Methinks thou doth protest too much

The actual quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet is, The lady doth protest too much, methinks. According to Wikipedia, "It is spoken by Queen Gertrude in response to the insincere overacting of a character in the play within a play created by Prince Hamlet to prove his uncle's guilt in the murder of his father, the King of Denmark." In more modern times, it is used to imply that someone who denies something very strongly is hiding the truth in some way.  I made it gender-neutral so that it could apply to me and my complaining about trail running. I also placed the methinks at the front of the statement, because it's a little more like the way we talk these days.

The title and the paragraph above are my way of apologising for b!tching so much about trail running. First there was my un-race report, and then there was my Dr. Seuss-like poem called Thick mud and trails. No more of that. I'm gonna be positive from now on. Or, at least for this here particular post. Regarding protesting too much, I actually do like trails. Just not knarly, rooty, rocky, muddy ones. And just not for running. <Editor's note: Dan is coming dangerously close to protesting too much again, even though he says he's not. We are going to put an end to this right now.>

Okay. Back to my happy place. Back to my comfort zone.

This place, this zone, today was, as it so often is, the track. (And that's the most commas you can possibly have in a thirteen-word sentence.) I love the track. And today was a good day to run there. There aren't too many bad ones, anyway.

Not to say that it was easy, but, with the help of some friends, I managed to pull off a full-Yasso today. Although I've had faster ones, this result (I averaged about 4 minutes for each 800) wasn't bad. The best part is that it was fairly steady.

And the best part is, it's over!

Claggett M.S. Track - Round, round get around

Useless Stats

The most useless stats yet

Thick mud and trails

 Do you like thick mud and trails?

I do not like them, Dan-I-Am.

I do not like thick mud and trails.

Would you like them here or there?

I would not like them here or there.

I would not like them anywhere.

I do not like thick mud and trails.

I do not like them, Dan-I-Am.

Would you like them in a park?

Would you like them in the dark?

I do not like them in a park.

I do not like them in the dark.

I do not like them here or there.

I do not like them anywhere.

I do not like thick mud and trails.

I do not like them, Dan-I-Am.

My final trail run

"There will come a day when you can no longer do this. Today is not that day." It's an old saying, but now I need to modify it, as it applies to me: "There will come a day when you can no longer do this. Today is  that day." 

I already knew that I wasn't a trail runner and that I had no business whatsoever being out there, but a friend asked me to join the fun, and I couldn't say no. I should have. Although the Run with Scissors Half Marathon was indeed fun for a while when said friend and others left me in the dust (I should say, mud), the fun suddenly ended and the misery began.

Did I mention mud? There was gobs of it on the Cuyahoga Valley National Park trails, but also rocks, roots, steep hills, creek crossings, and hairpin turns. All with light rain falling. All were hidden by fallen leaves. Have I ever mentioned that I like trails, but just not for running? Or that I like trails, but they don't like me?

I found myself alone after about mile 5. Only 8 or so to go - what could go wrong? In short, everything. I couldn't wait for the misery to be over with. By and by, I began looking for a way to drop out and get back to my car. This isn't an easy thing to do in the middle of a trail race. I could have possibly cut over to a road or two and run back from there.

But I didn't. Finally, at about 9 1/2 miles, I came to the final aid station at Pine Hollow. Although I could have probably hiked the final four miles on the Salt Run trail, I opted to run straight back and around Kendal Lake, thereby cutting the course and dropping out with only 10 1/2 miles. (I should say that I did get 13 miles in today, considering the warmup I did on the Towpath.) But by and large, I can't remember the last time I was so miserable during a run.

Although I may still do The Buckeye Woods 25K (those trails are fairly gentle), I think I'm truly done done with trails.

My run with Jenny

It was an honor and a privilege to run eleven miles with Jenny Hoffman today. RunJennyRun is attempting a world record crossing of the continent from San Francisco to New York. She is well ahead of record pace, doing around 60+ miles every day for the past 41. I was with Jenny from Windham to Warren, Ohio. She’ll be entering Pennsylvania by this evening. Thanks to Larry and CJ Orwin for logistical help. For more, see Jenny's run page, RunJennyRun.

Me, Ward Freman, Larry Orwin, Jenny Hoffman

What I found during my run today, Part 387

Brand new running shoes! Some of you may be aware that I've been known to find strange items on the run, often during out-of-town runs. (I have no idea why - maybe I look down more?) Before you go any further, PLEASE read this post from 2020. I will be here, waiting patiently.

Hope you enjoyed that. Now, on to today's find.

I'm staying in Horseheads, New York. Fun fact: Horseheads was incorporated as a town before the Godfather came out. It's near Elmira and just down the road from Corning. Even Watkins Glen isn't too far. Debbie the Lady Adventurer and I are here in the Finger Lakes region once again to sample some wine and see the sights. The new running shoes are indeed quite a sight. 

