running

On Sunday I ran the XXIII^rd Los Angeles Marathon. My goal was to beat my time from last year, when I ran it in about four hours and forty-five minutes. Unfortunately I was felled by a wicked flu bug about two weeks ago which knocked me on my ass for a while. I didn’t start training until the end of January and taking a forced ten-day break right before the race didn’t help. I managed to murderize the 26.2 miles in 5:40, about an hour worse than last year (but about ten minutes better than two years ago). I swore that this would be my last one, but I can’t live with that time, so it looks like I’ll be back for 2009 …

When I ran the LA Marathon last year my goal was to finish in five hours. I had trained for about two months and gotten down to a slender 186 lbs, the least I’ve weighed since my last year of college. Because of a disastrous combination of being mentally unprepared for the event and wearing year-old sneakers, at some point around mile 22 my left knee made a sickening pop. By mile 24 my right knee had joined its brother and I was in excruciating pain. I (literally) limped across the finish line and recorded a disheartening time of 5:46.

This year I decided to run about two weeks ago. I trained my out-of-shape, 200 lb, 33-yr old body for ten days. I figured that I had little chance of doing anything great, but I just wanted to (a) finish the race and (b) beat last year’s time. It was grueling and painful, I got a huge blister on the instep of my left foot, and I thought more than once that I was going to face-plant into the asphalt. But I was much better prepared mentally this time. The miles blazed below me and when I crossed the finish line I was struck dumb by the time: 4 hours, 56 minutes.

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Head coaches in the NFL often “script” the first dozen or so offensive plays of a game. They do this to set the tone and pace of the game, and to try to get their players to understand that they want to dictate how the game will go. With that in mind I have “scripted” the first 3+ hours of the music I’ll hear on my iPod during Sunday’s LA Marathon.

For more than two years now I’ve been aggregating my favorite “running” songs into a discrete playlist specifically geared towards keeping me motivated and moving towards that 26.2 mi marker. Any time I see a song in my 9900+ track iTunes library rated with only one star, I know it means one of two things. Either it’s a crap song that needs to be deleted, or it’s a song that I one-starred while running because I wanted to save it to my special cardio playlist. It’s my own little iTunes lifehack.

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There is a point on San Vicente while running West when one rounds a corner and is confronted with — shockingly — what appears to be the entire Pacific Ocean. It is an awe-inspiring sight, even at night. It is at this point, during what is more or less a fifteen mile run, that I usually realize I’ve forgotten to do something to protect my nipples. Aside from the Marathon, this route is the longest I’ve ever run. On little three- and six-mile runs I don’t need to do anything about my chest. On a fifteen mile run, though, thousands of thumping strides will cause a man’s t-shirt to chafe and rub against his nipples until they bleed. The adrenaline and runner’s high will prevent you from realizing how much damage you’ve done to your vestigial mammary glands until you finally arrive home and toss your sweat-drenched clothes into a heap in the bathroom floor. The blisters on your feet, the near-unbearable soreness of your legs and lower back and even arms, the inevitable lingering desire for water … none of these things the next day can compare to the burning pain of having basically rubbed off your nipples. File under: Ouch.

For at least a year or two I’ve been waiting for someone to build a web service I could use to map running routes. This morning I drove to my buddy’s house at 6 and we went on a long run around Beverly Hills. With less than three weeks until the LA Marathon, it’s time to get serious about hitting the pavement. It took us about an hour and ten minutes, but — once again — I had no reliable way to determine the distance other than driving the route and watching my odometer. This is simply not practical in Los Angeles; at 7:30 in the morning there is so much traffic it would have taken me another hour of driving to do that. When I got to the office I figured I’d try searching for a Google Maps mashup. With the Nike iPod for runners and all the other cool mashups I’ve seen for everything else lately, I figured there must be one for running by now.

And there are two! At USATF (USA Track & Field) some brilliant souls have built a perfect route-mapping tool. We ran 6.72 mi (10.81km) this morning. How awesome! And now I can map the other five or six routes we take all the time to see how far I’ve really been going. Awesome. (There’s also one by Nike, but it’s not as cool.)

Somewhere between Mile 22 and Mile 23 my body decided that it had had quite enough of my shenanigans. I truly do not know where I found the mental effort it took to convince my knees that they were not in excruciating pain. But I did. After a three-minute tug-of-war with my muscles won — incrediby — by my mind, I was able to resume my by-then plodding pace and finish in a very acceptable 5:46:07.

From the news desk: Jogging May Make You Smarter

Last night I went on what I think is my longest run ever. Nine miles. <Reverend Jim from Taxi> That’s a lotta runnin’. </Reverend Jim from Taxi> It felt good. Yes, my legs are a bit rubbery now. But also, yes, I managed to sweat out (hopefully) whatever lingering impurities were in my system from the Pearl Jam weekend. After 90-some-odd minutes of running in the ruthless Florida humidity, I chugged an entire gallon of water and took a very long, very hot shower. I should be tired as hell, but I’m not. My body is certainly angry at me for not being asleep, but my brain is wide awake and screaming. Funny thing, this brain o’ mine. It gets into these long and convoluted arguments with the rest of my body - heart, lungs, muscles, liver, facial hair - and you would think that it would win. It does, after all, have the benefit of being sentient. But for some reason or another, some reason that it just doesn’t understand, it never wins. At least it keeps arguing. Fightin’ the good fight and all that. Poor guy.

I went on a delightful run tonight. It was crushingly hot and humid, but felt totally awesome. The last mile or so was deadly and my stomach was cramping, though. When I got home and my brain resumed processing, I realized that on Monday the only thing I ate was half an order of horrendous McDonald’s french fries with Jorge; and today all I had had was water. Gah! Why don’t you people remind me to eat! Food! I love food, I swear. Eating is one of my favorite things to do! I just keep forgetting lately. Hmm. Yeah, I know: I have some issues. I’m working on it.

I ran. More later. Gonna go shower.

There was a message from Bhrett on the machine just now. She called to let us know that she is 1000 miles into her trip from Gainesville, FL to Oakland, CA. Here is an amazing fact: If you drive 1000 miles out of Gainesville, FL you will be in Gainesville, TX! I doubt she has ‘net access on her trip, but everyone says hi and good luck, Bhrett!
Sylvia and I went to The Sport Shoe and Ross just now. I got a pair of Nike Air Kunini running shoes and a shweet pair of Airwalks. Sylvia got a pair of Avia cross-trainers. Now you can always imagine what my feet look like when I’m running. Oh, and I also got a new Buccaneers hat. It’s cool. It’s red. Go Bucs!

The previous blog was really last night’s blog. I know it says it’s tonight’s blog, but it lies! Tonight’s blog should be about how I found this cool place blogger, and how they let you do remote blog editing. Since you probably wouldn’t care, though, I’m not going to write a blog about that. Instead I’ll just let you know that Sylvia and I ran 4.6 miles when I got home from work. That and we had salmon and angel hair pasta with brocolli - mmm mmm good.