Art La Flamme

It’s been such a quiet month. For having to return to work, to resume being a productive member of society, it’s been rather an uneventful month. And yes, I really, really like that.

It’s been good to be back with the family. Back in the routine. Nights of taekwondo, trips to the library, making dinner and torturing the kids asking the kids to empty the dishwasher. Reading books, enjoying the glory of Jon Stewart on TiVo (By Yemen!), and getting ice cream from the freezer after the kids are asleep — some are the great things of being with family, some are the great things of being here and not in Iraq.

As for what we’ve been up to, well, the answer is Not much. Kristin quilts, the kids read when they can’t be entertained by something electronic, and I run.

Yes, I still run. I ran about 170 miles this month, and a hair shy of 50 this week (49 and some change). I made runs that ranged from 2.5 miles, to 18 miles. I ran loops and trails and sidewalks and roads, in the sunlight and in the dark, in good weather and bad — well, bad by Hawaiian standards, not bad as in, say, Wisconsin this time of year. I ran loaded to the gills with gear, but I also made runs with shoes and shorts and an iPod. I’ve run up hills, through the jungle, and across pineapple fields.

And through it all, it’s been great. With all the changes in my life this month — being home, being back with the family, going back to work, etc — the stress would surely be taking more of a toll on me if I wasn’t running for distance, and if I wasn’t enjoying my time of solitude.

I have always struggled with reintegrating into my home life, after being gone. This time, though, things seem to be going differently, and I think the running is a huge part of that. I’m thankful my family is supporting me and my little hobby, as I think they see and appreciate the dividends that are coming from it.

I’m not sure what February will bring. We’ll see. Time to go start my weekend, though, and see what mischief the kids are causing.

Early this morning, I was sitting on a rock, watching waves roll in. The air was mostly calm, with just a gentle breeze. The sun was warm, but hidden some behind the ridge behind me. I had on my running shoes, some old and well beaten socks, and my shorts, nursing water from my camelbak after a pleasant 6 mile run.

I noticed that my shoes are starting to show their age. The wife and I have been debating how best to get them into and through the washing machine, without killing the shoes or, more importantly, the machine or anything in the load with it. But sitting there, enjoying sole quiet time in the isolation of a lovely morning on Oahu, I could see that, literally, my shoes are starting to some apart at the seams.

It’s bad enough that my shoes stink to high holy hell. They really do. I don’t dare bring them in the house, but keep them in the backyard. I think they’re part of the reason the grass has grown greener in that part of the yard, too. There’s no animal life in that part of the yard anymore, and we had to move the swing set because the daughter (who loves the swings) had started to grow a third arm. But still, we don’t smell them much, though when you get close to them, there’s no missing them.

The shoes are only starting to come apart. Trust me, I have no plans to retire them early. There’s at least one hole in the fabric, likely from getting snagged on something on a run through the jungle here. Of course, if asked, I would not hesitate to tell my son that it was from a wild boar. And where the rubber-like-material that forms the sole, folds over the toes and fastens, well, it’s starting to peel away on one shoe.

The shoes, they’re just a little tired.

Now, if you asked Nike, they’d surely tell you that running in these shoes today was near-criminal in action. They and the other shoe companies would like you to buy new running shoes every 300 miles, or 3 months, or perhaps every three runs, depending on which one comes first (the first two are actually true). But these are the folks who want me to pay extra for arch support I don’t need, for protection from overpronation when it’s never been a problem for me, and a big and super-cushiony sole that really does nothing for me.

And as I sat there, looking at the shoes and their emerging bits of charm and character, I began to wonder — just how many miles have I put on these shoes? I think I started wearing this set just as I started my training for the marathon — so, I probably started to use them around the start of August. And the training plan for the marathon — I know I am suppose to have several sets of shoes, and I know I am suppose to alternate them, etc., but I never do — that was a 460 mile training plan. So, by now, I’ve probably put 500 miles on these shoes.

And no, I am not about to retire them. They are fine and functional, though smelly. A wash and they should be good for a good bit more. They should be good for another 100 or 200 more miles, I would think. But how long is that? When do I need to start thinking about new shoes.

Really, the question is — how much am I going to be running this year?

Well, the Army is going to make me run 5 days a week. Or it’ll try. The Army is big on running — it likes it, it loves it, it wants more of it. The Army would be thrilled if I did 5 miles a day, 5 days a week.

