I used to think that the will to win was enough, that talent was a myth meant for books. I thought my body was capable of anything I tried. I was wrong. Sure God gave me the desire to win, but not the speed, He gave me the endurance but not the stomach, He gave me the will to press on when all roads looked gloomy, but not the talent. On some of my more upsetting runs I would scream out to Him asking why I can’t be great when I gave it all I had every time. I would hear nothing in return, just a hollow wind coming from the empty fields around me. I would reach the top of large hills and look into the distance hoping that maybe he would give me a sign of hope. I would get tired of looking and demand that he tell me in words whatever it was I wanted to hear. I knew one thing for sure, God gave every other runner two legs, two arms, one brain, and one heart. God gave more talent to some of those legs and less to others. The one thing He gave to me more than anyone else was more heart. When you have heart you think anything is possible, that mountains and storms will move from your way because you are willing to endure anything to achieve your goals. Well, they don’t move and neither do I. I’ve always heard that I had a big heart, that I was dedicated to whatever I tried, more determination than any normal man had, and I always looked at the best things in life. But none of that matters whenever you race against talent. Talent has a smug way of telling you that you aren’t the best because of the hard training or the simple things you have to give up, but because it is winning. Talent loves to be the best, to raise a finger after winning a race to say that your number one. Talent hates the runner who has none and tries anyways. Talent laughs in your face as they glide past you. Talent makes winners out of real losers. Talent makes people who otherwise wouldn’t care and beat the others who only train to win. So I guess you could say, talent hates me.
During my long runs I ran in a place I called the Pits, or to many others the river bottoms. I ran these ones alone. The worst place for me to be was alone, because I had time to think about myself other than carrying on a conversation or keeping a steady pace with others. This is what I believe every runner goes through sometime in their life. The old dirt roads always called my name as my foot grazed the ground. I always seemed to hear one thing from the road, that was “Faster.” Nothing else, just faster. So I did as I was told and ran faster. Tears rolled down my cheek as I ran as hard as my body would let me. Blood sometimes would gush from my nose as I pushed the physical construct of my body. Sweat would fly as my arms would stiffly swing. All this time wasted on a false dream, a fictitious hope, unproductive miles. All I wanted to do was give up. Sure I have given four years of my life to racing and seven years to running, but none of that mattered. I no longer wanted to known as a runner. I knew I could handle high mileage weeks and tough speed sessions, but I never seen it taking me anywhere. I was a nobody trying to act as a hero. My time was up. I was no longer a runner, just a man.
In dark times the Lord knows how to make you feel better than you started off at and, of course, I continued to run, like an idiot, and hoped for the best. The heart between my shoulders helped me run through the pain once again and for that I thank it, I thank God, and I thank my training partners. Without these I never would have continued to run.
Was I meant to go on though? All this time I had dreamed of something and pushed the other way. I never gained anymore respect than when I started. People still laughed at me when I ran, still called me names. If this was anything it was torment, I mean I had more respect when I lifted weights. At least then people knew what I was capable of, so they didn’t taunt me. Even though lifting made me feel like I was a big idiot who only knew how to lift, I was respected. But I never did need respect, at least not from others. All I needed was the feeling of completeness, the warm feeling in my heart. I only sought after respect from certain people, people I cared for. It was the only way I knew how to run my best time.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Running the B Team: Running Scared
Life sometimes has a funny way to make you think of the obvious. All my life I had been racing as though I was on another training run, just another tempo, no worries. This was wrong, I had to understand that when it was time to race, I had to perform better than all the long training runs. I found the true meaning on how to race on a lonely day when all I had was my thoughts to keep me company, I had to run scared. Racing in fear that my competition might find out the horrible high school career I had. Fearing that they might discover that I choke under pressure. But the greatest fear was the fear that this might be my last race. To me nothing was a certainty, injuries proved this to me. It wasn’t the ITB syndrome, or the runners knee, or even the stress fracture, it didn’t occur to me when I had the arch problems either. The thought of me not succeeding hit me when I sprained my ankle. One of the most simple injuries to have happened to you. It didn’t require intensive sessions with athletic trainers or doctors. It didn’t require special medication. All it required was the basics; RICE. Rest, ice, compression, and elevation. Of course more was required than just that, like flexibility, strength, and range of motion, but that is post swelling. Not my heart, my mind, or my strength could function normally for a while. I couldn’t run, barely walk, and I had no desire to. I was still the same guy that wanted to go all out on every run, I just didn’t see any reason to, everyone was telling me I had to take it easy, not to get burned out. But taking it easy wasn’t something my body understood, I had to go all out every time or I felt, well, guilty.
This injury showed me just how easily all your hard work can be taken away from you. All the eighty to one hundred mile weeks, all the early mornings waking at five to get at practice at time, all sweat lost from pushing my body to the limits, all races I’ve choked in, and all the people I knew thought I was a loser. Just another kid who didn’t train hard enough, another wannabe, another nobody, another face in the crowd. That was not who I wanted to be or who I was meant to be. Delicate issues control the lives of some men, but to me it was nothing. I had to run scared, I had to prove to all the skeptics that I could become the person I told them I could be. To run with my heart open and my mind free was something that I had to let go. From this point on I had to focus on all of my goals, not letting one detail pass my eye. I was the runner that should have gave up long ago, but never really could because I had no choice. The road was calling my name.
