A day, like every other day

“There may be nothing after I die but I sure as hell will do the job right while I’m here, even though I’m surrounded by idiots.”

-the Hemingway entity, describing the attitude of a certain type of American author in Joe Haldeman’s “The Hemingway Hoax”.  I like to think that describes me too.

2003 Vermont 50

Another story from 2003

The weekend after the Lake Winnipesaukee relay, I headed up to Brownsville, VT for the Vermont 50 ultramarathon.  It’s a 50 mile trail race run at the same time as a 50K and a 50 mile mountain bike race. When I got there, once again I was struck by how beautiful the surrounding forest-covered mountains are, especially in the fall.  The other thing that struck me was “Yikes!  I’m about to run 50 miles, and there’s nothing around here but mountains.”

This was my first “real” ultramarathon.  Earlier in the year, I ran over 40 miles in a couple of races, but both times that was as sort of a sideshow to the main event, so they were more along the lines of training runs.  Also, they were short loop courses, so if something went wrong, at worst, I’d be no more than a mile and a half from help. 

I had friends along to help (thanks, Mark and Karen!), but they were only allowed on the course at three of the nine aid stations.  I wasn’t worried, but I was anxious.

There’s nothing in Brownsville other than the Ascutney Mountain Ski Area, where the race starts and finishes, and a small general store.  So the race committee puts on a dinner at the town hall the night before the race.  When I reached the dinner, it wasn’t hard to take a look at the body type of the diners and tell the runners from the bikers.  The major topic for both groups was the forecast for race day, which called for lots of rain.

Sunday morning, we got up in the dark and went to the start for the pre-race meeting.  It was about 60 degrees and cloudy, though the rain hadn’t started yet.  First the bikers and then the runners took off under fairly comfortable conditions.  I started at the back of the pack with the intention of going with a run 5 minutes/walk 1 minute pattern.  That plan had served me fairly well at my previous long races, but those races were in the area surrounding Boston, on relatively flat, urban courses.  In these mountains, it soon became obvious that I’d be better off running the downhills and (few) flats, and walking uphill.

Within an hour, the rain started.  That rain was destined to continue for the rest of the race.  By the time I reached the third aid station, the first on the course where my friends could meet me with supplies, it had turned into a downpour.  Usually, when over an inch of rain comes down during the course of a race, the water is the dominant theme to the story.  In the Vermont 50, when the rain comes down like it did this year, the mountain bikes churn up the trails, and soon everyone is wallowing in a sea of mud.

The mud was memorable.  Sean Smith wrote “‘oceans of mud’ was the best way to describe conditions.  I’d never seen mud do some of things I saw it do yesterday.”  Doug Freese, who has run in all 11 Vermont 50s, said “never here, or at any other place for that matter, had I experienced these conditions for such an extended time.”  Doug figures he lost about an hour and a half to the mud.

Relatively early in the race, I came up to yet another lake of mud of indeterminate depth. I looked down at it, and gave up.  Instead of making even a token effort to keep my feet clean and dry, I just plowed straight through.  It was oddly liberating.  Later on, there wasn’t any option.  To get ahead, I had to wade (or slide, if I was going downhill) through the mud.  I just hoped that there weren’t any rocks buried underneath, a hope that wasn’t always met (ouch!).   At one point, on an unusually steep uphill, I couldn’t get enough traction to make the climb.  I had to find a stick that I could jam in the mud deep enough to use as a support while I climbed.

It wasn’t all about mud.  Some of the race was on asphalt or hard-packed dirt roads.  Early on, it was nice to get out of the mud for awhile.  But running in pliant mud has its benefits.  After 35 miles or so, it became painful to get out onto the hard surfaces.  Because of the pain, by the end of the race, I was running just as slowly on the roads as I was in the mud.  What was a pretty good pace in the mud was just a slow plod out on the road.

People always ask about the pain.  “Doesn’t it hurt” ranks above even “You’re crazy”, and only slightly behind “I could never do that” (by the way, you could if you wanted to, though most people have to really want to).  Yes, it hurts, but it’s almost always pain you can ignore.  Pain that’s ignored long enough goes away, or at least, gets replaced by other pains. 