No, really. I’m not kidding. The Army would think of me as its proud son if I did that. Push-ups, sit-ups, and running, every weekday. I do cheat and add in some swimming these days, but only because I have time after the running and before I have to be in the office (there are showers at the pool, so I can swim and get clean).

So, that’s 25 miles a week. And on the weekends, I am trying to get out and run and explore and see the hidden beauty of Oahu. Half-marathon distances are my comfort zone. Yes, that really is 13+ miles. Let’s call it 15.

And then there may be times when I run a lot more. Sure, I may slack some weeks — I am an underachiever, after all — but if I decide to train for a marathon or some other sort of longish run, well, that’ll mean more miles.

40 miles a week, 52 weeks a year? I suppose it’s true — I really could run 2000 miles in the year.

If I were a racer, and not a runner, I would probably be worried about swapping out shoes every 300 miles. I’d want them to be fresh and perfect and ready for speed and crap like that. But I’m not. I’m a runner. I run. I get there when I get there, with a goal of enjoying the run. not that it’s ended.

So, I will put off buying new shoes for a few more weeks. Honestly, I’ll probably pick some up in a month or so, but stick them up on a shelf — break glass in case of emergency. And I’ll probably keep pounding away on these ones, because really, I like these shoes, and I love that I’ve had such great adventures in them. Why would I ever want to see them go?

Now that the marathon is behind me, block leave has come and gone, and the new year is just about here, I am starting to look forward to 2010 and what it may bring. I don’t know yet if I will be packing out again, to go back to Iraq or maybe Afghanistan, but I suspect it will. Worst case it will. But I do know one thing — I want to get out and run more in 2010.

Getting ready for the Honolulu Marathon, for me, was less about the marathon itself and more about the running. I ran in Iraq, I ran in Hawai’i, I ran in Oregon and even some up in the mountains near Lake Arrowhead. I ran and ran and ran, mainly to deal with the stress of being either in Iraq, or of coming home and trying to adjust to something of a normal life.

But that was then. That was what got me to the marathon two weeks ago. I am soooooo past that now.

Now, I want to see Oahu.

So I am making plans. At the library last week, I picked up and spent some time flipping through A Runners Guide to O’ahu. When I saw it on the shelf, I thought just for a moment that it might be just what I needed. Well, it wasn’t, but it was a good start. It seems more focused on the running than on the island — and I want to see the island and all her beauty, using runs as the means.

With a little help from Google Earth and the wife, I have a small list of places to go and runs to see. And I am sure that list will grow and change over the coming year. I have no idea how many runs I will make, or how many places I will visit, or how well I will do blogging it all. But I’ll give it a short. There’s just too much on this island to see, too many places of such amazing beauty.

I’ll probably write them up as best I can, to post here on the site. I need to think through some of the basic things I will need to cover about every run — where to park, how to rate them, etc. I should be able to provide GPS data for them all, since I tend to run with my Garmin. And I should be able to make a Google Earth file for each on, too, to share more information as well. So far, I’ve started to play with the EveryTrail site (my stuff is here), to see how best to represent the data and fuse the GPS data to the photos. I may put some of the stuff onto that site as well, and talk about it on Facebook, too, but will likely try to point folks here to this address.

A year from now, I hope to have collected the information that I was hoping to find this month. I want to run trails and valleys, ridges and bike paths. I want to see the many facets of the island, her beauty and her various climates, and find a way to tell others about them while encouraging people to get out and run for the fun and adventure of it. Who knows, maybe I’ll have some luck with it. And who knows, maybe I’ll package it all up in a year and port it to the Kindle or something.

At some point, I’ll probably post my running ideas; I’m still working up that list. By all means, chime in if there are things that you think are worth seeing or visiting on a run.

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.

After Eugene, I’ve taken to the hills east of Los Angeles, to spend 10 days with my father in law. After a year in Iraq, surrounded by the same people and same desert, day in and day out, I wanted / needed to get away and regroup.

10 days in Eugene sure did wonders for that. It was fantastic — a great chance to clear my head, think about the world and life and the things most important to see, while also reconnecting with the wife and kids.

But the kids needed to get back for school, so I’ve come here, to escape from it all some more. Hanging out with my father in law, and running some. I’m earning my keep by helping with drywall and the laundry list of tech support issues around the bachelor mountain pad.

The view from the house. What's not to love?

