went back to the finish line to wait for Dan to finish. No, Geoff hadn't forgotten about him. He knew Dan had had just as hard of a time. He made sure Dan finished and got his medal. He made sure to acknowledge how hard it was for Dan. I asked Geoffrey and he said the only reason he'd sped up and left Dan was because Geoffrey just wanted to get the race over with. He was over it.

But he still made sure he saw Dan at the end. He wanted Dan to know that he didn't just leave him behind. He wanted Dan to know that he remembered what they went through together and that he was there for Dan at the end.

As the interviewer, I wanted to really dig deep into Geoffrey's feeling and emotions. Being the jerk that I am, I didn't believe for a second that it was just me, Meghan, and Dan that got him to the finish. After probing for a long enough time, I found out the real reason that Geoffrey finished.

He wanted to wear his hat.

Geoffrey has a thing for hats. He collects them. He got one at the expo that said, "Buffalo Marathon Finisher." He did not try it on at the time. That would've been bad luck. He wouldn't get to actually wear that hat until he finished.

Which meant he had to finish.

And when I asked the real reason he finished, he replied, "honestly, I get to wear the hat. I get to wear my hat now that says, 'Buffalo Finisher'. I just wanted to wear that hat." He knew at miles 14, 16, 18 when he was failing, he really wanted to wear that hat. He likes it. He likes hats.

The hat in this picture..... which is backwards. I don't see the point.

I suppose we all need something to motivate us.

Post race shenanigans

After the race we went to Pearl Street Brewery and consumed a huge amount of food and booze. I'd given up on staying within my calorie budget for the weekend. Our friends left to drive back south and I went to take a nap. I failed at napping and ended up splashing around in the hotel pool for a while. After lounging around like a sack of sh!t for a while I got up and found Geoffrey and Meghan at yet another pub, the Buffalo Tap House.

We had more greasy food and more beer. Geoffrey had been hinting (overtly stating) that he wanted to smoke a cigar to celebrate the race. I looked on my phone and the closest place was almost two miles away. I was so far over my calorie budget though that I volunteered to walk and get cigars (and burn a few more calories).

The place was called Duty Free America. I was too drunk at the time to think about why it was named that.

I walked for a while and soon found myself in a Hispanic neighborhood. I was wearing my kilt, stumbling down the street drunkenly. I stopped into every small grocery store along the way, asking if they sold cigars. No luck.

Half an hour later I arrived at my destination point on the map. There it is! I thought excitedly. I started walking towards it, passing something that looked like a toll booth. I was about ten steps away from the front door when I woman yelled at me, "you can't go there." I was drunk and confused. Then she explained.

I couldn't go into the store because it was in Canada.

The only way I could go to the store was to grab a passport, get in a car, drive across the bridge into CANADA, and then come back. Then I could shop. I had walked two miles to a store that turned out to be in Canada, and now I had to walk two miles back to the hotel.

I love Buffalo.

I stopped by a drug store on my way back, which, against all odds, sold cheap lousy cigars. I bought them, a pack of American Spirits, and a pack of lighters. I chain smoked cigarettes and blew up Meghan and Geoffrey's phone.

Don't get all judgmental on me. I don't actually inhale.

We ate more food. We drank more booze. They laughed uproariously at my unfortunate tale. We smoked half a cigar. We went to bed.

We were woken up at 5am by a fire alarm. And this wasn't the first one either. There had been another one on Saturday that dragged Meghan and Geoffrey out of the pool. But this one was especially annoying. We lounged in our beds for another 5 minutes, hoping the alarm would turn off. It did not. If it had been a real fire, we would have died.

Screw you sign. Seriously.

We joined a long crowd of people in the stairwell. Remember, we were staying on the seventh floor. It took a very long time to get out of the hotel. And while most of the hotel was exceptionally nice, the emergency halls we passed through looked like a Turkish prison.

We finally got outside and joined several hundred very sleepy and half dressed guests. Immediately after that we were allowed back inside. Realizing it was going to take 20 minutes just for us to get back to our room, I instead walked to a Starbucks half a mile away to get coffees.

