Art La Flamme

American Vice President Joe Biden has an interesting piece in the New York Times, here. His article starts off with all of the usual fluff, about how the US has stood by Iraq and her people and her government, how Iraq has made such progress, how things are going so well, and yes, how the Obama administration has kept its promises about drawing down the number of forces in Iraq.

But the most telling section was this one, the 9th paragraph and one near the end of the article.

Nevertheless, Iraq’s security forces are not yet ready to operate fully on their own, and we must continue to support them. We must also help Iraq’s leaders with a range of challenges that lie ahead: conducting a census; further integrating Kurdish security forces into the Iraqi security forces; maintaining commitments to the Sons of Iraq, the Sunni groups that banded together against insurgents; resolving disputed internal boundaries and the future of the northern city of Kirkuk, which is claimed by both Arabs and Kurds; passing a hydrocarbon law that would distribute oil revenues and maximize the benefit to all Iraqis; stabilizing the economy through foreign investment, private sector development and new sources of revenue beyond oil; passing a fiscally responsible budget; and bringing to a close its post-Gulf war obligations to the United Nations.

I’ve not read a more sad piece by an American Vice President since, well, I don’t even know when. Iraq does need our help, and will need our help. But she won’t need US troops on the ground in Iraq, not after 2011. And she won’t ask for US troops to stay beyond 2011.

Yes, I do understand that this must sound odd — who the hell am I to argue that our American VP is wrong? He was, after all, a long-time member of the US Senate, and a long-time member (and later Chair) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He obviously knows enough to know what Iraq needs, right?

Don’t fall for this logical fallacy of an appeal to authority. You know that even Einstein’s wife wasn’t afraid to tell him he was wrong.

1a. Iraq’s security forces aren’t just ready to operate fully on their own, they are operating fully on their own. The rank-and-file Iraqi Iraqi Army units are out there, every day, conducting operations on their own, even as you read this. Ditto for the police, ditty for the National Police, ditto for the security forces on the Iraqi border. Iraq has a military that has, almost exclusively, been oriented towards internal security threats, the one time when it was otherwise was during the 80′s when it was balanced between internal threats and the war with Iran. Yes, we must continue to support them, but no, that doesn’t mean US forces on the ground, or a change to how things use to be (embedded US forces as ride-along advisers and door-kickers), and it certainly doesn’t mean that we need to talk them into buying American-made weapons systems like the hard-to-maintain M1 tank or the harder-to-maintain M16 of M4. The Iraqi military isn’t some Mini-Me of the US Army; they have their ways of doing things, from door-kicking to intelligence gathering to targeting bad guys. We need to help them, but in ways in which they want and need to be helped, not in a role we really, really want us to play.

1b. Actually, I suspect that the VP is talking about commandos and counter-terrorism forces. Guys who go out into the night and capture / kill the worst of the worst. My $3 bet says that the Iraqis would be willing to give this a go themselves, but would welcome our guys tagging along, so long as our guys brought they gadgets and toys and neat things that Iraq can’t buy on the open market. In all honesty, I’d rather we partner with the Iraqis to work with them on the stuff that’s in FM 3-24 (also here), our counter-insurgency doctrine field manual. I guess I’m old school, wanting to end the fighting instead of getting the high score for the most bad guys captured / killed.

2. The Iraqis do not need our help in conducting a census. My goodness, I think everyone understands how to do that. If not, there’s this thing called the Google that they can consult. I know what you’re thinking — why in the world would the American VP even include this in his laundry list of issues, much less include it as #2 in the list? The census actually reflects three things — the Iraqi government actually deciding to do it, and then what the results are (and with that, just how much corruption is involved), and lastly, how the census data is used. The ground truth is this: there will be no Iraqi census, not any time soon at least. There could be one in, say, 20 years. But I doubt it’d be in any time less than that. No one in Iraq gains from Iraq actually having a census; the census would then bring to a head a number of ugly, ugly issues — like the future of the Kurds. Like the distribution of oil revenues. Iraq is a land where isn’t not the facts that matter, but the deal that can be made. An actual census would be counter-productive, and I’d venture to say, an un-Iraqi thing as well.

3. There will be no further integrating Kurdish security forces into the Iraqi security forces. Can I say that any more clearly? The leaders of the Kurdish tribes, and yes, I do mean Barzani (President of the Kurdish Regional Government and head of the KDP) and Talabani (President of Iraq, and head of the PUK) might call their militia forces “Peshmerga“, but really, they are tribal militias local to their tribes. There is no unity in Kurdish forces, and there never will be. When the Kurdish tribe calls, their fighters answer. The Kurds would like for the Iraqi Government to pay for the Kurdish fighters, from salaries to new weapons, so that the Kurdish regional Government or, really, the Kurdish tribes don’t have to, but there will not be a day when a Peshmerga unit is reflagged as an Iraqi Army unit and sent to Basra. Kurdish security forces, from the Peshmerga to their security and intelligence forces, are loyal first to their patrons, then to the Kurds, and then to Iraq. Integration is a pipe dream.

