a good run

"a good run."

there was a time when i would've said, "there's no such thing."

i can't say that any more.

for me, if 2012 was nothing else, it was a searchlight-illuminated shrine to change.

before this year, i knew running was nothing but drudgery. i knew i could never enjoy it. therefore, i knew running 13.1 miles was an eye-rolling impossibility.

i was wrong. and wrong. and wrong again.

to paraphrase agent K, imagine what i'll know next year.

until then, there are people to blame. lisa dunn-soeby, for one. it was her post-13.1 race photos that made me think, "if she can do that, i can do that." thanks, cousin. please don't take up base jumping. and if you do, don't post photos.

then there's lilly nelson, who turned me on to runningahead.com, where one can log everything from training runs to race results to the shoes you wore. the immediate gratification derived from documenting this kind of minutia is intoxicating, and has played a not-insignificant role in my running addiction. hello, lilly, my name is michael, and you're an enabler.

and there's phil kochik, owner of seven hills running shop in our neighborhood. one warm fall day before he opened, phil was inside setting up shop and i was running by. i stopped, walked into the store and like a smiling little kid just said, "awesome!" note: i've never done that before, or since. doing that sort of thing often would be kinda weird.

anyway, every saturday morning, rain or shine, phil hosts a trail run through discovery park. i've joined in just about every weekend, instead of sleeping in or staying inside where it's warm and dry. there was a time in my life when i would've cursed phil for this. now i just say, "thank you" and buy all my gear at his shop.

there are other people who have contributed to this transmogrification: my colleagues, who smile and nod when i talk about my most recent race...and even wish me luck the friday before!

my chiropractor, who is a runner, and knows how to fix my hip and my low back and my leg when it's, like, half an inch shorter than the other leg.

most importantly, the missus, who accommodates my new obsession and tolerates the running shoe fetish i've developed. (i don't believe she's fully aware of the exact number of shoes i've stashed under the bed and in my closet...which is just as well.)

***********

amby burfoot, a legend in running circles (and running in circles), recently wrote:

"Running is easy: Put one foot in front of the other. Staying motivated to run requires much more. It takes thinking and planning. It takes believing in yourself and the value of your workout time. Try to hit 1,000 miles a year for as long as you can. That's roughly 20 miles a week, a solid marker of dedication and persistence."

i'm therefore pleased to report that with a little less than half of december remaining on the 2012 calendar, i've logged 1,004 miles. among accomplished runners, this probably seems like a good start. you know, a solid half year. because i'm not "an accomplished runner," i'm easier to impress. i'm hopeful that there will come a time in my life when 1,000+ miles is routine. expected. a good start. (until then: wow! 1,004 miles! really!)

last sunday i ran the "12 K's of christmas" event in kirkland, wa. it was cold and wet and under few other circumstances would i have been outside in such conditions. but there i was lining up with 1,500 other, um, dedicated and persistent people, trying to stay warm before the start. then we were all running, slogging up long hills, where soon we forgot to be cold.

i set out thinking, "last race in 2012, have fun, enjoy the scenery, be in the moment, don't worry about your time." i did all of those things...and somehow set a new PR for the 12k.

in all, it was a good run.

***********

2012

8k

10k

12k (2)

10m trail (2)

13.1 trail (1)

13.1 road (3)

close to home

"The majority of those who died today were children — beautiful, little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them — birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own. Among the fallen were also teachers, men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams." ~ barack obama, 12/14/12

***********
some days the news coming out of the computer screen blows your hair back and then knocks you down.

this is (another) one of those days.

20 children, six and seven years old. and six adults, some of whom died protecting their kids from the bullets that came in torrents.

look at the faces of the children here. see the gleam in their eyes? they were smart, you can tell. and like most kids, they were growing up too fast, exposed to too much too soon. they probably understood what was happening to them.