Buffalo at 5:30am

When I got back, Geoffrey and Meghan were waiting for me impatiently.

I was the only who'd brought a room key with me.

We slept for another few hours, packed, and left.

Final notes

In case you care, I ran the half marathon in 1:32:36. That's not a PR for me, but considering the heat, that was pretty darn good. Apparently I got 55th overall out of over 3800 half marathon finishers, and 8th in my age division out of 268. I was in the top 3% in both. I was honestly quite surprised. I've never thought of myself as good in the heat.

 

Prancing in a kilt.

Geoffrey told me that his biggest takeaway from the race is that he could not have done it without other people (although we know the truth of the matter now vis-a-vis his hat). The only reason, he says, that he went over the starting line and then the finish line was because of the people who loved him and supported him, who showed up on the course to run with him, and the countless thousands other people who made sure that there was enough water, gatorade, ice, wet towels, and everything else.

Geoffrey wanted to emphasize how awesome the volunteers were. And I totally agree. They volunteered their time on a hot miserable morning to support runners doing something insane. They even waited extra long and handed out medals to late finishers. All Geoffrey did, he says, is put on some shorts and then start running. He didn't do anything special. The volunteers did.

I agree with him. We were eating and drinking by noon, and those volunteers were still under the glare of the baking sun, supporting and cheering the remaining runners. That is truly commendable.

I would definitely run Buffalo again. And you should too! Great city. Great race.

The end.

Always ending posts with the cheesy sunset photo.

Pain, Depression, Heartache, Suffering

Original painting by William Blake (1757 - 1827)

Seeing the title of this post, you may think, "those aren't the same thing." I get that. Many people believe that being depressed just means being "really sad". They may give worthless advice like, "just cheer up. Play some mini-golf. Have a beer." Someone who actually experiences depression may point out that things like pain and heartache are transient. Things that eventually go away.

Depression is a specter. Sometimes it hides, but it's always nearby.

But the reason I grouped these things together is because they all represent suffering. Human suffering. And we all suffer. All of us. Some to a lesser or greater extent. But the fact is that nobody else can ever really understand or appreciate what you're going through. Suffering is always personal.

We go through it alone.

You may have lost someone you loved. You may have failed at achieving an important goal. You may feel that no matter what you do, your goal is always just out of reach, whether it's happiness, success, fitness, or something else. Or, worst of all, you may have no clue why you're suffering, but you are anyway. Sometimes you get over it after a while and move on.

Sometimes you never get over it.

Sometimes you don't even know what the thing is that you're trying to get over. It shifts and morphs and attacks when you least expect it.

I exercise to deal with my suffering. Because emotional pain is a little more tolerable when I cause myself physical pain every day. Part of it is to remind myself that I can handle pain, and that I heal. Part of it is to punish myself for whatever past wrong I'm feeling guilty about (of which there seem to be an ever-growing supply). Sometimes it's to replace an unknown or unbearable pain with one I'm thoroughly familiar with.

I also eat and drink, sometimes (often) too much so. I write. And I make jokes about my suffering. Stuff like, "oh, guess who's going to be hung over at work tomorrow. Haha." As if trivializing the pain makes it less painful. I'm not sure who's benefit I'm doing this for.

And sometimes I hang stupid banners like this on my wall.

I may not want to burden others with it. I may feel that they won't understand, and watching them try irritates me in some irrational way. I may feel that I deserve to agonize, that I shouldn't let someone help me feel better.

But ultimately this is selfish. By never talking about my pain; by never letting others know that I feel it as much as they do; by never letting them help me deal with it; by keeping it to myself I make them feel that they can't share their pain either. I make them feel that they are totally alone and that nobody can appreciate their pain. By holding my pain within myself, I encourage them to do the same.

That just makes each of us more alone.

I often portray myself as super-human. Constantly pushing myself. Running and lifting every day no matter how sore or tired I am. Staying up late and getting drunk on the night before a big race like it's no big deal. Telling folks that a broken foot is no excuse to take a break from running, suggesting that a mere fracture wouldn't stop me. It's all a f@&king lie.

