flying pig

I so want to run this race:

it band

I'm still having some issues with my IT band. It didn't hurt at all when I was running yesterday. But throughout the day afterward it began hurting.

I did some hunting around on the Internets and I found some stretches and exercises for it. By days end it was feeling fine.

Then...

I sit in my zero-gravity chair for about 20 minutes and it starts hurting again.

I had noticed this before, that the pain would increase after sitting in the chair. But this time the causal relationship seems most obvious.

I'm completely perplexed. How could the so-called "Perfect Chair" be aggravating my knee?

I tried doing a search with iliotibial and zero-gravity chair but got nothing. And a couple of weeks ago I mentioned it to my sports med guy, and he didn't have a clue.

Weird.

I'd hate to give up the chair, because it's perfect for my back.

Oh what a strange thing the human body is.

juno

Allie and I went to see Juno last night. Delightful little film. I haven't seen any of the other films that are up for best picture, but I hope this one wins, because it was heartwarming and uplifting.

If you Indiana folks haven't seen it yet, I think you'd like it.

In other news, work has been up and down. We're working on some things that could really make a difference, but it's up in the air as to weather they'll happen. The first is the budget. The city's finances are completely jacked up, but if we take some strong measures this year, we could begin to turn that around. The problem is that the City Manager has pitted a majority of the City Council against the Mayor and is pushing for a really shitty budget to be adopted, one that would make the city more financially screwed up. From what I understand, he's doing this because he's somewhat delusional about finances, but also because he simply wants to beat the Mayor.

The other thing we're working on getting passed is an ordinance that dramatically reduce the number of metal plates on the city's streets. For those of you who don't live here, Kansas City has an ungodly number of big, bulky metal plates on the streets, to cover utility cuts. They're an inch or so thick, and when you drive over them they jolt your car. They drive people positively nuts. Well, one of the Mayor's campaign promises was to get rid of them. And now that we're pushing to make it happen, we're getting push back from the city water department, which is responsible for a lot of them.

If we can manage to win these two fights, it'll go a long way toward a successful first term, as both issues strike at the very core of what the Mayor ran for. But politics could do them in, and keep Kansas City perpetually screwy.

i did it!

Well, I finished my first marathon since college in 5h:4m:34s. Kind of slow, but I was just aiming to finish this time around. (Actually, I developed a goal midway through this race to beat my 13 year old self; when I was a wee punk I ran a marathon with zero training and finished in 5:10.)

The weather was perfect, sunny and 40s at the start, high 60s at the end. It was great having Allie and the folks out. They were able to drive around and cheer me on at four different spots, including the end. It was a real boost to have them out there cheering for me.

One of the places where they stopped was by mile 20. They said I looked really good compared to the others who were plodding through. I had a smile on my face and everyone else looked like they were going to die.

At that point, I decided to abandon the 3-minute run/one-minute walk plan, and run from water stop to water stop, which were about a mile apart. It went pretty good, until the last mile, that was close to pure hell. It had this itty-bitty hill right before the end that was agonizing. But they also had three hard rock bands playing along that stretch, so it helped. Plus I knew I was almost there, so I just pushed through the pain.

That said, the race was mostly pain free. I felt none of the injuries that were dogging me just a few weeks ago. Just a big old blood blister on one of my toes on my right foot. Today my IT band is a little tender, but my quads feel great, no pain in my calves or hips. In fact, I woke up feeling like I could run three miles.

So... I'm thinking I'm going to go ahead and do the Flying Pig in May. How can I resist a race called the flying pig?! Plus, I gotta break five hours now.

Oh, almost forgot... after the race we got in the hot tub and who was there but the winner! She was drinking champagne and being all happy. Pretty exciting!

away we go!

We're off this morning for Austin. Tomorrow from seven until about noon I'll be running the streets of that city with thousands of other people. Please send me your positive thoughts, especially between the hours of 10 and 12, as that'll likely be when I'll be struggling the most.

It appears as though the weather is going to be good. It's raining in Austin today, but it's supposed to clear up overnight. It'll be sunny, with low 40s at the start and low 60s by the end. That's about perfect for a race like this.

