Dueling Banjos: Barefoot Running Vs. Shoe Running

I know it's a bit of a hot button topic among the world of runners who stand at either end of the equator on the issue: barefoot running Vs. shoe running. One is viewed as a throwback to the evolution of humans that spent much of their existence running naturally away from Predators (unless you're Carl Weathers, Danny Glover, or Adrien Brody, who run towards them), and conversely, towards prey (& berries & fruits & such), and the other view is what made Bill Bowerman & Phil Knight richer than finding the road to El Dorado baby! In summation, the argument is that shoes interfere with your biomechanics by forcing them to fit into a broadly researched, pseudo-scientific, mold, while shedding that padding our feet have grown so use to uncovers a long dormant goldmine of human perfection.

So, what happens when we really do lose the shoes...

Parks & Recreation

Since returning from Japan, I've been obsessively catching up on episodes I missed of this great show while being out of the country (it's a damn shame that Hulu doesn't work outside of the States!). I felt it was worth mentioning here, since Rob Lowe's reoccurring character, Chris Traeger, is a specific source of hilarity with his gung-ho daily 10 mile runs, copious intake of vitamin supplements, and even a brief mention of "sports sandals" (read: Vibram Fivefingers, Sprints by the look of them) as enhancing running ability by contouring perfectly to the human form. Among a cast full of great comedic actors, consistently knocking homeruns out of the park in this ensemble character driven show, Rob Lowe's approach to being an overzealous health nut, with a very modest goal of living to be 150 years old, really shows he brings a sharp edged blade to the sword fight when he needs to use his swift comedic chops. I realize my values are being mocked, but can't help enjoying the way they are mocking them. Though, if you pressed me to admit it, Nick Offerman's portrayal of Ron Swanson, the obvious antithesis of a vegan marathon runner, wins out, hands down, on the high end of the comedy spectrum.

I recommend catching this series in its entirety when you get a chance. The first season falls flat at times, as it was awkwardly trying to find its footing, but things really get a lot better by the start of season 2. It's currently in its 3rd season, and has already been renewed for a 4th.

Ron Swanson's reaction to vegan bacon:

Back in the U.S.S.A.

So, much like a blackbird singing in the dead of night, I'm back in the States for the time being, and I've already gone out for my first hometown run with a brand new pair of Asics that were anxiously waiting at home for my arrival. I found a good deal on last year's model and scored big on the cheapness scale for such quality kicks. I also found a birthday card on my bookshelf from 2 years ago with $30 stuffed inside it, Good Day Sunshine! There's a younger version of me who is pretty pissed right about now, but as for the older me, I'm Happy Just to Dance with You on that dude's untilled grave with a freshly cobbled pair of giddiness clogs.

Substitute Giddiness Clogs

I know the barefoot running craze is picking up more steam than a combination Robert Fulton invented, Ozzy Osbourne penned, steam engine crazy train, what with all the vibrams and biomechanics debate, and I did put some serious thought into diving into the deep end (or is barefooting technically the shallow end?), now that I no longer hold fast to the splintered rungs of a rope ladder training schedule, but for long distances, I like my soles cushioned. I did, however, switch up my shoe choice a bit: I'm back to Asics, after a long stint in Nikes, I feel like I've come back home, twice now this week, to comfort country.

So it's been 3 months since I last hit the streets of Oreland, our last dance was to a song whose lyrics I've half forgotten, but a beat that is ingrained in my being all too well. That is to say, in plain English, the route, which I spent many snow covered miles training on for the marathon, is something I'm far too familiar with, however, I had forgotten the topography of the land, like just how many hills I have to run up (and, sure, OK, down) to get through a run around Oreland. I guess I was spoiled by the basically flat kilometers Japan welcomed me with. It's always kind of a mental shock when you head out the door expecting to accomplish a carefree 3 miler, but your legs are mad at you for not being as easy as your muscles remember. This does bring up the question, shouldn't a flat course marathon be easier to accomplish when all your training was on hillier ground? I suppose it technically should be easier, and that's probably partially why the first half of the marathon was a breeze, and indeed the video of me passing 19 miles with a frenzied optimism seems so bizarrely appropriate, but there's a lot more than just running that goes into a marathon. For a first timer, there's nothing that really prepares you for those final 6 miles, they kind of even the playing field.

I'm not exactly sure how long I'll be staying in the States. I will be returning to Japan at some point, hopefully soon, before I forget too much Japanese, but for now, I'm back to the basics. I broke out the old screen shots of my Google map running routes I used for training, and am hitting the slopes in the off season, as it were, so thankfully, there's far less snow. Finally, I should mention that Schwinny Cooper has broken my heart, simply by being broken herself. Let this serve as fair warning to all who dabble in finding a bike on Craigslist...make sure you know enough about bikes before buying second hand, or take someone with you that does. I know that seems like common sense, but I let my excitement cloud my judgement when I thought I found the perfect bike. Since I bought it, my bike has been a constant pain in the backside with all the problems it surprises me with. Though this blog is not about complaints, so I send a gentle shuteye sigh subtly out the side of my mouth for the frustration over my broken bike, and then...move on.

Next up: The Jersey Shore...for runners.