Oh, not the part about me breaking myself. I do that. Not the part about me pushing myself beyond my limits. I do that too. But I don't do those things because I'm amazing. I do those things precisely because I don't believe that I am.

That's what depression feels like.

To feel utterly helpless. No matter how many successes you enjoy, and no matter how much people tell you that you're a rockstar, you still feel like the putrid bottom of a swamp. That's terrifying, to know that there's no way to fix how you feel. You feel it no matter what. Despite your best effort, and all the kindest efforts of your friends and loved ones, you can't pull yourself out of the mire.

That makes the whole thing worse. You come up for air every now and then, and then get sucked down even deeper. All those helping hands trying to pull you up can't seem to overpower the tentacles dragging you down. Those hands get tired. Those tendrils of despair seem to have infinite strength.

Yet we keep on going. Somewhere there's a strength. That suffering is what drives our creativity and passion. It's what pushes us to create art and music, to pursue challenging goals, to smash past obstacles we never thought we could overcome. Without suffering, we wouldn't be the powerful species that we are.

That's what pain is. It's our power. This may sound bizarre to someone who feels like they're perpetually drowning. They may not feel powerful at all. Quite the opposite in fact. I can't alter that feeling with a few pretty words. I apologize for even daring to understand.

It may just be another lie, something I tell myself to keep going. But reality is shaped by what you say and what you believe. You say something often enough, you believe it. And your reality is just a matter of your perception. What you see is what exists. And you convince yourself that you see something else.

It can be hard to change your worldview. Very hard. Where do you even start? I do it by acting like the person I want to be. I act like I'm strong. I act like I'm talented. I act like I'm successful. I act like I'm loved. But at some point it stops being an act. I don't know how or when, but one day I wake up and feel like it's my life now. My worldview has changed.

I felt like trash in this photo. But I grinned anyway.

Sure, some days I still feel like I'm lying to myself. Some days I feel amazing. But I've experienced enough amazing days that I know it's possible, and it motivates me to keep pushing myself.

There are some - perhaps even some of you reading this - who have had very few "amazing" days. And without having tasted that, it seems an illusive figment. Something I'm just telling you to trick you into a pointless struggle. A lie.

Maybe.

But who cares.

What do you have to lose?

I know what it is. If pain is all you have, you find comfort in it. It's the one thing you have. And you don't want to lose the one thing you have. Or to have the pain you're familiar with be replaced with a pain that you're not. Perhaps you're used to the guilt of never attempting to reach your goal. You're comfortable with it. But the pain of trying and failing is new and different, something you're not comfortable with.

I get that.

And there's no way around it.

It's why I run. It's why I lift. It's a different pain. A new pain. One I force myself to engage in, so that I learn how to handle everything life throws at me. And the more demons I conquer, the less intimidating all the other demons seem.

For some folks, they don't even want to battle the first demon. It's just there, staring at you and mocking you. Belittling you into an infinitesimal nothing. And even if you beat it up, you know there's just another bigger and nastier one right behind it.

But you know what? F*%k those demons.

F*@k depression.

F%$k suffering.

It's there. It's always there. But it doesn't own you. You control your own life. You own your destiny. It may not feel like it, but you do.

Maybe I'm lying to you.

But maybe, just maybe, it's the demon of suffering who's lying to you.

Because guess what, it's just scared as you are. Scared that you will finally find the strength to fight it. Find the strength to defeat it. And then it will be nothing.

And once you defeat one, once you've tasted its blood, the other ones will fear you too. Those fights won't be easy. No. But you will know that you are not powerless anymore.

And those demons will cower before you.

"One down."
Ikon of St. George and the Dragon

Don't Let Pain Stop You

As I mentioned in my last post, I ran a marathon 8 days ago. My body was obliterated afterwards. I had a lot of trouble going up and down the stairs. Everything hurt. About all I could do was lie in bed all of the next day.

