arc of time

i took my daughter to see the third movie in the “twilight saga,” entitled eclipse, last night or rather this morning, since it started at 12:01 am. for those of you who know me, you know what a sacrifice this was for me. twilight is up there with mad men, zombies, keith olbermann, the red hot chili peppers, dan brown and nicholas sparks on the list of things that i really, really think the world could do without and be much better off.

but i went, ’cause that’s what parents do. i could have gotten out of it. liz offered to take my kiddo with her and her niece, but i made the decision that i had to go. i’m glad i did, because i know how much abby will appreciate it, but far from changing my mind about twilight, i left eclipse hating it more that ever.

i could point out so many things – the campy dialoge, like the werewolf dude saying “until your heart stops beating,” over and over and over again, is one. the overacting that is worthy of a daytime soap is another. the ridiculous mythology, most obvious in the “sparkly vampires,” but also seen in a dozen other areas – i.e. vampires break like porcelain fitz and floyd figurine – wtf?

as for the experience, well, i have never been surrounded by more estrogen in my life. there were about 10 dudes in the entire theater and all of them, like me, were there because a female required them to be. and yes, many, if not a majority of the women in the audience were really wearing “team edward” and “team jacob” t-shirts. i thought this was an exaggerated urban myth. it’s not.

so to sum up:

1. my daughter had a great time
2. i now hate the twilight saga more than ever
3. i have a great idea for a practical joke – i’m going to replace the film in the projector room for the next twilight movie with lethal weapon 3 and watch the chaos.

Tags: eclipse, movies, twilight

4:40:08.

that’s my new personal record for a marathon. san diego is done. i thought i could do better than that, but for a host of reasons i am super-proud of that result and that race.

i have a lot of thoughts i need to collect before trying to write my race report. i may try to work on it on the plane to amsterdam tonight. for now, i will just say thank you to san diego, my teammates and all of you who supported me on the journey.

go team.

i’m sitting in a hotel room in san diego and there are about 10 hours to go before the curtain comes up on marathon number six. i’m listening to where the streets have no names, which is, and always will be my marathon song.

i’ve been thinking about the other five. vegas, 2006. georgia, 2007. vermont, 2007. georgia, 2009. marine corps, 2009. each one has its own story, each had its own reason for calling me to the starting line. every training season was different, some more challenging than others, but at the heart of every one is love. love for my sport, love for the people i trained with, love for the ground and love for myself.

this year is the first time i have ever really understood that thought. and i think that is what makes tomorrow so exciting. i could set a personal record tomorrow. i’m well trained, the course is fast and the weather is going to be perfect. i probably weigh 20 pounds less than i have for any other marathon.

then again i may not.

and it doesn’t really matter.

because tomorrow i run for the love of it. and when you do that, the run is all that matters.

i can’t wait.

Tags: 2010 san diego marathon, marathon, marathon training, running, team in training

6 days away from marathon number 6. i ran around 7 miles yesterday; the last long run of the season. the next run longer than just a few miles will be 26.2 in san diego.

the truth is i am primed. i am in better shape than i ever have been for in my life, and QED for any of my other marathons. i weigh less, have run longer and harder and am stronger than i have ever been.

this should be a really good race. i don’t know, nor really care how fast i am going to run it. my best time, achieved at the 2009 ing georgia marathon, is just over four hours and 41 minutes. do i think i can beat that? probably. it’s not really my goal though.

deep down inside, my goal is really to finish a lot stronger. i have always struggled in the final miles. i know they are tough no matter what, but i think i can do better. and that is my real goal. running strong through the tape.

we’ll see if it happens.

i am sure primed for it though.

Tags: 2010 san diego marathon, marathon, running, team in training

i think we all have a thing. it’s the thing that we love to do more than anything else. it’s the thing we dream of, it’s the thing that the thought of gets our blood pumping and our heart racing.

i think some people are fortunate to discover it early AND to be really, really good at their thing. most professional athletes fall into this category as do most people who are able to make a living in the arts. the rest of us, well, maybe we find it and we do it but we aren’t really good at it. or maybe we don’t find it for years and years.

maybe we find it and we don’t even know it.

i didn’t come across my thing until i was just shy of my 31st birthday. and even then it took me years to understand that it really was my thing. i don’t think i knew it consciously even until earlier this year.

my thing is distance running.

there is just no doubt about it. over the years i have been doing it, distance running has become something that has a deep-rooted place in my soul. when i haven’t been able to because of injury i have felt like some part of me was missing and lost. but when i am out there; particularly on a long and difficult run i feel like something inside of me is awake that is central to who i am.

i think trail running and contemplating really pushing the envelope; 50k, maybe 40 or 50 miles; is what clued me in to the fact that this is what i love to do, my passion.

either way; i’m hooked and the train is way out of the station. in the back of my mind there are things i am thinking about trying that are pretty insane; i don’t want to voice them here and jinx them, but all you would have to do is look through the history section of my browser to know i am thinking about some crazy stuff.

and i love it.

wouldn’t stop for the world.

it’s a bit of a pinnacle. something i have never accomplished before in my life and hopefully it won’t be the last time it ever happens. the 50 mile week.

40 is the most i have ever done before. usually as the ultimate week in a marathon training program. 5,10.5 during the week and then a 20 on the weekend.

this week i shot through it by 10 miles. the week broke down as 7,12,7 then 20 and 5 on the trails on the weekend. it was a great week of running too. it was shot through with memories, camaraderie, solo time to reflect, fighting and beating that old devil humidity and just celebrating being alive and being able to carry myself that far just on my feet alone.

the first run was just a normal old ho-hum seven mile jog around candler park and little 5 and cabbagetown. the amazing beauty of that sentence is that today i can describe a seven mile run on a tuesday as ho-hum. but it is.

the next two runs were a 12 miler and a 7 miler in las vegas. i love running in vegas. it always brings me back to that first marathon. the long run was two boxes on the strip, noting too exciting. the shorter one was a run from the convention center downtown, recreating those first magical miles of my first marathon. the cool desert air was perfect for morning runs.

saturday was the big 20 miler for team in training for the san diego marathon team. it was a brutal day for it too. temps in the 80s, humidity in the 90% range and the backbreaking “reverse church” course as we call it. this course is hill after hill after hill, from the first big climb alongside chastain park, to the last big on at mile 17-18 coming up rivers road, west wesley and peachthree. it was an easy run for me though. some people were struggling so i spent some time running slow and walking with them to get them as far as we could. when i left them at 17 miles and turned it on, i passed a lot of people on my way to 20. it was one of the best 20s i’ve had and definitely the easiest recovery.

yesterday, i hit sope creek to round out the week. with 45 miles already on my legs, i decided to push myself even harder to get to 50. it was a tough run. hot and if possible more humid than saturday. the woods felt like they were EXPLODING with moisture. within 2 miles my shirt was as drenched as if i had jumped in the pool.

i picked a hard course for sore legs too. i climbed the big ridge on the old powerline cut trail system. it’s a grueling hill that starts very steep, levels off only a bit and almost never stops going up. i ran along the powerline cut and then back up the ridge on the other side before tearing down the very steep descent back to a little swap and then out onto the gravel trail. i then climbed up the first “main street” hill; one of sope creeks more gradual climbs but a very long one, before tearing back down the alternate hill. lots of climbing.

when i was done, i smiled. 50 miles in one week. almost inconceivable, but i did it.

i guess i need to taper now. san diego is coming up fast, only three weeks away, and this was the final big week. it’s going to be hard though. i have developed an appetite now for mileage. i’ll do it though, because i think i may be primed for a really good run in san diego.

and then back to 50 mile weeks. can’t wait to do my first trail 20.

