Well, sh*t is about to get real up in here…

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…because I just officially signed up for both the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon and the Great Lakes Marathon Series.

Also, and probably more important, I will be fundraising for gastric cancer advocacy and research through supporting the Debbie’s Dream Foundation with my run, due to a close family member who has recently been stricken with the disease. Here is a link to my fundraising page: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/mcfarlanetom/clevelandrun.

So it’s on. Can’t back out now. Also, thinking about getting one of the snazzy GLMS training shirts:

GLMS-Training-Shirt

They only take cheques (or, I guess, checks??) in US funds, so will have to work that one out…

2015 Race #1: Robbie Burns 8K Road Race, Burlington, Ontario

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Date: January 25, 2015
Gun Time: 35:38
Chip Time: 35:33
Placing Overall: 151st out of 1047
Placing in Age Group: 20th out of 67 (M40-44)
Theme Song: Modest Mouse, “Florida”

“Are you really gonna park there, in front of my driveway?” said the dude who had just popped out of his front door, like a Morlock from his hole.

I eyed the 3 inch sliver of bumper that was currently technically the obstruction in question and looked at him a little incredulously. Shrugging, I sauntered back over to my car’s driver side door, half expecting him to make the “I’m watching you” gesture of pointing to his eyes and then to me. I moved a comfortable distance down the street; it never pays to antagonize the Morlocks, I’ve learned.

Welcome to Burlington, apparently.

It was definitely one of those genital nip sort of days. Burlington in January tends to be about as charming a place as the wilds of Siberia. The mercury read -11C an hour before the race, and it wasn’t looking to get a whole lot warmer. A cutting wind from the northwest wasn’t helping matters.

Safely inside the gym at Burlington Central High School, I picked up my race kit (basically consisting of a short sleeved shirt with a grinning Scotsman in a kilt and running shoes adorning the front) and surveyed the other runners, who wore an eye watering assortment of plaid over their cold weather running gear. A group aptly named the “Tartan Tarts” went chattering past as I wondered idly what the immortal bard would have made of them.

Sadly, “Ode to a Haggis” was not part of the opening salvo of ceremonies, though of course the requisite skirling bagpipes were evident. A couple of too long announcements were made as we stood shivering behind the start line.

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The gun went eventually, and unfortunately the cold led to me going out a bit too fast in an effort to warm up. I did the first mile in 6:30 and though I was feeling pretty good, I felt I had better slow things down a bit. A funny thing happened as the race progressed – I didn’t think it was possible for me to overdress for the conditions, but I did. About halfway through the race, I felt like I was overheating. I was wearing a poly/spandex full zip as my top layer, which I partly undid, but the layers underneath still seemed to be too warm.

Things got a little worse when I turned the corner into the last straightaway at the 6K mark and ran smack into that north-west wind. Worse still, this part of the course hadn’t really been properly salted or cleared, and I was having a hell of a lot of trouble finding my footing, which is a real pain in the ass when you’re at the end of a race and trying to maintain your pace while increasingly fatigued.

Nevertheless, in spite of the challenging conditions I managed to cross the line in 35:33, which was a PR, although I had done the distance faster in training. I was relatively happy with this, and it was fun hanging around the start line for a bit and watching some of the rather whimsically costumed participants reach the finish.

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No haggis post-race either, but hot oatmeal (as I suppose befits a Scottish themed race) and the usual assortment of bananas and bagels. As a local band belted out vaguely Celtic songs (Great Big Sea, anyone?) and the medalists climbed the stage post-race to receive their due, I resisted (somehow) the urge to proclaim,

“Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face
Great chieftain of the puddin’ race!”

Because, of course, no one wants to be compared to a haggis, really.

As I drove home, my iPod shuffle rather shrewdly coughed up Modest Mouse’s Florida: “Even as I left Florida/Far enough, far enough, wasn’t far enough.” Appropriate given the location of my next races – but with my first half-marathon coming up I was left to hope that far enough would indeed be far enough.

Canadian Winters (and the Dubious Joys of Running in Them)

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Running in cold weather sucks.

I love my country, but with regard to my tolerance for the cold, the place of my birth sometimes seems like a bit of an unhappy accident. Let me be blunt: I hate the snow, I hate the freezing temperatures, I am not a winter sports person, and every day that goes by in the less salubrious months of the calendar here I pray for an end to the frigid horrors (which, I would surmise, makes me not unlike the vast majority of Canadians, if we’re being perfectly honest).