I still got up and ran 5 miles the day after my marathon. Then I ran again the following day. And the day after that. And the day after that. I've run every single day since my marathon: A total of 42 miles in the seven days after that Sunday.

On Saturday (2 days ago), I did 6 sets of deadlifts. Then I ran 10 miles. Yesterday, even though my glutes were fried, I ran 7 miles and biked 12.

Most of my friends told me I should "rest". To let my body "heal". To take a few days off. But I wasn't injured. I was just sore. Really really sore. But being tired and hurting isn't a reason to be lazy. It's an excuse.

I don't let pain stop me.

I'm not saying this to show off. And most of you will likely think I'm crazy. Fine. While I was doing my 80 Day Deadlift Challenge, I lifted 6 days a week, and ran 6 or 7 days a week. And what I discovered is that the body is an amazing machine that is capable of doing anything you ask it to. Oh sure it will complain, via pain, soreness, and exhaustion. But once you get going, that strength will be there.

Running a sub 5 minute pace in this photo despite being tired.
Photo Cr. Geoffrey Brown

It is important to listen to your body, to avoid injury. Over the Christmas break, I ran too much and injured my calves. But I kept running (gently), and the pain vanished after less than a week. But many folks take the "listen to your body" mantra a little too much too heart. My body almost never "wants" to exercise. And it almost always wants to eat. If I "listened" to my body all the time, I would go back to being a fat bum who just drinks whiskey on the couch all day long.

What I pay attention to - and what gets me going every day despite being in pain - is routine. Routine. I've talked about routine before. It's magic. Seriously. But the only way to make routine keep working for you is that you have to follow your routine, every day. Because if you take a break, even for only one day, your brain starts to think, "well I took off one day and it wasn't a big deal. Maybe I'll take this day off too. Just relax and eat. That sounds nice, doesn't it?"

As long as I'm physically capable of getting up and getting out the door, I will do so. Pain doesn't matter. A friend recently shared this image with me. I usually only post pics that I or a friend have taken, but I love this too much not to share it.

I <3 Pain! Photo Cr..... Um Spongebob I guess

The poster on the wall is amazing. I spent about 20 minutes online looking for one just like it. I'll probably have to make my own. And hang it on my wall. Because that's the kind of a$$hole I am.

But seriously. You could go through your whole life taking the easy way out. Taking a break when the going gets tough. Giving up on your plans and dreams because they seem too hard. "Listening to your body." Real success takes brutally hard work. Nobody would tell Michael Phelps that he needs to take a day off of swimming. Nobody even questions his dedication. So how come it's ok for people to question my dedication?

I get it. They're trying to be helpful. But they're not pointing out my limitations. They're pointing out their own. But just because they can't run 8 miles on sore legs doesn't mean they should tell me that I can't. That's doing me a disservice. Giving my sneaky brain yet more ammo to get me to live the lazy life of my ancestors. Instead of telling me what I can't do, maybe these folks should be pushing themselves to see what they're capable of.

I think they'd be amazed.

I bet this guy never looked for excuses to surrender.
Painting by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861).
Photo taken at Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Run for the Red Marathon (Almost Killed Me)

My last three posts led up to this race. One on overtraining, one on tapering, and one on anticipation. A pretty standard pattern when it comes to marathons. Maybe I should've also written a post about race weekend overeating, because holy cheesecake did I gorge myself. And I'd like to say all that hard work, stress, and madness resulted in an epic race.

It was epic. Just not in the way I was hoping for.

But let me start from the beginning.

We were happy. Before we ran.

I left work early on Friday so that I would have plenty of time to get down to the hotel in the Poconos. I hate reserving hotels. Actually, I suck at pretty much any "real life" things. Normal folks are organized. They plan far ahead and get everything out of the way so they can read a book and drink some wine, content in their own "adult-ness". I had scanned through the list of suggested hotels on the race website and picked the one whose name I recognized. I didn't even check how close it was to the start, or if it was even in the right state.

After successfully reserving my hotel, I had thought, "that wasn't so bad; I could totally be a functional adult." That is until a week later when some a$$hole stole my credit card number and started buying USB hard drives like the dollar had collapsed and computer peripherals were the new currency. That tapped me out on being an adult.