My folks will be meeting us there, and they're renting a car, so they'll be able to cruise around with Allie and catch me at various points to cheer me on. I'm kind of grateful for that. I think it's really going to help.

All in all, I feel pretty good about it. I took a 13 mile run last week that was pretty much pain free. But then my quads felt tight during a 3 miler midweek. So that spooked me a bit. But I think once I get going in the morning, among the crowd, with all the excitement of a new city, and all the bands, I'll be able to cruise along for quite a few miles before pain creeps in.

Stay tunes for the race report...

goofy

Here's another silly thing:

patches

Here is something ridiculous for your viewing pleasure.

austin marathon course

Here are videos of the course I'll be running in Austin week from Sunday. These really show how dang long it is.





I'm going to complete this damn thing, even if it kills me. I haven't been able to train very well since early December. I didn't even run this last weekend, because I caught a cold. Not exactly the way I planned. But such is life.

little updatelets

Allie and I have gotten hooked on another HBO show called In Treatment. It's quite amazing. I can't believe how good the acting and writing is.

It's been a while, quite frankly, since we've watched absolute brain rot on TV. When we have been zoning out to the boob tube, it's been on pretty quality stuff, like this new show, and, of course, this final season of The Wire, which is getting really, really good.

I wish it were warmer out. I'm ready for spring.

I'm angry at my daily newspaper. Like, really angry. Like I can't believe how freaking irresponsible they've been lately.

Not sure what else.

Sorry for the lame post.

My job is quite captivating. For the most part, I've been having a blast. Sometimes I get really pissed and frustrated, like tonight. But for the most part I find it thoroughly invigorating.

But it really cuts into my posting ability.

legless

I've been having a lot of problems with my legs. So today I decided to run without them.

It worked!

I went five miles and I feel great. No real pain to speak of.

I think I'm going to go legless from now on.

Here's how it works: You puff your chest out and lean forward, like you're trying to pull yourself along by the sternum. Then you pump your arms, pushing your elbows back and forth to a nice rhythm. Everything below the waist you try to keep relaxed. And off you go; the legs just sort of following along.

Most of the way, I felt little tinges of tightness in various spots on my legs -- quads, calves, IT band. But the more I focused on my upper body, the more those pains dissolved away. I also tried to concentrate on going real slow, and that worked too (though I finished the loop at about the same pace I would if I'd been laboring more).

So I'm making a little progress.

I'm starting to think I'm going to make it on February 17.

carlsbad half marathon

The race was quite a let down, to be honest with you.

I felt achy and out of sorts for the first seven or eight miles or so. In retrospect it's because I was overcompensating with my form adjustments. It wasn't until the last part that I slipped into a somewhat comfortable stride.

But it was too late. For one, I was spending so much time thinking about the aches and pains in my body that I was sort of oblivious to the beautiful surroundings. Second, and more significantly, I think I might have hurt myself.

My knee has been killing me since Sunday afternoon. I mean really painful. I'm having trouble walking stairs and stuff.

Soooooo.....

I'm pretty worried about Austin.

I think if I lay off for the next four weeks, and maybe just do a couple of real short slow runs, I'll probably heal enough to be able to swing it. But it's gonna be tough regardless.

So what's up with this? Is it because I'm getting old? I'm I just flawed in this area? Or is this correctable?

Don't know right now.

san diego county

I am such an idiot.

For the last year or so, I've been working like crazy, trying to help Mark Funkhouser make Kansas City a better place. And the whole time we've been struggling to do this, there's been this place called California that already did it.

Sheesh. What a beautiful part of the world.

The only bad things about it are the traffic and the lack of Allie.

Damn, I'm such an idiot for not insisting that she come with me. Being without her dulls the experience of discovering a cool new place. It's like I haven't fully experienced it.

I think I'm going to have a good run tomorrow. I'm still a little bummed that I'm not doing the full marathon, but not much. The half covers pretty much all the really beautiful parts of the course. And it won't beat me up as much.

I had a lot of fun at the expo today. I found a pair of the new shoes I bought for just $40. So now I have two pairs, so I can ease the new pair in a few months down the road without risking injury -- just like the pros say you should.