Did I mention the view? Lovely, isn’t it? I could just sit and stare for days on end. I’ve arrived just after some nasty weather had rolled through over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The snow lingers on the ground, the air is cool but not too cold, the sky is clear and the stars are about as bright as can be. Being here, and listening to the speech from President Obama, I had to wonder if mountainous views are my true calling.

And did I mention the running? The Honolulu Marathon is on 13 DEC, just a couple of days after I am due to leave here. After my long 20 mile run right after we landed in Eugene (the next day, actually), I am tapering. Which for me means less miles. I’ve gone from 40 mile weeks, to this week (21 total) as I work down to next week and running just 9 miles ahead of the marathon.

But I can’t come to the mountains and expect to run on flat terrain. Part of the fun of it all is the running and exploration and adventure of getting out and about, to see things. And a wee bit of it is about the challenges of running here — at 5500 feet elevation, in the cold, with snow on the ground and mud everywhere as snow melts.

Tuesday I did my prescribed 4 miles. Not having any idea what I was just, I just went out the front door, down the street to the end, and I took a right. A bit later, was passing this little ditty:

The roadsign said it was 3W12, and was for approved off road vehicles but not cars.

I’m unsure if the photo really captured how steeply this path heads up. It’s about half the width of a car, it’s all mud, and it’s steep. I made a mental note of the 3W12 name on the sign, and I headed further on down the road. The road ended at a water processing plant, but I headed further on down the road on what was likely a fire trail. My little 4 mile jaunt included just 341 feet of ascent and 571 feet of descent.

So on Tuesday, I headed back to go see what this 3W12 thing was all about. FIL said that it was one of a number of ATV and quad-friendly trails in the area, which sounded especially good for a Wednesday morning run (really, what ATV / quad driver would be out and about on the mountainside on a Wednesday morning?) Six miles was the plan, and whoooo doggie, was it a great six miles.

How good? Well, for starters, I averaged 12 minutes per mile, when I normally do about 9:15 or 9:30 per mile on these medium to longer runs. An hour and 11 minutes to do what I would otherwise have done in, say, 56 or 57 minutes.

It was 833 feet of ascent, and 1025 feet of descent — 1855 feet of elevation change, in 6 miles. I did do six mile runs in Iraq, that had less than 100 feet of elevation change. My 18 mile run in Hawaii had just 2600 feet of elevation change, when I ran up the mountain to my new office — three times as many miles, but a little over 1.5 times as much elevation change.

3W12 is pretty steep, it turns out.

But, I hope you’ll agree, it’s scenic and awesome. If mud and snow and puddles and steep trails work for you. They do for me. I love this stuff.

It would be snowy and muddy and steep. And then it would get snowier, and muddier, and steeper. I was plugging away as best I could, picking up one foot and putting it down again and again. The altitude and the thin air did make it hard as hell to hold anything close to a normal rhythm, so I’d slow down enough so that I could keep running without having to stop. When I did stop, it was to take photos.

I’d get to places like this, and look out over the lands. I’d try to spot where the other trails were, and see if I could figure out how to get there. When it’s a really long run, that’s great. When it’s just six miles, it’s dangerous — if I’m not careful, I’ll tell myself it’s OK to just go on to that next peak, that next hill, that next trail, and before I know it, I’m trying to figure out the absolutely shortest route back.

Coming back down was pretty slick and muddy. I don’t think these photos, especially this one, really capture just how steep this trail could be. Oh, I’m sure it’d be great fun on an ATV or quad-runner, but for running, it was high adventure trying to make it back down this without having a yardsale of me and my running gear all over the hillside.

Thursday, I went back out and found a different ATV / quad trail in the area (3W13), and knocked out my three miles for the day. Wonderful day, a bit cooler than the other days, but great running. Three miles, and over 1000 feet of elevation change.

But yes, I am tapering. This weekend, I am suppose to run 8, which I look forward to doing. I’ve been peeping at Google Earth, at where I’ve run and where else I can run in the area. 8 miles — that could be some good exploring!

All is right in the world.

Friday night, we packed out, headed to the airport, and flew overnight to Seattle and on to Eugene. We’re here in OR for 10 days to see the Grandma Sherr and Grandpa Doug for 10 days, with little planned other than a side trip one day to Beaverton for the IBOL World Tour, and a craft day for the wife on another day.

I, though, needed needed to get in some miles. 20, to be exact.