4. Iraq’s problems with maintaining its commitments to the Sons of Iraq isn’t an issue of willingness, and it’s a problem with the agreement itself. To be blunt, it’s a no-win situation. Yes, some 205 to 25% of the Sons of Iraq were integrated into the Iraqi Security Forces — into the Army or police or similar. But for a group of militiamen who took up runs with their tribe, to provide localized security in their tribal areas, I’d be willing to bet good money that most if not all of them would want or maybe even expected to be transitioned into Army or police jobs in their same neighborhoods. After fighting Al Qaeda in Anbar for 5 years, who wants to go to Basra to train as an electrician to then work for a local school? Who wants to lose the prestige of providing security to their own tribe, or to leave their own area? Yes, Iraq has a long history of the central government being the main employer of Iraqi people (OK, men), but the coffers are empty, the price of oil is in the toilet, and oil production is lower than the optimistic Iraqis projected. The Iraqi government can’t just put these guys on the payroll and leave them where they are, but the Sons of Iraq don’t want to go to where the jobs actually are.

5. Don’t believe this stuff about the need to resolve the disputed internal boundaries and somehow settle the future of the northern city of Kirkuk. American isn’t helping on this one. The Kurds would like to be Kurds, with a Kurdish land under Kurdish rule. Call it the Kurdish Regional Government, or call it the dreaded K word — Kurdistan. Whatever you call it, it is an issue for the Iraqi people to resolve themselves. It is not possible to have both a strong Iraqi government and an independent Kurdish land in Iraq. Iraq will end up with either a weak central government that tolerates the Kurds having their Kurdish Regional Government so long as they behave, or Iraq will have a strong central government which will bring the Kurds back under more direct control. It’d be easy to look at the new government and say, “Wow, that’s a weak government, so I guess the Kurds are going to have it good for a while.” But all Iraq needs is a single strong leader with control of the use of force, and he can crush any renewed dreams of a Kingdom of Kurdistan. This isn’t about boundaries or about Kirkuk; it’s about Iraq as a state and a nation, versus ethnic and sectarian divides between Kurds and their Sunni and Shia Arab brothers.

6. And a lot of the same things can be said about VP Biden’s call for an American role in helping the Iraqis pass a hydrocarbon law that would “distribute oil revenues and maximize the benefit to all Iraqis.” This is about Iraqs internal struggle over having a strong central government, or having a separate states within Iraq. The Kurds would like to control their own oil production and oil sales, and to keep their own oil profits, but the Shia of Southern Iraq raise those same issues from time to time, too. With the bulk of the oil outside of Baghdad, it’s not hard to see why many Iraqis question why the profits flow to Baghdad. But keep these things in mind. Oil production and sales in Iraq is a nationalized industry; it is the central government of Iraq who does it. And oil is the basis of the national economy, almost exclusively; there would be no power for the national government if it did not control the oil revenues. Those same funds, though, drive the nepotism that is such a key part of the Iraqi way of life. Both corruption and the distribution of wealth, I think, will be tolerated so long as they work.

7. And seriously, I have no idea what VP Biden means by suggesting a US role in stabilizing the economy through foreign investment, private sector development and new sources of revenue beyond oil. Sure, I understand that American companies would like the US Government to help them in securing oil contracts in Iraq, but beyond that, well, there isn’t much. Exporting dates or pomegranates won’t come close to exporting oil any time soon. Iraq isn’t going to start making exotic cars, or fine watches. I suspect American businesses on the whole would have issues with how business is done in Iraq, and the rules (official or otherwise) they’d be expected to follow there. I mean, really — what American firm would pay the jizya, and what American stockholder would accept that it needed to be paid? If you’re not thinking of investing in oil, I don’t know what you’re thinking.

8. I wonder what the Iraqis would say, about VP Biden’s comment on the need for Americans to help the Iraqis in passing a fiscally responsible budget. The Iraqis, after all, do read CNN and the NY Times, and they are aware of what has been going on in the American economy and budget. Hell, all they need to do it watch videos on YouTube and they’d probably turn down our offer to provide financial advice.

9. And lastly, Iraq can bring to a close its post-Gulf war obligations to the United Nations all on its own. In fact, I am kind of surprised to see VP Biden raise this issue. After all, Germany took 92 years to pay of its war reparations from World War I. So, it’s not like Iraq us up against the clock on this one. Germany has been and remains one of Americas closest allies, and if it takes the US 92 years of helping for Germany to bring her war obligations to a close, well, Iraq may not want or need our help on this one.

I’m not saying I understand Iraq better than VP Biden. I’m just saying that Iraq isn’t America, that Iraqi ways aren’t American ways, and that Iraqi problems and interests aren’t American problems and interests. America can be a good friend by starting every day by asking the Iraqis, “So, how can we help you today” and patiently waiting to hear how Iraq answers. Some days, there will be pointed requests, but on other days, I suspect Iraq will say, “You know, I’m good today. Thanks for asking, though.”

I spent 2009 in Iraq. I ran some during the first part of the year, but not enough, and certainly not many long runs. As the mid point of the year approached, and as I got ready to return home to my family in Hawaii, I decided that I’d crank up my miles to the point where I’d be able to run a half-marathon without dying. My R&R arrived, I flew to Hawaii, and while there, I did some running.

But after my R&R, I returned to Iraq and a new, very stressful job. Long hours, crazy hours. So, I kept running. I realized that the long runs were helping with the stress, helping to keep some sense of balance in my life. Sure, I was running in the dark of night, and sure, I was spraining my ankle from time to time, but it was working for me.