***********

see the criminal robbing a bank at gunpoint?

he doesn't look like part of a "well regulated militia," as specified by the second amendment to the u.s. constitution. but there he is, bearing arms, as we are told is his inalienable right.

this photo was taken at the us bank branch in our neighborhood. which is right across the street from where we eat breakfast three or four times a month.

the people in the bank have no idea how close they were to death that day. maybe close, maybe not. maybe the large gun was a fake. maybe it wasn't loaded. then again, maybe it was ready for business, one startled moment from being used as it was intended. they have no idea. 

what is certain is that a version of what happened in newtown, connecticut, may have been thisclose to happening in magnolia. or one hill over on queen anne, where our daughter goes to school. or across the bridge in ballard, where our son goes to school. or at clackamas town center in oregon.

might still happen. any day.

***********

"why do the nations so furiously rage together?" 

friday night, the evening of the shootings, we attended the opening performance of handel's messiah in seattle. the moment of silence for the children stretched out far longer than such things usually do. as it went on, as the seconds spun out, it became an invitation to the audience. you could hear the sighs and sniffling becoming ubiquitous, before someone eventually said "thank you," and the lights dimmed. 

i closed my eyes, and when i did it occurred to me that a shooter could just as easily appear here as in a theater in aurora, or a university in virginia.

"why do the nations so furiously rage together?" asked the baritone, mournfully, angrily in the second act. why do people rage together, and alone? why does individual pain too often lead to violence and destruction, rather than creation?

where is the hope and the joy evoked in the hallelujah chorus?

and why is it always the men who devolve to this kind of savagery?

***********

even now the voices of surrender insist there's nothing we can do to allay the slaughter. we failed in the war on drugs, they say, so how can we hope to regulate guns. how can we even try.

these voices, it seems, are content with the status quo. it's horrible, the constant threat of another storm of bullets... but nothing can be done. it's always been this way. it's in the constitution.

these voices are unmoved, apparently, by the faces of the children scrolling by on the screen. that, or they just don't care. or they don't care enough to try.

***********

i avoided the news, briefly, at lunch friday. the sun was out, there was a race packet to pick up, and a quiet drive in between.

the running shop was buzzing with positive energy, which is always the case on packet pickup day. smiling people moving quickly, with purpose. immersed in that glow, it was possible to forget, for a few moments, what happened earlier in the day on the other side of the country.

then you leave the shop, and the smiles fade. 

and you think about your own children, making their way through their own day, vulnerable.

***********

children sleeping
snow is softly falling
dreams are calling 
like bells in the distance
we were dreamers 
not so long ago
but one by one 
we all had to grow up

believe ~ glen ballard and alan silvestri

***********
send an email to your governor, your representatives, today. tell them the status quo of limitless access to guns and limited access to mental healthcare is no longer an acceptable option.

change up

Change the voices in your head
make them like you instead

~ pink

************

change is easy.

all you have to do is sit there and it happens.

then again, if you get up and gear up and get out, something better might happen.

***********

"It's early in the winter weather season to be whining, but Western Washington and the rest of the region are in for another round of drenching days with no break in sight."

it's been raining here ~ a lot ~ but it's still possible to head outside and run. not optimal, but possible.

as it turns out, pursuant to a previous post, rain-soaked miles really are a consciousness-altering experience.

in good weather, a trail run through discovery park is exhilarating, with views of the olympic mountains and puget sound, on trails that wind through woods thick with pine and madrona and low ferns. 

on a storm-wracked day of high wind and drenching rain ~ with its heightened effect on multiple senses ~ the experience is more dramatic.

the cascade views disappear, of course, hidden behind a wall of lowering gray. trails that were steep and challenging before now are slick beneath rapidly moving water or thick with shoe-grabbing mud.

wind-whipped waves crash on a beach that was runnable at low tide just a couple of weeks ago. between the wind and the surf, the noise is deafening.

as unlikely as it seems, there are others out on the trails as well. alone, in groups, with dogs. "good morning," they say as they pass, as if the conditions were of no more interest than a sunset stroll in summer.

there are rough-hewn stairs connecting the bluff and the beach below, with three- or four hundred feet of elevation in between. the wood of the steps, and the wet leaves that cover them, are a constant concern. a misstep heading up could be painful ~ a slip heading down would be disastrous.

