Nearly Triathletic

I had given up on the day. The snow defeated me. In order to avoid potential catastrophe, I spent the morning shoveling snow off my Grandma's roof so it wouldn't collapse under the additional weight of the inauspicious snowstorm predicted for Tuesday. I hate the snow so very much this winter. I used to be charmed by its romantic allure, but no more. I'm terrified of heights, very much so, so standing on an icy rooftop flinging heavy mounds of snow over the edge made me nervous at first, but I was comforted by two realizations: 1) I used to climb onto that same roof as a kid to get in through the window whenever I was locked out. 2) there was enough snow on the ground that if I did fall off, I would most likely be fine having a nice pillow of whiteness to soften the drop. This, I acquiesced, was going to be my cross training for the day, and I would just push the 14 miler off until tomorrow (Sunday) in hopes that fitness under consent of the sun king would be granted to me by way of clear roads tomorrow afternoon.

I was napping like a narcoleptic when the phone rang. It was my cousin asking if I wanted to come with her to the gym she had just became a member of; she had a free pass for me and thought I'd like to give it a go. What perfect timing! I snapped into a state of tiger-like readiness and grabbed whatever running gear was available and stuffed it in a backpack, then paced passed the window precariously perched to pounce at the opportunity which had presented itself to me as I waited for her to pick me up. 

I arrived at the gym with drifting thoughts of taking it light & easy. Maybe a little cycling and some slow jogging, just so I could give my body some motion. I started with a half hour on the spinner bike: 11.5 miles in a half hour. I wasn't pushing it, but my legs still felt hefty & thoroughly used once I was done. I was slightly bummed that the TV function wasn't working on my screen, but I survived, though ever so slightly less entertained. My next choice was between running on a treadmill or the quarter mile track on the second floor that overlooked the various sections of the facility. I like treadmills and all just fine, they're wonderful inventions, really, but something in me is inherently drawn to the oh naturale aspect of putting my legs to use on an honest to goodness track. Again, I was planning on just taking it easy and maybe doing 5k at most...but the floor itself was so comfortable & my legs felt nice and loose from the brisk cycling I had just done that I kept going. I got to 7 miles and thought maybe I could do 10...I got to 10 and knew I was doing the entire 14. I finished and stretched, then just kept walking another mile and a half or so while waiting for my cousin & her 3 year old son to finish up at the pool. I could wave to them as I passed by on the outside loop, and could see he was having a blast himself going down the frog shaped water slide in the kiddie pool.

After tonight I am thoroughly aware what I've been missing through all this egregious winter training: a gym membership. It's too late now, with only 2 weeks left in the country, but if I get the chance to do the Tokyo marathon again next year, indoor tracks at the gym on inclement days are the way to go. I've never been more excited that I could breath easily; my legs felt so great that I barely noticed the 14 miles I moved them through after cycling. Tonight also gave me a small clairvoyant window to peak into the future of what things might look like come time for vegan triathlete training. If I had more time I might have hit the pool for a few laps too. As it is, I ended the day nearly triathletic, but exuberant all the same. 

So Tired of Snow...

The view from my window sill is a sad one. This winter training schedule has been plagued by a barrage of unprecedented snowstorms, the most recent two (that's right, two! back to back, with only a few paltry hours to separate their accumulation) have been dubbed Thundersnow '11. Mother nature has officially gone one louder. Yep, last night there was lightning adorning the constant stream of sleet & snow filled skies. How is one supposed to run when there are no streets to run on?   

Dreary Old Wednesday

In all honesty, Wednesday wasn't so bad. I made use of my aunt's treadmill for 9 miles while listening to the ever evolving awesomeness of the Vegan Marathon Runner playlist. I've pierced the lid on the 3 hour mark for that bad boy, and it is pure agave nectar sweetness. I came home and, even though I knew I shouldn't have, threw in some lifting exercises with my stretching. Nothing too challenging, but you know, enough that I felt like I had done them properly. 

Thundersnow'd Thursday

Moving on up, Thursday, I wake to find more snow than I had even anticipated, and I was anticipating a lot! My arms ached slightly at the sight, but there's little choice but to sac up and take it shovel by shovel full, and move it, ever so slightly out of the way. There's really no place to put any of it anymore, so you just start making high reaching mountains that just crumble back to where you moved it from to begin with: it's like Sisyphus. What I thought would take no more than an hour ended up being a 2 and a half hour thankless chore. I could barely lift my arms by the time I was done. My knees were killing me from the repetitive crouching tiger hidden dragon scoop method I was furiously applying to clearing the way. I had planned to run 5 miles at my aunt's house again, but lost all potential kinetic energy to the outdoor elements. I was beat. I still might try to squeeze in a run later in the evening (on the treadmill), but I'm not sure I want to push it. Judging by the sheer amount of accumulation, the forecasts calling for more weekend snowfall, and the fact that the township no longer seems to bother plowing the side streets anymore, I'm going to safely say that Saturday's 14 miler is most likely not happening. But I remain hopeful, that possibly, Sunday will be more promising. 