I also bought The Stick. I think it's going to help. And of course I bought a souvenir hat, which I will do at every race for the rest of my life.

For the rest of the day I've been guzzling water and Gatorade and shoveling pasta down my throat. And missing Allie.

chirunner

I went for a run tonight, the first one since Sunday. Went about three miles. Not a big deal ordinarily, but considering that I tried to run last night and I couldn't make it a block, I'd say this was pretty good.

Last night when I tried to run I had pain in my quads. Tonight I figured I wouldn't even try to run, because my quads felt tight all day.

But when I got home I stretched, and then I did my hamstring exercizes, and then I stretched again. And by the end of that, I had this inkling that maybe I could run. Maybe if I started out real slow, with real tiny steps.

So that's what I did. And for the first three minutes, it was quite achy. But then I tried really hard to do some of the techniques described in ChiRunning. And I'll be damned if it didn't work.

Basically what I did was lean forward, so much so that I would have fallen down if I weren't moving my legs. Then I tried to simply lift my feet by bending and unbending my knees. That's it.

It was hard to keep the form. I kept kind of falling in and out of it. But when I was in the rhythm, it felt like I wasn't even running at all, like I was just being pulled along. Or, it was more like the way running is in a dream, like when you're moving but it seems like you're not moving at all.

Throughout the run I felt little aches up and down my legs. But when they came up I tried to relax my leg muscles and let my lean pull me along. It worked.

When I got home I stretched again, iced the quads, and now I feel not the least bit of soreness.

And then on Saturday I'm going to get a private ChiRunning lesson from a certified instructor who lives here in KC.

Who knows, maybe this is the ticket...

downsizing

As per doctor's orders, I have switched my entry for the Calrsbad Marathon to the half marathon.

Ever since the 20 miler, I've had persistant pains in my quads. It reached a zenith on my 23 miler, which I didn't really even run.

So I went to the sports medicine folks. They put me on a treadmill and analyzed my stride.

They discovered that I'm a total tight ass. No rotation in my hips. And I run in a kind of squat, with my knees and head out in front of my lap. As such, my quads are pretty much doing all of the work. My hamstrings are apparently just along for the ride.

So one of the docs did some deep tissue work to flatten out adhesions in my muscles. And then a trainer gave me a routine of exercizes for my hamstrings, abs and butt.

This coupled with copious stretching, icing and heat padding, I should be able to have a comfortable half marathon in two weeks, and (knock wood) a marathon four weeks after that.

So far so good.

My quads seem to be getting better. I'm going to try a run today.

As for the eercize routine -- good god it's hard. My hamstrings and butt cheeks burn like hell fire!

But I feel very hopeful. I think this is the beginning of a redirection in my running that'll pave the way for a long and very fun running life!

the wire

The fifth and final season of The Wire begins this Sunday. It's the best TV show ever made.

The first season told the story of a police wiretap operation on an inner-city drug ring. The theme was about operational power structures. The series brilliantly revealed the similar hierarchies in the drug operation and the police force.

The subsequent seasons have broadened in scope. The second encompassed international smuggling, and it conveyed a message about the death of the working class. The third went into political corruption, and the myth of reform. The fourth examined the education system, both in school and on the streets.

For this final go around, they're taking on journalism.

They have a handful of new characters this year, all employed at the Baltimore Sun, the most amazing of which is the city editor. I am blown away by how realistic this character is. He reminds me of my old city editor in Lawrence, only better (wich is saying a lot).

I mean, this character is so real, Allie and I both felt waves of dread when he stood up from his cube and yelled, "Alright people! It's 2 o'clock. Budget time! There are a million stories in the city of broken dreams. I only need three or four from you mooks!"

I could go on and on about how good this show is. And someday maybe I will. But for now suffice to say that I'm pleased to be in a new season.

train in vain continued

Allie wrote me a note saying that the Hollywood extra guy was the worst pick up artist she'd ever seen. It wasn't news to me. He seemed boring, the way he repeatedly pushed the conversation to the weather.

Then, he asked one of the girls what she was majoring in. She said English. At that moment, a young man with a beard who was sitting nearby said he was an English major too. In an instant, both suiters were invited to join them at their table. The poured the men drinks and instructed them on how to play the card game they were playing.