Rhythm Method: the pillows "Funny Bunny"

In the interest of full immersion in Japanese, to aid my language learning skills, my ipod nano has slowly been turning Japanese, I think it's turning Japanese, I really think so, since moving to Japan. the pillows have long been one of my favorite bands. I discovered them randomly on my first visit to Japan in 2004; they were doing an interview on some variety show, and then played the video for their then new single, Walking on a Spiral. I was smitten like a hello kitten, and spent a long time after returning to the States trying to track down their music to varying degrees of success. I would discover that their songs were used in a short lived but amazingly bizarre & comedic anime series called FLCL (Fooly Cooly). the pillows have been releasing albums since 1991, undoubtedly a large portion of their fame since their inception comes from being highlighted as the band responsible for much of the FLCL soundtrack. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

the pillows certainly don't hide their admiration for the pixies, from their sound, to the suspiciously similar name, to the song titled Kim Deal, they owe a lot to Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV and company. If we're being honest, what "alternative" rock (shuddering like Sideshow Bob getting smacked with a rake at the use of that distinction) sounding post-1990 band doesn't?

This song, Funny Bunny comes from their 1999 album Happy Bivouac, which had a number of ripe tracks plucked like precious pomegranate fruits for use in the FLCL series. The band has a discography of more than 18 albums, and I can make the safe assurance to all that are interested, there's no wrong place to start with this band; it's pretty much all good. Though, I will say, Good Dreams & My Foot might be the two albums of theirs I listen to the most. Enjoy...   

100th post extravaganza Bonanza!

I know it's been quiet around here for a while, I've abandoned this room for far too long, as evidenced by the dust & cobwebs accumulated on the passé decor and secondhand furniture in here (I guess, no matter how hard I try, it can only rightfully be the 80's once, right? Apologies to the Ray Parker, Jr.  poster with the ripped corner hanging above the desk overcrowded with stacks of discarded 8-bit Nintendo cartridges, near the cracked & wilted Chia Pet* on the paint chipped windowsill that looks out onto the nostalgia addled garden of my mind); I feel slightly guilty I've neglected this place, but other than a brief stint in, nearly internet-less, Kyoto, I haven't been all that far away. Part of that silence has been the contemplative slow burning incense build up to the future of this blog, and above all else, this very post, which I am proud to announce as Vegan Marathon Runner's 100th post! That's right, welcome one & all to the official 100th post on Vegan Marathon Runner. Though I can't take the credit for making all those posts myself—as from the get go, this has been a collaborative effort with long time friend, and fellow vegan marathon runner, Vincent—I can bask in the neon glow of a heart-shaped vacancy sign, welcoming all while flickering in the front lobby of a seedy riverside hotel throughout the dim moonlit hours of the foggy Tokyo nights, and conversely pale sunlight afternoons, because sharing this long and winding road, post after post, has never been short of surprises, tragedy, (failed attempts at) humor, & despite all odds, victories.

the 100th post continues after the break....

Boston 2011: The Fastest Marathon Time Ever!!!

Wow folks, Geoffrey Mutai wins the Boston Marathon 2011 with a 2:03:02 record breaking time. To put that in perspective, you'd be watching the end credits roll on Empire Strikes Back and still have 58 seconds to go until the final crescendo of John William's Rebel Fleet/End Title Medley score flittered past your eardrums, all the while Mutai would have finished running a full marathon and already be toweling the sweat dry from his forehead while soaking in his victory.

Further perspective, for the slightly less geeky, the Tokyo Marathon 2011 first place runner, Hailu Mekonnen, clocked in at 2:07:35. Not a record breaker, but still incredibly fast. Both Vin & I crossed the half marathon point at 2:13:09 (split), meaning Hailu was done running for the day, while we still had the second part of the race to finish; which was a long hard road indeed.

Mutai: "You don't look at world records. You just go" 2:03:02

A champion for sure, but an official world record holder, maybe not... When breaking a world record is not a world record

Very big congratulations to Japan's own Masazumi Soejima and Wakako Tsuchida for winning the men's & women's wheelchair division of the Boston Marathon. がんばろう日本

Cross Training on the Shoulders of Giants

I spent the weekend in Yokohama, and while I didn't have much time for running, I did do a substantial amount of walking. Which, if you do it for long enough, starts to seem semi-respectable; as I'm sure a number of olympic racewalkers would undoubtedly assure you that it most certainly is. For whatever reason, most of the top record holders for race walking are either from Russia (née Soviet Union) or China (feel free speculate on why that is in our handy comments section below). A lot of the walking I did initially took place Saturday morning on the rainy streets of Chinatown in Yokohama. The skies eventually cleared up to reveal a stellar latter half of the day, but not before thoroughly soaking my feet, and undoubtedly drenching me in radioactive particles: しょうがないね (it can't be helped).

A Rainy Day in Yokohama:

The Chinatown Chronicles

The continued walking adventures await...

Vegan Banana Bread with Extra Awesome Bananas

My last attempt at introducing vegan baked goods to my ever gracious host family here in Japan was a bit of a miss. Not so much a fail, as the cookies were still tasty enough, but from a personal standpoint I felt the finished product just didn't knock it out of the park with that Sadaharu Oh pizzaz.

This time around I set out for some banana bread action with a little bit of prep work before commencing; I did all the metric cooking conversions before hand, so I wouldn't find myself standing over my mac eying the keyboard with battered hands wondering if I could use my nose to peck out my conversion question close enough for Google to figure out what I really wanted to know. Avoiding that awkwardness was a G.I. Joe "now you know, and knowing is half the battle" win!