This injury showed me just how easily all your hard work can be taken away from you. All the eighty to one hundred mile weeks, all the early mornings waking at five to get at practice at time, all sweat lost from pushing my body to the limits, all races I’ve choked in, and all the people I knew thought I was a loser. Just another kid who didn’t train hard enough, another wannabe, another nobody, another face in the crowd. That was not who I wanted to be or who I was meant to be. Delicate issues control the lives of some men, but to me it was nothing. I had to run scared, I had to prove to all the skeptics that I could become the person I told them I could be. To run with my heart open and my mind free was something that I had to let go. From this point on I had to focus on all of my goals, not letting one detail pass my eye. I was the runner that should have gave up long ago, but never really could because I had no choice. The road was calling my name.
Running the B Team: Meeting the Team
As all of the distance guys lined up to listen to Coach, I remember the heat of the sun beating down on all of us even though it was sixty-five degrees outside. But that didn’t matter now I had one thing on my mind, the ten 400 meter repeats set before me. Coach spoke up, “Ok guys, we are doing ten 400s, with 200 meter jogs in between for recovery. I want the guys who finish last to catch up with the leaders by the time you hit the next start mark Now the pace is going to be between 65-70 for the A team and 75-80 seconds for the B team. Now the B team will always be chasing down the A team in everything. That gap will always remain. The B team will always be trying harder to catch the A team.”
Those words remained in my head, I knew I was not A team material at the time, just coming off an injury and not running for several months, but I also knew I was better than B team material. I had too much heart and too little talent. As each 400 progressed I slowly faded further from the A team, and as I ran the last few with the slower guys, I knew that I had given it my all. I felt like crying, but I knew that wasn’t going to make me any faster, so I focused. Sure all of you want to hear a success story, that I ran with the A team and beat all of them on the last one, but that wasn’t the truth. The truth was that I gave it all of my heart and I still finished at the back, just another face in the crowd. And that is when I shined the most because I had the heart to keep going, the courage to face another day of running, even though running made me feel bad about myself because of the performances.
Several months earlier was the beginning of my collegiate running experience you could say. I was still unsure on how well I could perform. Sure, I ran during the summer, probably not as much as I should have but I still ran, probably 45 mile weeks. But I was still not sure what kind of times to be expecting. I had been emailing a coach at Vincennes University in regards to running cross country and track. I figured I still had some racing to complete from high school. He emailed me back telling me what kind of workouts I should be doing and how far everyday, just the basics. Well towards the beginning of August I received a letter that told me that the coach of the college quit and that we should continue running on our own.
This was a blow to my self esteem. Not once in my life had I had a real coach. By real I mean professional coach. So it seemed that every time I tried to get help from professionals they would be unavailable. But as the letter read I made sure I showed up on Saturday morning on time, hoping that the mess would be worked out. Well to my dismay only two other guys showed up. One of the two was a guy from a local high school, the other was a guy from Kentucky. As we waited around hoping that someone would show up we were pretty quiet, keeping to ourselves. We sat on the track bleachers for ten minutes after eight and no one showed up. So we ran. It was our first run together. We went for forty-five minutes. The pace didn’t seem fast at all, but something inside me slowed me down and I finished a disappointing minute behind C. and B. It was a blow to my psyche finishing that far behind them on an easy run. The runs continued on like that for a while. Every once in a while I would have an alright run and finish strong. After a few weeks a couple other guys that were suppose to run on the team showed up, E. and BB. During those first couple months I sadly knew what the back of each one of my teammates looked like. That really made me want to be better, so with the mindset I have I tried harder. I put myself through so much pain that giving up would have been an ignorant mistake. As each of my runs intensified I began to have more pain in my right knee. That pain ended up being quadricep tendonitis. From then on I had to wear a band around my knee until the pain went away. Well the pain never really went away, not until about two months of training past. After it went away I started training even harder than before. I would use every run like a tempo run, no matter the length.
After doing this intense training for a while I started to have pain in my lower leg, not bad at first. But after each run it became worse. Every time I embarked upon a run my self-esteem seemed to be shot down as I couldn’t run any faster. These runs I ran by myself, totally alone. Sometimes I ran at home in the country, going down roads that cars rarely visited. On my longer runs of up to two hours I would see maybe two or three cars at the most. So I of course had a lot of time to think as I ran silently down the old dirt roads. I remember seeing the frost of my breath as I ran, I remembered the cold. In a sense it reminded me of myself and how I had to become heartless so I would not feel any pain. Simply put it, I ignored the pain. I ran through it.