So, this morning, we all got up and had some amazing waffles at a local place (mine featured turkey and cranberries on top), before GPS Doug and I suited up and headed out — he in his cycling gear, me in my cold weather running gear. Doug was willing to tag along and help me with the route, in part to get his daily exercise. And it was awesome having him along — we chatted and talked about the world while the miles slowly passed by.

But still — it was 20 miles, and this is Eugene.

We headed out along the Willamette River, along the south and then west side of the river, before crossing the river and coming back on the other side. The route meandered along the river, making for a nice and easy and flat running route — so much different that what I’ve been running in Hawai’i, where nothing at all is ever flat. I was able to deliberately run at a place slow enough for us to hold a steady conversation — something I had beaten into my head again while reading the book, Born to Run (which is a must-read, in my opinion).

Here I am, at about the 7.5 mile marker. Doesn’t look like it, does it?

At about the 10 mile mark, we were near where we had started and near the start of Pre’s trail (you’ll want to go read about it). We stopped under one of the many bridges, so I could grab some water from Doug’s bag and reload my now-empty Camelbak. The 10 mile mark was also about the time we had passed two guys walking, given them a wave and a hello, only to be asked if I was really still running — apparently, we had passed them about an hour earlier!

So, reloaded with more water, we headed out along Pre’s trail, which with its smooth and padded footing was a nice change. We ran down the length of Pre’s trail, down a bike path some more, and then back to the start of the trail. One more short loop, across the bridge and back towards the house, and we’d hit 20 miles.

If you want to see the run, I have a Google Earth file, here. It’s color-coded by distance.

Doug, hero of the day, had even called ahead to tell everyone that we were about done, so I came back to the house and a hot bath, just waiting for me. The kids and I have settled in with some Top Gear, and I may snack on some apple in the near future.

Indeed, all is right in the world.

It’s very neat to be here and to be running. Yes, just being here and seeing family again, especially after a year in Iraq, is wonderful. But to come here and run in an area so rich in running history has been so very neat. This afternoon and evening, we settled in and watched Without Limits, a 1998 movie about Pre, the city and area, and other running legends like Frank Shorter (whom I met this summer in Iraq). And Eugene was home to the 2008 Olympic trials, and will be again for the 2012 trials, too. And here I am, just a nobody, out tooling around and doing 20 here. Pretty neat.

And one last thing. The running feels great. It is every bit the de-stresser that I had hoped it would be. It is making reintegration into family life that much easier, as it’s definitely keeping me on an even keel and in better moods. I am in a good mood almost always, and there’s great comfort in the strength that comes with this physical conditioning; I feel strong, and that’s great.

I could do without the cold, or the rain, but today was a great day for running, and a great run. I look forward to more runs this week (hopefully with Doug out to join me), and these last couple of weeks before the marathon. Should be great run.

Less than one week back from Iraq, and I’ve already covered just shy of 50 miles of running. I’m a little sore, but it feels great. Between server issues, moved half way across the world, and readjusting the life at home, I’m not said much about what’s going on. Let’s start with the running — it’s easy to talk about.

Last week, as we were waiting at the airport in Tikrit for our chance to fly to Kuwait, I stayed focus on my running and managed to put in three runs for almost 18 miles while staged on the flight line, ready to fly out on a moments notice. Sitting at a desolate airport, waiting for weather to clear or a plane to arrive, for several days can, well, be pretty damn boring. Lots of folks watched movies or caught up on their reading — I tried to go run.

But those were flat miles, in a dry heat. Looking back now at my Garmin records from the 16 mile run I did two weeks ago, it was a total of about 700 feet of elevation change — for the whole thing. There’s nothing flat about where I live — if you’re not on the beach, it’s not flat.

After I got back home last Sunday, after the day was done and the kids were in bed, I took off and did a 12 mile run. My training plan told me I was suppose to be having an easy week — thus 12 and not 17 miles — but 12 miles seemed pretty boring. I figured I could spice it up by heading to the hills. Ugh — it had over 1000 feet of ascent. When it was over, I was smoked — it part because I had just flown half way around the world, but in part because it was 6 miles up and then 6 miles back down. I slept pretty well that night.

This week, though, I have mixed it up — some loops through the neighborhood (still not flat) and some runs through the pineapple fields. And I gotta say — the runs have been a lifesaver. I’ve been able to self-medicate, getting healthy doses of endorphins, as I’ve tried to adjust to being home and as the family has put up with my crap.