Vegan Banana Bread 

(freshly sung to for added awesomeness)

Recipe + Banana shenanigans await...

Less is More: Recovery Running...Now with More Cycling!

I set out this week to basically make or break my road to recovery by implementing a handcrafted training schedule built around all the previous weeks' semi-successes and full on failures. As noted repeatedly throughout a plethora of posts chronicling the on-again off-again relationship I have with ITBS, coupled with my reliance on the preset Higdon schedules (for which there seems to be one for every level), things just weren't going smoothly post-marathon. I'm Beyond Thunderdome now: Tina Turner is singing sweet-sweet songs, with her heavenly Nichiren Buddhist pipes, promising victory ahead: なんみょほれんげきょ* and so forth...


Go Beyond Thunderdome...

Rhythm Method: Afrirampo "あふりらんぽ"

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen...or more precisely, midnight JST. Though they weren't so much striking as silently slipping past the moonlit hour like a distant whisper of waves wafting through the riverside* air with an odd accompanying smell of tires & rosemary. I was listening to Afrirampo on my ipod nano as I suddenly came upon an unexpected darkness. It was more than a little creepy to bike down a familiar path enveloped in a fresh lacquer of black vinyl nighttime sheen as Oni & Pikachu yelped back and forth to one another from opposing sides of my grey matter. There was nothing to be seen except for the tiny light on my Harlem Globetrotter** that shone(n knife'd) a small circle only a few feet ahead. I almost hit three people, but swerved to avoid plowing through them just in the nick of time. Though, I suppose, the more accurate way to look at that situation is probably to say they almost hit me, since, I was the one blazing down memory lane with the bat-signal on full beam, warning all of my forthcoming, while they, draped in blacker than black attire, stalked about in their ninja ways on a narrow path in the naked night. This darkness is all part of a plan for Tokyo to conserve energy during the continuing crisis, and while I support that decision, I just wasn't expecting to be unexpectedly confronted with the unusual eeriness of it while heading down my usual cycling/running path.

Afrirampo broke up less than a year ago. What makes it especially sad is that it was two days after my birthday, and 7 months before I myself would be anywhere near Osaka, where they hail from. There's something about missed opportunities that stings like fresh squeezed turnip juice in your eyes while you want nothing more than turnip-ade to quench your ever maddening thirst for sweet-sweet turnips...though, it is promising that Oni & Pikachu have openly stated that they would consider playing together again, if & when, they basically feel like it. Hopefully that urge overtakes them sometime soon. This video, for their titular track, only hints at what, I can only imagine, their raucously renowned live shows delivered on. Shhh...you can almost taste the turnips.



Footnotes...

Lost in Translation

I know I have to tread lightly here, because I'm aware I'll be on thin ice, and I'm clutching a heavy heart...but many (both) of you are probably aware of how my post(oh hell, and pre)-marathon running has been plagued by constant ITBS knee problems. It's been a steep slope to try and work my way up to recovery, and I hear on a day like today back in P.A., it's a slope that's even lightly coated with snow flurries. That's some wackiness in our weather systems, for sure!

Recently, I've been trying to redefine my training schedule to accomodate this reoccurring injury, in the hopes to transcend its limitations, only to be met with continuous failure time and again. There's one aspect of my life with the potential for change that I've been kicking around, even with a bum leg, which is something I didn't want to really have to redefine, because I felt it might betray something deep within me by even considering it, but today is the day that I finally made the decision that it is, in fact, my diet that is essentially lacking, and I need to experiment with new healthy options. Now I'm not saying I'm going to go out and start guzzling down gallons of milk, cracking open raw eggs, or go gnawing through greasy chicken bones at the corner KFC (because I haven't seen any here in Japan yet), but at least while I'm in Japan, I am going to keep my protein levels up for long distance runs by ingesting fish: I will become a pesco-vegan. Fish is far too abundant a source of nutrition in Japan to outright ignore.

I'm already sure some will question the very nature of keeping this blog title Vegan Marathon Runner, and while I do feel like I've failed in some way here, I remain confident that I can keep the title mainly because: 1) I was VEGAN at the time of my marathon (and through the entire course of training for it) 2) my co-author, Vincent, still remains purely vegan. I've been wary to discuss this with too many people, but I hold to the decision, and look forward to providing you all with a fresh perspective on running, one that will now, slightly diverge from the original intentions of this blog. When I return to the States, at some point in my foreseeable future, I do see myself returning to a full vegan diet. But for now, the timing and placement of everything in my life is pointing in a different direction. Especially considering that it's April Fools' Day...

That's the Way the Vegan Cookie Crumbles...

My math skills never come into question; mainly because they're unquestionably bad. I'm no mathematician (though, in the field of chaos theory, as explained by Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, I could probably hold my own, at least long enough to know I don't know nearly as much as I should before trying to domesticate dinosaurs). Numbers appear before my eyes like indecipherable gilded tomes of ancient alien hieroglyphs based in a language of communication long forgotten by things resembling living organisms. So, this goes a long way towards saying when my American mind's eye is presented with the task of converting things into that blessed metric system (not joking: love the metric system, hate the clunky imperial system, that I'm all too familiar with, imposed on people in the States), it's an outlandish sitcom situation ready to unfurl like a banner of shame in the international idiot parade, for which my proudly pink & purple paper-mȃché plastered float may not place with the first prize contenders, but spectators, who eagerly line the streets to gawk at such silly sights, are surely going to notice it pass by. 