Now, the problem: I had just committed to myself that I was going to run the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon in May, and thus the training, or at least part of it, was going to have to take place in the winter. I therefore had to steel myself for the eventuality of heading out in, shall we say, rather less than perfect conditions.

This, it soon transpired, created a few logistical problems. As a rather extreme and unfortunate example, I had never heard of genital nip before I started seriously running. It is not a comfortable experience. Apparently there are shorts with a special lining designed to ward off just such a circumstance. This is one of the things no one tells you about cold weather exercise. (So, guys – be warned.) Also, it’s difficult to prepare for the effort involved in running when there is deep icy slush on the roads. The first 10 mile run I put in was not only slow, but my hamstrings hurt for days afterward from the effort of just lifting my feet out of the frozen quagmire. Trying to pick one’s way down a road that is a solid sheet of ice is no fun either. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have any serious falls, but I certainly slipped a few times, and again, extra effort is required staying upright that saps one’s energy and resolve.

The alternative, of course, is staying inside on the hamster wheel. This is what I tended to do when the weather got really cold, or the roads were slippery enough that I just didn’t want to bother with them. The running community on the internet has lots of things to say about treadmill running, and just like most things there doesn’t seem to be any consensus about it. The most damning criticism leveled at the treadmill seems to be “it’s not the same as road running.” Well, duh. In January in Canada, it’s a hell of a lot warmer, for one thing. I realize that it’s not a good idea to train for road racing entirely on a treadmill, but I would never do this, or advocate doing it. I have, however, found that mixing treadmill runs in with outdoor ones has allowed me to get mileage in and reduce the amount of wear and tear from repetitive strain, since the impact is much lessened with the cushioning a treadmill provides versus a hard asphalt surface.

I’ve had a few fellow runners who seem to feel this is anathema, and their reasons usually boil down to the following: lack of wind resistance and road surface makes treadmill running too easy (that’s why I mix it up, and I still seem to be able to go pretty fast on my road runs), you run the risk of overstriding during speed workouts and ending up with hip flexor and hamstring pain (funny that, but my hip, hamstring, and shin pain got better when I started using the treadmill), and using a treadmill all the time will screw up your ability to innately find your pace in the road (last 12 miler I did on the road I set 8:15/mile for my goal pace and wound up running within 5-10 seconds of that for every single one of my mile splits – enough said).

As for dealing with the crushing boredom of doing a two-hour run on a treadmill – well, I still haven’t figured out a strategy for that yet. Suggestions are welcome.

We runners are a crazy lot, and I’ve still found myself out there when the weather is insane. I’m not alone. Exhibit A:

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That’s fellow Cambridge Harrier Mitch Free, after one of his competitions this February (photo courtesy George Aitken). All in a day’s work in the Great White North…

From the Archives: Remember Run 8K, November 8th, 2014

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Gun Time: 37:06
Chip Time: 36:55
Placing Overall: 40th out of 253
Placing in Age Group: 6th out of 15 (M40-44)
Theme Song: The Beatles, “Getting Better”

All year long, my colleague Rachael had been gunning for me.

I know this because she told me so. We had both been in the Cambridge Mill race earlier in the year (bloody great hill at KM 6.5 and all, though this time I was a bit more judicious about how I started) and I had managed to run under 40 minutes, finishing at 39:55, a couple of minutes ahead of her. Apparently she was none too pleased about losing to Fat Dad and had used it as fodder for training all summer. Although to make it out as some kind of epic showdown was overstating the case a bit, we were both registered to run the Remember Run 8K, and I’m pretty sure one of her goals was to ensure that she vanquished the stink of the defeat by my corpulent self.

Thing was, Fat Dad was no longer really Fat Dad anymore. I was up to about 20 miles a week (legitimately, this time) and considerably less chunky. I was actually pretty optimistic about my chances in this one. The weather forecast initially was a bit terrifying, with the prospect of running 8K in freezing rain looming, but as it turned out the precipitation held off and the temps were around the 5 Celsius mark as we approached the start time, and winds were calm (pretty good running weather in my estimation). Dressed up in my new cold weather gear, including black Columbia beanie hat and gloves, I thought I looked pretty smart.

“You look like a burglar, Daddy,” my three year old daughter opined.

Sigh.

Any race that starts with a pipe band is pretty much OK by me. I figure it’s a vestige of my Scottish heritage asserting itself that I get all goosepimply when I hear that beautiful skirling sound. The race proceeds were going to the local Legion, and I thought of my grandfather and his effort in the war. Silently I dedicated the race to his memory.