[UPDATE]

I did in fact muster up the energy to attack the 5 miles late in the evening on the treadmill. Though I started out pretty beat, I eased into a comfortable groove and ended the run feeling reinvigorated. This certainly doesn't excuse old man winter from being a cantankerous li'l son of a biddy, but I'm jazzed that I got my run in for the day. Hooray. 

High Five

Today's 5 miler, the first run after the post-18 mile precipice, started off sluggish, and continued along those same lines throughout. It wasn't that I was in pain, all the symptoms of excessive exercise had diminished, my legs just didn't want to give it their all. I think also, mentally, I'm getting tired of slugging through the unfriendly winter weather day after day. Breathing through a mist of icy mines doesn't agree with how my lungs prefer to take their oxygen. I ended the 5 miles with an average pace of 8:34 per mile. This was disheartening as well, since taking ill last week seems to have come along with a scythe and chopped down all the pretty flowers in my speedy garden. But not to worry, speed is not my overall goal for this marathon, completion is. I didn't even start timing my runs until a few weeks ago anyway. This worry-free belief in speed as inconsequential for my first time daring to conquer 26.2 miles was only reenforced by an excellent quote from Hal Higdon himself:

"In the marathon, you don't beat others, as you might in the mile or the 100-meter dash. Instead, you achieve a personal victory. If others finish in front or behind you, it is only that their personal victories are more or less." (Higdon, pg. 10)

So, I finished running 5 miles for the day, came home and dove into my stretch & strengthening routine. I took the stretching slow, and added a few different lifts into the cycle. After about a half hour I was done & sufficiently cooled down. At this point, and as it still continues to this very moment, I am experiencing something that I can only describe as radiating awesomeness. I've felt runners high before, but at week 14 of marathon training, I didn't think 5 miles could really put me there. It's been almost a good 2 hours since my run, and I'm still feeling the same. It's a prolonged stretch of clarity & elation. It's as if, at this very moment, the cells in my body are rejoicing, like the ewoks at the end of Return of the Jedi, with the combination of vegan diet & long distance running. Yub Nub folks....


Higdon, Hal. (1993). Marathon: The Ultimate Training and Racing Guide. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Books.

Rhythm Method: The Clash "I'm Not Down"

The Clash: dare I venture to say they occupy the strata of rarified air that only favorite bands can ascend to, and continuously deliver on their placement there. Yes, London Calling is a perfect album. This song, I'm Not Down, is just one example of that perfection. I could easily point you towards others, such as Spanish Bombs and Death or Glory, but my whole hearted recommendation would be to just let the whole album envelope you on a single listen.  Find your own place within these songs and from there on out enjoy the perpetual rewards of repeated listens.

Joe Strummer left the world too soon, that's for sure, but in the wake of the passing vessel of his life's work, there's a whole heck of a lotta goodness. I should probably also mention that in 1982 he ran the Paris Marathon, to completion, on a whim. It was during a prolonged disappearing act towards the end of the Clash's existence. Details of his performance are spotty at best, but it is often implied that he placed somewhere near last. Still, he finished.

Good Morning

I woke up this morning feeling surprisingly refreshed. The tear rendering pangs of pain in my knees were a slight fraction of what they were last night, and the majority of my aches & soreness were contained in my quadriceps. Overall, it was a rapid recovery from the pile of post-run wreckage I had become less than 24 hours ago. Steps are still hard to handle after the monotony of moving past perpetual patches of pavement for 3 straight hours, but that's far from a complaint. I'm relieved that my body figured out what it needed to repair while I was sleeping and got on it over night. Of course I actively aided this recovery prior to going to bed with a fine hot bath, ice, & rest routine.

Today's cross training was little more than strolling around at a casual shuffle. I focused on strength training where possible, endurance over bulk, and threw in a prolonged bout of stretching to round everything out. As well as alternating ice & heat on my knees throughout the day. Ultimately, I would have enjoyed some cycling today, but I really didn't want to push it too much, and feel like I made the right (safe) choice by limiting the cross training to near leisurely activities. If nothing else, marathon training has honed my skills at listening to my body during & after runs. I'm certainly no expert, but I've learned a thing or two about a thing or two these past 13 weeks, and I've continuously surprised myself at how far I can actually go. I think back to when 2 miles was a daunting distance that seemingly tested the boundaries of my humanity, and it seems like nothing anymore. There's only one more bump in the LSD runs left in the training program, it's the 20 miler 2 weeks from now, and that's it: the marathon is all that remains. So it goes...be well peoples.

Barely Legal

Today was 18 miles (about 29km) of grueling running. Earlier in the week I had to skip my 9 miler do to fluish-ness. So, of course, the logical step was to strut right into the weekend's 18 like a distance pimp handing out smack downs to those fresh faced unruly miles with little consideration in regards to what skipping runs, still being weak, and facing 16°F (-8° C) temperatures would do to a person; even one with platinum plus MasterCard of pimp-licious street cred such as myself(?).

I had spent the hour prior to the run adjusting my Vegan Marathon Runner playlist. I've got it up to 2 hours & 22 minutes so far (road tested and approved too!). If you've ever used a Nike+ unit before, you'll know that there's a custom setting for distance runs. SO it was somewhat amusing at the outset, standing in the freezing cold windy afternoon, while my thumb spent what seemed like forever winding around the clickwheel in order to set the mile marker to 18.

Then I was off...

Return of the Running Dead

What little credence I gave to the fast running zombies that have invaded the horror genre these past few years has been completely debunked by today's run. There's no way a recently deceased body could reanimate and hit the ground running. This I've gathered from the amassed empirical evidence of maintaining a near catatonic state for the past 72 hours and then deciding to run 4 miles today. Now granted, I'm not exactly sure how the metabolism would react to the cannibalistic dietary leanings of the walking dead, so maybe there's something there that really fires up the adrenal glands and shifts the muscular system into high gear, but I'm vegan, so I'd rather not find out. And what does all this mean on a vegan level? I've been craving veggies like mad, but I've been skeptical about consuming anything that presents itself as being more than unleavened bread. But I'll get back into the routine soon enough I'm sure.

When all was said and done my 4 miles was accomplished with an average of 9:18 min. per mile. Which I suppose isn't terrible, but it felt like I was moving an average of 15 min. per mile. Weather & body permitting, I'm either going to go forward with the 9 miler tomorrow, or replace it with the 5 miles that would have been meant for tomorrow's run anyway. Most likely I'm going to stick with the lesser, because I can already feel the tightness on the outside of my knees (that's right plural!), suggesting going from bed rest to street bandit at the drop of a hat has aggravated the ITBS beast again. One day, maybe when I'm older and much wiser, I'll learn that if you throw rocks into the lair of sleeping dragons, they tend to wake up angry and give chase. Don the chainmail kids, the race is a coming.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. the Vegan Power

"No vegan diet, no vegan powers!"

Flu Me to the Moon

I'll start off by stating I won't get graphic at all in the following post. I'll gloss over all the terribleness that having caught the flu saddles one with...but here's what it means to my running schedule. My Saturday LSD got pushed to Sunday because of time constraints. It was here, while babysitting my little cousin that the exposure to the illness began. But even though I felt "off" late on Saturday night, I reasoned that it must be mental, and there's no way a virus could have infected me that fast. So Sunday I waited until the late afternoon was at it's snow-blanket sunniest, and took off for a 12 mile LSD.

It was fine. Actually, a lot finer than I remember 12 miles ever being before. Upon arriving home I stretched like the Dickens, and sure, I felt tired, I'm not a machine, but otherwise OK. So for dinner I stuffed myself with lots of nutrient dense foods and protein supplements that I had picked up at Whole Foods market that morning. I had even just finished reading Food Rules by Michael Pollan (which isn't necessarily vegan oriented, but has a good all around get closer to the earth and know what you're eating message), that a friend had lent me, and was fired up about trying to start my own little garden of goodness come Spring. So with visions of sugar plumbs (or at least basil & mint leaves) dancing through my head, I was enjoying the evening; then the night came...

SO the polite way to get through this is to say I lost all the nutrients I had tried to gain after completing that late afternoon 12 mile run. Fast forward to Tuesday night (right about...now), and at most I've had a handful of crackers here or there in the past few days. I think I'm at the tail end of the terribleness, but I'm really curious as to what impact this shock to the system will have to my expected running schedule this week, which is R-4-9-5-R-18-C (R = Rest; C = Cross training). I've already skipped the 4 mile Tuesday run. I'm considering just pushing everything back a day, if I feel up for a 4 miler tomorrow, OR, if not, then push everything back 2 days, and drop either the 4 or 5 miler along the way. The weather is certainly not helping much either, as we're faced with forecasts of icy & snowy conditions all week. Today & Tomorrow supposedly being the worst of it. We'll see how things go. It's seems like my body & the weather are pitting themselves against me, an internal & external winner take all (though there's not much to take, so, ultimately, trick's on them) struggle for my eternal soul. We're really rapidly approaching the culmination of this whole training process. At a mere 6 weeks away from race day, this noted terribleness may just be a hiccup in the overall process...maybe for the next marathon 1) I'll move to somewhere with more consistently awesome weather 2) Become more diligent in quarantining the infected away from my person at all times; if this were the onset of the zombie plague, I'd be showing signs of turning into the walking dead already. I certainly feel close enough to that now. Anyway...keep well folks.

Mo' Snow...No Go.

So the weekend was met with yet another snowstorm. The first of what the weather forecasters have been promising are many such white and fluffy flurries to force their way into my training schedule in the coming week. The 16 miles I was supposed to run didn't happen, because this is what the day looked like:

Although the following day was sunnier, and the storm had ceased to taunt me with its ever mounting mounds of maddening slippery slops of snowy flakes, the sidewalks remained far to icy to partake in, what is basically at this point (end of week 11), the mandatory running regimen.

As not to let the day go to a total waste, I spent it doing the opposite of exercising: cooking tons of food, and then consuming it! Though I had a handy helper at my side to assist me in both aspects of what is essentially a double-headed coin of gluttony, I still did my fair share of munching away at all the goodies.

First up: Vegan COOKIES!!!

Titor Told Me To...

Hello technology,

I'm glad we had the opportunity to meet. Because of you I finally have a way to measure my run times amid a myriad of other minute details that hold varying degrees of importance for my training. Nike+ is my new running buddy! I'm not really happy with how clunky the website is, so strike one against you technology on that one, but I DO like the sheer amount of information I now collect like a mad scientist shrouded by dank shadows in the basement of an abandoned Presbyterian church, as I cackle at the moon through a cracked stain glass water well window, all the while Tesla coils spark & flicker behind me as my hair stands on end at the epicenter of a maelstrom of static electricity.

OK technology, I admit, up until now I was a luddite runner; something I euphemistically referred to as Zen before we got together. Don't get me wrong, I still love the tranquility of natural sounds on a brisk run. It's just these 2+ hour runs Hal Higdon has me doing now that leave me craving something more than nature to occupy my time with. Enter nano & Nike+ and something in the the universe has changed from here on out. It's been 3 days since our first run. Oh that first time out, remember how you were set to kilometers and my American mind had no idea what you were telling me? What a hilarious episode that would have been if life on the run were a sitcom on NBC. Or how about earlier today, when Tiger Woods made a voice cameo after our workout to congratulate us on the fastest mile time yet? That was surreal.

Well technology, I hope this will be only the beginning of what promises to become a beautiful friendship. Oh, and if you could, on the dawn of the day of the inevitable machine uprising, could you put in a good word for me? Or at least have Tiger tell me to hunker down in a bunker until the robot apocalypse has passed. Thanks buddy!

All the best,
Joe-joe Rock!

Rhythm Method: Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks "Gardenia"

Former Pavement frontman makes good as a solo artist making more Pavement songs...

Two Shoe Running

So what's 15 miles? It's a mile for every minute of fame that Andy Warhol once said a person is entitled to, or it's a kilometer for every hour of the day, and to be honest, running it wasn't necessarily so bad, it just sorta takes forever to do. My soul is that of a navigator. That's right! It's possible an ancient mariner once occupied the marrow of my existence in a previous lifetime, and I've called on this from as early on as road trips in my teenage years as I earned my spot in shotgun, which believe me, was a highly competitive field, by being the most capable person when it came to pouring over maps, or just sensing the direction we need to take ourselves in. It's this preternatural onboard compass that always comes in handy whenever I pop out of a subway and need to regain my bearings quickly. Something I'm quite eager to test out when I hop over to Japandyland in a few more weeks. But in present day form, I put this skill to best use by plotting out fresh courses to run each week for my LSD.

15 miles was accomplished in three 4 mile loops, with a 3 mile end loop to round it all out. The weather was unbelievable really: snow mounds lined the listless lawns along the way that have slowly lost their luster from days of gathering exhaust from the sidelines of their suburban perch, and although the sky was overcast, the temperature still reached 50°F (10°C). I had just finished making a vegan pumpkin pie and set it out to cool, and realized I needed to get a jump on running if I was to be done by 4pm. SO I laced up my shoes, threw on the least amount of clothes I've worn running in easily over a month, and grabbed the nano.

I was band on the run...