Porta-Party

Today was the day the Hinckley 9-mile loop course record, originally co-held by yours truly, would fall. A group of fast kids planned to run at 8:00 AM with the goal to take that record down. But first some of us early-birds had to get their 6:00 AM Sunday morning constitutional in.

Speaking of constitutionals, there's the matter of the portable toilet in the Hinckley Spillway parking lot. We all wear plenty of reflective material as well as bright flashing lights of all colors. The better to see and be seen by drivers whilst running on the roads around the park. Some of the lighting has just about gotten out of hand however. One person wears flashing lights that are so bright they're nearly blinding. I wondered if it takes a small portable nuclear power plant to supply the electricity. When said runner entered the porta-potty, from the outside was so well lit, it looked like a porta-party!

Porta-Party!

And yes, the record did indeed fall. Several runners made it under the old 1:07 mark, with Renee Harden turning in the fastest time of 1:02.

I can only rest assured that my other record, the number of times this loop has been run, is pretty safe at the moment. I believe it's somewhere between 170 and 200. I could check, but I won't just now.

The early birds along with the fast bunch

He Tasks Me

I recently watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan again for the first time. I had forgotten how good that movie is. Considering all the Trek flicks, it's certainly the best of the bunch. There are at least two quintessential Star Trekky and quite memorable lines. One occurs when Khan cunningly traps Kirk in the center of a planet. Kirk tries desperately to find a way out, telling Khan that he will have to come and get him. But Khan answers, "I've done far worse than kill you. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on... hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her. Marooned for all eternity, in the center of a dead planet... buried alive. Buried alive." As a result,  all Kirk can do is yell, at the top of his lungs, KHAN!. The other memorable line occurs as Khan is thinking out loud about how Kirk Tasks him. Please do click at least that last link. I'll wait...

Okay, welcome back. Now of course you're wondering, "Who tasks you, Dan?" Well that's easy.  It's my running coach, Sven. Sven, by the way, is invisible.

It seems as though Sven's been tasking me more lately. Said tasking has involved 60-mile weeks through the thick and thin of January in Northeast Ohio. It's involved slogging through snow like I did for several runs last week, and trying to keep up with the fast kids today. It's even involved staying off the treadmill and getting outside as much as humanly possible in January in Northeast Ohio.

On Thursday, Sven had me run 10 miles in the park through a couple inches of new fallen snow. It actually took me two hours to accomplish that feat, and it was tough. Yet I enjoyed that winter wonderland run as much as any I've done in a long time. I followed that up with 13 from home in much milder weather on Friday.

It was today, Sunday, that Sven tasked me the most. At least the most in the last couple weeks. He had me show up at Hinckley to run with the fast kids: Frank Dwyer, Caitlin Oblander and Debbie Scheel. Frank seemed well-rested as usual, but recovering run-aholic Caitlin and super-mileage specialist Debbie ran well despite other recent running. Recent running, that is, of the fast variety.

It was a good thing that they all took it easy on me. They politely waited at the top of Effie and the other Hinckley Hills, and didn't even complain when I launched my usual silly stories. Those were fewer this time around however, because I was pretty anaerobic today.

All in all, it wasn't a bad day: I did a 3-mile lake loop, the usual 9, then another lake loop and a couple more with Debbie.

I think Sven is happy with me... For now.

After the run with the other kids, another bunch showed up, and I managed to photo-bomb their picture. Jeanne Ineman photo

Weather Wimp

It's about that time of year: when I post something about how I hate running in awful weather, but how I also hate running on treadmills. You might say I have a hate-hate relationship with the whole lot. The only thing worse than running in bad weather or running on the mill is not running at all. Maybe it's actually a hate-hate-hate thing.


This El Niño winter has really left me with little room to complain. Until now.. -> November and December were both significantly milder than normal. It's just too bad that January didn't get the memo. Lately things have been sorta normal. And sorta normal in these parts is sorta bad this time of year. A brief rundown of the last few days will illustrate:

Saturday: Cold rain. I hate cold rain. But you knew that. I probably would've run on the mill had I not made plans to meet Debbie Scheel and Michelle Wolff for a run in Medina. Guess what? Once we got moving, it wasn't so awful.


Sunday: Cold rain. I hate cold rain. I thought about meeting a group in Medina again, but was this close (picture me squinting, with my thumb and forefinger a half-inch apart) to getting on the mill. Instead, I thought to just try to do a brief trial type run outside, figuring that I'd come right back and finish on the mill after a couple cold, wet, miserable miles. But then something amazing happened. I stayed out and completed my twelve-ish miles in the elements without having to step on the old mill. Just after I finished, the rain changed to snow and it got much colder.


Monday: Extremely cold wind chills and plenty of blowing and drifting snow. And despite all that, I got out for a short run. It wasn't too fast and it wasn't too far, but it was out.


Tuesday: Still cold, but not so extreme. Now, however, we have a lot more snow. And despite all that, I got out for yet another run. I had planned to get ten or so miles in today, but as slow as I was moving, I only had time for five and a half.