Coming into aid stations was always fun.  They were the only markers that allowed me to measure my progress.  The best aid stations were on mountain top meadows, affording a short respite after a long climb.  At the aid stations, I could have a shot of Hammer Gel, refill my bottle with Succeed (or with Accelerade, if my friends had access to the station), and get a bit of encouragement from the volunteers before heading on.  I kept it simple, and stuck with gels and Succeed/Accelerade throughout the race.  It worked pretty well.  I didn’t have any real bad patches where I ran out of gas.  Other people ate the solid food available at the stations.  Things were going well enough that it wasn’t worth the risk for me, though the hot soup at one station was very tempting!

In a 50 mile race, almost everyone is either settled into their pace, or slowing down as things begin to go wrong. I was pleased with how I held my pace.  I slowed down as time went on, but never had a crisis to work through (though some aid stations did seem further apart than expected).   Starting at about 20 miles or so, I began passing the people I’d let go at the beginning of the race.  No one was passing me.  Whenever I saw someone appear ahead of me, I felt it was just a matter of time before I’d run them down.  That was very satisfying.  I wasn’t going to win anything, but I was managing my race well.

Most of the way around, the course was well marked well. Yellow tags with black arrows directed me around turns, or reassured me that I was on the correct path.  There was one point in the middle of the race where a downhill stretch of single-track trail fed into a dirt road at an angle.  The correct turn was a sharp cut back to the right, impossible for a bike to take at full speed.  As I approached the turn, a bike whizzed by and zoomed off in the wrong direction.  Two runners followed him, but when I got to the turn and could see they’d headed off incorrectly, I was able to yell loud enough to get them to turn around.

The positive karma I built up there didn’t keep me from getting lost later in the race.  I was cruising along a road, pulling ahead of a couple of runners I’d caught at the sixth aid station.  I hadn’t seen a yellow tag for awhile, but I wasn’t worried until I saw a police car in the road ahead of me with its flashers going.  That was usually a sign of a crossing, not just a turn.  At the same time I could just hear the runners behind me yelling.  I turned and saw them waving back up at the top of the hill I’d just descended.  I realized I’d misses a turn somewhere, and headed back.  Unfortunately, by the time I got back uphill, the runners who had been following me had disappeared.  I continued on, hoping to find the correct turn, but I didn’t, and as I went on, the road became less familiar, making me think I might not be retracing my path correctly. 

At that point, I noticed a biker off in the woods to my left.  I asked him where he was, and he told me he was about a half-mile past the seventh aid station.  Since I’d know where I was at least, I got back on the trail and headed backwards, intending to find where I lost the trail and then turn around.  I went up and down a few hills, backwards through the seventh aid station, running in the opposite direction of a number of very surprised runners and bikers. 

After first running over 30 miles forwards, then spending all that time heading backwards, I was getting pretty anxious, and not thinking as clearly as I needed to be.  According to the rules, I was supposed to get back on the trail where I got off.  Finally, I got back to the police car where I first realized I’d gotten lost.  Since I didn’t really know where I’d left the trail, I talked myself into thinking I’d spent enough time wandering around, and turned towards the finish. 

A few people passed me soon after I started heading forward again, indicating that I might have skipped ahead and gotten in with some faster runners.  After the race, I got the splits from the timing company.  I went from 29^th place at the sixth station to 20^th at the seventh station.  Comparing my time for the seventh leg to other runners who were going at a similar pace, I figured that I probably cut my total time down by about 25 minutes, in addition to not running the correct course. 

Because I didn’t run the correct course, the week after the race, I emailed the race director and disqualified myself.  That hurt a bit, but even if no one else knew, I would have known that I’d cut things short, and I couldn’t let myself get away with that.