Each workout I hid the pain from my coach, trying to walk as normal as possible when seen by other people. I never wanted anyone else to see me struggling to walk up a set of stairs or limping towards a classroom. It wasn’t in my nature to show my weaknesses. The pain in my lower right leg that I thought was shin splints never went away, not with ice, or compression, or pain killers. It kept growing even to the point were pressing a gas pedal in a vehicle was a painful task.
I never had shin splints in my life so I thought the pain in my leg was shin splints, sure people told me about shin splints and how bad they hurt, but this felt horrible, it felt almost like it was in the bone. And that was what it was, a stress reaction in my tibia, not a full fracture, but something to get me off my feet for six months. It would have been a lot shorter time but everytime I tried to run again the pain came back. Six months is a long time to think about if it is really worth going on in running. Six months gives you plenty time to think about why you should give up. Six months is also a long time listening to people telling you to give up, saying that if your going to be hurt then you shouldn’t run. Well, I listened to my voice during those six months. I never hit the road once, I did stationary bike workouts to an endless possibility, treading water in a pool for dozens of hours, and the days off. The days off are what got to me the fastest. I would look out a window and see the road calling my name, I would notice hills and think to myself that running up it would be a dream. I would see snow lightly falling, covering the ground in a pure white. I remember running during the snow from the year before. Heavy panting as I would try to breath down the cool air, the silence as snow drifted to the ground. And the crunching of my footsteps against the freshly landed snow. That is what I missed, that is what made me want to quit, to give up all my dreams and just stop running all together. I wasn’t a runner, I was too heavy according to some, especially in the upper body. And as I continued to cross train from my injury I gained weight because I also lifted weights. As the winter months continued I weighed in at 165 pounds, not too heavy for an average guy, but the only catch was that I was 5 foot 7 inches tall. Most other runner my size weighed around 130 pounds or less. I was too heavy. Not only was I too heavy I was also told I was built like a wrestler. I had a barrel chest and powerful arms, something that most runners don’t want or need. The reason I was built like this was because of my previous dreams of going the Army and going Special Forces the reasons why I didn’t at the time are a whole other story, maybe for a later chapter. My stride was short and inefficient because of short legs. My arms could never find a comfortable position. And of course when I ran my head tilted towards the left. So I had bad form, no physical characteristics of a runner, and wanted a job that included more rucking than running. Some would say the odds were against me at first glance. But at a deeper view I had the type of personality were I didn’t want to give up on anything, I had extremely strong muscles, and I wanted to prove everyone that thought I couldn’t be great wrong. I needed to become better. I had no other choice.
Giving up is something I had never done in my life and I didn’t plan on doing it at this point either. So I pushed on. I started running again, slowly, but it was running. My runs were short and very low intensity. My “speed work” wasn’t really speed work. My long runs were only 45 minutes, which isn’t very far for me. And my mind still didn’t want to become better. Even with all this pressure, I was still running. Something that I had given up for half a year. When I started running again I ran alone. Something that is hard whenever everyone else is training with each other progressively becoming better. I was basically jogging for about two months.
Slowly but surely the intensity became faster and the mileage increased. From the beginning of summer I started running further, faster. My mileage went from forty mile weeks to seventy-five mile weeks in time. My long runs were reaching two hours long and my speed work really felt like speed work. I felt like a runner, a real runner.
Those words remained in my head, I knew I was not A team material at the time, just coming off an injury and not running for several months, but I also knew I was better than B team material. I had too much heart and too little talent. As each 400 progressed I slowly faded further from the A team, and as I ran the last few with the slower guys, I knew that I had given it my all. I felt like crying, but I knew that wasn’t going to make me any faster, so I focused. Sure all of you want to hear a success story, that I ran with the A team and beat all of them on the last one, but that wasn’t the truth. The truth was that I gave it all of my heart and I still finished at the back, just another face in the crowd. And that is when I shined the most because I had the heart to keep going, the courage to face another day of running, even though running made me feel bad about myself because of the performances.
Several months earlier was the beginning of my collegiate running experience you could say. I was still unsure on how well I could perform. Sure, I ran during the summer, probably not as much as I should have but I still ran, probably 45 mile weeks. But I was still not sure what kind of times to be expecting. I had been emailing a coach at Vincennes University in regards to running cross country and track. I figured I still had some racing to complete from high school. He emailed me back telling me what kind of workouts I should be doing and how far everyday, just the basics. Well towards the beginning of August I received a letter that told me that the coach of the college quit and that we should continue running on our own.