Adulting is hard.

Anyway, when I got home from work, I didn't pack, or do anything useful. I just lay in bed for about an hour. Then when Geoffrey got home from work, I went to dinner with him, his kids, and Meghan. She was visiting for the weekend, making sure to be there for my marathon. Awesome lady.

The restaurant somehow kept messing up our order, so that our one order of calamari turned into three. And I ate almost all of them, on top of whatever else I ordered. Oh, and I should mention that I had eaten a tub of ice cream the previous night, after an absolutely terrible 4 mile run. I don't screw around when it comes to carb loading. I don't even remember how far over budget I was. The calorie counter in my app spun like the national deficit.

The drive down was easy enough. I listened to This American Life podcast. In the first episode, Ira Glass' voice was hoarse with a cold. In the next one, someone covered for him because he was sick. I found that funny for some reason. I got to the hotel at about 9pm. I immediately went to the hotel restaurant and had a few beers while listening to really terrible karaoke. I did not sing.

I got to my room and exploded my bag all over the floor. Then I watched commercials for about an hour. The only time I watch cable TV anymore is in hotel rooms. There are no actual shows or movies. Just commercials. On all 80 channels. I went to sleep.

My kokeshi doll looks out the window.

I got up at 9:30 the next morning, which I think is the latest I've slept in since the New Year. I had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. There was no karaoke. Just a single excessively friendly waiter who seemed very excited about me and my omelet. After that I went to the marathon Expo at the high school in Stroudsburg. I got my packet, and signed Geoffrey up for the half marathon.

All expos look the same, really.

He didn't know he was running the half until the day before. At dinner, I had told him that I would pay for him to run and he didn't have a choice. And after two pitchers of beer, he was powerless to refuse. Races are no fun unless your friends suffer too. I walked around the expo, bought some stuff I didn't need, and then ran 2 easy miles around the high school.

I had lunch at a really nice pub across the street from the hotel ("The Original Pocono Pub"). That was the only place I ate for the rest of the weekend. The waitress called me "sweetie" and brought me lots of beer, coffee, and greasy food, and I loved her for it. When I went back to my hotel room, I considered doing something useful on my laptop. I finally gave up and alternated between napping and watching more commercials on the TV.

"Lunch"

Meghan and Geoffrey arrived at around 6:30 and we immediately went to dinner at the same place. Nothing new here: Just a f@#kton more food and booze. I briefly worried that the extra ten pounds in mu gut would impact my race performance. Then I drowned my worries with more alcohol. We had a great time.

I showed them the hotel restaurant so they could keep drinking, and then I went to bed before 9. I was woken up a couple hours later when they returned, quite buzzed. Meghan immediately fell comatose in bed. Geoffrey and I stayed up for another hour, drinking wine out of paper cups, taking photos of ourselves, and just generally making fools of ourselves. We went to bed way too drunk and way too late.

The night before a marathon is the best night to party.

My alarm woke me up at 4:20am. I did my usual pre-race ritual. I was oddly blasé about the fact that I was going to be running a marathon in less than three hours. Maybe I was still drunk. Geoffrey certainly was. We left the room, an apocalyptic warzone of all our belongings, at about 5:40. Thankfully we had a late checkout. The "do not disturb" sign had been hanging on the door since I'd gotten there.

Me? Still drunk the next day? Naaaah

Meghan wished me luck, made out copiously with Geoffrey, and then went home. Because real life. He and I arrived at Pocono Mountain West High School (quite the mouthful) by 6. We always give ourselves at least an hour before a race to do whatever we need to do. But other than hitting the bathroom as many times as humanly possible, we didn't have much to do except loiter. We ran into a couple of cool runners who knew us by way of a mutual acquaintance. They were both way faster than me.

Welcome... to your doooooom.

Shortly before the race started, I took off my shirt. It was 40 degrees. Everyone else was shivering, despite being dressed appropriately. I looked like I was about to charge across a battlefield screaming my head off. Which maybe I was.

