Tokyo Marathon 2012

I'm not really a superstitious person. I don’t make a particular point of smashing mirrors while chasing black cats under ladders, but, as long as it’s not on a Friday the 13th, I don’t go out of my way to avoid these activities either. I am, however, very much a creature of habit (something that bears a mental image akin to an okapi, but compulsively functions more like an albatross), especially when it comes to race days. Though I may be quick on my feet, when things deviate from the expected routine, I have the capacity to go from placid casual to Chicken Little at the slightest sign of the falling sky. 

In the final weeks leading up to the marathon I was nursing a knee injury in the form of ITBS. I was forced to cut training days like a sushi chef surgically slicing away the poison pieces of a puffer fish (no fugus were harmed in the use of this metaphor). Unfortunately, even with the additional rest days, the rigid build up of miles that far along the intermediate I program path never gave me enough time to warm the bench long enough for full recovery. So, just when I started feeling up to the task of returning to the full running schedule once again, I'd be promptly put back in the corner like Baby without a Swayze to save me, only to repeat those ole dirty dance moves down recovery Road House road once more. I was certainly at a disadvantage going into the marathon in such a compromised condition, but after sinking so much effort into months of training, I wasn’t going to let the little fact my leg was out of whack keep me from crossing the starting line. Now crossing the finish line…that’s a different story. 

Oh wait, that’s this story. Seriously, keep reading…

20 Miles On One Miserable Monday

Though I'm currently coursing through an increasingly thorny thicket of sleep deprivation, in preparation for my return trip to Japan in just a few hours, I've been back in the States for a few weeks now. Upon my late January arrival I was greeted, near immediately, with a snowstorm. It was somewhat appropriate, I suppose, since my family celebrated a faux-mas that weekend as a welcome back party (I was away in Japan during the real deal), providing us with the pleasant kind of white Christmas that Bing Crosby would be proud to croon about dreaming of. Aesthetically, I enjoy snow. As a runner, though this winter has been eerily warmer than it was during last year's training circuit, it's a complete bummer. Apropos of the Wet Snow, my running schedule was pushed back by two days. Instead of running, I spent that Saturday morning on a stationary bike, somewhat sleepy-eyed with jetlag, gazing out the window into the bleak specks of white blanketing the streets below with a foreboding glisten.

Waking up after a long weekend of not running, I found myself, understandably, more than a bit eager to make the most of my Monday morning. The local meteorologists weren't brightening my day with anything they had to say: Monday = cold & rainy. Though the rain washed away some of the snowier spots on the sidewalk, it did me no favors in making the streets any easier to get around on by foot. My clothes, though their labels boasted of a resilient water resistance, were soaked within minutes. My shoes were even worse off. They felt like Sisyphisian bolders bolted to the bottoms of my feet with slender ice cycles.

I charted a course with five 4 mile loops for the day. Four miles into the 20, I ditched my ipod back at home, for fear it would float away in my pocket. I changed my socks and shoes, which I knew was futile, because that only kept my feet dry long enough to walk out the front door into the downpour. At least it provided me with the comforting memory of a dry footed 15 seconds that I held onto for much of the remainder of my run.

So it goes...more wet weather woes below.

The Gambit: Transitioning to Minimalism Via Vibrams

Lately, I've picked up a bit of a rather bad gambling habit. It's probably not as sadly seedy, nor as gaily glamorous, as you might think. I'm not jamming every last yen I have down the jugular of a blinking machine that's gurgling hand over fistfuls of chump change, all while choking on the smoke filled air floating through those prevalent pachinko parlors, nor am I applying salve to the paper cuts received from wriggling out from under a massive Mount Fuji of unlucky lottery tickets. I suppose the truth, in a sense, is a bit less capricious (or maybe more so, depending on your particular stance on biomechanics): I've been trying a variety of new approaches to marathon training all at once; most of which, were probably attempted way too soon after completing my last marathon in Osaka.

Basically, if the schedule said rest, I ran. If I was supposed to run 4 miles, then I ran 8 instead; packing the extra workouts into pretty bowed boxes, and parcelling them out at either end of the day. Where I would usually stretch after a run, I made a new habit of lounging (and lounge indeed I did!). When I thought about needing new shoes, I grabbed a used pair from a friend—the very same footwear that forced him out of marathon training with a stress fracture: Vibram Five Fingers (more specifically, I believe they are the Treksport model). I've been rolling heavy-handed dice over rice paper thin ice for this entire third round of training. I haven't decided on one specific reason why I've been so restless with settling for the same routine that has successfully led me to the finish line of a marathon twice thus far, but this third round of training has just been a hodgepodge of mad experiments aimed at improving my running agility, though, in practice, most of them have been too Tanya Harding on my legs to be worth the gamble.

More about minimalism...

Nothin' or Double...

It was a perilous idea form the start. I knew this about the idea almost immediately after conjuring it up. And yet, I was helpless to its allure: perilousness flickered around the penumbra in a yellow hued glow of a precarious pumpkin pie scented soy candle, as I made like a curious moth, and fluttered ever closer to its flame. Merely three weeks after completing the Osaka marathon the thought of doubling my efforts—like a commander on the Deathstar fearing failure accompanied by a swiftly executed force-choke from across the room—by running twice my allotted schedule per day, inexplicably came slinking out of the shadows like a skilled ninja assassin with a sharpened blade to my back, goading me on.

Finishing the Osaka marathon at the end of October put me 2 weeks behind schedule in training for the Tokyo 2012 (coming up in February, for real!). In addition to a zero week for recovery—in which, despite the slight misnomer in its title, I was actually allowed to run three times—my first official week back on track for training was already one spent solemnly tapering my miles. So I felt like I was in a haze of half-assed-ness while being smacked on the cheek with the hand of undesired laziness in those initial training weeks. This was something I was aiming to change as I went all in and anted up with a handful of doubles.

I gave myself the self-proclaimed "all clear" to proceed with project Nothin' or Double when the last twinges of awkwardness dissipated from my legs as I confidently came to the end of a 6 mile run, only one week to the day from the event in that little race recap I wrote about in the Osaka Marathon post. So after spending the following day cross training like a fiend on a bicycle—thinking that I would compensate for lost running time by cross training harder—Tuesday's short 3 mile morning run felt, well...too short. Even though my thighs were a bit sore from the over cycling routine—accomplished in my basket & bell adorned bicycle!—the run went off without a hitch and I had a surplus of energy left to dispense like Pez at a candy convention.

A few hours passed, and the urge to run again shoved me out the door like a benevolent poltergeist that spent their past life as a motivational speaker & physical therapist who now just wanted a few hours of downtime for his or herself in the haunted house. I'm not accustomed to double workouts. Outside of running marathons, I'm an alarmingly lazy person, but I was too curious not to give this first attempt a solid go. Logic led me to believe I would be far too fatigued from earlier to meet any type of prolonged success, but I found once I got into the rhythm of running I actually had more energy to burn.

And so...