***********

the pace of the group i run with is beyond my ability. they are young and accomplished, veterans of marathons and ultramarathons on the road and trail. their "easy" pace is my tempo or race pace. sometimes, if i'm feeling particularly strong, i can keep up...other times i'm happy to stay in visual contact, catching up when the leaders circle back for stragglers.

i'm not upset by my status in the hierarchy of this pack. i feel fortunate to be included at all. the fact is, running with these people has made me a better runner. faster, more efficient, less emotional when i can't keep up. and on a day like today, i am content to follow, because leading would be a reach beyond my grasp.

sidebar: regardless of who makes it back to the running shop first, i'm always the top finisher in my age group. this is guaranteed by the fact that i'm the only participant in my age group. is that detail important?

***********

afterward, at the coffee shop across the street, there are breakfast sandwiches and protein smoothies and café viennas. the shop is close and warm and welcoming of runners, no matter how rain-soaked. 

after several minutes' dry, quiet respite, there is a walk, uphill, back home. this time, it doesn't rain.

a novel idea...

the two rode up the elevator quietly, looking straight ahead. the young man looked over and noticed the older woman. she was pretty, in a severe kind of way. he looked down, then back to her. "how are you doing today?" he asked. "tired, broke, disgusted and can't be trusted," she replied, still looking straight ahead. he raised an eyebrow, and turned toward her. "i bet you say that to all the guys you ride an elevator with." she withdrew her hand from her coat pocket, and pointed the gun at him. "i told you i couldn't be trusted," she said. his eyes widened just before she pulled the trigger. the elevator doors opened and the woman walked away without looking back...

ad nauseum

sam elliott won't rest until every glacier melts and every polar bear is dead.

why else would he continue to pimp the biggest gas-sucking bunny-crushing truck-beasts american engineers can design? okay, besides the money.

sam elliott has a great, iconic voice. shoot, if he told me something ridiculous, like say, coors ("the banquet beer!") is fit for human consumption, i'd almost believe him. it is, after all, brewed with high country barley and pure rocky mountain spring water. which sounds good, in the abstract, if not in the actual beer.

but when he tells me the dodge ram 1500 truck can "move heaven and earth," and "bring the world to its knees" ~ while on screen a CG mountain explodes in a cataclysm of environmental devastation ~ i start to think maybe sam isn't the most credible, responsible spokesperson.

give the soulless marketing hacks at dodge credit ~ they know their target market. the dog-whistle language in this spot is like PBR for gun-toting climate-change-denying manifest-destinating hemi-hogs.

"take it all head-on ... shorten the distances, push beyond the possible, roar past convention, shift every course, defy the elements..."

earth-scorching parody can't mock much much harder than that. and yet, it's just the kind of talk that gets the most atherosclerotic viagra-dependent face-painters all tingly with...something. they can't quite remember what. simmer down there, bubba. you're just a few systolic points away from a hemorrhagic event.

sam, though, takes it one step further. he actually appears on camera here ~ a first in this scintillating series ~ lending his personal imprimatur to a marauding message of manly plunder.

"the road doesn't end here," sam says. "this is only the beginning. guts. glory. ram."

and with those last three words, delivered with the dramatic seriosity only a true professional can fake, excitable types all over the country explode, messily and in unison, in a truckgasm of monster proportions.

atta way, sam. environmental impact, if such a thing existed at all, is somebody else's problem. america's weekday warriors are gonna ram this road right up mother nature's avenue ~ and god help anyone who gets in the way. all the way to the job site where the really serious fracking happens. giddy. up.

afterward they'll fire up some of the beef council's finest byproduct, because as sam once intoned: "beef ~ it's what's for dinner. especially after you've just had your way with nature and you're ready to reload with a bolus of fat-marbled protein, rammed into your veins. defy doctors orders. guts. glory. meat."