This was a blow to my self esteem. Not once in my life had I had a real coach. By real I mean professional coach. So it seemed that every time I tried to get help from professionals they would be unavailable. But as the letter read I made sure I showed up on Saturday morning on time, hoping that the mess would be worked out. Well to my dismay only two other guys showed up. One of the two was a guy from a local high school, the other was a guy from Kentucky. As we waited around hoping that someone would show up we were pretty quiet, keeping to ourselves. We sat on the track bleachers for ten minutes after eight and no one showed up. So we ran. It was our first run together. We went for forty-five minutes. The pace didn’t seem fast at all, but something inside me slowed me down and I finished a disappointing minute behind C. and B. It was a blow to my psyche finishing that far behind them on an easy run. The runs continued on like that for a while. Every once in a while I would have an alright run and finish strong. After a few weeks a couple other guys that were suppose to run on the team showed up, E. and BB. During those first couple months I sadly knew what the back of each one of my teammates looked like. That really made me want to be better, so with the mindset I have I tried harder. I put myself through so much pain that giving up would have been an ignorant mistake. As each of my runs intensified I began to have more pain in my right knee. That pain ended up being quadricep tendonitis. From then on I had to wear a band around my knee until the pain went away. Well the pain never really went away, not until about two months of training past. After it went away I started training even harder than before. I would use every run like a tempo run, no matter the length.
After doing this intense training for a while I started to have pain in my lower leg, not bad at first. But after each run it became worse. Every time I embarked upon a run my self-esteem seemed to be shot down as I couldn’t run any faster. These runs I ran by myself, totally alone. Sometimes I ran at home in the country, going down roads that cars rarely visited. On my longer runs of up to two hours I would see maybe two or three cars at the most. So I of course had a lot of time to think as I ran silently down the old dirt roads. I remember seeing the frost of my breath as I ran, I remembered the cold. In a sense it reminded me of myself and how I had to become heartless so I would not feel any pain. Simply put it, I ignored the pain. I ran through it.
Each workout I hid the pain from my coach, trying to walk as normal as possible when seen by other people. I never wanted anyone else to see me struggling to walk up a set of stairs or limping towards a classroom. It wasn’t in my nature to show my weaknesses. The pain in my lower right leg that I thought was shin splints never went away, not with ice, or compression, or pain killers. It kept growing even to the point were pressing a gas pedal in a vehicle was a painful task.
I never had shin splints in my life so I thought the pain in my leg was shin splints, sure people told me about shin splints and how bad they hurt, but this felt horrible, it felt almost like it was in the bone. And that was what it was, a stress reaction in my tibia, not a full fracture, but something to get me off my feet for six months. It would have been a lot shorter time but everytime I tried to run again the pain came back. Six months is a long time to think about if it is really worth going on in running. Six months gives you plenty time to think about why you should give up. Six months is also a long time listening to people telling you to give up, saying that if your going to be hurt then you shouldn’t run. Well, I listened to my voice during those six months. I never hit the road once, I did stationary bike workouts to an endless possibility, treading water in a pool for dozens of hours, and the days off. The days off are what got to me the fastest. I would look out a window and see the road calling my name, I would notice hills and think to myself that running up it would be a dream. I would see snow lightly falling, covering the ground in a pure white. I remember running during the snow from the year before. Heavy panting as I would try to breath down the cool air, the silence as snow drifted to the ground. And the crunching of my footsteps against the freshly landed snow. That is what I missed, that is what made me want to quit, to give up all my dreams and just stop running all together. I wasn’t a runner, I was too heavy according to some, especially in the upper body. And as I continued to cross train from my injury I gained weight because I also lifted weights. As the winter months continued I weighed in at 165 pounds, not too heavy for an average guy, but the only catch was that I was 5 foot 7 inches tall. Most other runner my size weighed around 130 pounds or less. I was too heavy. Not only was I too heavy I was also told I was built like a wrestler. I had a barrel chest and powerful arms, something that most runners don’t want or need. The reason I was built like this was because of my previous dreams of going the Army and going Special Forces the reasons why I didn’t at the time are a whole other story, maybe for a later chapter. My stride was short and inefficient because of short legs. My arms could never find a comfortable position. And of course when I ran my head tilted towards the left. So I had bad form, no physical characteristics of a runner, and wanted a job that included more rucking than running. Some would say the odds were against me at first glance. But at a deeper view I had the type of personality were I didn’t want to give up on anything, I had extremely strong muscles, and I wanted to prove everyone that thought I couldn’t be great wrong. I needed to become better. I had no other choice.
Giving up is something I had never done in my life and I didn’t plan on doing it at this point either. So I pushed on. I started running again, slowly, but it was running. My runs were short and very low intensity. My “speed work” wasn’t really speed work. My long runs were only 45 minutes, which isn’t very far for me. And my mind still didn’t want to become better. Even with all this pressure, I was still running. Something that I had given up for half a year. When I started running again I ran alone. Something that is hard whenever everyone else is training with each other progressively becoming better. I was basically jogging for about two months.
Slowly but surely the intensity became faster and the mileage increased. From the beginning of summer I started running further, faster. My mileage went from forty mile weeks to seventy-five mile weeks in time. My long runs were reaching two hours long and my speed work really felt like speed work. I felt like a runner, a real runner.
Running the B Team
Life was always a challenge to me, whether it was school work or physical effort I would try the best I could. I guess that is what made me, well, me. I started out running not as a means to become better than anyone else, I started running because I was doing just that, running away. Not really running away physically, but rather running from my fears, from my problems, and from myself. Each run was, in a since, a challenge to me. It made me feel better about my faults as a person after I was done. It didn’t matter that my stride was short and awkward, it didn’t matter my arms looked stiff and elbows flew, and it didn’t matter that I would stare at the ground when I needed to push forward, I still was running.