So, I set my sights on the Honolulu marathon, in December 2009. I dusted off my Excel spreadsheet for the Hal Higdon mileage plan for training for a full marathon, and I started to put in the miles. December came, I ran the marathon, and life was great. I closed out 2009 by resting; it had been a hell of a year.

2010 started with no great design. I was home from Iraq, work was OK but not crazy. I still had the same job, it was still stressful, but at nowhere near the levels it had been in Iraq. I was going to exercise with my unit in the morning, and I quickly discovered that, one most weekdays, I’d have about 50 minutes to run.

Hmm. 50 minutes, five days a week. I could easily run 5 miles in those 50 minutes. I’m in decent shape, I thought — I could probably do that 5 days a week. 25 miles a week — that’d be neat to do. I could totally do that.

But what if I snuck out one morning each weekend, and went to run some different parts of the island? 25 miles per week with the unit is a respectable amount of miles, but really — it’s kinda boring. It’s a lot of streets in the neighborhoods, lots of trips around parade fields and between tanks. There’s no jungle canopy, no dirt trails along a cliff. There’s no exploring that way. I asked the wife, and got the go-ahead to add in a weekend run.

Hmm. 25 miles during the week, and, say, a half-marathon or so on the weekend. Geez, I’m up to almost 40 miles per week. That’s kinda cool. I wonder if I could do that all year. And if I did do that all year, well, 40*52 is over 2000. Wouldn’t that be something, to run 2010 miles in 2010. I wonder if I could do it.

And that’s what set the tone for the year. I started to read books and look online for places to go run here on Oʻahu – and ended up starting my own separate blog to write about my adventures running (and to make the website I wish I could have found when I decided to start exploring this island on foot). I found Na Ala Hele, and it changed my life — so many good trails to run and explore, so little time. My plan became to run 25 miles during the week, pick up some more miles on the weekend, hope to average 40 miles per week, and maybe — just maybe — put in 2010 miles in 2010.

But things change. In June, I ended up in Iraq again, for a short visit. Did it alter my plans? Only slights — 5 runs for 66 miles over the two or so weeks I was off-island, and it actually included an 18 mile, middle-of-the-night trek, too. 5 runs for 66 miles — that’s averaging a half-marathon every time I ran, with the shortest of those runs being just 10 miles (and that was the night I landed in Iraq — I landed, dropped my bags, ate a light meal, and then ran 10 miles).

As July started, I joked with some of my soldiers — I could probably run 10 miles every day, for a month. Thus was born the Sparta Challenge — 300 miles, in 30 days. I’m still not really sure how that came to be, but it was really neat to do — and left me feeling fantastic about my fitness and conditioning levels. 300 miles in 30 days? Wow – I am indeed a runner.

That left just three things.

1. There are two state trails that require special permits in order to access them; I’ve now run one of them, and am working on plans to run the second one at the end of this month.

2. My unit had an exercise set for most of September. That would eat into my running time. Instead of my usual 160+ miles per month, I managed just 138. It was off by a bit, but I don’t see this as derailing my efforts to run 2010 in 2010. I was worried, though.

3. I’d never run an ultra. I’ve run two marathons in my day, a couple of ~20 mile runs, and gobs in the 13.1+ mile range — but never anything father than 26.2 miles. Ever since Luxembourg, I’ve had “Run an ultra” on my bucket list. Well, i did that Thursday night. I ran from my house, half-way across the island to Schofield Barracks, where I took the long loop (11.25) around post and up Kolekole Pass, before running back home. 5+ hours, 31 miles — I think 50km is considered the baby of ultra-marathons, but it counts.

I never thought I’d run 40 miles per week. I never thought I’d run 300 miles in 30 days. I never thought I’d take off one night and run 50 km (especially since I’d run 10km that morning at PT).

Today, I am 83 days out from the end of the year, and I need to run just 382 more miles to reach my goal of running 2010 miles in 2010. Granted, during those 83 days, I also need to close up shop here in Hawaii and move back to Iraq for another year — but I can work with that. 382 miles in 83 days — that’s an average of just 4.6 miles per day, and only 32 miles per week. In July, I averaged 10 miles per day, and this week I ran almost 80 miles — I think I can do this.

For not having a plan when the year started, it sure seems to have come together nicely since then.

I have a thousand and one reasons to stop and reflect on all of the great running I have done in recent months. On Saturday morning, as I wrapped up an 11 mile run through my neighborhood, I passed the 1001 mile mark on my running shoes. Not running shoes in general — no, I’ve pretty much just been wearing the one pair (with limited exception), and that’s 1001 miles on that pair.

They are dirty and nasty. They stink like you would likely not believe, even though I have been washing them semi-regularly to try and fight that. Any sense of spring in them left a few hundred miles ago. If I believed Nike, they would have been retired on OCT 7 when I passed the 300 mile mark. I’m sure glad I didn’t.

Because last week, these are the shoes I used to outrun an angry adult bull. These are some good shoes.

I had started in these shoes in August 2009, when I formally returned to marathon training. I was in Iraq, I was under a lot of stress with my job, I was ramping up to start IBOL, and I needed to get back to running to help balance out life. Training for a marathon, the Honolulu Marathon set for after I returned home from Iraq, seemed like a good way to do that. New phase, new shoes. The choice of shoes was uneventful — I had bought one pair of Nike Pegasus when I was on block leave, liked them, and bought another pair through the mail knowing that Nike would phase them out before I was ready to try something else. That second pair is what I have been using.