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So then the gun, and off I went. This was the first race where I actually felt good after the first couple of KM, like I was pacing myself properly. I even managed to smile at a camera a time or two, silly looking beanie and all. (The damn thing kept coming off and I ended up ditching it).

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I got to the 5K mark and still had plenty of spring left in my step. This was rather new ground for me and I wasn’t sure quite what to do. Should I pick up the pace a little and try for negative splits? Was it too early to do this? I didn’t have a timing device on me so I wasn’t quite sure what my splits even were. I decided to stay the course for awhile and try to pick things up in the last couple of kilometers.

Soon it transpired that the woman who was running directly in front of me for most of the second half of the race was none other than my colleague Rachael. She did not look best pleased to see me pull up beside her, but nonetheless we exchanged slightly out of breath pleasantries. We passed the 7K mark and it was at this point that I decided to hell with it, time to charge to the finish. As I kicked it into a higher gear, a snarl came from behind me.

“Oh, no you don’t, buddy.”

I looked over in time to see Rachael power past me like a freight train. As I watched, amazed, she sprinted past me and around the corner to the last straightaway. I gave it my best shot at catching her, but it was not to be. Behold the vanquishing of Not Quite As Fat Dad:

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I couldn’t begrudge her for this one. After all, she’d put a ton of work in just to beat me. And, she finished first in her age category. Also, I was really happy with my time, having shaved a full 3 minutes off my PR, which took some of the sting out of losing to her.

Just know this Rachael: next time that 8K comes around, Fat Dad’s gonna be waiting.

Fat Dad Gets Less Fat. With Shin Splints.

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Even though I was clearly overweight and hadn’t really done any formal exercise program since high school, I still had this weird notion that I was sort of in shape. After all, I could run 3 miles on the treadmill, right?

(An aside: actually 3 miles turned out to be not 3 miles. My treadmill runs 10% slow for some reason. I discovered this when I tried to run on a hotel treadmill on a business trip and almost got shot off the bloody end of the thing. I figured it was the hotel treadmill that was wrong. Then it happened again, and again, at different locations. Finally, I had to face the truth that mine was wonky.)

When I started to have trouble breathing last summer, I had several investigations done and nobody could find anything wrong. Echo, spirometry tests, CT scans, everything was fine. My doc sent me for a fitness assessment at a local physiotherapy place for completeness sake. On the surface I was all bravado about it, but underneath I think I knew it wasn’t going to go well.

I arrived at the physio clinic and was taken into a back area by a dude who kind of looked like Tony Little without the long, bleach-blond hair. He asked me a few questions, primarily about what my recent activity level had been.

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“Actually, I’m a runner. I run 15-20 miles a week,” I boasted. (Totally not true, by the way, but I guess I must have felt particularly macho that day.)

“Oh, okay. I’m gonna get you to do a 3-minute step test then. You should have no problem with this at all,” said Almost Tony Little.

The 3-minute step test is basically exactly as it sounds. You step up and down on a foot-high bench at a 96 bpm pace. The test is intended to measure how quickly one’s heart rate returns to baseline afterward as an indicator of one’s aerobic fitness level.

“Huh,” said Almost Tony after I finished.

Shit. I didn’t like the sound of that “huh” one little bit.

“Am I scaring you or something? I must be, because your test results are below average,” he went on, rather smugly I thought. So much for machismo.

He then went on to measure my hip-to-waist ratio, and my flexibility, both of which also proved to be subpar. My old corpse seemed to be having a bad day. “We just need to get your lower body a bit stronger. You ought to do some squats,” Almost Tony advised solemnly.

I wished I had a little flag so I could wave it around. Squats, woo-hoo. Fantastic.

“And you know – it wouldn’t hurt to join a yoga class to work on that flexibility. Plus there are other fringe benefits, with the scenery and all.” He winked with both eyes weirdly.

Ummm, yeah. OK. Thanks Almost Tony.

Of course, I never did any squats. Nor did I run out and join any yoga classes with the intent of staring at women’s bottoms. Instead, I went home and railed to Lori about how inaccurate the step test was.

In the end, the breathing problems turned out to be 100% related to anxiety and not to anything physical. And I finally came to grips with the idea that maybe, just maybe, I needed to do something about my slovenly habits.

This was around the beginning of August 2014, and I pledged to myself that I was going to run at least 3 or 4 miles 3-4 times a week. Additionally, I ditched the booze for a whole month. Completely.

