first efforts

A gift for the gal who has everything?

Perhaps like every female, nearly forty, quasi-athlete, I've been having fun watching Dara Torres's Olympic swimming escapades. You're probably familiar with the story: Torres competed in her first Olympics in 1984, and as a result of super-human skill and super-smart training, last week she qualified to compete in Beijing in two events. At age 41. Not surprisingly, Torres has attracted a ton of media attention, including a long profile in the New York Times magazine a few weeks ago.

The article explains Torres's training in detail. In addition to the usual swimming and strength coaches, she's employing a support crew that includes "two masseuses, two stretchers, a chiropractor, and a nanny." Her stretchers are literally stretchers: people who "stretch-her" for two hours a day, using resistance stretching techniques. Two hours a day! For the last several weeks I've been fighting pain in my IT band on the right leg. Just when that started to feel better, the left side started acting up. I feel like an old lady. My running's gone so far downhill I can't see it anymore. And I haven't been able to get in to my massage person. So the idea of paying someone to come to my house and stretch me for two hours a day, even though I'm not a fancy athlete and certainly haven't done anything to deserve it? My running fantasy.

If you're ever looking for a gift idea for me, now you know. Pool your money, count your pennies, do whatever it takes: I want a stretcher!

Chicago, City of Big Marathons

I saw the movie, "Spirit of the Marathon," last night. Walking into the theater, Sara and I felt a little like Norm from Cheers: everybody knew our name. That's because practically every runner in town was there.

The movie follows several people preparing for the 2005 Chicago marathon, everyone from Olympic bronze medalist Deena Kastor (who trains at well over 100 miles a week) to first-timers. And it's a veritable love poem to Chicago running. That brought back lots of memories for me. Not only was Chicago my first marathon, but I ran that lakefront path nearly every weekend I was in the city. There is nothing quite like Chicago running.

Not surprisingly, the film uses profiles and interviews with other famous runners to do the usual "marathon as metaphor for life" bit. It got a bit slow for me in the middle, but the concluding segment on the race itself was simply fantastic. It not only recreated the intense experience of excitement and anxiety that every runner feels on marathon day, it also really showed you how big the Chicago experience is. The magnificent aerial shot of 40,000 people crossing the starting line is worth the price of admission alone. Talk about a sea of humanity. Only in this sea, every single human is in ninety-dollar shoes and carrying Gu.

You can view the trailer here to see for yourself what I mean.

Runners, mark your calendars

Looks like I've got a cure for next winter's runners' SAD. According to today's News Gazette, the inaugural Illinois Marathon will be run here in the C-U on April 25, 2009.

At least we know the course will be flat.

Runners' SAD

If there's a seasonal affective disorder for runners, I've got it bad. Lately when it's snowy or icy, I don't want to run. When it's sunny but cold (today), I don't want to run. When it's gray and otherwise temperate, I don't want to run. I don't want to run when it's early, I don't want to run when it's late...as Dr. Seuss might put it, not in a house, not with a mouse. When I get like this, I just do not want to run. Period. Not even gym class helps.

I go through this every year; my running energy goes dormant, but I always snap out of it eventually. I know that I just have to hang on a few more weeks. I'm hoping that seeing this movie Thursday night will help, especially because a small part of it was shot at a marathon camp I attended five years ago. Not only will it be cool to see folks I know, but it will be cool to remind myself that, once upon a time, I was the kind of runnerchick who went to marathon camp.

Total gym class

I started my new gym class this week, or at least what I'm calling gym class. Officially, it's called "Total Runner," an 8-week class emphasizing running-specific training techniques. Our first session was Tuesday, and I loved it! It was just like gym class in school, except the teacher was nice, I was coordinated, and nobody threw anything at my head. We did a mix of core work, circuit training, and I guess what you can only call "calisthenics": lunges, pushups, marching, hopping on one foot. And we did hurdle drills. Hurdles! Brought me back to high school track all over again. Even the 80's music blaring on the Muzak seemed just right: jumping jacks to Toni Basil's "Mickey" at 6:30 in the morning? I'm so there.

