It's just a piece of cheap metal, but ...

Just a piece of medal on a ribbon?

The timelapserunner slept rather well the night before the big race, waking once at 4:20AM only to fall back to sleep until the alarm went off at 5. Got up, went through the long run morning ritual of constitutional, stretching and Clif Bar munching. Ms. timelapserunner dropped me off on River Road nearest the State Capitol building. It was a bit cool at that time of the morning but between the special sweatshirt-made-arm-warmers and the space heaters near the starting chute, the cold did not seem to dampen my spirits. About ten minutes before the start of race, runners began making their way into the chute, lining up about where they would think they'd finish hours later. Excitement was building.

Last Chance Saloon

Last chance before the long expanse
(Courtesy susanvg @ Flickr)

Seems like every old Western movie had its Last Chance Saloon to entertain crazy cowpokes about to ride off into the sunset on a long trek from which they might not return. So it is with a modern day rendition of that ritual - the last days before a marathon race. As the timelapserunner writes this last blog post before his venture into the wasteland (just teasin') of the 2013 Louisiana Marathon, his thoughts begin to both wander and wonder. Will he return from this journey? Will there be excitement all the way or just excruciating trauma? Or a little of both? Will he drop to the ground and kiss the earth at the finish line? (Gee, that's a bit extreme, isn't it?) There are less than 36 hours to pursue those questions at this point. This truly is the point of no return.

If you can do it, then you know you can do it.

The next significant point of departure

The pace of blog posts here by the timelapserunner has slowed dramatically as the big event approaches. My goodness, we had a super long weekend run last week and didn't even report on it. Perhaps all that can be said has been said. Perhaps we're entering a more spiritual zone around the upcoming event, one where words are less meaningful. Perhaps we've just worn out on writing blog posts. In any event, we're just about on auto-pilot now, with very few training runs left and very few decisions left to be made as well. Now, a brief summary and look at the punch list.

In Memory of My Godmother

Almost to Aunt Leona's

The timelapserunner is overdue for a blog post. It's been more than two weeks now since the last. Somehow, today, all things running seem like so much vanity.

Yesterday afternoon, my aunt and godmother Leona passed from this life to the next - on a Wednesday, around 5PM, like her husband nearly 13 years before her. She outlived her two adult brothers by a good many years, not unexpectedly of course. Most of my memories of Aunt Leona are from my childhood, but all my memories of Aunt Leona are from experiences that were positive and live-giving. She was a great woman, possessed of many virtues. Most notable to me in reflection on my memories are her kindness, hospitality and strength. Perhaps I particularly note these because the timelapserunner senses his personal deficiencies there. Still, let me recall some memories.

This town is going to the dogs

Gingerbread Jog Dog Walk

OK. So, this is getting a little ridiculous. I go out for a workout run and I end up in the middle of a road race or fun walk or both. In today's case, the timelapserunner found himself competing with man's best friends for a piece of the road. Intent on putting in his six miles around the Lakes and City Park this morning, the timelapserunner found himself trading strides with little four-legged racers competing in the Cane's-sponsored Gingerbread 1-mile Family Fun Run and Dog Walk in the City Park area. With most of the mutts tuckered out near the finish, yours truly had little trouble passing them up even though we were more than three miles into our workout at the time. But that encounter was only the half of it.

Perhaps I'd have made a half-decent boy scout

The Path

The timelapserunner thought he had planned it all so well.  After all, it isn't every day you walk out the front door and start a 23-mile run. Therefore, planning was essential. The temperature range for the roughly five hour experience was plotted out, taking into account the time for the start-of-run: 5:30 AM. The start-of-run time was calculated to put the timelapserunner at the never-before-seen-or-run path through the woodlands - the path that would provide the key link between his neighborhood and the LSU Lakes and City Park loop. We wouldn't want to enter that stretch when it was still dark. All was going so well until we realized that there was ANOTHER wooded stretch to be navigated even BEFORE the path. Several miles into the run, only a short stretch from having to enter that darkened wooded stretch, this realization dawned on the timelapserunner. What would he do now?

Do you believe in magic?

The Mississippi River Levee
Near LSU

Can you believe that there are only a scant 49 days left on the calendar until Louisiana Marathon Day? I remember when that number exceeded 200. My how time flies - even if the timelapserunner doesn't quite qualify as flying down the road. I must admit that in some ways this training has seemed like a very long road, one that stretches forever into the distance - much like the view down the levee path just after dawn this morning. There's nothing but vanishing point in the center of that picture, though I must admit that communing with nature has a lot going for it - even if you're running most of the way.