The bearded English major was really chatting up his scholarly counterpart. They discovered that they both love Virginia Wolf. "Do you think she's a feminist?" The bearded young man asked.

"Oh definitely," the young lady replied.

In time, it was revealed that one of the young ladies was half Jewish, at which point the young bearded fellow said, "Really?! I'm a Jew too."

Either the women were not sufficiently impressed, or they cast him some suspicious glance that neither Allie nor I could detect, because he suddenly began acting like he was on trial, hurriedly offering up details about family tradition. At one point he seemed to be desperately floundering. "I'm trying to think of more Jew stuff," he said.

Allie and I found this young man to be a little snarky. On several occasions he made fun of the Hollywood extra. He refered to him once as "the limo driver."

Despite this, the extra seemed to have a few more skills in the move-making department, though they weren't getting him very far. While the young bearded fellow blathered on and on about things they had in common, hopelessly dooming himself as a mere friend, the extra pushed the boundaries a little. He rested his arm on the seatback behind the young lady he sat next to. He touched her every now and then to emphasize certain points in his stories. He even tickled her a couple of times, which she didn't like at all. "Stop tickling me!" she barked.

Meantime, beard boy kept his hands to himself, which I'll bet he has a lot of practice doing.

In the midst of all this, the longhaired liberal know-it-all returned. The women invited him to join them. But they were four stuffed into a booth and neither of the two men, both sitting on the outsides, were going to make space for more competition. So the longhaired liberal moved on.

A moment later he returned saying he found a spot in the back of the lounge car with five seats. "But there's no place to play cards," he admitted. They just sort of looked at him, and he moved on again.

The four of them poured more drinks. The extra revealed that he was 37. The bearded boy pulled out a notebook and jotted something down. The women asked to see what he wrote. He demured. "I'm shy about my writing," he said.

He changed the subject to music. He asked them what music they like, and he was pleased by the specificness of their replies.

"When people say they like everything," he said, then pausing to add an air of profoundness to the pending closing phrase, "they really mean nothing."

So true, young man. So true.

new shoes

I went to Gary Gribble's today. As soon as I put on a new pair of shoes, a lot of my pain went away. I was actually able to run a hundred yards or so on each brand I tried on -- with little pain. Quite a contrast to my old New Balance, in which I felt pain just walking from the parking lot to the store.

So this is good news. It means that at least part of my pain is due to warn out shoes. And in chatting up the salesperson I learned that running on uneven icy surfaces for long periods of time (like 20 miles) can make you sore. So that's another piece of the puzzle.

The last piece I found when I was trying out the shoes. As I was running along the sidewalk outside the mall, I looked at my reflection in the store windows. I'm clearly landing with my forefoot a little bit in front of my body. That means I'm actually hitting the brakes with each step. And my brakes are my quads. So that's why my quads hurt.

I've got to get it to where my feet land under my body. I've known this for a month or so now, and I thought I had made the proper adjustments. But seeing myself in the window confirmed that I haven't.

At any rate, all of this is encouraging. It means that I'm not hopelessly flawed and therefore incapable of becoming a marathon. Rather, I just need to make some adjustments.

I'm starting to think this Carlsbad race is going to be just fine. So long as I properly take care of myself in the next three weeks...

22.45 miles

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Today my training schedule called for a 23 mile run. I knew that I was ill-prepared because of the holidays. Also, I've been a bit achy on my runs since the 20 miler three weeks ago. So I decided I would walk most of this one.

My plan was to run a quarter mile or so at each mile. Then, for the last five or six miles, I would try to do the 3 minutes running : 1 minute walking ratio I've done for most of my training build up. I figured that would give me a sense of what it'll feel like at the marathon, when I'm fatigued and trying to keep going. Besides, Jeff Galloway, creator of my training program, claims that walking is pretty much just as good training as running.

Still, it didn't quite work out the way I planned. At about mile 15 I decided to try alternating each quarter mile with running and walking because at that point I felt too sore to go with Plan A. With the exception of two half-mile walk breaks, I managed to keep that up until about mile 21, at which point I felt intense pain in my left quad. This pain had been increasing with each running interval, and now it was sharp enough that I knew I'd be an idiot to try again (though I did try again, twice, for about 3 seconds each time). So I walked the last mile and a half.