I ran on them in Iraq. I ran on them in Hawaii, and Arizona, and California. On land and in the sea, and through too many puddles and creeks and streams to try and count. In the desert, and in the snow, on paved roads and muddy trails. I don’t think I ran on them through fire, though — I just never happened on any when running. I’m not some elite athlete, some fancy Ferrari of a runner who needs a special diet or special gear, and these are just running shoes. They’ve taken me where I needed to go.

And along the way, I learned a few things.

I enjoy running. OK, not the actual running part, but I love getting out and running. Maybe when I slow down some later, I’ll transition to hiking. But during all these miles, I’ve seen some beautiful scenery, run some awesome trails, and enjoyed getting out to run. Along the way, I’ve taken a few thousand photos (ah, thank heavens for the age of the digital camera), with some decent results. But I’ve found a way to get out and run and explore and see things no matter where life and the Army has taken me.

Replacing shoes every 300 miles, just because you’ve run 300 miles, makes no sense. A while ago, I was researching running at the Army website for safety, and they had very little to say about running and shoes — except that there isn’t scientific or academic research to back up a prescribed need to replace shoes based on miles — it’s the feet and the shoes that determines that, it said. And I’d have to agree.

Running injuries can be terrible, but a lot of them aren’t so bad. With these shoes, I’ve sprained my ankle five times — as in, swollen up like a grapefruit, hurts to walk on it, and people see it and say, “Damn!” The first time, I was 1.89 miles into a 4 mile run — and I finished the 4 miles. The 2nd time, I was a quarter mile into a 7 mile run when I rolled my ankle off the side of the road and went sprawling onto the desert floor — and I still went ahead and ran the 7 miles. #3 and #4 really hurt — I only finished half the planned mileage because the ankle not only hurt, but also started to swell a lot right away. #5 was bad enough to get me to take 2 days off from running — something I did not do for the previous 4 sprains. And I’ve had other minor aches and pains — a knee that sometimes hurts and sometimes just makes a lot of noise, a rotor cuff that really doesn’t like me, and then there was the period when my Achilles tendon and I weren’t really talking but more ignoring each other. All the while, I’ve kept running. At worse, on the earliest sprains, I took anti-inflammatory meds to help with the swelling, but other than that, I’d kept on running. I didn’t think I’d be able to.

And I’ve learned that old farts like me can do a lot more than they think. I am averaging close to 40 miles per week this year, at a time when most of my soldiers are doing 10. In 2005, when my PTSD was at its worst, I was a good 30 lbs heavier than I am now, and all I am doing these days is running and eating ice cream. And my PTSD? As stressful as this job is, it’s under control — like an alcoholic, I suppose, I’ll have to live one day at a time with it, but the running helps tremendously when my stress levels go up.

So, on Monday, I will break out the new shoes. I already have some miles on them — I took them to Prescott with me, and wore them one week here. And I think they’ll be good for some miles; they’re the Nike Pegasus model from last year or the year before, one year newer then the pair being retired, and they look and feel about the same — just new and springy. Give me a few months — I’ll beat that springiness right out of them.

On August 11, at Camp Speicher near Tikrit, Iraq, I snuck out at night and did a 3 mile run. It wasn’t fast, it wasn’t good in any sense of the term. But it was 3 miles. And it marked the start of my training for the 2009 Honolulu Marathon, using the Hal Higdon training plan.

That week, I ran 15.15 miles, and averaged a pace of about 8:45 minutes per mile. All told, I did 69 other training runs, leading up to the marathon today. Of the 461 miles in the training plan, I managed to do 459 of them — I did not do the two miles on this past Thursday, when I flew from Lake Arrowhead home to Oahu (and I had missed one other run, due to an injury, but I had dutifully made up the miles that week). For those 459 miles, I averaged a pace of 9:37 minutes per mile, and I averaged over 6 and a half miles per run for those 70 runs. These past two weeks, when I was in the mountains and snow of Lake Arrowhead, were when I had my slowest average page: 11:37 and then 11:23 per mile, with every other week averaging between 8:42 and 9:44 per mile. Doing it all, I sprained my ankle 4 times.

I never really looked at all those numbers until now. It seems like a lot. Driving 459 miles would be a long day. Often, running six miles feels like a lot — all the more so when I am not running a lot or training like this. And 4 ankle sprains? I don’t think I had sprained my ankle that much over the past 20 years combined. And while an average pace of 9:37 minutes per mile is nothing to write home about, it’s pretty close to the pace I ran today — 10:37.

And I guess the thing that really strikes awe in me, for all of this, is that I ran a lot of this in Iraq, did more in Hawaii, and then did some both in Eugene (aka Track Town, USA) and at Lake Arrowhead. I went from running at night in the deserts of Iraq, to running through the pineapple fields on Oahu, to running through history in Eugene, to stomping through ankle deep snow up and down the quad-runner trails that covers the ridges near Lake Arrowhead. In 4 months of running, I’ve sure covered the globe pretty well, and covered most every type of running, from roads to trails, from flat to steep, from desert climate to snow.