I decided to do the class to get me out of a running rut and to turn the thinking over to somebody else for a while. And I hope it will help me get ready for spring events. If I were living closer to the Mother Ship, I would definitely use gym class as a launch pad for training for this new and awesome race. Half marathon? On the Gunflint Trail? In early May when it's not hot and there's no bugs and all the lodges still have preseason rates? The Minnesota runners among my readership would be insane to pass it up. 

[Oh, and happy blogiversary to First Efforts. Two years young today.]

"someone running fast"

Definitely my favorite of the search strings that led someone to my blog this past week. Of course, just because there's someone running fast on my blog, it doesn't mean it's me.

A letter to my inner runner

Darling,

We go back a long way, you and me. Remember those track meets in high school? All that 80's hair and those old-fashioned shoes that didn't even control my overpronation? Good times, good times. And we have stayed together through thick and thin, haven't we? From the highs of finish lines and age group awards to the lows of getting pelted by ice and rain or suffering through that nasty hamstring pull, we've always been there for each other.

Until now. Let me just say it straight: I don't even know who you are anymore. I am still getting out there with you 3 times a week but when we run it's like you have nothing left for me. I try my best to be a good companion. I hydrate, stretch before and after, and never, ever make you run during the hottest time of the day. But even when I give you all that TLC you respond by being lumbering and slow and embarrassing me in front of my faster friends. What gives?

Now, I know you'll say it's my fault and maybe that's partly true. If I'm not injured and I'm not sick, you wonder, then there must be some other reason why I'm not seeing you as often. Perhaps you even wonder if I am cheating on you with power-walking or swimming (though you have always allowed me to keep yoga and Pilates on the side, and for that I thank you). Or maybe I've just gotten lazy. But I remain faithful only to you, despite the fact that the romance -- not to mention the endorphin kick -- is gone. I will admit that lately I'm wondering if it's all worth it. Maybe we really don't belong together after all. Maybe we have grown apart.

But my darling, I love you way too much to end things now, when I'm finally comfortable in the 35-39 age group. I beg you, can we begin again? Can't we try to find that spark that brought us together all those years ago? Please say yes. If you say yes I promise to start this week, today even, right now. I'll take you out to the trails in Mahomet. We haven't been out there since we got back from Nashville, and I know you love that five mile loop so very much. We'll leap through the prairie grasses and jump across the muddy parts of the trail with the sprightly grace of a faun. We'll even chase butterflies. And when we're all done, we'll come home with wet feet and muddy calves and renewed spirit. You'd like that, wouldn't you?

And later this week, we'll try to rekindle our own love by helping others kindle theirs. We'll go to the first meeting of the Second Wind Running Club's beginning women's running group, where we'll mentor new runners and help a whole new group of women find and fall in love with their own inner runners. It will be as good for us as it is for them, don't you think? It will help us remember why we're together. It will help us fall in love with each other again.

Please, darling, let's give us another chance.

Yours always,

Cara

Of butt batons and other things River to River

We 8 The Sandbox survived yet another year of River to River. The weather was great -- sunny and a bit warm, but later in the afternoon the wind picked up just enough to cool us off a bit. We finished in fine style, even making it in just under (and I mean *just*) under eleven hours. Thanks to Jodi's fine work on Leg 8!

This was my sixth River to River - only two more and I will have run the entire 80 miles on my own two feet. That's kinda cool to think about. It's always such a fun day. I love seeing the same teams (and their crazy vans) year after year. Who wouldn't love the Angry Beavers (a team of feisty St. Louis ladies) or the Fastor Pastors (all clergy)? As far as actual running goes, my response to the course is always the same. Everyone else's leg always seems harder than mine and I wonder how I ever did that leg in the past. At the same time, the leg I'm running always seems like the hardest one I've ever done. And what's more, every segment of my leg always seems unbelievably hard while I'm running it, no matter what the stupid book says (what the hell does "moderate to hard" mean, anyway? I was wondering that on my third segment yesterday).