I set out yesterday with a recipe not yet refined for the international crowds in an attempt to make vegan cookies with only mild success... 

Bleak Week

I'm fast approaching the one month mark after meeting the feat of accomplishing the Tokyo marathon; it's been more of a Man On Wire* tightrope balancing act (at unimaginable heights without a safety net below) than I ever thought it would be, and I'm afraid of heights (in all honesty I'm not that fond of circuses either, though that's a digression—for once?—I won't bother you, most honorable reader, with today)! I'm trying to regain my respectability as a runner, but things, thus far, haven't been easy going. It seems that every time in the past month that the thought of running has crossed the confetti strewn starting line in my mind, some wannabe Don Juan riding a tricycle with a wobbly third wheel inevitably swoops in to sock-block me from putting those shoes on and finally making my moves to get on out the door. I was feeling a bit lost & defeated without running to comfort me, so a week and a half after disaster made it's mark across Japan, with rain clouds steadily elevating the city's radiation levels, and a wonky left knee, I grabbed my gear, stepped outside, and pointed to the cloud crowded sky, proclaiming "Up and at them radioactive man!" to the deaf ears of an unusually empty midday Tokyo street. 


and then...

Hello Kitty!

Is radiation responsible for turning our strawberries feline?

いちご猫 (strawberry cat)

Cat Island, after all, is part of Ishinomaki city, in the hard hit Miyagi prefecture. Maybe this is their way of saying they're OK, but could use a little love and attention...

A Moveable Beast: Japan's Earthquake & Tsunami Disaster 2011

I'm not going to try to make a tenuous connection between the purpose of this blog and the earthquake & tsunami disaster (and currently increasing radiation woes) that occurred in the northeast (Tōhoku, which means northeast) region of Japan this past Friday. I don't need to frame this catastrophe in any other terms than the direct experience of it, since, after all, this is a chronicle of a runner's life, and both Vincent & myself have always approached the subject of running from a personal point of view. Nothing becomes more immediately personal than living through the history of a natural disaster.


So what happens when history allows you to escape unscathed from the surrounding terribleness?

Earthquake Cross Training

So since the earthquake forced me into walking, biking, and going up and down stairs all day, I suppose the tale is appropriate for this blog.

I was sitting in my office when it began and, as usual, I just kept working through the start of the earthquake. We have so many of them that you just get used to it, but this one quickly got a lot bigger than the others. I looked outside to see if I could see other buildings swaying, but I couldn't. The building soon announced an evacuation, and when I saw the office manager and a few others heading out, I thought that was what we had to do, so I went with. (Turns out only about 1/3 of the office left; the others pretty much just kept working.)

As we made our way down 37 flights of stairs to the ground floor, the walls were literally cracking around us. That sounds scarier than it is, because it was just the spackling between plates of drywall that was cracking for the most part. In any case, you couldn't make it down those stairs without holding on to a rail, and the many women with heels on were faring even worse. Heels are definitely not earthquake wear.

When we got to the bottom, we milled about for a while as security told us the building was being checked out. It seemed that we'd be waiting for quite some time, so I decided to head off to check on my family. Neither my iPhone nor my Blackberry were working, so that meant a walk home.

Midnight Run

At about 11:58pm last night I was reading a post in a running forum about losing motivation in running, while that's not exactly my situation—I still very much LOVE running, I'm just currently in a main event no-holds-barred battle royale with an unforgiving feral beast in the form of ITBS. The marquee above this event spells out INJURY VS. RECOVERY in thick red plastic block letters, though the promoters were missing a second "Y" so they just broke an "X" to replace it, from the streets below, hardly anyone notices the difference, but I know it's there, and it bothers me—I took note of one piece of advice in particular, "Just put your shoes on and get out the door". The advice was a floating piece of driftwood in a crocodile infested river that I immediately jumped on to get across to the other side. Shortly after midnight I was out on the cold-cold streets of Japan, running through the cold-cold Nippon night, trying to bang out that 4 miler from the recovery schedule I had pretty much given up on attempting until the moment I began accomplishing it.

Pretty much the first 1.6km (mile-ish) was fine. I cruised the shallows of darkness like a slumbering shark, who despite a preternatural instinct to attack the pavement moving below, drifted by surprisingly reserved.  Too bad I can't say the same for the next 1.6km. The pain in my knee threw it's head back and howled at the moon: pain was a wolf pack nipping at my tendons as I passed beneath the lamplight lining the きゅうえどがわ waters. I reached the turnaround point and walked beyond it for a few minutes, then stretched. Despite the late midnight hour, a decent amount of other runners passed by this same path. One guy swished by so nimbly in bright white pants he looked like nothing more than a blur; though my eyes were somewhat watery from the chilly winds I was facing, so speed at that moment may have been an illusion. Still, he was surely faster than me.