If that sounds odd, well, it shouldn’t. The Army says that the #1 thing we as soldiers can do, post deployment, to help deal with the stress of reintegration, is physical exercise (cardio, specifically). It’s no joke — those endorphins are magical when it comes to dealing with stress. When I had first approached my wife about training up for this marathon, it was just this that as I cited as the #1 reason for wanting to do this — endorphins during redeployment and reintegration, since I know it’s always stressful not just for me but for us, when I come home.

And so, I’ve spent the week trying to find the balance — miles, vs. hills. The miles are good for me, but the hills are helping me build strength in my legs (and with how much they ache, I have no doubt it’s working). They were pretty uneventful runs during the week, but the long run today was noteworthy: I ran my our neighborhood not just to the Army base, by across it to my new office.

K and the kids had gone to see a performance of Annie last night, and I….. went to sleep. I was very tired. And by tired, I mean I went to bed before 7 pm. Yeah, tired. But I slept 7 and a half hours, getting up at 0230 and hitting the road just after 3. It was almost 6 miles through the fields, and then a little over three up to post and then across post to the office. I stopped, on the way back, at a 24 hour convenience store, to buy a 64 ounce Gatorade — most of which went into my camelback, to restock it since I had drained it on the way, but the rest went right into my belly. No food, no gel packs.

I had hoped to do the run in about 3 hours. Last weekend, I finished reading the book Born to Run, which at one point talks about slowing down slow runs, to burn fat and not what’s in your stomach. Since my stomach was empty, well, I was committed to trying this (and it totally worked). It was 18 miles in 3:05:40, a hair more than I had set as my goal. But there was the whole 2200+-feet-of-ascent aspect, too, so I’m okay with the time. My thighs are seriously smoked — even my hips hurt — but I feel pretty good. I’ll be drinking water all day, and I did eat that Buick when I was done running.

If you’re curious as to how the running has been going, here’s the updated spreadsheet for my running and training. Pretty nerdy and geeky, but it does show what I’ve been up to. I have a Google Earth file, too, that I can email you – just ask, and I’ll send it.

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.

Running is serving as a very good distraction these days. This week, I closed out my crazy sleep cycle, and am going to a 0300-1500ish work shift, probably for the rest of my time here in Iraq. Not that it hasn’t been nice to be awake 18 hours of the day, throughout the day and the night — it’s just that it’ll be a little different to sleep, you know, more regular hours.

On the 19th, I had rolled my ankle off of the side of the road when running. I was less than 2 miles into a 3 mile run, but did 4 to make sure it wasn’t broken. I figured it was just sprained.

On the 22nd, I did it again, this time rolling it so far I fell to the desert floor and drew blood. I was a mere .25 into my planned 7 mile run and yes, I ran the 7 miles that night.

On the 29th, I rolled it a third time. Same left ankle — I run against traffic, on the side of the road, after midnight and in the dark, so these things happen. I made it about 3.66 miles of my planned 5, but had to stop. It hurt, and in one of those, “Uh, oh” kinds of ways.

But I have kept running. I knocked out four runs this week, for 19 miles. Saturday night was 9 miles, and I dragged Rob out to run with me (he’s also a zombie) which slowed the pace (talking always does that) but made it a very enjoyable run. 19 miles for the week, average pace of 9:12 per mile, running in the dark with a sprained ankle. 4 runs, averaging almost 45 minutes per run. When I’m back past 10 miles, and over 45 minutes average run time per run, I’ll say I’m again a distance runner. And I’d probably return to regular ice cream, too.

I think it was an OK week. Good running. This coming week, I’ve got new Nikes to work into the running. I’ll start with small runs, to see how they are. I can do 3 or 4 miles under the worst conditions, so even if the shoes are horrible I’d still make my run — vs. trying new shoes first on a long run, which could be a nightmare.

I’m still running. Believe it or now, what with everything that is going on, I am still hitting the road for miles in hoping for being ready for Honolulu in December.

It’s going only OK. I am running at night, almost exclusively at or after midnight. And I am trying along the side of the roads — and once a week, at least, stepping on the edge, rolling my ankle, and hurting it. My ankles are in pretty bad shape right now. I can still lace up and running straight on ‘em, but rotational stuff hurts some. They’ll bounce back. I just need more moonlight.