I spent the final ten miles of the race passing and being passed by Audrey Rue Nelson from Oregon, as we waded through more mud, forded various flash floods, climbed more mountains, and made silly remarks as we passed each other.  I ended up finishing about 20 seconds ahead of her.  I know I it helped me to have someone to compete with for the last stretch.  I hope it helped her just as much, as she really should have finished ahead of me.

Finally, after ten hours, one minute, and 22 seconds, I finished.  As you can see in the picture, I just stood there stunned.  I had to readjust to having to think about what I’d be doing, rather than mindlessly engaging in Relentless Forward Progress.  My friends helped me get my jacket on, I poked at the post-race barbeque without really feeling hungry, and then we went back to the hotel, out of the rain, where I could have a bit of food and a shower.

After I hosed off the mud, I took stock. In spite of all the water and mud in my shoes, I only had one blister, which hadn’t bothered me at all during the race.  My legs were a bit more tired than they would be after a marathon, but recovery followed the normal pattern, and by Thursday, I could walk down stairs without holding on to the railing.  My feet were more battered than usual, having come up against more than one rock buried in the mud.  They were somewhat swollen and bruised, with some scrapes on the inside of both ankles from the opposite shoe rubbing against them.  The left foot was a bit more beaten, with two black toenails and some skin worn off between the toes.  All in all, I came through the race pretty well.

Some people run for fitness, some run for competition or the companionship of people that are also drawn to running.  I enjoy those things, but I get the most pleasure from the way the consistent high effort towards a clear goal and metronomic running action combine to focus my attention on what I’m doing at the moment, with no worries about what happened in the past, and no anxiety about what might happen in the future.  Nothing but running gets me into that zen-like state of calm effort.  Ten hours of that is something incredibly valuable to me.  The only comparable experience I’ve had was my first Boston Marathon.  Of course, in that race I set a PR, and in this race, I was disqualified.  Guess I’ll just have to do it again!

Vinyl #17 – A cowboy, an indian, a cop, a sailor, and a soldier walk into a bar…

YMCA by the Village People was a monster hit in 1979. YouTube is awash in parody videos that use the song. Somewhat surprisingly though, it’s difficult to find a video of the original band performing their biggest hit.

Vinyl #16 – England Swings

When I’m singing karaoke, I need to pick the songs carefully. There are limits to the songs I can get through without chasing everyone from the room, no matter how much they’ve been drinking. First, I have to find songs by people who have a limited vocal range. The weaknesses of my voice are readily apparent – I don’t need to highlight them. Second, it has to be a song I like, or else why bother?

Those criteria narrow things down quite a bit.  For one thing, many songs I like aren’t commonly available.  They’re crowded out by the more popular stuff.  Still, there’s usually a Lou Reed, Johnny Cash, Doors, or REM song I can deal with.  I can make it through “I Think I Love You” by the Partridge Family, and that’s always available.  Roger Miller works too.  “King of the Road” shows up on all the lists, but if England Swings (1966) is available, I’ll do that instead, since it’s not as widely known.

Triumph and Tragedy at the Hamptons

Ruth and I were at the inaugural Half at the Hamptons, held on Sunday, February 10^th.  Ruth’s first half-marathon was an eventful race.  For better or worse, she got to see the full range of triumph and tragedy that can befall runners when they put their training on the line and sign up for a road race.

The race, the second event in the LOCO “Will Run for Beer” race series, featured a flat, fast course.  There was a wet snow squall that lasted about 20 minutes, but other than that, the weather was pretty good, considering it was February on the New Hampshire seacoast.   The overall winners were Daniel Princic of Woburn, MA , who finished in a time of 1 hour, 14 minutes, 57 seconds and Tara Cardi of Warwick, R.I., who sped through the 13.1 miles in 1:25.  There were many other official winners, as the race split runners up into 5 year age groups and presented awards to the top three in each group.

Other people won by meeting their personal goals.  Ruth was one such winner.  She had a range of goals for her first half-marathon, starting with simply finishing the race.  She was also targeting a 10 minute per mile pace, and looking to remain injury-free.  Ruth succeeded in reaching all those goals and more.  She ran a 2:06:33, which was a 9:40 pace.  She ran hard, but felt she had something left in the tank at the end.  The next day, she wasn’t excessively stiff or sore, and she was ready for an easy run on Tuesday.  And she even went home with a prize.  Out of all the women in her age group, she was the fastest first-time half-marathoner.  Her prize for that was a beer glass.