The Marathon.

My goal for the race was to qualify for Boston. This meant I had to run it in 3 hours and ten minutes. But qualifying wasn't enough to guarantee one an entry. So I really had to run it in like 3:07 to be sure. I had picked Run for the Red because it has a huge net downhill, and I thought that meant I would run it super fast and totally meet my goal. I had fantasies dancing in my head of running it in under three hours!

I was very wrong.

Running downhill is great for a few miles, up to a half marathon. But what it does beyond that is it destroys your legs. But the other thing, and the thing you totally couldn't tell by looking at the elevation profile, was that the race had about a thousand little hills, and at least a handful of not-so-tiny hills.

You almost never ran flat. You were either running way too fast, blasting your legs down a huge decline, or you were struggling up a hill. You never got a rhythm going. Your pace and heart rate bounced around like a yoyo hanging off a bumblebee.

Seriously.

The first half felt good. Great even. I flew down the declines, and devoured the hills like they were sweet sweet doughnuts. By halfway, I had set both a personal PR for a half marathon (1:31:31) and a personal 10K PR (42:34). I looked like I was on track. I did spend a few seconds gazing longingly at the half marathon finish as I ran past it. Geoffrey would be crossing that line soon.

I ran solid up until mile 15. And then that was it. My legs were done. What I hadn't noticed before was that most of the big downhills were in the first half, the half I ran fast. The second half had a TON of rolling hills. And my legs were completely and utterly trashed. My quads hurt. My hammies hurt. My glutes hurt. And my calves were nightmares.

Pace went down. Heart rate went up.

I kept telling myself it was just pain, and it meant nothing. I would just push myself and heroically finish despite my suffering. But my legs simply refused to go any faster. At around mile 20 a hail storm passed through, slamming me with wind and ice. I didn't have a shirt on remember.

26.2 miles of pain.

It wasn't all bad. Probably the biggest thing that kept me from sinking into a bottomless depression was the sheer volume of fans and spectators who yelled at me.

"Nice kilt!"

"Nice dress!"
 
"FREEEEDDDOOOOOMMMMM!"

And yes, I yelled that last one back after they did, much to their joy. I pumped my fists to everyone who cheered me on. Despite how awful my body felt, the folks on the sides really kept me going. Making me feel that at least I looked tough, even if I didn't feel it.

By mile 22 I decided that I was going to be an inconsolable depressive black hole for the rest of the day. That I would quit running and sulk for months. Then at mile 24 I decided, "screw you douche. You don't get to wallow in misery. You don't get that luxury. You are going to destroy yourself today, be glad for it, and then go back to running the next day."

Wallowing in misery doesn't hurt you. It hurts your friends. It hurts the people who care about you. It's selfish. And there's no point to it.

This doesn't belong here, but I ran out of room above.

I kept telling myself that I was going to sprint the last few miles. Then the last couple. Then just the last one. I don't know where I thought I was going to get the strength from. My legs weren't cooperating. I did sprint the last 1000 feet, but only because the 3:15 pacer had caught up to me and there was no way I was going to let him beat me.

I crossed the finish line in 3:14:26. I beat my previous PR (set at Wineglass) by........... 4 seconds. After months of training, I had shaved off 4 seconds. A nice woman offered me a space blanket at the end. I said no but she kept holding on to me. I was like, why won't this woman let me go?! She asked, "are you OK?", and that's when I realized that I was weaving around like a blind drunk. I escaped her overly-caring clutches.

Geoffrey was there. He had cheered me on near the end. After he'd finished his half, he'd taken the shuttle back to my car, and driven it to the end so he could watch me finish. An amazing friend, that. He had rushed to get there in time. The walk back to the car was the hardest and most painful walk I've ever had. Geoffrey offered to drive and I agreed by collapsing in the passenger seat.

We ate lunch again at the Pocono Pub. Superb. The same waitress was there again, calling us "sweetie" and graciously smiling as we whined about how hard the race was. A woman at the bar asked, "oh did you run a 10K today?" I said, "no, I ran a marathon. 26.2 miles." I said it nonchalantly, as if it wasn't a challenge just to stand.