But it does sort of kill the pace. Week 2, which included a 7 mile run in which I rolled my ankle in the first quarter mile, had me averaging 9 minute miles for the week. This week, when I again rolled my ankle, my weekly average pace was 8:42. I need to stop rolling my ankles.

Anyway, it’s good to run. It’s good to have a training plan. It’s good to be out on the open roads again. This coming week will close with a 9 mile run — the distances are getting respectable again. Maybe by then my sleep pattern will return to something considered more normal, too.

Rough week, with a lot of work, maybe not enough sleep, a lot of emails about the side project and, oh yeah, some running.

Good running. At night, too, which helps with the heat. 3 x 3 miles, 1 x 6 miles. The 6 mile run (last night) featured some pretty strong winds, which killed my pace. But I ran, which is good enough.

I wanted to post a link to a file I whipped up, for training for a marathon. It’s an Excel file (here) and it’s all geek. It’s built on the Hal Higdon novice marathon training plan, which I swear by for anyone just wanting to run and survive a marathon (it’s fool proof).

On the first sheet, you’d enter the date for the Monday before your planned marathon. On sheet 2, you’d record distances and times for the various runs. And then, behind the scenes, it does a ton of math – pace per run, pace per week, and all kinds of other eye candy stuff, to include charts and graphs.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Week One, Day One of training for the Honolulu Marathon was Tuesday. Tuesday was also the day my boss told me to go back to bi-phasic sleep, until further notice. Could life be more complicated? Yep. So be it!

So, go get your geek on and check it out.

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.

I have either:

– damaged the muscle on the underside of my foot, or
– pinched a nerve there, or
– developed a bone spur in a most-unfortunate spot under my foot, or
– just plain broken something there.

I could be in for anti-inflammatory drugs and / or steroids, or surgery, or who knows what they do for a break there.

But, apparently, all involve less running. Which sucks, because in two weeks, I want to start training for a marathon. Who knows – I might just do it any way.

So, the scorecard reads something like this:

– I sleep twice a day, for 3 hours at a stretch;
– I eat breakfast and dinner, and some cookies in between;
– I have a pretty damn stressful job right now which, oh by the way, is the greatest job on the entire planet;
– I’ve messed up my foot;
– and I may ease up on the running, or I may start training for a December marathon.

Please feel free to leave comments below, about what am idiot I am. It’s OK — I’ll understand.

Figured it out yet?
(more…)

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.

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.

So, yeah. Bird Day.

Three things:

1) I am thankful for my wife. Wow, she puts up with a ton of crap, just because I choose to be in the Army. I could make decent money, if I wasn’t in the Army. I could come home at a decent hour, if I wasn’t in the Army. I’d be home right now, if I wasn’t in the Army. I’ve come dangerously close, time and time again, to putting the needs of the Army ahead of the needs of my wife and my family. Time and time again, the Army has called, and I have dropped everything to answer the call, always knowing that my wife will hold down the fort, raise the kids, pay the bills, and fight the good fight while I go off and do whatever it is that I do. She rules. Every damn day I am thankful she’s in my life.

2) I am thankful to be right here, right now. I am thankful just for the chance to serve our nation. Today, the Iraqi parliament voted to approve the draft of the Status of Forces Agreement (here). This is awesomely cool, for about 45 different reasons. We’re all moving beyond the days of a UN-mandated American presence, into an era of American troops being here under terms agreed upon by two sovereign nations. Wow — that just blows my mind. In the coming weeks, the Iraqis will have their next round of provincial elections — the second time the Iraqis have done this. Consider this: Iraq became a nation at the end of WWI, and it was a monarchy until 1958 when a coalition of groups overthrew the king. After ten years, Saddam emerged to grab control of the country, and ushered in his era of totalitarian Ba’athism. After the 2003 invasion, Iraq had the one round of elections in 2005, but that really was done with a lot of hand holding. So, here we are — the Iraqis are about to do it again, and I expect that they will do it all on their own. Wow. I find that to be incredible. I am thankful to be here, and to have even the smallest of roles in this amazing period of Iraqi history.