Many people had similar days.  They had goals, did the work to prepare, and when the race was over, they ended up with a shirt, a finisher’s medal, and the satisfaction that comes when your hard work pays off.  But some people didn’t do as well.  Maybe they didn’t do enough work to support their goals, or maybe they misjudged their pace, started out too fast, and ran out of gas as the miles passed.

Maybe they just had bad luck.  I was one of that group.  Somewhere after mile 10, my left calf began to hurt.  As I kept going, it rapidly got worse.  By the time I reached the 11 mile marker I had to choose between hopping on one leg for the last two miles, walking to the finish, or dropping out.  I’ve walked longer distances to finish races before, but I like to think I’m getting better at taking the long view.  In this case it was cold and wet and I wanted to get to the finish to get some pictures of Ruth, so I caught a ride from a passing car and massaged my calf in relative comfort while I rode to the finish.

There were people who had much worse luck.  One woman, Lynn Bova, had a very bad day through no fault of her own.  I was at the finish, waiting for Ruth to arrive.  During a lull in the stream of finishers, I noticed the scaffolding holding up the finish banner wobble slightly.  I didn’t see anyone leaning against it – maybe a gust of wind caught the banner, though the high winds that were in the forecast did not show up for the most part.  I looked down the course, and saw a woman approaching the chip sensor mats.  From there, events proceeded rapidly, too rapidly for anyone to do anything to prevent them.  Just as Bova crossed the line, the top half of the scaffolding separated from the base and toppling sideways, carried the whole structure over.  People watching yelled for Bova to look out, but she was focused on finishing her race.  All she had time to do was look up before a crossbar hit her on the head, and she was knocked down by the falling steel.   Spectators pulled the scaffolding off her and pulled out cell phones to call in emergency medical support.  In the meantime, the race continued.  Bova had to stay there, lying on the mat to avoid any further injury that moving her might cause.  I helped direct runners around where she lay, pointing them to the third of the chip mat that was still free.  As things settled down, I moved back to where I could get Ruth’s picture when she finished. 

Ruth was so focused on finishing that she barely noticed the group huddled mat as she went by, other than to wonder where it was she needed to go.   I caught up with Ruth as she walked down the chute, basking in her personal victory.  I helped remove her chip, then we exchanged it for a finishers medal and headed off to the car to get dry clothes.  As we walked down the street, rescue personnel arrived on fire trucks, sirens blaring.  They took Bova off to the hospital.  Later, race officials reported that she had needed surgery on her ankle, but that doctors expected a full recovery.

Another runner had the worst day possible.  55 year old Bill Paradis collapsed about halfway through the race.  According to news reports, Paradis had been running Sunday’s race with his friend, Diane Levesque, and was complaining that he couldn’t catch his breath. Not long afterwards, Paradis went down.  Paradis had run multiple marathons and was an avid cyclist. He knew what he had to do to be prepared for the half-marathon, but that doesn’t always matter.  Ruth ran by as people were performing CPR on Paradis by the side of the course while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.  That’s never a good sign, so she feared the worst.  We were discussing what might have happened at the post-race party.  The next day, I read that paramedics were unable to revive Paradis.  He had died of an apparent heart attack.

After the race, Ruth was caught up in the euphoria brought on by her success.  We went out for lobster, and the day was topped off when we were given number 1 as the number they would call when our dinners were ready.  I was happy for her, and her reaction helped me remember how rewarding it was to discover that you were capable of physical feats you thought were reserved for “real athletes”.  But I couldn’t forget those who had found that tragedy can strike at any time, even at a moment of triumph, or in the midst of a pleasant diversion from your daily cares.  The 2008 Half at the Hamptons was a clear reminder that you should live each day to the fullest while you can.