One theme popped up a little more often on the vans this year, perhaps indicating some sort of grassroots uprising: the problem of the "butt baton." Each team carries a baton which must be passed from runner to runner, so you have to carry the baton the whole time you are running. A few people have devised schemes to carry the baton without actually carrying it -- such as running a string through it and clipping it to your waist, or (for women) wedging it underneath the racer-back part of a running bra. But by far the most popular, and disgusting, way to carry the baton if you're too lazy to use your hands is to stuff it in your shorts. Hence, the term "butt baton." How would you like to grab that after your teammate has had it, um, "down there"? Not pleasant. (FYI, in my experience 95% of butt baton offenders are men).

Fortunately, the anti-butt baton contingent was speaking out on the matter this year.

(click on the first image to get a larger visual representation of "the problem")

For the record, We 8 The Sandbox not only bans the butt baton on our own team, but we also actively monitor others' butt batons and tattle on them to their teammates. Because it's a public health issue, people!

Fun run

What do you get when you put 8 sweaty runners in a rented white passenger van stocked with Red Bull, bottled water, M&Ms, bananas, and raw pop tarts, and then ask those runners to take turns running on hilly roads 80 miles across southern Illinois accompanied by 1600 other sweaty runners in 200 rented white passenger vans doing the exact same thing? A helluva good time, that's what!

Later today I'm heading north to Marion, Illinois, to join my C-U runnerpeople for tomorrow's annual River to River Relay. After ditching my beloved team for two years in a row (for conferences! horrors!), I'm thrilled to be back. And even more thrilled that they let me back! This year I am running Leg 2, which is a total of 10.2 miles with the segments described as "easy," "moderate," and "moderate-to-hard." I sweet-talked my way out of Leg 8 (sorry, Jodi!), which at 11.0 miles and with legs marked "hard," "downhill," and "hard," was just too much for this slow girl's cranky hip and allergy lungs right now. Like it or not, though, I'll get my shot at 8 soon enough. Our team has a rule that you have to run each leg before you can repeat a leg. All I have left are 2, 6, and 8, so that doesn't leave much choice for the future. Given that Leg 6 features the single hardest run of the race (can you say, 3-point-8-mile-hill?), I'll probably volunteer for 8 next year. And then save the worst for last in '09. Or go to another conference.

A few reasons why my slowest half wasn't half bad

OK, slowest time EVER! 2:23. I'm not the speediest gal in the world, but I do have a half marathon PR of 2:04 from not that many years ago and have a reasonable collection of times in the 2:10 range. Even so, lots of reasons why this morning's race wasn't half bad:

• Finishing in the Tennessee Titans stadium, with my picture on the JumboTron and my name announced -- and pronounced properly! -- for all the stadium to hear;
• Nearly perfect weather -- cool (40 at the start), only slightly breezy, sunny;
• Nice, flat, out-and-back course, nearly 10 miles of which are run off the streets on the asphalt paths of the Shelby Bottom Greenway, along the Cumberland River;
• Out-and-back means the chance to cheer loud for the faster runners coming back on their return trips, like Superstar Guest Dick Beardsley and Superfast Rhetoric Guy Professor Sloop;
• Despite slow speed, ran a very (freakishly, in fact) steady pace and finished strong;
• Feeling in my legs now, just a few hours later, confirms my strong conviction that there was no way I could have run any faster today anyway, so why stress?;
• Opportunity to remember fondly past finishing times as these times came, and went, and I still wasn't finished (wow, Finnegan, you used to rock!);
• Shamrock-shaped finishers' medal and fabulous t-shirt;
• Dinner tonight at a great Italian place -- courtesy of my beloved, whom I have managed to dupe into thinking that this race performance deserves a congratulatory dinner.

Next up? River to River on April 21. Commence speedwork and hill training!

And now, we return you to our regularly scheduled programming: