Last Saturday Monkey and I participated in the nOg Run Club’s World’s Largest Flip Flop Run at Bond Brothers’ Beer Company in downtown Cary. This is the second such event put on by the club and has the goal of setting the world record for the most people to run in a 1k thong sandal race. I thought it might be fun, and my son agreed to go along.
Continue reading I’m Set for Icebreakers: NoG Run Club Flip Flop Run (2016)
For our second race on June 4th Andrea and I ran the NoDa 5k in Charlotte, NC. I had wanted to try two races in a day, and since this race happened in the evening it made that feasible. I had heard good things about the NoDa area of Charlotte but had never had an excuse to visit, and we could tie it with a chance to visit family (and make it a date night).
When laying out the weekend, Andrea and I planned to run the race side-by-side. After the 10k in the morning both us were hot and a little tired, and the idea of a casual and slow 5k still sounded like the best plan. As we got closer to the event, though, I felt better than I thought I would, and she sensed I was curious about what time I could run. The plan started to change, and it felt awkward.
Last Saturday we had our first running adventure as a family. We had been looking for a 10k/5k that would be interesting for the kids, good for pushing a stroller, and have a mile run that the two oldest kids could do.
The Airport or the Zoo?
We gave the kids two choices. They could run the 5k at the NC Zoo in Asheboro or we could tackle the PTI Run the Runway 5k/10k in Greensboro. After a brief description, they chose the latter.
Continue reading Overnight Delivery: PTI Run the Runway Race Report (2016)
The first Wednesday in June is Global Running Day. I didn’t know it was a thing until this year, and when I first saw it pop up in my Twitter feed I had my doubts that it mattered.
Since I am in the mode of saying “yes” to running experiences, though, I thought I would try to make something of it. When Andrea brought up the fact that the next day was Global Running Day, I saw an opening and we decided to take the kids on a one mile run the following morning.
I woke up early and went for my usual run, except in the humidity of the early June morning I felt terrible. My splits got longer and longer and my energy waned towards the end of the run. When I got home Andrea was ready to go and rolled our kids out of bed.
Our youngest child is always up for a run, meaning that he will happily ride in the stroller. The older kids (7 and 6 respectively) were nonplussed. They were groggy and both really wanted breakfast instead, especially when faced with the injustice of their younger brother happily eating a cereal bar. Our oldest son rolled around on the floor groaning. Our daughter decided to bring the drama. When we told Howler he was the coach for the run, Cottontail claimed to be the second coach, sending her little brother into a meltdown of tears and screams. Over the din of “I’m the coaaacccchh”, my wife and I exchanged glances that said we both questioned whether the family run would happen.
We got everyone out the door, though, and did a simple mile run/walk around the lake in our neighborhood. No pressure on anybody, just running. We stopped to look at a turtle in the path. Our oldest son could have run longer or faster, but he stopped several times to wait and encourage his mother and sister (Andrea was trying to pull Cottontail along). This was my slowest mile of the day, but it was also the best. Despite how we felt when we talked out the door, we all had smiles on our face when we returned.
The next morning I was about to leave for a short run. The “coach” was happy to go along in the stroller, but my oldest son also wanted to go, pushing himself a little farther to run/walk two miles. I didn’t ask or plead. I don’t know if he always will want to or be able to come along, but I really enjoyed sharing the course with him the past two days.
Next year, I think we will probably circle the date on the calendar and plan something a little more. No matter what I thought before, any excuse to bring us or others together running is a good one.
Against my better judgment and the wishes of my wife, last Thursday I ran my first (and probably only) beer mile.
What is a Beer Mile?
For the uninitiated, a beer mile is exactly what it sounds like. According to Runner’s World, a group of Canadian college runners created the event in 1989. For a while it was something kept among their friends, though it slowly spread (either organically or via word of mouth). With the growth of the internet, though, word got out and particularly in the last ten years interest in these events has grown.
Beer miles usually occur on a track. You chug a beer, then run a lap. While in a transition zone, you chug a second beer and run a second lap. You repeat the process until you have had four beers and run four laps.
Continue reading You Sunk My Battleship: NC Beer Mile Race Report (2016)
Sometimes runners undertake a lot of preparation for a race. We schedule and implement training plans, watch our nutrition in the weeks leading up to the race, work through race visualizations and mindfulness exercises, and plan pre-race logistics. Sometimes, though, we just pick a race and wing it. That was the case for me with the NCRC half-marathon last Sunday.
Continue reading Where the Wild Things Are: NCRC Classic Half-Marathon Race Report (2016)
For the first run in my Racing Past 40 series, I decided to take my two older kids to a color run. I have never done one of these before, and the kids had expressed some interest after seeing some of their after-school counselors use the colored dust thrown at these events as a part of a good-bye celebration.
After looking around, I decided on the Color the Hill 4K in Chapel Hill. Aside from how it lined up with my race calendar, it seemed like more of a local event (some color runs are organized by companies that specialize in them), kid friendly, and the shorter distance would be a good test for Monkey and Cottontail (not their real names) for their first “official” race.
Next year I turn 40. In running, this means I enter a slightly more realistic category for a BQ time and I enter the “Masters” category for road races; I really don’t think either of those matter much for me.
In life, it means I am getting more gray hair and feeling older. My kids asked in all seriousness the other day if I drove a Model-T for my first car. When they found out how old I was, my co-workers started putting black streamers on layaway and writing “over the hill” jokes in advance of my big day (still almost a year away).
I wanted to take my mind off of this milestone and try to enjoy the year. For a hot minute I thought running 40 races over a year would be an awesome, original idea that I could gift to the world (like when I learned Santa wasn’t real and figured I’d go on morning radio to blow the whistle on the greatest lie in history). Not surprisingly, it’s been done before. This guy made a nice fundraiser out of it, and Michael Wardian did 54 races (one at the North Pole) for his fortieth birthday. I’m sure others have done this as well.
Our youngest son, Howler (I’m choosing to use pseudonyms for my kids), is two and in the past few months has started stringing sentences together. He is also the child that is most enthusiastic about sports. Last weekend, for example, he asked for golf instead of cartoons when we flipped through channels.
When I was training for my first marathon, he expressed the most interest of the three kids. When I would fall across the threshold after a long run (at least once literally), he would often barrel across the floor to greet me, stopping a few feet away to ask:
“You running marathon?”
When I said “no” he came back with a follow-up:
“You running miles, daddy?”
I’d say “yes” and then he would run back across the room to pretend to be a dinosaur, or he’d laugh and try to bounce on my stomach during my post-run stretches. It was something his mother and I laughed about, but like everything at this age, moments pass quickly. He’s already shortened his question to “you went running?” when we return from a run and now uses “mom” and “dad” (it seems too early for that) when talking to us.
When I thought about what I would want to call this blog, the phrase immediately appeared on the list of options and was the only one my wife and I both liked. It’s one of my favorite memories from marathon training and embodies a spirit of running as something shared by family and friends. We won’t necessarily run the same races (or at the same pace or even run at all), but we can always ask each other if we are running miles, share a conversation, and then run off to pretend to be dinosaurs.
“You have the knees of a 22 year old.”
That was the assessment from the orthopedist injecting my knee with cortisone, which I needed because I was in a lot of pain and couldn’t bend my leg. I had pulled up with knee pain in a three mile run the previous day and after feeling my leg lock up on me I was pretty sure that would be the end of my time as a runner. So when he told me I was essentially fine and just needed some strength training, I was shocked and highly dubious.
A year and a half later, I ran my first marathon.
***
I had always identified as a runner, but only for mid-distances that I did not excel in. I ran in high school (four seasons of outdoor track, one season of Cross Country) focusing on mid-distance races like the 1600m and 800m, but was not good enough to get any interest from a college program.
Like any other high school athlete, I thought that was it. It was time to hang up my flats and just try to crank out three miles every now and again to keep myself in shape. There were no more track meets for me, and if I couldn’t be competitive in longer distances I wasn’t sure why I should run road races.
Aside from that, I experienced a few injuries during college that made me think I needed to scale back my running if I wanted to preserve the health of my knees and ankles. I still loved running, and every so often I would wonder if I could go back to it beyond a single run or two on a weekend, but then my knee or a tendon would throb and it seemed to me that I was destined for limited use (there was also the blow my pride took in the one 5k I ran where a nine year old kid out-kicked me, but that’s another story).
So when I encountered knee pain like I never had before in the late summer of 2014, I figured the years of running had caught up to me at last. I was primed for it. But it wasn’t the case, and I am thankful for it.
***
A few months later, my wife (who had only taken up running after the birth of our second child) decided to run a half-marathon. I was proud of her and wanted to see her accomplish her goal (which she did last fall), but it also challenged some of my assumptions about running. Between the two of us I had always self-identified as a runner, but I was also the one placing an arbitrary 3-5 mile cap on what I would ever be able to do. If she could do it, why couldn’t I? I had no illusions of winning races anymore, but I did love running and missed challenging myself.
So over the course of the next few months I added mileage to my weekly runs, did more strength training to help prevent injury, and managed to finish a half-marathon in June of 2015. I followed it up with another in November of 2015, and then decided to tackle a marathon this past spring.
Along the way I also started to read through issues of Runner’s World, checked out sites with running and racing news, and picked up a copy of Born to Run. I talked about running with my wife, neighbors, and people at work, and found that running had a community I didn’t experience in high school where (like my most of my interests) only a handful of people my age enjoyed distance running. Being a loner, I didn’t always find it easy to engage with others about running but I enjoyed it when I did. I felt like I had been missing something and was amazed at the diversity of running information and experiences that were out there. I wanted to learn more about them.
***
So on the way to dinner one night last month my wife asked me what was next. We both knew I was going to run another marathon, despite my protests. But as I am well on my way to turning forty, she asked about running forty races for my fortieth birthday. The idea intrigued us both, but when I tried to map it out it just didn’t seem feasible (we have three kids and both work).
What did seem feasible, though, was to try to fit in as many race experiences as possible in a calendar year. There are so many types of races now that appeal to different people. My kids are young enough that I can get away with some of the stupid ones (cough, beer mile, cough) with limited explanation, and we are not so overrun by activities that it would be an extraordinary burden. They are also old enough that they can start to run with me, and I could share a lot of these experiences with them and my wife.
So that’s what I am going to do (with the support of my wonderful wife). I’m shooting for 26-30 events in the coming year, trying to cover a variety of running experiences. I don’t know if they will always be interesting, but I look forward to sharing them.