A little bit looser from the stretching I headed home; 3.2km away, strong winds now cutting against my choice in direction, and a painful wolf pack with jaws hinged tightly around my knee, it wasn't easy. I'm not sure if I was stupid for pushing along, or just tenacious (a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B, perhaps), but I made it home running the whole way. I hit up a second bout of stretching and iced the left knee. I should probably be more mindful of my limits here so fresh off the marathon course, but I can't help but crave that long distance run. There's something in me that enjoys the thrill of enduring the distances. Hal Higdon suggests taking it easy for the month following a marathon race, but he's also a man who stacked up 6 marathons on 6 consecutive weekends, so we all recover differently. It's also worth noting he was no novice when he attempted that feat. Training is once again around the corner. Not for another marathon, not yet at least, but there's a 10K (6.2 miles) race at the Imperial Palace a few weeks down the road that I wholeheartedly want to take part in. If this ITBS pain doesn't leave me burnt on the side of the road, the Higdon intermediate 10K training schedule  starts on Monday. Here's hoping all goes well...

Vegan Cherry Almond Cookies

I poached this palatable, pretty much, perfect recipe from a good friend back in Philly. It's far from complicated, and the results have been consistently incredible. I've witnessed non-vegans devour these delectable delicacies as if they suddenly found themselves, mid-mastication, in the midst of a spontaneous magic act where they are desperately trying every sleight of hand trick in the book to make as many cookies as possible disappear right before the eyes of an unassuming audience. 

Despite promising more than a few people I'd bake more than a few batches, I haven't had the chance to try these out in Japan yet. I'm not exactly sure how difficult the ingredients will be to procure here, but again, it doesn't really require anything all that complicated to begin with, so I remain confident that it won't take Houdini to pull off this trick. Feast your eyes on the astonishing third act prestige: 

Vegan Cherry Almond Cookies!!!

I've skipped the almond extract every time I've made them, because they already have fresh almonds in them, so why bother? The taste, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't suffered. The texture turns out to be far fluffier than the majority of other vegan cookie recipes I've tried in the past, so in tandem with impeccable taste & tantalizing tactility—not to mention a timeframe, from start to finish, that pleasantly puts these treats in edible order in under thirty minutes—this treasured recipe trumps the cookie competition by a swift mile. 


Onto the recipe...

Rhythm Method: Minor Threat "Salad Days"

I was 5 years old when, while playing in the spring sun on the front lawn of my great grandmother's house, I heard a call from across the street, "Hey, do you want to come over and play?". The boisterous beckoning came from the mouth of a kid with close-cropped jet-black hair and a camouflage T-shirt—it's a wonder I could see him at all while outfitted with such an elaborate array of combat gear, but the suburban Philadelphia sprawl isn't the most cooperative terrain to test out the field of camouflage tactics in, especially when said camouflaged person is shouting at the top of their lungs on a street corner in the bright afternoon sunlight. After taking my toes to the edge of the property line, where the fine cut blades of grass clearly contrasted the curbside concrete of the intersection between us, my immediate responsible response was, "I'm not allowed to cross the street by myself". The words barely had time to stretch their wings and fly from the nest of thought through the air between us when the kid shot back the cannon blast solution of "Go ask someone older". That was the day I first met Vincent.

In hindsight, traveling 26.2 miles down the same marathon road is not even a drop in the bucket compared to the distances we've gone together since that first day met. It's a rare treasure to form such a bond at that young of an age and continue on with it well into adulthood. When Vin didn't make the first lottery round, I didn't really fret, because somehow, it felt like it was going to work out in the end, and, of course, it did. In my minutia filled marathon post (as well Vincent's post), we both make references to the early morning cannon blast of nostalgia that was Minor Threat. While pondering over the enigmatic mystery of why Ian McKaye sounds so British, we reveled in the fine flood of adrenaline that those hardcore/punk rock bands of our youth always seem to be able to fuel us with. Aki was at a loss as to why we were listening to such irritating fare at some Gawd awful pre-dawn hour of the marathon morning, but the simple response of "It's Minor Threat" was, in our minds, enough to suffice.

So...I present to you the faux-British stylings of Minor Threat's Salad Days.

Weak Week

Living in a post marathon world is a strange new time. It's quiet out here on the cusp of frontier land, held up in a ramshackle shack waiting for the limbo dust storm to blow past, all the while being slightly parched from the lack of running injury & fatigue has imposed on me. Hal Higdon calls this Zero Week in his recovery schedule, and running is a tenuous venture at this point. The flare of the 42km (26.2m) festival has faded like a setting sun in a land fully renowned for the rising of it. Gone are the pre-race jitters and the alluring mystery that, in hindsight, just flooded over the the whole spirit of the marathon like a tsunami of excitation: Ah, how to keep those Good Vibrations a happening?

Runner's Delight: Swag at the Expo

Welcome to Japandyland

Subway Showdown: 2 days to go...

So it goes...

First post-marathon run, first run in Vibram Five Fingers

As you might guess, my knees are not back to normal after the marathon, even though ice + stretching + ofuro has been doing them well. After the marathon, I was walking like a stiff-legged zombie. The day after the marathon, getting up was painful and I was walking slow, but I could at least try to fake that I was walking normally. And it's kept improving; as of today, I still notice that it's there, but it's not affecting movement, except that going down steps remains a no-no. There's also a pattern of what feels vaguely like pressure building up in a knee, which makes it hurt more, but cracking a knee quickly brings it back to normal.