I ran because I wanted time to think more than any other reason. I ran because it cleared my mind and I could clearly think about where I wanted to go in life. When I would run for long distances I would rarely get tired because of the run, I had a way of breaking myself down on those longer runs. My thoughts were not as clear as they once were when running was pure, more than the machine like movements my body adapted to. Running was a way of life. I would let all my pain, all my sorrows, and all my hatred out on a run. I wasn’t like the occasional jogger, I enjoyed the pain. I, in a sense, was a little sadistic. I would sometimes run until tears rolled down my cheeks, till blood ran out of my nose, until the inflammation of my knees would give away, I would run until I was physically drained. I liked the feeling that muscle fatigue gave me. I never had to fight against that feeling of heaviness in the legs. The feeling of my body telling to stop was something I craved all my life.
Racing was something that made me feel awful about myself. I never really had a good race. Just races were I would fall apart and run horribly, slower than some practices. It made me angry because I knew I had all these people judging me as I would finish behind the best. Most of them probably thinking that I didn’t train hard. They knew nothing of my training, they knew nothing of the intensity of my runs, and they knew nothing of my heart. Sure, I had the heart of an Olympian, but the talent of a nobody. But that never stopped me, I never used it as an excuse for my poor racing. There was no excuse. All I knew was that I had to keep on trying to prove everyone wrong and show them that I could become the great runner I knew I could be. All I ever wanted to hear was the sound of the bell lap as I crossed into the final lap of the ten thousand and begin my sprint, leaving the other runners behind. But that’s a dream and this is a reality.
My running wasn’t about getting me anywhere. I was lost in my mind most of the time, not caring about people around. I would be so focused that the sound of people talking to me while running was drained from the environment. I guess you could say I was running in the wind, running blind. And that focus is what made me a great runner, because I was always waiting for the next run, the next practice, the next race, and the next opportunity to become better than I already was. I knew I could become the runner I knew I was at heart, but what would be the costs?
I ran because I wanted time to think more than any other reason. I ran because it cleared my mind and I could clearly think about where I wanted to go in life. When I would run for long distances I would rarely get tired because of the run, I had a way of breaking myself down on those longer runs. My thoughts were not as clear as they once were when running was pure, more than the machine like movements my body adapted to. Running was a way of life. I would let all my pain, all my sorrows, and all my hatred out on a run. I wasn’t like the occasional jogger, I enjoyed the pain. I, in a sense, was a little sadistic. I would sometimes run until tears rolled down my cheeks, till blood ran out of my nose, until the inflammation of my knees would give away, I would run until I was physically drained. I liked the feeling that muscle fatigue gave me. I never had to fight against that feeling of heaviness in the legs. The feeling of my body telling to stop was something I craved all my life.
Racing was something that made me feel awful about myself. I never really had a good race. Just races were I would fall apart and run horribly, slower than some practices. It made me angry because I knew I had all these people judging me as I would finish behind the best. Most of them probably thinking that I didn’t train hard. They knew nothing of my training, they knew nothing of the intensity of my runs, and they knew nothing of my heart. Sure, I had the heart of an Olympian, but the talent of a nobody. But that never stopped me, I never used it as an excuse for my poor racing. There was no excuse. All I knew was that I had to keep on trying to prove everyone wrong and show them that I could become the great runner I knew I could be. All I ever wanted to hear was the sound of the bell lap as I crossed into the final lap of the ten thousand and begin my sprint, leaving the other runners behind. But that’s a dream and this is a reality.
My running wasn’t about getting me anywhere. I was lost in my mind most of the time, not caring about people around. I would be so focused that the sound of people talking to me while running was drained from the environment. I guess you could say I was running in the wind, running blind. And that focus is what made me a great runner, because I was always waiting for the next run, the next practice, the next race, and the next opportunity to become better than I already was. I knew I could become the runner I knew I was at heart, but what would be the costs?
Stained Underwear
When I started running it was merely a means of putting painful memories out of my mind. The constant pain that it put me through made me forget her face… at times. When you spend enough time out on the road and trail then you see enough crazy stuff that most people wouldn’t believe.
My first story was when I was out of a run with my buddy, trying to stay in shape for a half marathon. We hit the two mile mark we had an old van come up from behind us and passed us up and went another 40 feet or so. The next thing I saw shock me internally. An old man, he looked almost homeless, got out of the driver’s seat and went to the back of the van. He opened the back door and forced two dogs out of the van. He then took off and left the dogs behind. We saw the dogs out there for the next week before animal shelter was called and they were picked up.
Next story, I was on a long run out in the pits and running down a long forested road. I saw ten turkeys in the road. I started to laugh as I a thought came into my mind. I ran full speed at them screaming and scaring them all off. They flew, or should I say glided, down into a gully on the left side of the road. All of a sudden I heard noises to my right. I looked up the hill on my right and saw fifteen or more turkeys flying right at me. I continued to run down the road as the turkeys chased me. It took a couple of minutes but then they decided I wasn’t worth the effort.