Before I came across them, I had emerged out of the Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Elmira Corning (I guess they don't want to use 'Horseheads' in the name) and into the early morning darkness. As wonderful as the Finger Lakes area is, this part of Horseheads seems a little more like the other end of a horse. It's a freeway stop with a four-lane road and gobs of strip malls and car dealerships. But nowhere to run. I go by all the usual joints: Walmart, Texas Road House, Red Robin, Target, Michaels, CVS, Panera, and so on. It's when I find myself on a street that's more like an alley behind Kohls when I spot the shoes.

They're right there in the middle of the road. They're not in a box; they're just lying there. I look to make sure no one else is around before I pick them up. Yes, they're brand new and still stuffed with paper. Yes, they're some sort of running shoe, although I don't recognize the brand. Yes, they're about my size. I suppose I ought to get out of here before someone else does show up and... 

Now I'm running with a shoe in each hand, trying to decide what to do with them. I determine that it would be best to take them back to someplace close to the hotel so I can hide them and continue my run. But first, I examine them a little more. This is a bit of a challenge in the dark and while I'm running, but hey, I've done this sort of thing before. The brand is still unrecognizable. I look for the size on the underside of the tongue. It says '4A' or something like that. I'll still take them and try them on. Even if they're not top-notch running shoes, I've been known to use some strange ones. (Remember the Aldi shoes?)

Having run with them for a little while, I am surprised to see that one shoe is sliced open along the side. Why didn't I see that before - it would have saved me a lot of careful consideration.

Now, I have to find a place to throw them away. I don't want to just return them to the back of Kohls - I don't think they accept store returns that way. Besides, I'm further along now. What do I find now? An Aldi store! Better yet, it's an Aldi store with a trash container. And that's where they wind up.

How appropriate.

The Will to Win

You have probably heard it before: The will to win is nothing without the will to train. The original quote was from a Tanzanian runner named Juma Ikangaa, who actually said, "The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare." 

Ikangaa was well known for his hard training regimen. Unfortunately, he finished second at some big marathons in the late 1980s, including multiple times at Boston. What did he do? He doubled down, of course. He trained even harder. Did the perseverance pay off?

Juma Ikangaa finally won his biggest race: the 1989 New York City Marathon. He talked about his hard training, and how he simply trained even harder to finally win. His will to win, perhaps in question after the second-place finishes, was not as important as his will to prepare.

You have to

The way I remember it, in the movie, No Country for Old Men, the bad guy, played by Javier Bardem, tells his victims that he will flip a coin. "Call it right, you get to live, call it wrong, you don't." One guy replies the way I think I would have: "I don't want to play." But Bardem tells him (in his deep bad-guy voice), "You have to."

I'm not sure that's entirely correct, but I like to think that it is. But sometimes that "You have to" phrase can be applied to running. I don't mean that in the way you might think. You may think I'm thinking of, "You have to run." Nope. (Well, okay, you do have to run. But that's not what I'm sayin'.) Here, I mean you have to prepare. Remember the Juma Ikangaa quote: "The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare." (I've just decided to write an entire blog post about that.) But today, I want to talk about how unprepared I was for the run.

You have to prepare for your training runs. That means the usual stuff, like eating right, getting enough sleep, and not doing too many hard running days without rest. It's even more important to prepare for the long variety of training runs. Double down on everything I just said if you have a long run on the morrow. 

This week, I didn't do that. I procrastinated because of a myriad of options and because I try to work around the weather forecast to get the best running done on the best weather days. The thing is, said forecast kept changing. When I awoke Friday morning, I'd been planning to run on Lester, but not especially long. Long runs could be done either Saturday on the Towpath, or Sunday at Hinckley. But the forecast now said Friday morning is okay, Saturday will see cold rain. 

That's when I called the audible; the long run would be today! The preparation, oh the preparation. Take a quick snort of beet juice powder mixed in V8 (Yeah, I'm back to experimenting with that). Get extra caffeine inside me as quickly as possible. Even mix some pumpkin in the coffee. And pack extra stuff I'll need during the run: extra water, gels, etc.

How did it go? It wasn't pretty, but I got eighteen miles done. So it wasn't awful, either. Last week's run went better, but for today, I'll take it. 

I have to. 

Best since August

Keen readers of this blog will have noticed more than one lament about how out of shape this runner has become since he ran his August marathon. Danny Boy is happy to report that he is now on the upswing. Upswings beat downswings every darn time. Today, he ran his first legitimate long run since that race. We say legitimate because he did run an illegitimate, wimpy, eighteen-miler on the dreadmill last week.

By contrast, today's run, done with friends on the Lester Rail Trail, was for real. Yes, it was eighteen good miles. And at a fairly steady pace. It sure felt good.

One additional thought: you have to take these things seriously. It's simply not practical to try to do a long run without adequate preparation and concentration. Today, he had it.

4 x 1

This will be in backward order, by the way. There's a good reason for this, but I don't know what that is.

~

Now, I'm done done. That's what we project-oriented people used to say at work to indicate that something was really and truly done, and no further effort would be forthcoming. Just plain done didn't have the same connotation. Done done in this case means that I've finally completed my one-mile intervals and am doing my final cooldown, which is two slow and easy laps. And another thing: woohoo, I'll get over ten miles in today.