I went to (a) run and a race broke out

Golden Flyers 5 and 10 Mile Runners

It's been an interesting and slightly different week on the streets, what with Thanksgiving Day and all. Usually the timelapserunner heads to the LSU Lakes area to get in his training but this week found him running the Tuesday and Thursday workouts in the neighborhood rather than near campus. We learned after our 17 mile run some weeks back that the timelapserunner's body and spirit flag during the week after the long run. So, he was on alert for this effect this past week following the 20-miler. Not to be disappointed, Messrs. Mental and Physical Fatigue showed up, right on schedule.

Two digits and the first one is a 2

Another milepost logged
(Courtesy jshyun @ Flickr)

We're not talking sissy runs any more. No more 4-milers called long runs. We're now emphasizing the word long. In the timelapserunner's brief but exciting history of running, no workout has ever measured its distance in two digits, the first of which was a two. Admittedly, long runs in our marathon training schedule are logged at a modest pace, typically 13 minutes plus per mile. Still, any workout that has you on the street for more than four hours without stopping is not a trivial pursuit. At twenty miles, we're starting to talk about things like hitting the wall. I don't know about you, but the phrase hitting the wall does not conjure up exchanging pleasantries or sipping mint juleps in my mind (not that I've ever had a mint julep - come to think of it, I don't think I'd like mint juleps - I don't care for mint ).

Miles and miles

Miracle Mile in Daytime
(Wiki Commons)

There are all sorts of miles. Miracle Miles. Longest Miles. Green Miles. Miles to go before I sleep. And Magic Miles. Clearly, not all of them are 5,280 feet in length. Not all of them can be easily visited. Not all of them are our own cup of tea. Still, the mile continues to hold a special allure in literature, film, song and sport. Even in a world where eventually all of us are doomed to measure distance in kilometers. No matter how prevalent the metric system becomes, there will be those who will forever hold onto the nostalgia that is the mile. Indeed, they will bring it back from the dead, if needs be. The mile will forever continue to be magic. Take yesterday's, for example.

Signs of the times

One of three interesting signposts
on the LSU Lakes route

Sometimes we head out to run with our heads clear and our thoughts focused. Sometimes we're lucky to get out the door with most of our gear. Sometimes we run early in the morning to beat the heat, sometimes later to avoid the cold. Most of us plan our route before we take that first stride. Others of us just take off and go wherever our whims carry us. It's fun to run in a new and different location on occasions - that newness puts a freshness in our step and in our attitude. But it usually helps to know where you are at any point in time. Sometimes signposts help with that; and sometimes they don't.

Walk, Don't Run

Haven't seen one like this, have you?
(Courtesy Rakka @ Flickr)

So, when is a marathon run not a marathon run? I don't mean this as a trick question, though it might sound like one. For more folk than you'd think, taking walk breaks during a marathon run would disqualify that performance from counting as a "true, real" marathon run. Yes, some might answer the question "when is a marathon run not a marathon run" with "anytime you dont' run the whole distance." While this might sound a bit elitist or haughty, in the mind of the timelapserunner this is true, too. Yes, guilty as charged. I entertain this thought every few weeks as I continue to use the Galloway run/walk/run technique in weekly training and on weekend long runs. Why is this? Why do I think this way?

Don't be Running on Empty

Fill 'er up!
(Courtesy freefotouk @ Flickr)

If you want to keep your conveyance running, you simply have to keep it fueled. Fail to do that and she'll leave you sitting on the side of the road. True for cars. Also true for your body ... especially if you're involved in an endurance event like the marathon. The timelapserunner has been testing out a refueling plan on the last two long runs (i.e., the 13 and 15 milers) but has been looking from time to time for a more quantitative, even scientific approach to refueling during long training runs and on race day as well. He may have found such an approach.

Edge of Seventeen

A very special number
(Courtesy Leo Reynolds @ Flickr)

This is it. We're on the edge of seventeen ... miles, that it. This Saturday or Sunday, depending on the weather. If the long range forecast holds up, it'll be Sunday ... with starting temps in the 40s, rising to the 60s. As close as we've gotten to the kind of weather we're hoping for in January. But seventeen is an odd number, a prime number and - when it comes to running - a large number. We'll be Clif Bar loading before we leave, carrying water and gel packing at the 11, 14 and 17 mile marks. (Like we know what the heck we're doing!) Still, every new long run is a personal record. One more notch. Hopefully, the timelapserunner will be in the zone and "... with the words from a poet ... and the voice from a choir ... and a melody... nothing else (will have) mattered."