And while this may not seem like a big deal to you, it is to me: I ran low tech. In Iraq, I wore my Army PT uniform. No special tops, no special shorts or running pants. I didn’t carry water or gel packs or fancy jelly beans, but relied on water points from the around the base to keep hydrated. I can think of only one time — the 18 mile run I did here on Oahu — where I stopped for Gatorade during the run, and that was because it was cheaper than water to buy on base. I ran — and in the most unfancy ways I could.

During all this, I used one pair of running shoes. That might not seem like a noteworthy thing, but the officials at Nike and Brooks and all of the other running shoes would want me to believe that I need new shoes every 300 miles. Well, I’m just not believing that. I’m not some high tech racer, some modern day Ferrari in Nikes. I am a runner, and I run. I’d just as soon take off barefoot and in shorts, to run down a deer, as I would take off to run across the island to my office. Super high tech anything would be, I fear, just lost in my running.

And in August, I weighed 214 lbs. Today, when I got home from the marathon, I weighed 202. I am happy being anywhere in that range. I really don’t care what the number is (and while it’s in that range, the Army doesn’t care either). What I do love and care about is the feeling of strength that I get when I am running often and farther. I feel ready for the world at times like now.

Also, I love how this much running has made me feel. For as crazy as Iraq was during those last months, with a new job and the IBOL project on top of trying to go home and reintegrate with my family, I can’t think of a bad day. Endorphins are an amazing thing. My stress has been under control. My PTSD has been under control. I feel good, life is going well and is under control, and I am happy with where I am in life. And that’s the influence of the running, of the preparations I made for this marathon.

If you’ve read the book, Born to Run, then maybe this will make sense: I’ve been chasing a deer. I’ve been running for fun, not for speed or anything else. No carrying water, not eating along the way, not using fancy high tech stuff — it’s been about reaching down deep inside, and finding me by running. And I would not trade that for the world.

I have been so unfocused on the training part of all this, that it probably could be called something other than training. I’ve just been running — while also following some guidelines for distances. I’ve had more fun getting out and putting in the miles, without care or regard for times or intervals or pace or personal records. Running in Iraq at night gave me time alone, to clear my thoughts and let my mind wander. And it led me to IBOL — which was a great part of my 2009. I spent the summer, fall and now winter investing in running, and looking back at how my year in Iraq ended, with work and IBOL and a great return home to my family, I would have to say that it was a hell of an investment; a little less sleep gave me some great dividends.

Anyway, enough with all that. Poor Jack has been suffering through all this, trying to get to the part where I talk about the actual race event, so he can decide whether to add Honolulu to his 2010 Marathon plan.

This is the second marathon that I have run. I’ve also run some half marathons, too. There are a few things about Honolulu that make this race noteworthy.

1. Egads, it’s beautiful. From running along the Pacific, to coming around Diamond Head, to zipping through both Honolulu and Waikiki, it’s a great place to go running.

2. Wow, it’s flat. If you’ve never run one before, this would make for a fine first marathon.

3. The people are great. It’s a wonderful social event, with folks dressed as Yoda and Darth Vader, Minnie Mouse, brides, etc. And at something like 20,000 runners, it’s a big happy crowd.

4. The race organizers love the military. I’ll be honest — this marathon is expensive (registration started at over $100, and late registration the day prior was $225). But they cut us slack, not just with the late registration but also with the super-awesome registration fee of just $30 for active duty military. Saving 85% on the registration price was a nice, nice thing.

5. If you have to go somewhere for a marathon, Hawai’i is a damn fine place to go. We’ve had wonderful weather this week (though it’s rained the past two years), and I can’t recommend enough coming to Hawai’i — to run a marathon or just for vacation.

One bummer, though, is that the race starts at 0500 / 5 AM. Which means getting into Honolulu by 3 or 4. Being active duty military, the race registration folks had advised me to go to the Hale Koa hotel in Waikiki, and park there. The Hale Koa is an Army hotel right on the beach, and they have a nice parking garage there that cost me all of $12 to park while I did all of the marathon events. Yeah — $12. Nice. I loved that. That raised the total cost of the marathon to $42 for me — about as awesome as they come. Anyway, I snuck into the parking garage at about 3 AM, geared up (iPod, Garmin Forerunner 305, military ID, car key, and a spare $20) and then headed to the starting point.

The starting area is on the road outside of the Ala Moana Shopping Center, across from the Ala Moana State Recreation Area (which is really just a nice, big park). The park featured the all-important banks of porta potties, which had a near non-stop line right up the start of the race. The race folks had marked off sections for folks to stage, based upon expected finish times. Which was nice, until abut 10 minutes before the start when everyone crunched forward. See video of the staging, here. See the video of the fireworks, here.

And by the time I started to run, of course, I had to pee. I had to make the 2 or 3 mile look around Honolulu and back to the start line, before I could peel off and use those same porta-potties. And by the time the race had started, I felt a) tall and b) Caucasian. The race is sponsored by Japan Airlines (JAL), and the race does cater to a lot of visitors coming from Japan — so much so that the race has two websites, one for US / other, and one for Japan.

It wasn’t just that folks came from Japan to run, or that they came with travel groups / through travel agencies. A saw whole packs of folks, lining up together, staging together, with matching additional stuff on their shirts or just plain matching shirts. My favorites were the packs of runners I ran into later — a gaggle of 30-something-ish ladies, running as a pack, with someone out front – maybe their coach, maybe their tour guide, maybe both. All, though, looked to behaving fun, which I thought was awesome.