A later run on the same road brought me to see something dangerous. First a little more detail is needed to be known about where I’m from. My county had the highest rate of meth users in the US. The surrounding counties were pretty high too. Where I run at is out in the river bottoms. I can run for hours and not see a vehicle. As I ran down the road I kept a constant pace of about 6:00 minute mile pace. It was my first long run in a couple weeks so I wanted to hit it hard. On this road you would have small hills and at the crest of each hill you could see the next crest. The road was surrounded by a dense forest. I finally made it to about fifty minutes out, ten more minutes and I can start my way back. As I hit the next crest o stopped dead in my tracks. There, 200 meters away, was two men talking to each other. One wore a black shirt the other a white shirt. I was stunned. There wasn’t any vehicle in sight, at least not on this side of the crest. I have ran this road for years and never saw anyone else on foot and only a few vehicles. Then the men shook hands. That is when I said enough is enough and I turned around and started back. When I did this one of the men took off and started running towards me. There wasn’t going to be any way he was going to catch me. There was about two miles of road that I had to travel to hit a four way intersection. I thought that if I made it to there then I would be able to lose who ever was chasing me. I ran fast, probably 5:30 pace or faster. I was about 100 meters away from the intersection when I heard it. It was an old white trash car, think old Ford LTD style. The car was barreling down the road in my direction and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to lose him now. I prepared myself to be in a fight as I hit the intersection and turned left up a large hill. He then slowed down and stared at me as he passed. I did the country thing and waved hello as he passed. He returned it and took off. The thing that scared me the most was that when I looked into the back seat of his car he had a humungous rotweiler there. I think I saw a drug deal go down and luckily I decided not to go any further than what I did, people have been killed for seeing stuff like that.
Turkeys weren’t the only animals I came into contact with on a run out in the pits. I remember one run when I saw an entire pack of coyotes in a field. Now it isn’t too strange to see coyotes out here but an entire pack moving across an open field at 3:00 in the afternoon was pretty strange. They were yelping and barking as they crossed the field. There must have been 10 or 15 of them. I also came across two different cats. The first one was a bobcat. Now any cat like this is hard to come by were I’m from and when I saw it I only could stop and take in the beauty of it. He stood there very casually and looked at me for a couple of minutes and then took off. The next cat was a cougar. I was running hard up a hill and heard something moving in the woods next to the road. I stopped and saw a tail and back end of a cougar. A little freaked out, I stopped turned around and started walking back towards my truck. My truck was about three miles away. I walked for a good quarter mile and then started running when I was surrounded by open fields.
About four years after this first encounter with a cougar I came back to my hometown for a few weeks. I went out for a run. I wasn't in the same shape that I was back then but just trying to enjoy the little time of being back home that I had. The location of this run was probably a good 5 or 6 miles away from my original location. I was a few miles into the run and seen something crossing the road. I picked it up because I thought it was a deer. As I got closer I then realized that it wasn't a deer as it wasn't tall enough and way too big to be a deer. I got even closer, I seen it wasn't alone. There it was, about 100 meters away, a cougar and her cub crossing the road. I waited a few minutes before running forward to the place where she crossed the road. I wasn't worried about being attacked; there was a open field on one side of the road that went for a half mile and a little field about 100 meters and then the treeline of the forest. I stopped looked around to see if I could see them, no luck. I did see some pretty nice sized tracks crossing the road.
My first story was when I was out of a run with my buddy, trying to stay in shape for a half marathon. We hit the two mile mark we had an old van come up from behind us and passed us up and went another 40 feet or so. The next thing I saw shock me internally. An old man, he looked almost homeless, got out of the driver’s seat and went to the back of the van. He opened the back door and forced two dogs out of the van. He then took off and left the dogs behind. We saw the dogs out there for the next week before animal shelter was called and they were picked up.
Next story, I was on a long run out in the pits and running down a long forested road. I saw ten turkeys in the road. I started to laugh as I a thought came into my mind. I ran full speed at them screaming and scaring them all off. They flew, or should I say glided, down into a gully on the left side of the road. All of a sudden I heard noises to my right. I looked up the hill on my right and saw fifteen or more turkeys flying right at me. I continued to run down the road as the turkeys chased me. It took a couple of minutes but then they decided I wasn’t worth the effort.