The Descent into Baghdad

3) I am thankful to be able to run. I was going to say that I was thank for my run today, but really, it’s more than that. Some of you may know that I don’t run just for exercise; I run because I have PTSD. Yep, post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s like being an alcoholic — I will always have to deal with it, and I will deal with it, one day at a time. When I started showing signs, back in 2003, I was such a physical wreck that running wasn’t an option. A two mile run would kill me for a week. Two years later, when I admitted defeat and decided to do something about the PTSD, I had found a new doctor / physical therapist who had patched me up enough to run again. He, of course, thought I’d be good for a couple of miles, tops, but that sounded like crap and I set out to prove my wrong. And the running helped the PTSD. It helped a LOT. Folks with PTSD are often treated with all kinds of drugs, none of which I wanted. None of which I thought I would need, if I could get my body to produce the same ones naturally. To produce the same ones, by running. And so I ran. A little here, a little there, and then poof, I ran a marathon. Injuries aside, I’ve been running ever since, through good times and bad. Today, I took off and ran 10km — 6.2 miles. And yes, I was in pain every step of the way. Which is fine — with this broken body, I will be in pain every day of the rest of my life. No need for it to keep me from doing what I want and need to do. I ran today for no reason other than it was a Thursday and Thanksgiving and I could sneak out to do it. And it felt great. I don’t ever want to go back to being so broken and such a mess that I can’t take off and run like I can now. Running is such a positive part of my life, that I can’t see living without it. I’ll likely run for the rest of my life. And to have found running, and learned the positive role it has in my life, it priceless.

So, there you have it. A guy in Iraq, who could easily be wallowing in the misery of being away from my family and all that crap, and I have three great reasons to be thankful just to wake up and start another day.

Lavatory

I’m going to head back to my hooch now, and maybe watch a movie or something. Enjoy your bird day. Be good.

Off from work, I headed out for a short run today. After loading my iPod and Garmin, I opted at the last minute to grab a camera as I headed out the door.

And I’m glad I did. I ended up taking close to a hundred photos over the 50 or so minutes it took to run the 5.25 miles.

Photos are on Flickr, here — only a couple of them are restricted to family / friends. I also fired up Google Earth and made a file about the run — and embedded links to some of the photos. That file is here.

In actuality, I like the Google Earth file better. I think it’s a neat, neat way to show photos and tell a story. For me, I run with my Garmin Forerunner 305, and then load the record of the run into my Mac. The Garmin software gets the data from the GPS, but then I use Trail Runner to convert it quickly to the Google Earth format. (Trail Runner is nice, but the repeated requests to donate ($35!) is annoying). After I’ve uploaded the photos to Flickr, I then go back into Google Earth and manually add in icons for the photos. In the comments section for each icon, I add <> and between those img src=”", with the URL for the actual image (not the page) from Flickr where I have the photos. Works like a charm.

The run was just a couple of minutes short of the length of the American Edit album I was listening to. Perfect timing. American Edit — fantastic album. I’ve got the 2008 version loaded these days (torrent), and I told iTunes to play it as a gapless album, which works ideally.

When I run, I really benefit form music with some energy. Lately, it’s been Feed the Animals by Girl Talk — which is awesome, but entirely not appropriate for kids. It, too, is best listened to in a gapless form, which you can get by downloading the whole album as a single track. I ran across Girl Talk when I saw the movie Good Copy Bad Copy, but it’s really in a style similar to stuff I already like — Go Home Productions, DJ Riko, Miss Frenchie, McSleazy, etc.

For a run that lasts an hour, I can deal with music. I’m not sure about you, but at some point, music isn’t enough. I think this is one of the reasons why I favor 6 or 7 mile runs — after that, I need something more. I need audio books after that. And that means longer runs more often, to get through the book — like two or three a week. And I’m not ready to go back to that level of running. I loved the time in Germany when was running the K?nigstuhl all the time. That was awesome. But you need something special to do that, that often. If I can find a way to run west, across the Kunia Highway, I could go back to that.

Without music, my mind wanders. Shoot, with music my mind wanders. Today I was listening to music and working through the hardware and software configuration options for a touch-screen music server for Iraq, while comparing a Windows solution to a Unix solution. Not planned — my mind just wandered there. Later I caught myself debating the merits of a strong court system in Iraq, vs. autonomy for the Kurds. I wonder what I could get accomplished if I could run and take notes / make sketches.

Two last comments about the run today.

1. There is nothing flat on this island. It was always up or down. Which can be great, and which can suck. Sometimes, at the same time.

2. This place is glorious. I could retire here, and spend every day watching just the clouds.

I’ll run when in Iraq — of that I have no doubt. I really, really doubt the scenery will compare.