Vinyl #15 – A demonstration of the power of the Internet

I first heard Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks (1974) on my grandmother’s tennant’s portable record player in the hallway outside her apartment.  Once I heard it, I couldn’t forget it.  It had both elements I need in a pop song, a catchy tune and melancholy lyrics.

Wikipedia tells us the song was based on Le Moribond by Jacques Brel and was performed by a few other acts before Jacks lightened up the lyrics a bit and took it to one-hit-wonderdom.  A quick look at YouTube shows us Brel’s original song, Terry Jacks’ version, covers by Nirvana, Westlife, Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies, one of many karaoke versions and a Harry Potter mash-up.  I dare you to listen to all of them – you won’t get the song out of your head for days.

Isn’t the Interweb wonderful?

Vinyl #14 – Baker Street

In 1978, Gerry Rafferty released Baker Street. The song was edited down to 4:08 for the single from the 6:01 album version on City to City by cutting it down and speeding it up. It was omnipresent on Top 40 radio in the summer of ‘78. I remember when I was at West Point for a summer program it seemed like every other song on the radio was Baker Street. And I never tired of it. Play the sax solo loud!

Desert Island Discs

If you could only choose a few albums to bring to the proverbial desert island, which ones would you choose? I set some rules for my list: 10 items, no compilations and only one album per artist. Feel free to follow the rules or not when making your list.  Pick 10 KISS albums if you want.

These aren’t actually the albums I’d bring, since I can play them all in my head any time I want. These are a list of the albums that I’d try to convince you to bring, albums that had the greatest impact on me, when I first heard them or over time. In no particular order:

Entertainment! (1980) – Gang of Four
Fear of Music (1979) – Talking Heads (or Remain in Light)
The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society (1969) (though Muswell Hillbillies is worthy)
The Crane Wife (2006) – The Decemberists
The Modern Lovers (1976)
Reckoning (1984) – REM (or Murmur, Life’s Rich Pageant, Document)
Marquee Moon (1977) – Television
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) – Wilco
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998) – Lucinda Williams (or World Without Tears)
Everybody Knows This is Nowhere (1969) – Neil Young (or After the Gold Rush, Rust Never Sleeps)

Others on the bubble:

Wish You Were Here (1975) – Pink Floyd
If I Should Fall From Grace With God (1988) – The Pogues
Doc at the Radar Station (1980) – Captain Beefheart
Faithless Street (1998) – Whiskeytown (the CD version)
Seconds of Pleasure (1980) – Rockpile
Indigo Girls (1989)
Zen Arcade (1984) – Husker Du
Duck Stab / Buster & Glen (1978) – The Residents
Arrival (1976) – ABBA
The Doors (1967) (or LA Woman)
The Madcap Laughs (1970) – Syd Barrett
Lipstick, Lies, and Gasoline (1997)- Fred Eaglesmith
Lady in Satin (1958) – Billie Holliday
Surfer Rosa/Come on Pilgrim (1988) – Pixies (it is on a single CD)
Woke on a Whaleheart (2007) – Bill Callahan (or A River Ain’t Too Much to Love)
The Partridge Family Album (1972)

I have this theory that if you have this list from someone (or a similar list of their favorite songs) you can make a good guess as to their age, based on the idea that a person’s favorite music is what they liked when they were college age. If I had actually graduated from college in four years (my mother would have been so proud!) it would have been in 1983.  The average release date of my top ten is 1984. It drops to 1983 if you include the 15 albums on the bubble.

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Vinyl #13 – NU Disk

In 1980, CBS Records released the “NU Disk” series of records on the Epic label. While they were similar to EPs in that both formats tried to hit a happy medium between a single and a full album, they weren’t just EPs. EPs were usually on 7″ vinyl, and played at 45RPM. NU Disks were on 10″ vinyl, and they played at 33 1/3 RPM! This was a different, special series of records!

Epic released NU Disks by their stars The Clash and Cheap Trick, but for the most part, NU Disks were by New Wavy synth-pop bands that are forgotten today. On Islands by New Musik comes from their Straight Lines disk.