three things ~ the economy, the environment, and the american habitus ~ are in rough shape. sam elliott's audacious advocacy ~ for fat trucks burning tons of fossil fuels and a flotilla of adipose americans ~ is ill-advised. in a nonfunny literal kind of way.

sam, the world is already pretty well brought to its knees, thanks. and you've done your bit to help put it there. so before you start pimping, oh-i-don't-know, high fructose corn syrup and genetically modified organisms and baby harp seal hunting ~ how about you take a ram 1500 head-on and, you know, push beyond the possible?

going dark

run to the light...all are welcome!
wait, not that light...

it's not winter yet, but the dreaded drizzling darkness is descending rapidly. this time of year, nightfall comes early to seattle. 

at 3:30 in the afternoon you can look out the window and think, "are we having an eclipse? did i lose consciousness for several hours? is it time for dinner?" but no, it's just a weak-willed sun too low in the sky to make any headway through the clouds.

it's a tough time to be a runner here. during the week, you either get out 

at lunch, or you run in the dark. quite often in the rain. or you stay inside, on the treadmill. either way, your time and distance usually suffer, unless you discover the eternal secret to enduring the treadmill. which i have not.

this leaves the weekends to get out for some extended miles, if your responsibilities allow for such a thing.

i confess, i'm embittered by these short daylight hours. we had actual summer in 2012, for the first time in years, and i got used to long, tranquil runs after work, with plenty of light left over for the drive home. at 9:30 p.m. or so we'd say, "well, it's starting to get dark. maybe we should head in and get some dinner going."

i'm greedy now for the warmth, the light, the lack of horizontal precipitation. i want to be someplace where winter doesn't last seven months. where the vault door of dreary and damp and dark doesn't close with an ominous, remorseless, echoing booooom.

trouble is, places like those are very popular, and very expensive. with the kind of jobs that pay just enough for you to buy a bus ticket someplace else when you've exhausted your life savings.

that, or they're so inhospitable on the other end of the thermometer that even the gila monsters don't want to live there.

i know. no one ever said life was easy. running certainly is not easy for me. but i'm learning that "real runners" adapt to the environment and keep going. so that's what i'm trying to do. to that end, i've been accumulating gear. a couple LED headlamps. a breathable waterproof jacket. reflective gloves. a waterproof baseball cap. knee-length compression shorts. ankle-high smartwool socks. and some winterized trail running shoes with burly vibram soles.

fortunately i already owned the snorkle and scuba mask.

i can now run, as comfortably as possible, in the cold, dark and wet. people who do so report feeling exhilarated and vibrant and powerful and fully alive like never before. in such conditions i feel pretty good sitting bundled up indoors with a glass of wine, but admit to a twinge of...envy? admiration? when those people run by.

part of me thinks, "y'all are crazy." part of me says, "you need to gear up and

go find out. or one day you'll wish you had."

that last thing, the finding-out part? it's winning. in fact, it's already won.

i'm going.

***********

there's a new running store in our neighborhood, called seven hills running

(there are seven hills surrounding seattle, see). each week they sponsor a

saturday morning group run ~ rain or shine. today they headed out in pouring

rain, the perfect chance for me to test my new gear, and my resolve.

instead, i headed to the airport, to new orleans, for a conference. weather dot

com predicted 66 and sunny for the short duration of the trip. i packed

accordingly.

***********

the weather in nawlins was perfect. i put in eight miles one day, five miles another.

then i headed back to seattle, where the forecast called for rain. every day.

for the next several months.

it won't be getting lighter, or drier, any time soon. but, at least there won't

be any frankenstorms. theoretically.

time to dive in.

happy trails, hawaiian-style...

"if we run, we can make it before dark,"
he said. that's when the dinosaurs attacked.

the pre-race briefing was simple.