It was good that we had started so early. Though it was dark, it did set a nice setting for the start — which featured a fireworks display over just a starter’s pistol. It made for lousy photos, but hey — small price to pay.

The run really was uneventful. I tended to let my mind wander, though I was listening to music the whole time. Nice and pretty, without too much elevation change. And yes, folks were dressed crazy, which was pretty cool. But mostly it was just a very nice run. When we started, it was in the low 70′s, though it was likely closer to 80 when I finished. I walked through every water point, which were about every two miles until near the end, when they were every mile. I mostly had two cups of water at each water point; once I had half a banana, and once I had 7 jelly bellies that some nice lady was dispensing. But mostly I ran and let my mind wander where it may.

I was, though, the little social butterfly. I ran into a few folks from work; a bunch of us from the staff had decided to train up and do this, some (like me) doing it solo, but one big clump doing it with the lawyers.

And you know how Superman has his kryptonite? And Samson lost all his powers when his hair was cut? I was on track to do about a 4:30 marathon (10 minute miles, or about the same as I did in Luxembourg a few years ago) when my enemies massed their forces and resources, and deployed a keg to the race course. Damn them! Not only did I get beer, but I got only a little beer initially, so I had to go back and correct them on what it means to run a beer point during a very serious race like this. And I had to take a photo, too.

There’s something wrong with being middle aged, and 20 miles into a marathon, and considering doing a keg stand, just because it’d be a hell of a photo opportunity. Looking back now, I wish I had. Instead, I opted just for the standard photo with the ubiquitous red cups — the only thing keeping it from being a great party was that we were out in front of their house, and not in their kitchen.

I made it through another week, injury free. That, though, is getting tougher as the lunar month comes to a close this week and the moon goes away. Running it darkness can be awesome, but it can be tough on ankles.

After five weeks of running, I am .29 miles ahead of the training plan. Not too bad. It’s always give and take with me — lots of little days of just a pinch more than required, and then the one or two days where I come up short a mile or two. My shortfall was the other week when I had rolled an ankle and done only 3.5 of 5 — that’s a bunch of pinches to make up.

Very uneventful week in running. I was suppose to close out with 10 on Saturday, but I wanted to loop the airfield. That hasn’t changed — it’s still 11+ to do that. Which is fine. I wasn’t setting any time records on that run, just enjoying the darkness and the exercise.

Running this week is accelerated. I normally run late Saturday night and then pick back up late Tuesday night, but this week has the Army 10-Miler on Friday morning, almost 2 days ahead in my training week. So, I ran 11+ last night, and I went back out and hit my 3 tonight to start the new running week. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday night, and then Friday morning I’ll do the 10. I’m only scheduled for 7 this week, but 10 won’t kill me. I’ll probably run it with Rob or something.

Uh, oh.

I’m running again. When the Doc told me recently that my foot would be ok — no broken bones, no bone spur, likely just a soft tissue injury — I told him I was itching to get back to running.

Stay off of it for two weeks, he said. Take these, he said.

Well, one for two ain’t too bad. I’d not run in about ten days by that point, so I waited a few more and got back to running. After all, this is week 0.

I’ve got my eye on the Honolulu Marathon. And I’m not alone. More than a few soldiers from my unit are eyeballing it. I am not alone.

Now, getting ready for a marathon isn’t a simple thing, and it’s not an overnight thing. So, I am planning to again use the Hal Higdon training plan to use the next 18 weeks to get ready.

18 weeks. Starting, while I am in deployed, in northern Iraq, in the summer, and working nights. 18 weeks, that will include us going at full throttle at work, prepping to and handing over out mission to someone else, flying half way around the world, taking weeks of vacation, traveling to the continental US, and, oh yeah, reuniting with my family.

That, and the little issue of 435 miles to run, between here and the start of the marathon. Yeah — 435. That’s what it takes to train up for a marathon.

So, this was week 0. I have not registered for the marathon yet; I want and need to get a few more miles on these feet of mine before I lay out the cold, hard cash. I did 15+ miles this week, over the week and with 5 runs. It’s a start – nothing broke.

My little experiment is over. It’s Sunday afternoon, and I just woke up from a 13 and a half hour sleep. I am feeling almost human.

My little bi-phasic sleep experiment drew out of a need to be in the office a whole lot. I was left with the choice of getting maybe 4 hours of sleep a night, or breaking it up into chunks. So, I went with chunks.
(more…)

Figured it out yet?
(more…)

Just hearing someone say that strikes me on a profound level. It hurts. It’s hard to breath. For all the evil and violence that crosses my sensors every day, those words sink in the deepest.

Cab bomb sucks. They take suck to a whole new level. Their sucking goes to 11.

I hate them because they are so full of violence. The news from yesterday was of 6 killed and 67 injured. I don’t remember what the killed / wounded numbers were from the other day, but I am sure it was high when combined with the suicide vests (yes, with an “S”) that also were used in Ninewa, the province in which Mosul is the center. They destroy people. Not just kill then, but destroy people. The bombs don’t care what’s there, they destroy it all — homes, schools, kids, shops, cars, memories. They are rage, in the worst public way.