On Tuesday—when the knees were still pretty stiff—I wondered if I could run ball-to-heel; I heard that running barefoot can help you to avoid runner's knee by changing the biomechanics of how it's all working down there. I figured that if it let you avoid the injury, perhaps it wouldn't aggravate it when you already have it. So on one trip from my office to the bathroom located past the elevators, I did a little jog. It couldn't have been more than 10 meters.

The immediate results confirmed my hypothesis; it didn't hurt to run like that. But the weird thing was that, immediately after my mini-jog, my knees felt so much looser and better. That seemed to defy all explanation, but it was what it was.

And it made me think that, despite my knees not being back 100%, I could give the Vibrams I bought a few weeks ago a spin, and today I did just that.

So on went the Vibrams and out I went.

Tokyo Marathon 2011

The evening prior to the race Vin & I didn't really have much of a plan, more like a general inkling of when to get together and basically stuff ourselves full of carbs: this ultimately happened around 6pm on Saturday. In most every training schedule "carb loading" is renowned for its pre-race importance, and I can't argue with it otherwise. We both planned to call it an early night after watching Earth with the kids, and though I told Vin's oldest daughter that it was Darth Vader narrating, she refused to believe me on the basis of Darth Vader being just a character in a movie, and Earth was based in real life. That's solid logic, but the fact remains James Earl Jones is narrating that damn thing.

Before nighty-night time, Vin & I both opted to partake in pre-race お風呂 (ofuro), which is a wicked awesome Japanese style hot bath—OK, stop the snickering, the baths were at separate times—and that really went a long way to loosen the muscles, and just in general relax the mind the night before the big race. Though, I should comment on the two completely different attitudes that were taking place the night before: 1) Vin: yea, there's this thing we're doing tomorrow, maybe you heard of it, it's a marathon. No big deal. 2) Joe: Am I insane for even thinking about trying to attempt to take down this beast? Will I live only long enough to regret ever having tangoed with such a gigantic monster? Good-sweet-sweat-beaded-Christ beard, I'm doomed. And so, with those thoughts akin to visions of sugar plumbs dancing through our heads, we sought sleep.

5am, Vin wakes me up and we start "carb intaking", I want to be careful in the wording here since the night before we literally loaded our bellies with so much pasta & bread it was hard to move; cautious of how full we felt the night before, we didn't want to stuff ourselves past a humanly decent satiated threshold. Our departing time was 7am, so we had 2 hours to kill with nothing much beyond being awake that we needed to do. I think these 2 hours were very crucial to the mental state we left his apartment with. We played Minor Threat songs, joked around, debated the weather predictions from 5 different sources, and sipped on green tea. We basically did the same things we always do when we're together and get pumped up about doing something awesome: in an escalating fashion, we feed off of each others excitement until we're roaring juggernauts of kinetic energy. Perfect for a race day.

7am, we head for the station, which is conveniently on the backside of the apartment. Along the way other marathoners can be seen with their running shoes and clear plastic clothes bags that are sanctioned by the race officials to put your stuff in before the race starts. We picked up a friend along the way who followed us up until the Starbucks where we met people from Vin's running club, Namban Rengyo. We had a good hour or so to kill there, and the baggage despot was in sight across the street, so other than being crazy crowded with runners and an overflowing abundance of consternation from the usual patrons who just wanted latte, but instead were met with a packed parlor of people in various states of dress & undress, it was a perfect location to bide our time. I photo-bombed a few snapshots just for fun and sipped on a small cup of black coffee with faint images of Dale Cooper boasting "damn fine" in the back of my mind.

Twin Peaks Love

Minutes skipped by like Daniel Faraday's description of time travel physics by way of a needle playing on a scratched record, and the loudspeakers were threatening people that if they weren't on their starting blocks in 15 minutes they would be escorted to the end area behind all the runners. I still had to check my baggage, so this was the point I lost Vinnie. He was starting in block B and I was back in block E. We had a loose plan of staying on the left side, I would run fast and he would run slow, and at some point we would meet. It was a madhouse of people slowly shuffling to their starting positions. Though it was morning and cold, the good news was, with so many people around the bodies not only blocked the chilly breeze, but provided an adequate amount of heat. The bad news was, that black coffee I had back at Starbucks was ready to leave me. I followed an arrow that pointed in the general direction of sections C through K. When I got to the top of the ramp, the Freddy Krueger nightmare image of a person holding a sign designating the area I had spent so long shuffling towards as K slapped me in the face like razor fingers. I caught sight of another guy with an E on his number tag that was pushing up the sidelines, and immediately followed behind him. I know it seems like a lot to risk, putting my faith in the fact he knew where he was going, but I also had an ace up my sleeve in the chance he was wrong: since arriving in Japan I have had the good fortune of getting my way in various situations simply because I am gaijin. If, say, we ended up in the wrong block, I was just going to simply say, "I don't understand" repeatedly, and sooner or later they would either let me be, or escort me to the front of the line, which are consistently the only two outcomes that seem to happen in those scenarios: win-win!

Can say I finished a marathon, but can't say I ran one

So today was what Joe and I have been building up to: the Tokyo Marathon.

To recap how I've come into this race, runner's knee knocked me out of my running schedule around Christmas. At that point, I decided to take off from running to recover and ordered a stationary bike, just in case taking off didn't do it. A day or so before the bike arrived, I gave running a go, and things still weren't better.