Every now and then I have to enjoy a moment of smugness. Why else do we run? Self-improvement? Ha! It's so that a couple times a year, we can feel slightly superior to mere mortals. The rest of the time we just hurt.

Afterwards we each took baths. Geoffrey took a nap. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling in anguish. Then we packed and left. I set the car in cruise control, curled up into a ball in the driver's seat, and steered with one finger.

So much of this. So so much.

We stopped by Galaxy Brewing in Binghamton, one of the best breweries of all time. We tried every single one of their 13 beers. We ate more food. I was delirious with happiness as I jammed my body with heavenly high-gravity beer and brussel sprouts (cooked in yet more beer, it tasted like).

This is how I sign all my receipts. True story.

Then we drove the rest of the way home and quietly died.

Race Day Anticipation

My last post was about Tapering for my race this Sunday. That's less than two days before I'm on the starting line for the Run for the Red marathon in the Poconos! But truth be told, I'm terrible at tapering.

This past weekend, I ran about 16 miles between Saturday and Sunday, including a leg smashing 5K on Mother's Day. Then I bicycled 20 miles with Geoffrey on Monday. Yesterday I ran just 4 easy miles. I should have felt light and airy, my legs suffused with energy. Instead I felt totally exhausted, as if I'd already run a marathon.

Part of the problem is that I've been eating very little this week, "saving up" calories for this weekend.That's because even though I'm running a freakin' marathon - one where I hope to qualify for the Boston Marathon - I still can't get out of the calorie counting head space. But I made up for it by eating about a gallon of ice cream last night, and several gallons of wine. And today I'm going to gorge myself on carbs like an asteroid is about to hit the earth.

"We're all about to die? Sh*t, that means
I can finally eat whatever I want!"

But that's not really the point of this post. Most of the above is just me complaining about how stupid I am.

In addition to suffering through "taper madness", us runners also have to suffer "race day anticipation." This is a yo-yo affect where one minute you think, "I'm going to annihilate this race! I bet I can get under 3 hours! I'm amazing!" And then the next minute thinking, "ugh, I'm going to completely bonk out. I'd be lucky to finish the race in five hours. They'll be scraping my bloated carcass off the pavement, dodging the buzzards that circle above."

I can't gauge how I'll do by how I feel. Because how I feel oscillates faster than a frog on a trampoline. I struggled with an analogy there and that's the best I could come up with. Apparently my writing oscillates too. Like a frog on a...

Anyway.

Anticipation is the worst. And it's not like it changes how I'll run. Either I'll run fast and beat my goal, or I'll trip over a fire hydrant and become famous on Youtube as "guy in kilt misses Boston qualifying time by one second due to hydrant mishap." I'd watch that video.

But I can't help the nerves. There's some evolutionary reason for them. It pumps endorphins into your system so you can fight off a wooly mammoth or something. But you can't exactly stay high on endorphins for a week straight. That's like drinking coffee nonstop every waking minute every day.

Which, I mean, I do. It doesn't help the situation.

This is just from this morning.
Also I'm very wasteful.

I try not to think too much about the race. I try not to think about getting up before 5am and going to the bathroom four times in a row. I try not to think about eating precisely one banana. I try not to think about making sure my watch is fully charged. I try not to think about putting on the exact right clothes for the weather, double knotting my shoes, and checking about 20 times that I didn't forget a sock.

I try not to think about getting to the race around 6am so I have plenty of time to bounce around with a thousand other people and hit the port-o-potties a couple more times. I try not to think about shivering in the cold but resisting putting on more clothes because then I'd be too hot when I run. I try not to think about going up to the start line, realizing I still have half an hour to wait, and then milling around, and repeating that about a dozen times. I try not to think about finding precisely the right starting place within the crowd as 7am finally approaches. I try not to think about that air horn being raised in the air.....

Aaaah, see? I totally failed. Now my heart's palpitating like I just smoked ten cigars.

Also doesn't help calm my nerves.