"follow the blue ribbons out, and the pink ribbons back. everybody got that? blue ribbons out, pink ribbons back."


yeah, i got it. everybody got it. trouble is, the pink ribbons lied.

***********


a half marathon is plenty challenging. a half marathon trail race is half an order of magnitude more challenging. ("this one will seem like 16 or 18 miles, everyone! have fun!")


a half marathon trail race on the toughest course i've ever seen ~ with another 2.6 miles of steep up-and-down tacked on because someone mis-marked the course ~ is awesome.


i was not prepared to run 15.7. i certainly didn't train for 15.7. in fact, i wasn't really prepared for 13.1, since i got hurt and lost two weeks of training right before the race. instead of piling up the miles, i hobbled up and down the stairs. i saw a chiropractor and an MD and a sports medicine specialist. their diagnoses ranged from a strained soleus to shin splints to a stress fracture.


prescribed therapy, in every case, was rest. three to six weeks. which i obviously didn't have time for. doctors, did you not hear the part where i said i was going to hawaii? to run 13.1? off-road?


i needed, like, robotic laser hyperbaric cryo-micro infusions, stat. 


unfortunately there's no such thing as robotic laser hyperbaric cryo-micro infusions. so i got compression sleeves. for both legs. i got double doses of NSAIDs to combat the inflammation. i got slow, shuffling, two-mile "training runs" that ended with me walking back in. it was pitiful (except when compared to things that are actually worthy of pity, of course).


and yet somehow in two weeks (not three or six) i experienced a recovery i had no reason to expect. the pain gradually became more tolerable, and i was able to put in some longer training runs. with a week to go before hawaii, i ran a 12k race and put up a time that was five minutes faster than the previous year.

it wasn't the 10 or 12 miles i needed do ahead of a half marathon, but it was pain-free and therefore cause for great gladness and gratitude and oh-i-don't-know, godzilla. ("look out, it's godzilla! run away with speedy rapidity!")


i flew into honolulu the thursday before the race, and ran five miles to get acclimated. no pain. the next day i ran three miles to pick up my race packet. no pain!

the next day, the day of prevaricating pink ribbons, there were other kinds of pain ~ but i didn't think about my legs once.

***********

the 2012 gunstock trails half marathon course ranged over a working cattle ranch, complete with uncorralled horses, free-roaming cows and wide-ranging cow pies. the trail was rocky and dusty and steep and narrow and completely unsuitable for running. which is to say, it was fantastic.


the scenery, what little i saw of it, was beautiful. the blue pacific ocean, lush green valleys, galloping horses...i really wish i could've looked at it. if i had, however, i would've tripped and broken my head, immediately and a thousand times over. with rare exceptions, i was constantly looking down, watching where my next step was going, thinking, "quick feet quick feet quick feet" (which was kind of funny, given how rarely in this life one has a real need for such a thought).


on the way out, we all followed the blue ribbons and the painted arrows and the helpful locals telling us to go this way and that way. on the way back i remember thinking i was going to beat my goal time by a good ten minutes.

under two hours? on this course? after being hurt and undertrained? this was going to be a hell of a race, by golly, for an aging, aspirational running person.


everything was going perfectly!

i went off course mile ten-ish, i think. one minute i was feeling good and proud and fortunate and the next i was milling around with a pack of people (including the leaders) wondering where the finish line was.

"we went to the top of that ridge," the leaders said, pointing to a ridge way up thataway. "the trail just kind of fizzles out. so it's gotta be back the way we came." the thing is, there were pink ribbons all along the path we were on. and the woman definitely said, "blue ribbons out, pink ribbons back." at no time did she say, "oh, but not THOSE pink ribbons."