Raggedy Andy the Runner

Sometimes I feel like Raggedy Andy
(Courtesy goingslo @ Flickr)

I don't know. Sometimes I just feel a little discombobulated. Just one step behind. A little sluggish. Like taking a day off from work - but I know I can't. Sometimes this affects the workout schedule. Like on Monday this week. Supposed to walk three miles. Felt tired and stayed in bed. Skipped the walk. Then on Tuesday, the weather was to be nice and cool. This would mean that we'd be going about as fast as we're allowed to go: 9:02 per mile during the running part, with an overall pace of 10:11 per mile. But we got off to a raggedy start, so-to-speak.

Persevering Patience

More than just warmth?
(Courtesy oddnation.net)

The timelapserunner's sister ran across a neat insight recently and, as one of the handful of readers of this blog, passed it along. It seems that Timothy Gallagher in his work The Discernment of Spirits, speaks of persevering patience in the Ignatian sense: "a virtue of those undergoing trial, who do not flee it but carry the burden faithfully." Gallagher compares this to a marathon runner who "feels the fatigue of many miles already run but does not cease running until the race is fully complete." In my more reflective moments I fully appreciate that the persevering patience I exhibit while running long runs would probably fall short if taxed by the greater trials of life that I see so many others having to work through. Still, I will count it as practice not only for the upcoming race but for the rest of my life, hoping that I will remember the courage and peace afforded by this experience when called upon to exercise it amidst a more consequential trial. That said, yesterday I survived my first fifteen mile workout. Woot!

The Dichotomy Paradox and Marathon Training

The great philosopher Zeno
(Courtesy Stifts- och landsbiblioteket
i Skara's photostream @ Flickr)

There's something about the ancient Greeks - their culture, their language, and their brilliance - that I've always been enthralled with. Well, at least since those days when I took two years of classical Greek in high school. Remarkably, I still remember a few phrases in Greek from Homer's Odyssey, with all it's great imagery (e.g., ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς, which translates to rosy-fingered dawn). Still, my knowledge of Greek philosophy can be written in large print on the face of a small postage stamp. Many of us have heard the names but most of us - including me - haven't read their books. There are those we all know (e.g., Aristotle and Plato) and those we don't know much about. One of those lesser known philosophers was Zeno of Elea. Zeno was famous for his several paradoxes, one of which is known as the Dichotomy Paradox.

Does seven days make one weak?

Is this what I look like in that mode?
(Courtesy tamra hays @ Flickr)

As the timelapserunner looks ahead to next week, he can't help but focus on those activities that will most occupy his time (besides sleeping, that is). Those would be grading papers and working out. Perhaps he's looking through glass-half-empty spectacles, thinking only of what would appear to be drudgery to many. I suppose it's true that many a teacher has gazed upon a large stack of papers (on the desk or in the cloud) and dreaded getting started on the marking process. It's also true that most non-runners would look forward to a fifteen mile run like they would a visit to the dentist - a three plus hour visit to the dentist! Somehow, the timelapserunner will find enjoyment in both those activities this week. At least that's the plan.

Can you teach an old car new tricks?

I know. You must think that that fool timelapserunner is getting so confused he can't even get his cliches straight. You might be right, but the mixed metaphor in this post's title is deliberate not accidental. I mean to cover two slightly different but connected topics in this post: a) how is an aging runner like a old car, and b) can an aging runner learn to do new things or at least old things in a new way? Why so reflective, you ask? Well, as you start to age you begin thinking about your activities a bit more, either before or after you do them. Heck, sometimes just trying to remember why you're headed down the hall can invoke a great deal of cerebral activity.

Not just half a race ...

13.1 Bling
(Courtesy leduardo @ Flickr)

With dozens of posts here hailing the glory and significance of the marathon race distance over these past few months, the timelapserunner has never once waxed eloquent about that step-sister distance: the half-marathon. The Half, as I'll call it for this post's purposes, just hasn't had the glamour attached to it that other races have. It's not the mile, with all its nostalgic lore. It's not the 5K or the 10K which are both very popular road races and also distances which even track and field claims as part of its purview. And of course it's not the marathon, as race that people die for, or from - as the case may be. No, it's just some orphaned middling distance that the road racers sneer at and the marathoners make fun of. No longer, it would seem. The Half is getting respect.