2018 Year in Review

I ran a lot. The end.

~~~

Okay, since you asked, I will say a teensy bit more about 2018. It was half-way to pretty decent. Some further thoughts:

1) I won three races. Having not won a race since the 2008 Green Jewel 100K, this was something. Please don't ask how many runners had each of these races, because I'd have to tell you: 3 finishers, 1 finisher, and 7 finishers. But hey, a win's a win.

2) I did indeed run a lot of miles, Part 1: 3076.94 to be exact. That's the most since 2012. My 10.5 minutes per mile average pace was only slightly better than that of 2017 however.

3) I did indeed run a lot of miles, Part 2: In November, I made it to 100,000 lifetime miles. I am now working on that second hundred. They say the second one is easier.

4) I ran some lousy short stuff, some almost awful half-marathons, some okay marathons, and one pretty decent marathon: the Veterans Marathon in PA.

5) I did okay by winning my age group in one category and finishing second in another for the Ohio Challenge Series. Not that those races were all that good. It's just getting more sparce in my age group.

I could probably say more about myself. But don't worry; I'll stop. Except to say, here's a chart!

Weekly mileage for 2018

Old Bulls and Young Bulls by Dan Horvath

This was published in a 1997 Michigan USATF Newsletter. The events described actually occurred many years prior. But that don't matter; I think it's timeless.

My friends Geoff Chase, Garry Watson, and Brian Peacock are mentioned.

~

I knew that I shouldn't have started it. After all, I was a relatively mature, experienced runner who ought to know better than to begin a quarter mile Sprint To The Finish after a long run around a lake. Especially against Geoff. I hadn't known him (or run with him) for very long before this day, but it wouldn't have taken an expert to see that Geoff was taller, leaner and most of all younger than I was. Of course all of that would add up to his being faster, too.

After the surprise wore off, he quickly erased my early lead. Then I saw it. A grassy area around which the road curved for the final turn before the parking lot. I managed to cut across before he could see me (since I was trailing by this time) and barely beat him to the cars. I was proud to have given Geoff this introduction to cheating, at least in terms of running. Old age and cunning are still champion, but those of us in that category must be eternally vigilant.

Speaking of old age and cunning, on a later run I observed our friend Brian, who in turn surpasses me in both characteristics, employ a slightly more direct technique: that of pushing Geoff toward some bushes before beginning The Sprint To The Finish.

It was while reflecting on these types of experiences that Brian first told me the story of the old bulls and the young bulls. Perhaps you've heard it before; it goes something like this:

There were two pastures divided by a fence with a gate. The higher one contained an old bull and a young bull; the other one had several very desirable and good-looking (to the bulls) cows. One day after the farmer left the gate between the pastures open, the young bull said, "Hey Old Bull, the gate to the cows is open! Let's run down there and smooch a few of them!" (Author's note: verbs other than smooch could possibly be substituted here, but since this is a family-oriented publication ... ) The old bull then said, "Nope. Let's saunter on down there slowly and smooch the whole lot of them!"

I'm not sure exactly what this has to do with shoving Geoff in the bushes, but Brian can always come up with some kind of explanation.

Also on the subject of cheating, Garry, another running friend who is slightly in the "older bull" category, has this theory about it: it's okay to cheat as long as you know that you're cheating. I guess we become somewhat the philosophers as we become older bulls. Anyway, according to this theory, the only true cheaters are those who cheat and then fool themselves into thinking that they aren't.
Garry seems to be constantly aware of any cheating he may do or try, so he does practice what he preaches. He once mentioned that he was considering a new rounding method for his training log. This was intended to make up for the lower mileage that seems to come with old age. The technique was this: he would always round up. But not just to the nearest mile (as I may have done once or twice), but to the nearest five miles! If he runs six miles, he would log ten, and if he runs eleven miles he would log fifteen. In fact, he could just take a step out the door and give himself credit for five miles!

Brian had this comment about Garry's proposed rounding technique: many years from now, archeologists will find Garry's running log, containing somewhat longer distances than expected for the routes that were run, and exclaim, "The world is getting smaller!"

This all leads me to the following reflection:

The old bulls' brains slowly become rattled, worthless meat
Brought on by the constant pounding of their feet.
Rounding helps, they think
But it makes the world shrink
And the only way to beat the young bulls is to cheat!

By the way, if you ever have a Sprint To The Finish against Geoff, you'll have to come up with something new. Now wise to all of our tricks, he beats Brian and me every time. Maybe he's just becoming a more mature bull.

Who Cooks for You?

As we've done many times in the past, we arranged for Debbie to meet me at Hinckley so that we could walk around the lake immediately following my run there. The run was nice, with several friends participating.

The weather was unusually warm, so both the run and the walk were enjoyable. But the really cool thing is that Debbie and I saw two large owls near the lake as we were completing out walk. We stopped to watch them for quite a while as they spent time on the ground and in the nearby trees. It was a thrill.

Some owls seem to be saying, "Who Cooks for You?" At least that's the way it sounds to me. Debbie's dad (and also Debbie) used to say that the summer song of the chickadee sounds like, "Who Did It?" I've disagreed, saying there were only two, not three notes in the song.

Clearly, whoever did it also cooks for you.

Ohio Challenge Series

Greg Everal OCS Director and me        Greg Everal Photo

Huge, ambitious plans were afoot. It was the beginning of 2018, and I needed a challenge. The test? To run shorter races and get faster. I would train for 5K, 5-Mile, and 10K races, and participate in them fairly often, thereby training and racing myself into better shape. To encourage myself to do more of these races, I registered for the Ohio Challenge Series or OCS. There are dozens of races, mostly shorter ones, and competition is by age-group within several broad distance categories.

OCS has been around for something like twenty years. I participated in OCS for many of the early years, but not for the past nine or ten. I was too busy doing marathons and ultramarathons. Now I’d use the challenge to challenge myself to get better. Oh, I would not retire completely from marathoning. I’d just concentrate more on the shorter, faster stuff. Such a strategy may even have a positive effect on said marathons themselves.

Readers of this blog will be aware that this didn’t happen. I didn’t race myself into shape, and I didn’t get faster. I did manage to get more injured. My Achilles Tendonitis seemed to hurt more when I just thought about 5Ks and 10Ks.

However, the competition gets thin near my ancient age-group, and there are those multiple categories. I did not do the required number of 5Ks, but I did run the necessary three 5-Mile/10K races and even exceeded the required two half-marathons in order to compete in those categories. What’s more, I thought I was leading. (Now you have an idea where this is heading.)

Debbie and I attended the OCS awards banquet at Breitenbach Winery yesterday. I expected two category firsts. But a funny thing happened. After winning the 10K category award ($40 and a hat), I learned that I was second in the half-marathon category. A fellow named Joe Tarantino had won. I guess I’ll have to settle for only $30 and a hat for that one.

I did get to meet the new organizers of the series. Nice folks. Will I participate next year? Race myself into shape on the second try? Who knows? Okay: probably.