So that forced me to choose between the lesser of two evils. The longer I stayed on the bike, the more likely my knee would be better, but the worse prepared I'd be for actually running in the marathon. On the other hand, if I tried to run before and screwed up my knee, that could have put me out of the marathon completely. So I ultimately decided that I would just stay on the bike until the marathon, while doing exercises and stretches the help with the runner's knee.

That also changed my whole perspective on the marathon. While training through December, I'd been watching my pace go down and down. Things were progressing so smoothly, I was getting hopeful for a 3:30:00 time or so. That inclination went out the window with my injury.

The plan became survival. I would just go out at a nice and easy pace and focus on getting through the race, rather than worrying about my time. Joe's plan was to run with me for the first half, chatting while running, but then pick it up on the second half. I figured I'd try to pick it up a bit for the last 10km if I was feeling good, but I didn't want to push my luck.

And that brings us right up to the marathon.

Ye Olde Haunts

Yesterday I was in a pretty unique position. It was the first cross training day of the taper week 1, the weather was decent—though slightly chilly—and I had errands to run; which really equates to giving me a reason to go out with Schwinny Cooper. So I took a leisurely foot to a half broken pedal and set out about the town. I immediately grew nostalgic for the streets I have spent so many cold winter weeks pounding & puffing through in the past 16 weeks. I rode through Oreland, my hometown, the town I've spent the majority of my life in, and then headed over to Flourtown—a favorite area for skating back in the day—and breezed back through Erdenheim, a place I had lived briefly in high school, until I circled back through North Hills, and found myself once again back in O-town. It was a good ride. My legs felt heavy at the hilliest points, but I chalk that up, like an outline of a body in a seedy motel parking lot, to the 12 mile LSD I had done the day before. While 12 miles isn't that big of a deal anymore, it still tires out the legs something fierce. When I got home I google mapped my ride to find something I probably should have realized long before now, but it just didn't hit me until that moment; my life, has been neatly contained in less than a 12 mile perimeter, that exists on the outskirts of Philadelphia. I could run 2 laps around the borders of existence as I know it, and that still would not be a full marathon. And here we are, by all accounts, about to break the boundaries.

Today was meant to be a rest day. If you look at the Higdon schedule for any given week, you'll see Mondays & Fridays are primarily rest days. Ah, sweet sweet Mondays & Fridays! But this isn't a normal week by any means: I leave for Japan in less than 24 hours. Part of what I like about the Higdon schedule is its flexibility. Higgy Stardust certainly knows that marathon training is not an easy undertaking, even for someone as seasoned as himself, it is time consuming, as well as physically & mentally draining (though, I must also say there is something exhilarating about pushing yourself farther than you've ever gone before, and finding there's a new, stronger, side of said self way out there). So, instead of resting, I swapped out tomorrow's 5 miler for today's rest day. This was my last run on US soil before the marathon; unless of course I find myself restless at 3am tonight, terrified of the flight ahead of me, and just go for a pre-dawn jog to settle my nerves. I couldn't have really asked for a better day though: it's 58°F, sunny, and just generally uplifting. I ran in shorts outside for the first time in months! That's always a sign of good weather. The only downside is that my Nike+ has already died on me. I don't know why, maybe it's not meant for marathon training, but if it doesn't hold up to constant running, who would really bother buying it? I'm also pretty certain the thing never kept accurate track of my distance, because google maps often gave entirely different estimates. It's kinda too late to do anything about it, so I'll probably just end up shelling out the yen for another one when I arrive in the land of the rising sun. But it's truly a bummer, especially when I face the unfamiliar streets of Nippon for my taper week 2 runs; I'll simply have no idea how far I've gone, unless I find a nice park to pounce, like Tigger, around in.

Also, I can attest, first hand, to the warnings that Hal Higdon repeatedly emphasizes in his 2 week taper schedule prior to the BIG race day: the drop in miles seems very significant, especially after 15 weeks of racking up the miles like Steve Wiebe racks up points for the high score in Donkey Kong, and one immediately begins trying to compensate, whether by running faster, or looking for that extra mile to squeeze in there somewhere along a route that is meant to be a low mile run. I hate it. I really feel like I'm cheating myself out of valuable training days, but I have to reason that Higdon knows what he's talking about, and he wouldn't steer me wrong at this point. Essentially my training is over at this point, what's left, after that 20 mile precipice, is a waiting game. So it's best to listen to Higdon. I'd rather not take unnecessary risks with just under 2 weeks left, which means listening to reason, as opposed to my gut reaction cranking out more miles. The idea now is to keep your muscles loose, give them a nice little respite before the shock and awe of 26.2 descends upon them like winged monkeys tearing the Scarecrow apart in The Wizard of Oz. Hold on to your ruby slippers boys & girls, we have a bit of a journey still ahead of us, and sure, while there's no place like home, home doesn't necessarily have to be a place to begin with, it can easily be a concept you keep close to heart.

Rhythm Method: Spoon "The Underdog"

"Spoon!" for me, was a battle cry in my halcyon teenage years. It was a humorous bit of poppycock that Saturday morning cartoons, like The Tick, showcased with droll non sequiturs so hilarious, to our ears (and impressionable minds), that we just had to filter them into our daily vernacular. Also worth noting, is the general good nature of the phrase itself, while most other utterances at the time were euphemistic in nature, "Spoon!" stands out as something so entirely innocent that its sincerity as pure unadulterated fun never comes into question.