A later run on the same road brought me to see something dangerous. First a little more detail is needed to be known about where I’m from. My county had the highest rate of meth users in the US. The surrounding counties were pretty high too. Where I run at is out in the river bottoms. I can run for hours and not see a vehicle. As I ran down the road I kept a constant pace of about 6:00 minute mile pace. It was my first long run in a couple weeks so I wanted to hit it hard. On this road you would have small hills and at the crest of each hill you could see the next crest. The road was surrounded by a dense forest. I finally made it to about fifty minutes out, ten more minutes and I can start my way back. As I hit the next crest o stopped dead in my tracks. There, 200 meters away, was two men talking to each other. One wore a black shirt the other a white shirt. I was stunned. There wasn’t any vehicle in sight, at least not on this side of the crest. I have ran this road for years and never saw anyone else on foot and only a few vehicles. Then the men shook hands. That is when I said enough is enough and I turned around and started back. When I did this one of the men took off and started running towards me. There wasn’t going to be any way he was going to catch me. There was about two miles of road that I had to travel to hit a four way intersection. I thought that if I made it to there then I would be able to lose who ever was chasing me. I ran fast, probably 5:30 pace or faster. I was about 100 meters away from the intersection when I heard it. It was an old white trash car, think old Ford LTD style. The car was barreling down the road in my direction and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to lose him now. I prepared myself to be in a fight as I hit the intersection and turned left up a large hill. He then slowed down and stared at me as he passed. I did the country thing and waved hello as he passed. He returned it and took off. The thing that scared me the most was that when I looked into the back seat of his car he had a humungous rotweiler there. I think I saw a drug deal go down and luckily I decided not to go any further than what I did, people have been killed for seeing stuff like that.
Turkeys weren’t the only animals I came into contact with on a run out in the pits. I remember one run when I saw an entire pack of coyotes in a field. Now it isn’t too strange to see coyotes out here but an entire pack moving across an open field at 3:00 in the afternoon was pretty strange. They were yelping and barking as they crossed the field. There must have been 10 or 15 of them. I also came across two different cats. The first one was a bobcat. Now any cat like this is hard to come by were I’m from and when I saw it I only could stop and take in the beauty of it. He stood there very casually and looked at me for a couple of minutes and then took off. The next cat was a cougar. I was running hard up a hill and heard something moving in the woods next to the road. I stopped and saw a tail and back end of a cougar. A little freaked out, I stopped turned around and started walking back towards my truck. My truck was about three miles away. I walked for a good quarter mile and then started running when I was surrounded by open fields.
About four years after this first encounter with a cougar I came back to my hometown for a few weeks. I went out for a run. I wasn't in the same shape that I was back then but just trying to enjoy the little time of being back home that I had. The location of this run was probably a good 5 or 6 miles away from my original location. I was a few miles into the run and seen something crossing the road. I picked it up because I thought it was a deer. As I got closer I then realized that it wasn't a deer as it wasn't tall enough and way too big to be a deer. I got even closer, I seen it wasn't alone. There it was, about 100 meters away, a cougar and her cub crossing the road. I waited a few minutes before running forward to the place where she crossed the road. I wasn't worried about being attacked; there was a open field on one side of the road that went for a half mile and a little field about 100 meters and then the treeline of the forest. I stopped looked around to see if I could see them, no luck. I did see some pretty nice sized tracks crossing the road.
The Road with a Broken Heart
Years ago I was a real runner. A man who wanted to train for ultra marathons and other hardcore races. I had no fear of not finishing, I was young, I was stupid. All of my “running” life I ignored the obvious truth behind my limitations, I knew what my body could do and what it couldn’t do, but I kept pushing it, trying to break it during every run. I fully understood that I am no longer that guy with the full beard and long hair who ran only to run, I am no longer the kid in college trying to prove to the world that I am not worthless. I understand these things. But it is hard to let go of that mindset. It was a way of life for me, I craved the run… I needed the run. It was how I expressed myself, like an artist painting on a canvas, a writer starting on a blank tablet. It was who I was, who I am.
Years before the present, I was a hardcore runner. I ran 90 or more miles a week. My track event was the 10,000 meter. I lived for it. I wasn’t the best, but not the worst. I was in the middle somewhere. I tried to train harder so that I could taste victory, to feel what a winner felt like… my day never came. To truly understand who I was back then you would have to know how I trained. I ran two a days 5 times a week and two long runs on the weekends. I ran 5 miles in the morning and anywhere between 7 to 12 miles at night. I ran all my runs as hard as I could. Some said that I ran too hard for too long and that I was going to get burnt out. I ran my “long runs” at seven minute mile pace and ran upwards of 18 to 20 miles. I trained hard and ate only healthy foods and got eight hours of sleep a night. My resting heart rate was under 42 beats per minute and my VO2 Max was near 65. Some would say that I was addicted to running, I wasn’t though. I was addicted to what running made me feel like. Nothing felt better than the feeling of full muscle failure, knowing that your body is getting ready to shut down and all you can do is continue to run. I was obsessed with it.
My obsession turned to ultra marathons. The idea sprang into my head when I was having a discussion with a former coach. He said that I probably would be pretty good at them. He said I had the right build and the right muscle fibers. I was an long distance runner already I just needed to make the transitions to longer long runs on trails. After training for a couple months I was running two super long runs on the weekends with a healthy base during the week. On Saturday after work I would run 20 to 25 miles, and on Sunday afternoon I ran 30 or more miles. The first time I hit 30 miles I felt the run pulsate through my body after I finished… this was going to be fun. I was probably running over 100 miles some weeks but I didn’t really keep track of my runs that well. Most trail runs were from experience of what pace I was running at and for how long, sometimes I had a GPS watch on.