Today: More cold; more snow. Okay, enough is enough. After five challenging outdoor days in a row, I stayed on the mill.


The thing is, I never regret an outdoor run. But the mill days have me lamenting not being out. Like I'm doing now.


The weather forecast for tomorrow sounds no better. I'd better make plans for another day on the old mill.

The Resolutionists

Sounds like members of some religious sect, doesn't it? They may or may not be religious in the classical sense, but their main purpose is to make the fitness center more crowded than usual in early January of every year.


As I do with the more gung-ho members of any religion, I try my best to avoid the Resolutionists as much as I can. The best bet is to get in and out of the fitness center, including the locker room, as fast as possible.


Today was a little problematic, however. Other than a couple rare exceptions, I've managed to run outside almost every day during the fall, and so far this winter. Blame that on El Nino - the weather has been very unseasonably mild. But this morning I awoke to 12F temperatures, and decided to be a treadmill wimp.


Milling around, in turn, caused me to have closer than desired encounters with my Resolutionist friends. Every mill was in use. I was able to get one early, so I could stay there and get my 11.25 miles in.


How did I do, you ask? Bleh. Faster than average, but outside, even with the cold, would've been more enjoyable. And I would've been farther away from that religious sect.

Landis Loonies Marathon

Dead last. I don't think I've ever finished dead last in a race, but here I was with two miles to go in the Landis Loonies Marathon, with, as far as I knew, no one behind me. There had been a few, but they had dropped out.

And then something wonderful happened. I saw a runner ahead of me, and he was doing the marathon shuffle in between walking breaks. I could catch him!

This was the sixth edition of the Landis Loonies Marathon, and I'd run the first one in 2011. The uncle/nephew team of Kevin and Keith Landis do a wonderful job of putting this thing on in the north central town of New London Ohio. It takes place on New Years Day each year, and it's pretty typical to have only a small number of finishers. This year there had been 12 starters.

I knew Kevin, Keith and Michael Kazar, but none of the other guys. I went in thinking there was an ever so slight possibility that I might even win the thing. Those thoughts went into the toilet 30 seconds after the start, as just about everyone took off faster than I could manage, and we had 26 miles to go!

The starters                                                               Keith Landis Photo

The course is four 6.5 mile loops around New London. The seasonably cool temperature was not a problem. The strong southwest wind was. Oh, and then there was the New Years Day morning thing. I'd been out the night before, and although it wasn't overly late, I still ate much too late for me, and of course too much as well. Pit stops were just another problem to deal with during the run.

My secondary goal (assuming that someone faster than me actually showed up, which of course they did) was to finish under four hours. That should be easy: just keep the mile splits around nine minutes, and run each loop in an hour or less. Yeah, easy.

Scratch goal number two as well. The loops were nearly all just over an hour, and I'd started the last one at something like 3:07 - for the first 19.7 miles. Blame it on the wind and the pit stops. And old age, and being fat, bald and ugly.

I caught up with Frank Cepero with about a mile to go. We introduced ourselves and talked a bit, including the concept of being (tied for, now) in last place. We did indeed tie, coming back into the Gas Depot finish line in 4:08. There was a huge throng of spectators: Kevin, Keith and Joshua Rakosky, who had won.

Turned out that everyone else had dropped; it was only the three of us. So yes, I was tied for last (there;s a first for everything). But I was also tied for second. Gotta love these small races.

10:05

Most years I publish an end of year post that's a look back at the previous year's running accomplishments, achievements and milestones. I often entitle these posts with the total number of miles for that year, because that number, to some extent, does tell a story.

But this year, the real story was my extremely slow pace. 10:05 is so much slower than previous years that it's... well, I can't think of the words to go there right now. But they're not good ones. I should add that that slow pace is at least partly because of my Achilles Tendonitis injury. But old age is a factor as well.

The miles? 2806.77: not too awful, compared to other years. Only the pace was awful. I'm hoping for better things in 2016.

Here's where I'm at with all my documented miles over the years:

Year	Miles	Pace
1978	1224
1979	641.5
1980	0
1981	1221.5
1982	1061.5
1983	1178.5
1984	1110
1985	1128
1986	1401
1987	169
1988	2434
1989	2715.4
1990	2156.7
1991	2450
1992	2888
1993	2715
1994	2520.4
1995	2958	7.9
1996	2780	7.73
1997	3000	7.89
1998	2892	7.72
1999	2780	7.69
2000	3238	7.9
2001	3169	8.22
2002	3356	7.97
2003	3390	7.96
2004	3260	8.19
2005	3263	8.15
2006	3296	7.98
2007	3295	8.24
2008	3200	8.2
2009	3108	8.7
2010	3465	8.31
2011	3676	8.53
2012	3188	8.91
2013	2816
2014	2074	9.16
2015	2806.77	10:05
TOTAL:	92025.27