Normally I'd deal with the anticipation by drinking. But I haven't drunk much this week. Mostly I've been lying in bed thinking, "I'm definitely an alcoholic." I guess I don't go halfway on anything. I either drink too much, or not at all. I either eat too much, or not at all. I either run too much.... Well I haven't gotten to not running yet. But that will be a glorious and beautiful time of my life. No doubt.

But that won't happen until at least after my marathon Sunday. Eek!

You won't have to suffer much anticipation though. I plan on writing about about the race afterwards (probably drunk). And if you don't see my post pop up.... Well then look for me on Youtube.

Tapering

For most normal folks, if they were suddenly told they had to run to run every single day, they would convulse and fall over. If they were then told that for a specific two week period, they would get to rest, it would sound like the most wonderful two weeks of their life.

Those two weeks are called tapering. For most people who aren't runners, those two weeks sound like Runner Christmas. Don't be mistaken.

Tapering is the worst period of a runner's life.

"But why?!" You exclaim. After working so hard for so long, you finally get some well-deserved rest and relaxation. You finally get to heal. You finally get to reconnect with friends you haven't seen in months. Isn't that wonderful?!

What normal people don't understand is that runners are insane.

The only thing that keeps that insanity in check is running. When we run, all is right with the world. Nothing matters. Yesterday - literally yesterday - I got an alert that someone had stolen my credit card number and made a bunch of purchases. I gave zero shits. I had just finished an awesome speed workout and all of life seemed totally fine. I talked to the fraud guy on the phone while I prepared to roast some cauliflower. He was very nice and the matter was settled in minutes.

When you run, you are immune to stress.

But when you taper, all of your stress and worries come roaring back. You're sitting there, looking through the same list of romantic comedies from the 80's on Netflix, thinking, "I would kill someone to just go for a run right now." But you can't! Because you have a marathon in a couple weekends, and if you run now, you will fall flat on your face on race day.

It's a double whammy for me because I also count calories. Which means that if I'm running less, I'm eating less. It's actually OK to gain a couple pounds before your race so that you have fuel. But even the slightest hint of ballooning around my mid-section causes me to break out in hives. While I'm tapering, my thought process is, "well if I eat absolutely nothing today, I'll be able to have a beer this weekend."

My diet while I'm tapering.

And all of my runner friends are the same. They all go crazy when they have to taper. That period of rest is one of the rare few times when runners actually feel energetic and want to run. But it's the only time when they can't. And that's torture. Imagine you just had the biggest meal of your life and you're so full that food is oozing out your pores. Then someone offers you cake. Ugh. Now imagine you haven't eaten in three days and then you see cake, but it's just out of reach.

Did your heart rate just speed up a little? Yeah.

And while I'm not running, I start thinking about the long list of things I've wanted to accomplish that I haven't. A part of me thinks, "well now you have the time and energy to do all those things." But I don't. I just stare at the ceiling, calculating how far I can run that day and still be considered tapering. Because after I've run, I have an excuse for not doing anything else.

And I don't feel bad about it.

Running is catharsis. We're all riddled with guilt, and stress, and angst, and a whole bunch of other bullshit. Running is a magic pill that just cures everything. It's hard to believe for non-runners, but it totally is. But if you run seriously, you have to race. It's hard to break yourself every single day if there isn't some goal you're shooting for. But if you race, that means you have to taper.

"I went for a run when I was supposed to be tapering."

I could probably make an analogy here using competitive cake eaters.... But all this tapering has fried my brain. In any event, the thing that makes tapering tolerable is knowing that at the end of it, you get to run a race and NUKE your previous record. I mean, hopefully.

Personally, my goal at my next marathon (Run for the Red in the Poconos) is to qualify for Boston next year. So I have an extra incentive to do this tapering thing right. Although I did an intense speed workout yesterday and have been eating nothing but cauliflower and pickles for the past couple days, so I don't know.

Maybe I just suck at everything. But it's ok. I'm going for a run at lunchtime, and I'll feel better after that...

I prefer to create my own shitty memes.