Tags: running, san diego marathon, trail running

one of the aspects of running with team in training that i love the most is getting to see people accomplish things for the first time. after five marathons and thousands of miles logged at every distance up to 26.2, this partly helps keep the experience fresh for me.

yesterday our usual group training session was cancelled due to some pretty vicious t’storms that moved into atlanta early saturday morning. well the training must go on either way, so around 0900 i met up with two of the girls i am mentoring for the san diego rock ‘n roll marathon and we did our 14 together (i ended up doing about 15.)

one of the girls mapped the course and it ended up being pretty aggressive with a lot of uphills, some steep and short, some long and gradual, some long and steep ala briarcliff north of north decatur. it was a great run, and much like my 14 miler i did last weekend in goodlettesville, tn, i felt like i was gliding over most of it.

but the thing that made it special was sticking with them through the 14 miles. we reached a point in the run – 12 miles for one of them and 13.1 miles for the other – where we were beyond anything they had ever run before. and that was pretty special.

i love seeing the excitement on someone’s face when they go for a long distance like that and achieve it. it’s pretty amazing and one of the reasons i keep doing tnt.

p.s. – i still need $$ for the san diego marathon so if you are so inclined to support me, you can jump over here and make a donation to the leukemia society

Tags: 2010 san diego marathon, marathon training, running, team in training

look i get it. if you are going to ride public transportation getting asked for money is a part of life. it’s just part of the deal you make; call it part of the price you pay for not paying for gasonline.

i understand that if you are addicted to crack cocaine you probably can’t hold down a job and you absolutely HAVE to get some money to buy the stuff. and the only way to do that is to ask other people for money. i’m with you. i also get that a train is a great place to do this.

but we’re supposed to have a deal, you and i. you walk the car and ask for money. you get what you can get from who you can and then you move on. it should only take you a stop, maybe two intown where the stops are more frequent to work an entire car.

see here’s the thing; you smell. i am sorry, it’s just how it is. and marta has enough things to detract from the experience that smelling crackhead from five points all the way to dunwoody is not part of the bargain.

so madame crackhead who was on the north-south red line train this morning; please stick to the deal. you get one pass through the car and then you need to move on.

thanks.

Tags: atlanta, crackheads, marta, red line

it’s a truism of my life and one my mom revels in pointing out – if i say i will never, ever do something, it is probably a safe bet that at some point down the road, i will do the thing i said i would never do.

my life is littered from one end to the next of examples of this. so the decision i came to this week probably should come as no surprise even though it is about the most shocking one i can think of, save maybe voting for a democrat for president.

i’ve decided to give up meat.

i’m not saying it’s going to be forever, i don’t even know if it will last 12 nights on a celebrity cruise ship in the north sea this summer, but for now, i’m a vegetarian. i’d like to say there was some grand epiphany or some big reason i was doing this, but i really can’t. it’s just been a slow, gradual realization that this is what i want to do.

i used to crack a few jokes to my vegetarian friends. one night i made one and one of my veggie friends kinda called me out on it. not in a mean way, but just expressing a bit of discomfort with the little joke i made. it got me thinking, as those sort of things are wont to do, and i decided i was really engaging in a bunch of contempt prior to investigation. That whole contempt prior to investigation attitude is one i am way to guilty of and one i would really like to make progress son in my life.

so i decided to try meatless mondays. i couldn’t think of that last time i had gone three meals without some sort of meat, but i figured what the heck, i’ll give it a whirl. i have been at it for a few months now and slowly the meatless monday has turned into tuesday and wednesday and thursday.

and the truth is, i don’t miss it. i actually think i feel better without the meat in my diet. the less i have eaten the easier it has gotten to consider life without it.

so for a few weeks now, i have been thinking about taking the plunge. and yesterday i decided to go for it.

so we’ll see. this is huge for me, and i don’t know if i will be able to do it, but for now i am giving it a try.

Tags: food, life, vegetarian

i have decided to try to incorporate barefoot running into my training regime full-time now. at the moment this consist of a short barefoot run on one of my recovery days, usually monday. i have been at it for three weeks now and have worked my barefoot mileage up to just a little more than 2 miles.

yesterday i ran down to the track at maynard jackson high school and then did two miles. 4 total laps on the asphalt track, 4 total laps on the grass infield. i definitely feel a difference in my stride and in the way i feel afterwards doing the barefoot running.

my feet, of course, are still not caught up to this idea so for now the bad asphalt at the high school track is like a meet grinder on my poor soles. not to worry though, i suspect this is the proper way to build up the callouses necessary to sustain running barefoot over tough surfaces for any period of time.

we’ll see, but for now it’s staying in the regime.

Tags: barefoot running, running