"this is just like an episode of 'lost,'" i said to no one in particular. a couple people laughed. i was grateful.


at that point, our options seemed limited. we could've waited for the rescue chopper, ("get to the choppah!"). we could've been chased by dinosaurs ("we can make it if we run!" "no, we can't...we're being hunted."). we could've floated to civilization on a bamboo raft ("wilson! i'm sorry!"). but no one seemed inclined to do any of those things.

so instead we saddled up, figuratively, and ran back down the long hill we had just climbed.
 we were met halfway by a race official on a trail bike, sent to find us. "sorry about this, everyone. head back to the junction and make a left."


we headed back to the junction, noting its ambiguous, ubiquitous ribbonage ("see? the pink ribbons go both ways!") and made a disgruntled left. with that, we were back on course. out of water, out of gels, out of our minds, but back on course.


the rest was uneventful, except for the raw, bleeding blisters on both my feet. those happened by mile five and did not improve as the race wore on, strangely enough.

people were cheering as we late-arrivers crossed the finish line. i think they were just relieved we weren't dead. someone took my timing chip and handed me a finisher's medal. it was a small dog-tag on a chain, reading "gunstock trails half (or somewhat longer if you follow the decoy pink ribbons. ha!)"


i milled about dazedly after that, eating sliced oranges and bananas, not really hearing the award presentations to people who had stayed on the course. i didn't want to leave, but after awhile there wasn't any reason to stay...except to make sure i wouldn't have a seizure while driving. it would've been a shame to survive the race but perish in a one-car collision with a hallucination.


i made it back to the hotel, showered off the head-to-toe red clay dust and cut away the flayed skin that previously had been part of my toes. i downed liters of water, and flopped into bed.
 later, i had a beer. and lots of pasta. 


the next day, i went on a seven-mile hike through a hawaiian jungle.


it seemed like a walk in the park.


***********


yes, i'd do it over again. i'd bring more water, mind you, and half a dozen more 
gels...but same deal next year? yeah, sign me up.


i know, it's a little nutty. 
but the thing is, after the event it felt like i had done something special.


almost (almost) like i'd run a marathon.


and wouldn't that be something?

off the clock

Hardwood floor-a-creakin'
Bedroom door squeakin'
She's standing in the kitchen
I thought she was still sleepin'
Kiss her on the forehead
Ask her how she slept
She says, "Honey it's so early.
We prob'ly shouldn't speak yet."

~ lyle lovett

***********

the missus is on sabbatical.

mostly because she's too young to retire. and too stubborn to surrender.

she had a rough go, career-wise, the last couple jobs. all the corporate cliches were in play: the more she gave, the more they took. no hours were unreasonable, and no time was off the clock. just for fun, there was the persistent undercurrent of snide disrespect and gender discrimination.

she didn't believe it could happen to her. she thought, not unreasonably, that her intelligence and kamikaze work ethic would insulate her.

plus, she was raised to believe that if you did what you were supposed to do and followed the rules and sacrificed time at home, rewards surely would follow.

she was hugely mistaken. she learned you can be all that, do all that, and still wake up 30 years later beholden to a job you don't really want for its barely adequate salary and the healthcare insurance you can't go without.

the scope and scale of her mistakenness came as a shock to her.

but once that lesson is learned, there's no unlearning it.

you can, of course, continue to participate in the corporate kabuki, with full knowledge of the faustian bargain. if you can stand it. or you can say, "thank you, no. i'm out."

at that point you wail and throw things and beseech the gods of revenge.

or you go on sabbatical.

you seek universal truths and inner calm. you acknowledge the choices you've made and what they cost you. you go to classes. you go to france. you come thisclose to buying a little bakery. you breathe. you get healthy. you go to france again. months go by, and you realize there are many other things you could be happy doing.

that's when things start to look dicey at your spouse's employer. and you realize you might have to get back into the game. just in case. so your family doesn't find itself without the salary and healthcare it can't be without. you grit your teeth, update your résumé, and begin the process...

the missus is resilient. and restless. and relentless. soon she'll be back at it, improving efficiency, cutting costs, and increasing shareholder value. all the adorably business-y things the corporatocracy reveres. in its nonstop grinding masticating way.

that lesson is learned, and will not be unlearned. no matter how much good wine is ladled over it.

but for now...the missus is on sabbatical.