By October, I had lost 13 pounds, and the running was a lot easier. Unfortunately, a new problem had emerged. I had never really had issues with shin splints before (probably because one of the advantages of sitting on a couch all the time is that you don’t tend to get them), but suddenly the sharp pains along the sides of my shin bones in both legs had gotten bad enough that they were hampering my ability to go up and down stairs, much less run.

So, it was back to the internet, where I found about 50 different opinions on shin splints. Heel striking causes them. Not heel striking causes them. Weak calf muscles cause them. Overpronation causes them. Run with them wrapped, run with them taped, don’t run with them at all. And so on.

I did find out through a gait analysis that I overpronate (I tend to run slightly splay footed), so I bought some shoes to correct that. It didn’t seem to help much, so I added taping, icing, and elevation, and judicious use of anti-inflammatories to my routine. Eventually I got the pain down to the point where it was manageable. Changing my running schedule to try to avoid doing too much also helped.

The thing that wound up being the magic cure for me was compression stockings. I had a pair that I got as a sample at work and decided to give them a shot one day – and I couldn’t believe the difference they made. I never run without them on now.

Getting the pain in my lower legs dealt with was a huge part of my decision to go ahead with the marathon training. Now all I had to do was actually get started.

From the Archives: Cambridge Mill Race 8K, April 14, 2013

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Gun Time: 41:55
Chip Time: 41:55
Placing Overall: 70th out of 267 entrants
Placing in Age Group: 15th out of 27 (M 35-39)
Theme Song: Sloan, “Everything You’ve Done Wrong”

It all began with one of our volunteers at work asking me if I was a runner.

At the time, I hadn’t done anything competitive sports wise since my teens, other than the family softball tournament every summer which barely counts as exertion (and yet still managed to render me flabbily exhausted year after year). But, since I would from time to time haul my 20-pounds-overweight self onto a treadmill and churn out a couple of miles (mostly in a vain attempt to counter the caloric content of all the alcohol I was drinking), I of course puffed out my chest and replied that I was.

Good, she said, because the Cambridge Mill Race is next month and the proceeds are going to the hospital. You should sign up.

Cornered thusly, I agreed to do so, figuring my fitness level wasn’t that bad.

Of course, the fact that I capitulated didn’t inspire me to do anything different, at least not really. I might have done a couple of extra 15 minute sessions on the hamster wheel, but I think I felt at the time that my ancient history as a runner and my natural athleticism (snort) would pull me through the event. The fact that the Cambridge Mill, a rather swank local restaurant, was catering the post-race meal admittedly played a large part in my decision to enter. That should give you a pretty good idea of where my head was.

The day dawned cool and overcast, and after watching the kids burn through the 1K fun run, Fat Dad trotted to the starting corral to give it his best shot. I began the race lined up right at the start line with, you know, those guys who could actually run. And dammit, at the gun I shot forward like a paunchy cheetah after an overdose of amphetamines. I held my own against those guys.

For two blocks. You can likely guess what happened next.

I remember getting to the 2K marker and thinking “Holy shit. I may have made a slight miscalculation here.” The gasping for breath was what clued me in, along with the rapidly slowing pace and wanting to puke.

Thankfully for me, this part of the course was fairly flat, so aside from the ignominy of being passed repeatedly by, like, everyone, I was able to gut out the next 3K or so. Eventually, I looked around and realized a former student of mine had come up beside me. He was a very respectful young guy I had always enjoyed teaching, as well as an ex-military man. Our conversation went something like this:

Him: “Hey, Dr. M, how’s it going?”
Me: (Unintelligible gasping reply)
Him: “Good day for a run, huh? Not too hot. Lori and the kids here?”
Me: (More gasping)
Him: “Well, have a good race!”
Me (thinking): Please don’t throw up in front of him. Oh god, please don’t throw up.

Off he headed, and I was alone once again with my hubris.

Then, at 6.5K, another horror. Someone put a huge hill in the middle of the course. It really wasn’t that huge, but it seemed like fucking K2 was between me and the finish line at the time. All I could think of was “Who the fuck put THAT fucking thing there?” I may have cursed their descendants to be visited with the fleas of a thousand camels as well, I don’t really remember.

On the heels of that was the thought, “I am NOT walking.”