Years before the present, I was a hardcore runner. I ran 90 or more miles a week. My track event was the 10,000 meter. I lived for it. I wasn’t the best, but not the worst. I was in the middle somewhere. I tried to train harder so that I could taste victory, to feel what a winner felt like… my day never came. To truly understand who I was back then you would have to know how I trained. I ran two a days 5 times a week and two long runs on the weekends. I ran 5 miles in the morning and anywhere between 7 to 12 miles at night. I ran all my runs as hard as I could. Some said that I ran too hard for too long and that I was going to get burnt out. I ran my “long runs” at seven minute mile pace and ran upwards of 18 to 20 miles. I trained hard and ate only healthy foods and got eight hours of sleep a night. My resting heart rate was under 42 beats per minute and my VO2 Max was near 65. Some would say that I was addicted to running, I wasn’t though. I was addicted to what running made me feel like. Nothing felt better than the feeling of full muscle failure, knowing that your body is getting ready to shut down and all you can do is continue to run. I was obsessed with it.
My obsession turned to ultra marathons. The idea sprang into my head when I was having a discussion with a former coach. He said that I probably would be pretty good at them. He said I had the right build and the right muscle fibers. I was an long distance runner already I just needed to make the transitions to longer long runs on trails. After training for a couple months I was running two super long runs on the weekends with a healthy base during the week. On Saturday after work I would run 20 to 25 miles, and on Sunday afternoon I ran 30 or more miles. The first time I hit 30 miles I felt the run pulsate through my body after I finished… this was going to be fun. I was probably running over 100 miles some weeks but I didn’t really keep track of my runs that well. Most trail runs were from experience of what pace I was running at and for how long, sometimes I had a GPS watch on.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Back on Track; Random Thoughts
Well I have been off the road for quite some time. I am getting really out of shape to what I was just a year ago. One year ago I was training for an ultra marathon. I had my weekend runs up to 25 miles on Saturday and 35 miles on Sunday both around seven minute per mile pace. I set some goals for myself; one is to run a sub 60 minute 10 miler and the other is to be able to go at least 25 miles again.
Well, after many months of not running like I should’ve I’ve decided to start the training once again. I’m kind of nervous to see exactly where my body’s current fitness level is at, but in the end I knew I had to start this again. It is kind of strange to think that a year ago I was training for a 50 mile ultra marathon and that two and three years ago I was in the best shape of my running life, running 90 mile weeks and surviving cruel speed workout sessions. I will finally see what my body is capable of after putting up with so much punishment. I can hardly wait…
Thoughts of my old college cross country t-shirt comes to mind when I think of the state of my running condition is in; “Seven days without running makes one weak,” Oh crap this is going to hurt.
I fully understand that I am no longer that guy with the full beard and long hair who ran only to run, I am no longer the kid in college trying to prove to the world that I am not worthless. I understand these things. But it is hard to let go of that mindset. It was a way of life for me, I craved the run… I needed the run. It was how I expressed myself, like an artist painting on a canvas, a writer starting on a blank tablet. It was who I was, who I am. If they where to write the story of my life a large chapter would be on my realizations while running. I screamed out to God asking Him for answers of things I didn’t understand why. Not running, pardon my language, made me feel like a worthless piece of shit. Sure people where impressed with what I did, but it wasn’t about what I did, but rather what I could do. After running I felt more intelligent because my thoughts where clear and not all cluttered around in my brain. It made me feel like a normal person.
Well, after many months of not running like I should’ve I’ve decided to start the training once again. I’m kind of nervous to see exactly where my body’s current fitness level is at, but in the end I knew I had to start this again. It is kind of strange to think that a year ago I was training for a 50 mile ultra marathon and that two and three years ago I was in the best shape of my running life, running 90 mile weeks and surviving cruel speed workout sessions. I will finally see what my body is capable of after putting up with so much punishment. I can hardly wait…
Thoughts of my old college cross country t-shirt comes to mind when I think of the state of my running condition is in; “Seven days without running makes one weak,” Oh crap this is going to hurt.
I fully understand that I am no longer that guy with the full beard and long hair who ran only to run, I am no longer the kid in college trying to prove to the world that I am not worthless. I understand these things. But it is hard to let go of that mindset. It was a way of life for me, I craved the run… I needed the run. It was how I expressed myself, like an artist painting on a canvas, a writer starting on a blank tablet. It was who I was, who I am. If they where to write the story of my life a large chapter would be on my realizations while running. I screamed out to God asking Him for answers of things I didn’t understand why. Not running, pardon my language, made me feel like a worthless piece of shit. Sure people where impressed with what I did, but it wasn’t about what I did, but rather what I could do. After running I felt more intelligent because my thoughts where clear and not all cluttered around in my brain. It made me feel like a normal person.
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