The journey took a total of 5 hours and 32 minutes. For the most part it was fun. We're having lovely weather here today; brightly sunny and 37 degrees. And my route included just about all of the KC half marathon route, which shows off a lot of the best sights our city has to offer. Freed from the need to hear my stopwatch alarm because I wasn't writing intervals, I listened to a book on tape -- Master of the Senate, which I've listened to before, but is good enough for a second go.

Despite the pleasantness of being outdoors on such a nice day, the pain I felt at the end (and which I still feel as I waddle around the house) has me pretty discouraged. I wouldn't be so disappointed if I'd been running most of the way. But this was really just a long walk, and all I was trying to do was break it up with quarter-mile jogs (which, I should add, were run at a pretty darn slow pace). It would seem that I could do those pretty easily even under the worst conditions.

So I'm wondering now how things will be in three weeks when I'm in Carlsbad. I'm starting to reassess my strategy. Perhaps it would be best if I'd go into the event with a plan kind of like today, though no matter what I'll need to run more because I have to maintain a 12:30 pace.

Interesting process. Not as easy as I thought it would be...

train in vain

Yesterday, Allie and I caught the train from Chicago to Kansas City. It was delayed for four hours because of a derailment. We had to wait in the train at the station for a long time without moving. So we went to the lounge car to play Boggle.

While there, we observed several failed attempts at the human mating ritual.

In the booth next to us sat two young women working on word search puzzles. After a while, a man with long hair and a beard sat down with them. He was a liberal know it all. He lectured the young women in a friendly but patronizing way about what makes good theater and why the bourgeois ruin it. He said this word, bourgeois, several times, drawing out the syllables.

I thought that perhaps the women were high school students, and this guy was a teacher escorting them and several other students on a theater trip to the big city. They looked very young to me. But then, after the guy left, they pulled out a great big bottle of whiskey and started drinking. That threw my theory off.

Not long after the guy left another guy started in on them. He asked them questions. Invariably, he would turn the conversation back to the weather. I wrote a note to Allie in which I deemed him the weather man.

We learned through his inquiry that they were college students from New Mexico who had been in Chicago visiting relatives. The man offered that he is a movie extra who lives in LA. To pay the rent he drives a limo. They told him they thought he looks like Ricky Gervais, star of the British version of The Office. They seemed to not even know that Gervais's latest project is called Extras.

Oh. I have to go eat. More later...

mission acomplished

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Well, it turns out the weatherman was wrong again, this time in the right direction. There were not, as predicted, torrents of freezing rain. So I was able to do the 20 miler out in the beauty of the world rather than the dreeriness of an indoor track.

How was it?

Mostly good. But I reallly bonked on the last two and a half miles. They were almost pure torture. Before that I started bonking pretty bad on the uphills from about mile 15 on. Every time I hit an incline during that stretch I felt like I was going to die.

And now I am sore as can be. Calves. Quads. Lower back. Feet. All aching.

All in all it was a good learning experience. And I feel more than a little studly, having gone 20 miles on one of the worst weather days of the year.

What did I learn?

For one, stick with the walk/run plan, at least for this stage of my running life. I decided at about mile 5 to abandon the 3 minute run/1 minute walk schedule. From mile five to mile fifteen I ran quite a bit farther between walk breaks, in some cases I went more than a mile before taking a break. I also let the pace pick up pretty good a on a couple of stretches.

I think all of this contributed to me bonking so hard at the end.

I took with me three packs of PowerBar gel. I gulped down the first one at mile 10 as planned. The next two I had at 15 and 18. In both instances I felt pretty much completely wiped out, and the calories boost gave me a little bit of energy to press on. I'm definitely going to need to do that again one the marathon.

So, having learned my lessons, I plan to be a lot smarter when I do my 23 miler on December 30. I'm definitely going to stick to the walk/run plan. And I'll be sure to have plenty of calories handy.

Now, for the rest of the day, I'm going to put my feet up andhope that this pain subsides.