Anyhow, somehow I dug deep and slowly made my way to the top, and eventually hauled myself across the finish line. The kids, unconcerned, piled on me, little realizing how close Daddy was to a crippling coronary. Here’s a great shot of Fat Dad in the throes of agony:

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The funny thing is, once I recovered, and realized all the mistakes I made, I realized how much I missed the competition. My time wasn’t all that bad (though the race itself nearly killed me). It was the start of something, although I do remember thinking at some point during the race that anything beyond 10K was going to be impossible for me. It was only later that I would learn the value of preparation and would realize that , indeed, more was not only possible, but inevitable.

Why I Run, or, Liquor?!? I Barely Even Know Her!

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I used to be one of those annoying overachievers.

As a high school student, I was a four-sport letterman, a top honors student, and my graduating class’s valedictorian. One of the sports I lettered in was track, and my best distance was 3000 meters. And yes, youth was wasted on me, just like it is on all the other kids out there. Thirty-something seemed impossibly old to me at the time, to say nothing of forty.

The intervening years were not kind.

My biggest problem: an appetite for excess, primarily with alcohol. To wit:

OK, maybe not quite as bad as that but you get the idea.

The long and the short of it was that I found myself in my late thirties, depressed, overweight, in terrible shape, and drinking on almost a daily basis. The problematic thing about alcohol is that it’s awesome, at least for me. Alcohol can:

– Give that Milli Vanilli video a strange glow of profundity
– Render disco listenable
– Make COPS at 2am not only watchable but seem like an Ibsen play
– Make me laugh hysterically at cat memes for two hours straight

And so on.

So what does this have to do with the reasons I run? Well it’s what you probably think, but maybe not to the degree you think.

Because see, I still love booze. And I have no intention of giving it up. What I realized, however, is I need to give up spending my evenings with it every day. I would like to spout platitudes about how running changed my life, how it made me give up the bottle and fixed my depression, and I lived happily ever after, amen.

Nope.

I still battle depression, though I’m no longer overweight or out of shape. I still drink, though not to the degree I used to. What running does for me is it acts as a kind of buffer. When I run, I’m less depressed, and I’m less inclined to chug a bottle of wine and watch retro 80s videos alone in my basement until the wee hours. It gives me goals to work toward, and I know that my excesses will hamper those goals. Maybe there’s an element of endorphin related satisfaction there too, I don’t know.

So, that’s why I run. To save me from myself. A prosaic reason? Yeah, probably. But new agey stuff aside, it makes me feel better. And as long as it does I intend to keep doing it.

Me and the Great Lakes Marathon Series, or, Does This Garmin Make Me Look Quixotic?

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I don’t remember what finally made me decide I wanted to run a marathon.

Oh, there were probably many factors involved, most of which would count as the usual suspects I’m sure; being able to call myself a marathoner at parties and sound like a badass, big honkin bling, the fact that a track rival from high school was now a Marathon Maniacs member and was running the things like it was some sort of uncontrollable bodily function, the opportunity to agonize one’s body in exotic places, and all that. I vacillated over whether to even try for some time, but as I slowly got back in shape from years of self-inflicted lethargic purgatory it seemed to me that to make the attempt at least was now falling into the outer provinces of the realm of possibility.

So began the internet searches for training plans and wading through the titanic amount of information and opinions available out there. I was never under any misapprehension that it would be as simple as putting one foot in front of the other, but just getting some sort of cohesive plan figured out proved to be daunting. However, eventually I got to the point where I felt like I could at least move forward.

I do remember when I decided it would be cool to run the Great Lakes Marathon Series.

I found out about the series through the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon website when I was scouting it for possible entry. For the uninitiated, the GLMS is a series of 25 marathons taking place along the shores of the Great Lakes. The series’ webpage claims it is for “runners who are interested in experiencing a variety of marathons along the Great Lakes, while at the same time making a positive impact on the ecosystem of the Great Lakes Basin.”

Super. Me, I just happened to note that 15 of the 25 marathons were within 4 hours drive of my house, which appealed to both my sense of activeness and laziness simultaneously. I considered this a win-win.

Here’s the thing, though. I still haven’t run a single marathon yet. I’ve always had a tendency to get so far ahead of myself I’d need a piggyback from Usain Bolt to catch up. My plans tend to smack of grandiosity, and though sometimes they come to fruition, they definitely often end up with me forgetting I ever made them and wandering off to eat a sandwich. I have no idea which will happen here. But dammit, I’m gonna give it the old college try. I do have some reasons to stick with it which will probably become clear. And I’m gonna blog about it because I enjoy writing, it’ll give me a creative outlet which I probably need, and, well, because I’m self-indulgent. And being self-indulgent is what the internet is for, right?