And they also represent profound frustration. I am so fed up with things, I need to lash out. Like a 6 year old, who can’t find words for the firestorm of emotions inside. I see no answer, things aren’t going my way, I’m going to go slam the door / fill a truck with explosives and set it off in a neighborhood.

Because really, who responds to a VBIED by giving in? When would a society, a people, a government decide that, after a car bomb, the answer is to abandon their society, their ways, their values and their dreams, in order to make the changes wanted by the guy on the detonator. Didn’t happen when it was the Red Army Faction, and it’s not happening now.

Put down your rifles, put down your det chord. Pick up your ballot, your books, your newspaper, and pull your kids in closer. All this is, of course, my Judeo-Christin view of things, that solutions can come within and through progressive change; what makes sense to me won’t make sense to the VBIED makers. However, I just want them to end.

Darkness in the neighborhood

This was the view of my world, an hour before the start of 30 June. Dark, quite, not much moon. Alone. Many people, I suspect, fear darkness because of the great unknown. I have come to embrace it, for all the potential it holds. It’s fitting, then, that this was my image heading into 30 June.
(more…)

First off, big shout out to my room dawg. He totally saved my bacon last night, when he ventured back to our room in the middle of the worst sand storm of this deployment, shut down my computer, and covered up most of my stuff. Horrible sand storm, just nasty. We literally hand sand drifts inside the building last night, it was so bad. People got lost walking home. One van of our guys, coming back just from dinner, had to put two people out into the storm with their flash lights, just to make sure the van stayed on the road — you couldn’t tell where it was.

So, thanks man. You rule.

Post-Sandstorm

Ok, enough of the drama. Yes, I’m back in Iraq. No, I’m really not blogging. There’s a reason.
(more…)

In about 48 hours, I went from my living room on Oahu, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, to sitting at a picnic table in Kuwait City, just inland from the northern tip of the Persian Gulf.

Is it just me, or do others think that this is truly amazing?

In 1932, my grandmother went to LA to go to the Olympics. Reading her account, it sounds as if that trip took more effort than the American effort to put someone on the moon. But today, in less than 2 days, I can move clear around the world, from an island in the Pacific to the Middle East.

Wow.

This morning, my son and I got up early and slipped out of the house. We headed up to Tantalus (more), above Waikiki, to take some photos for the 24Hour World project. My guess had been that I’d be able to get a good photo of Diamond Head and Waikiki, but low and behold, the best photo of the day was this one, that he took.

At Tantalus, overlooking Diamondhead

That’s Diamond Head in the background, and beyond it is the Pacific. I could not be further from Iraq, even if I tried — physically, emotionally, or mentally. If this is what turning 40 is suppose to feel like, I can say that it’s a good thing.

For all those years that we lived in Europe, flying to and from deployments was a very uneventful thing. The USAF picked us up, and they dropped us off at an airbase in Germany. Maybe there’d be a reception or something at our actual garrison when we got off the bus, but really, the travel itself was very straight forward and uneventful.

So, flying from Iraq to Hawaii was a bit of an adventure for me, for among other things, I was flying commercial airlines for 2/5 of the trip, and flying in uniform (which we never did on commercial airlines in Europe).

The entire way home, I felt like I was being treated like a rock star. Which, I’ll be honest, made me a bit uncomfortable. I am so very not-used to that. I am a staff guy, a solver a problems — not some hardened killer. So, the rock star treatment was a bit humbling — why would anyone treat me like this?

(more…)

Priorities -- Wife, then beer

65 hours and 13 time zones later, I have completed the secret mission. I made it to Hawai’i and surprised my family by ringing the doorbell late on a Friday night.

So, if you need me, I’ll be at home. Yes, I’ll blog more about this later — sneaking out of Iraq and to your house is a pretty neat trick, I think.

And I like that.

Northern Iraq, if you’ve not been following the news, is an interesting place to live these days. 3 of the 7 provinces up here — Ninewa, Salah ad Din, and Diyala — have new provincial governments. New Governors, new Provincial Councils, etc. They also have some new capabilities, thanks to the implementation of the Provincial Powers Law that went into effect with these new governments, maybe most important of which is that the Iraqi Police units in these provinces now answer to the province and the provincial leadership, not the Iraqi Security Forces (i.e. Army, national police, etc).

Why only three? Well, the three provinces that comprise the bulk of the Kurdish Regional Government are set to hold their elections sometime this summer, July I suspect. Why later, and now when the rest of the country held the provincial elections? Ask me over a beer sometime — it’s not such a simple question.

And the seventh? Well, that’d be Al Tamim, aka Kirkuk Province. To be honest, I’m not even willing to make a guess as to when they’ll have provincial elections — Iraq needs to get past the UNAMI and Article 23 issues before Kirkuk will hold elections. If Kurdish elections need a back porch and a cold beer to explain, Kirkuk and Article 23 and all that jazz needs dinner — probably fajitas.

The last thing adding spice to all this, is the upcoming “out of the cities” date. The security agreement between Iraq and the US states that combat forces will be out of the cities and towns by the end of June. And that’s coming up here, pretty quick; that’s coming up, whether the conditions call for it or not. Should be interesting.

Quiet, but interesting.