~

This fourth mile is not going so well. That extended time since the last one may have been a factor. It couldn't possibly be that I'm out of shape. Nope. Not at all. But somehow, I manage to finish this one in a very pedestrian time of 8:37. I suppose I should be happy that I could do it (a fourth one) at all.

~

My friends are all getting ready to leave. They've done their workouts and jogged their cooldowns. I, of course, joined them for their cooldown laps, light stretching, and talk-talk. I've done three of these one-mile thingies and I've got eight-plus miles in. Should I try to run some more? Maybe even do another (relatively) fast mile? Maybe, baby.

~

This third one-mile repeat is the best one yet. I'm doing better than eight-minute pace for the first time in a long while. I suppose it helps that my friends are all nearby, doing their things as well. My plan had been to do what I had suggested for everyone else: 1600, 1200, 800, 400, but I called an audible. Having already done one 1600 early and then another one with Chadwick as he started, I decided to keep all of today's repeats at the one-mile distance. Of course, I had to explain this strange behavior, but my friends understand. My (somewhat speedy) time for this one is 7:58.

~

This time, it's only a half-lap recovery between intervals. Why? Because that's what I suggested in the Facebook post. Why did I do that? Who knows? I make this stuff up as I go along.

~

My second repeat is with Chadwick Sunday. That's being generous; he's way ahead. But at least we started together. According to my plan, I could call it at 1200 (since I've already done a 1600), but I don't. I do the whole one-mile enchilada. My time of 8:04 isn't too awful.

~

Everyone is here. They're warming up and I'm cooling down, since I've already got one under my belt. This interval between repeats (I think I actually stated that correctly) is extended a little, but that's okay - we need to catch up on all the latest running news. And there is a lot.

~

I'm doing it! Running fast (relatively speaking) before anyone else even arrives (Although Michelle and Andy are already warming up on the roads). I consider it a good thing if I can get started early, and an even gooder thing if I can get my fast running started early. This first super-fast mile is completed in eight minutes and eleven seconds.

~

It's 4:25, and I've even beaten Michelle and Andy Wolff, and that's something. I begin my slow and easy warmup around the track. It's cold and dark, but that's all okay. The main question is, how will my speedwork go today?

More observation

After one day of spectating, I thought I'd do it all again. The Canal Corridor 100-mile run was still going on when I awoke. My plan was to drive to Akron to watch some of my friends finish.

But that didn't work out so well - Larry Orwin ran much too fast, and I wasn't able to get there in time. After altering my plans a little, I did manage to catch up with Doug Rafalski. He was at the Ira Trailhead, mile 90, and it was still dark and rainy. Luckily, he had his sister, Karen, to pace him. She got him through that cold rain during the night and was getting him through now as well. I tried to help a little.

After I saw them and walked with them some, I went out for my own run. It was slow going, but I almost never fail to enjoy a run on the old Towpath.

Then, I realized that I might possibly be able to see them yet one more time. I drove to Akron to catch them at mile 94. Slow going, but it was light now, and we all knew Doug would make it. He did.

Although it was indeed inspiring to watch Doug and all the other 100-milers, I'm still not inclined to make another attempt. But if I ever did, Canal Corridor would be the place to do it.

You can observe a lot, just by watching

Today's run didn't feel quite so bad. I could kinda even keep up with people. A little. Maybe this downward spiral of a training cycle is finally beginning to turn around. Then again, maybe not.

I would have probably registered for last week's Akron Marathon had I known that our planned out-west trip would be canceled due to concern about a possible government shutdown. You know. The one that didn't happen after all. So there I was, all dressed up and not registered to run. Of course, a few weeks past my August Marathon, I wasn't in what you'd call tip-top shape anyway. What to do? Get a run from home early, then drive to Akron to watch all my friends finish. I would at least be able to help them celebrate and share their joy!

The road closures got me. Two (2) freeway closures, and I was in Akron proper. But then I had to get past all the roads that were closed due to the race. And this number was legion. My Google Maps app kept warning me that such and such road may be closed, but then took me that way anyway, just (I guess) so that I could confirm that it was closed. So of course, I did. After an awful lot of evasive maneuvering to get around people, traffic, barriers, etc. I finally found myself not too awfully far from the finish area. 

But then, I would still need to find a place to park. By this time, I was so tired and frustrated, that I turned around and went home, sorry to have missed the experience altogether.

Spectating for today's Canal Corridor 100-mile run was a little better. I found my way to Canal Fulton, mile 35 on the course, where Towpath goes right on through. I was able to find my friends who were running and to cheer them on. It was a beautiful, cool, cloudy and sunny, sharp fall day. Who would have thought that spectating for a 100-mile run would be smoother than doing so for a marathon? Not me. I may even go and watch the finish early tomorrow morning. 

Who knows? Maybe I'll get inspired to run another 100.

Nope. I'm being reminded that a lot can happen during a day's worth of running. And only a small few of those are good.