Two days ago, I got up, went for a six mile run, skipped breakfast, and went to work. I had a light lunch, but had a horrible afternoon, not really looking up from the chaos of it all until just after 9 pm — when I realized that I had missed dinner. I made it back to the room, to find a missed call on Skype from the wife. Her WordPress, she said, was acting up.

Tired, and a bit hungry, I tapped it. She and I were on Skype, and I ended up on chat with the guys running the server. Not a WordPress issue, after all, but a change in the settings on the server itself (mod_security was somehow activated). Once again, my powers of Boolean saved the day. Exhausted, I crawled into bed.

I got up yesterday, ran just over 4 miles, and skipped breakfast (and told everyone to avoid getting between me and lunch, just to be on the safe side). I made it through the work day decent enough, and I made it to dinner and got home in time to try and blog for the 24h World project (see below). Low and behold, my WordPress and my blog were acting up — I had lost data (Earth Day post was gone), and I could not add some (but not all) new types of posts. 1st Tech Support guy via chat said it was not the same thing, but my troubleshooting indicated it really, really was the same thing. Half an hour later, #2 tech support guy found that yes, it was the same thing. Great. All seems right in the world. I posted a couple of entries, and crawled into bed.

I get up this morning, and did not run. I fired up my page, to make sure things were still ok. Um, no. The two new entries are gone, but I got back the Earth Day post that had vanished yesterday. Great – FML. I’m hammering out this post, hoping it’ll take — and am saving it to a text file, in case it doesn’t. Ah, the joys of technology. Suddenly, pen to paper has a new appeal.

[UPDATE: Well, it posts. And I lost the Earth Day post, but got back the two posts from last night. Odd.]

These battered feet of mine

5 days, 4 runs, 30 miles. My soles are like alligator skin. I managed to get a blister on the arch of my foot. My pi?ce de r?sistance is a blister on a blister, on a blister that has now popped.

But these aren’t complaints; this is my reality. I’m a runner, and these things won’t stop me.

I suspect that what I am about to say won’t be for everyone. Go ahead, skip this one. I won’t be offended.

(more…)

First Day of Spring

On this, the first full day of spring, it’s hard to find signs of the season, partly for being in Iraq, party for being in the middle of a drought. I looked high and low, and found these flowers out by a helo pad, flowers tall enough to gently sway in the breeze.

Sunrise in Tikrit

What was old is new again.

I am running. I doubt I’ve mentioned this to many, but it’s true. Last week was about 15 miles total, including an awesome 8 miles on Saturday. This week, I should push pass the 20 mile mark, with a 10 miler scheduled for Sunday, once this storm and the dust passes.

I am trying to get back to the point of regularly running half marathon distance runs. Yes, 13.1 miles. I want back the strength, I want back the solitude, I want back the peaceful bliss of running for a couple of hours here and there.

In 2005, I did not run. I could not run. The year ended with a Doc telling me he’d fixed me, and that I could maybe run 2 or 3 miles, but never, you know, a 10km or anything like that.

2006 was the year I took flight, and started running. I ran, really to see if I could break something — which I didn’t.

By 2007, I was a running fool. I ran all kinds of crazy distances, and did all kinds of crazy things people don’t normally do — like going to Luxembourg to run a nighttime marathon, and finding a favorite run that happened to be seven (yes, 7) miles up the K?nigstuhl to the mountaintop, and then back down again. I closed out the year leading 23 others half-way across Romania to run full and half marathons.

And then poof, I ran very little in 2008. I closed out 2007 with Achilles tendon problems, and I really had to get off of them for good. I made a couple of tries to return to running, always too soon, and always with the same painful results. I ran some when I was in Georgia (the state, not the country), but damn if that heat wasn’t a killer.

I’d written off running in 2009, figuring the workload or the heat would be the death of me. But I’ve needed something, and I finally realized that I needed to hit the road again. It probably helped that I’ve spent the winter reading the tale of Jack, a runner and blogger from SW Germany who ran through the worst of the winter months in order to hit the marathon circuit early and hard this year. Very inspiring, that Jack character.

I could have returned to running more and harder earlier, I suppose. This is, after all, just my third week of hard, disciplined running. I had started to get up and run — sometimes. I had started to arrange to run at lunchtime — sometimes. The problem always was the rhythm; I have had such a varied schedule that I could not go the same mornings, or the same time of day. And with the weather here, even if I did find the right day and time to go, there could well be horrid weather outside. In other words, it wasn’t going to be easy.

There’s too much work, too much stress. There’s too much food too easily available, that is too bad for me. There’s too many projects, too much pressure. Too many snacks and cookies and waaaay too much chocolate. And though an Army may march on its stomach, our days too often begin and end with coffee. Strong, strong coffee.

And all of these things – all of them — do not bode well for a guy who wrestles with the demons of PTSD.

So, easy stopped being an excuse. I returned to where I belong, the open roads of the early morning, waiting for the sun to creep up past the horizon and start to warm the land. And it feels great.

I have to run in my Army exercise gear, and not my preferred civilian running attire – I might not like it, but I can live with it. I have to run through some pretty marginal conditions sometimes, to include strong winds carrying silt and dirt – I might not like it, but I can live with it. And invariably every time I run, I then am rushed to get cleaned up and get on to something for work – I might not like it, but I can live with it.

I am running. And it feels good to be alive again.