What does any of that have to do with Spoon the band from Austin, Texas? Honestly, they both share a noun. I know, I seem to have pulled some Slumdog Millionaire three-card monte scenario on you all with this tenuous connection, but who's to say Britt Daniel didn't have The Tick in mind when he penned The Underdog (I realize the answer to that question is most likely Britt Daniel, but humor me here)? Most likely Mr. Daniel had the sardonic double-barreled two-fisted middle finger blast in the face of industry in mind when he wrote it, but what still comes across is a brazenly earnest approach to getting by from doing things your own way and succeeding without selling out your values. Whether it's the happy-go-lucky fighting of evil doers, or humming a ditty that never makes it past your own ears, we've all been underdogs from time to time, and the message remains clear: don't give up.

ChicagOreland

I've read innumerable accounts of how the 5 miles you run after that first 20 are the hardest, but I thought they were talking about while you're running the marathon, not 2 days later with a rest period in between. It was far too presumptuous of me to think it only applied to the race. Within the first few strides of today's 5 miler, I knew I was in for a challenge.

The main thing, besides immediate fatigue in my legs, which were obviously not ready to be put to work just yet after Sunday's 20 mile monster mash, that hindered today's run was the howling winds that seemed to kick me in the face at every turn on the road. It was quite the blustery day here at this pooh corner of the Hundred Acre Wood. Wind, especially the bitter cold variety, has a way of greedily tearing the air away from your face before you've had the chance to inhale a significant amount of O2 when you need it most, while running, which really wreaks havoc on the respiratory system, and all those other important systems that keeps a body going. It's not like I'm some cyborg from the year 3022, who can readily handle these conditions, I'm from now's time, and human no less, so I'm on my own when it comes to breathing an adequate amount to sustain life, which I enjoy doing, often, if not always.

I made it to the full 5, but I definitely struggled through much of the run. I trust Higdon. I've gotten this far based on his wisdom alone, and now that the longest training run is out of the way, the only thing between me and the marathon is two sweet sweet weeks of tapering. I know I'm still in crazy marathon mode when I look at this upcoming weekend's 12 mile run as relief, a treat even. I have one more week of good old USA earth beneath my feet before heading overseas to Japandyland to take on one heck of a beast of a long run, and whatever else life has in store. I started this whole running craze with Vincent jogging patiently at my side, and here's hoping his knee heals enough to take on this next big one with me as well. Hey OK, folks, we're in taper country now, there's no turning back, so we're marathon bound.

Down to my last saving throw

So (both of) our frequent readers may have noticed that I've been missing from this blog for a while. That largely comes down to two things: work (including the business surrounding switching jobs, which I recently did) and injury.

I was going to make a detailed post about all of the trials and tribulations of my injury, but let me just give you the short version. Based on my basic internet self-diagnosis, I seemed to have run into a case of good old runner's knee right around Christmas. That led me to take a few weeks off. When I tried running again, I was only able to get through about three miles before it started acting up. All my training has since been switched to a stationary bike that I bought, which doesn't bother the knee at all.

So here's the revised plan for the marathon... Continue training on the bike until close to the marathon. The week of, go out and feel out the road a bit. If the knee seems alright, give the marathon a go, with survival (not a good pace) being the mantra. That's my last saving throw for the Tokyo marathon. If I know it's not going to work out beforehand, I'll pass off the number to someone who can actually run it and maybe I'll ride around on my bike from point to point in the marathon to cheer on Joe (and get in some cross training to boot). If things are looking OK up to the marathon but the knee gets choppy during the marathon, I drop out at the first sign of trouble and turn towards my next race. Otherwise, I suppose I just might actually muddle my way through the whole darn thing.

Riding the bike feels like cake, so I've been making my bike sessions longer than my running sessions would be, assuming a slow 10-minute-per-mile pace. My shortest bike sessions are maybe 1:15:00, and I try to do them every day since I don't really feel like I need the off days. On Sunday, the day when Hal had us doing our longest 20-mile run, I sat on that bike for 3:50:00, which was actually the first time I ever felt sore on it. (I figured that 20 miles at a slow 10-minute-per-mile pace would have been 3:20:00, so I just added some more on top of that.)

And that's basically my revised pace for the marathon; rather than the 9-, 8-, or even 7-minute mile pace I was striving for previously, I've now been relegated to the middle of the bell curve (according to the data from last year, at least) with only a hope to even get a 10- or 11-minute mile pace. That puts my marathon time in a range from approximately 4:20:00 to 4:50:00. If I do pull that off, I suppose it's not horrendous, but it's much worse that I had hoped.

In any case, keep your fingers crossed...

A Perfect Day For Bananafish

I was stuck in a bit of a trance when I was approaching mile 19 today, but was immediately zapped out of it while passing a guy about to get in his car who asked me "Is this your second run today, or are you still going from earlier?". He was speaking directly to the plan I had approached the day with, because I was on a freshly mapped 4 mile loop system, so at any given interval within the past nearly 3 hours he could have seen me pass his house up to 5 times, this being the 5th. 


Anyway, this was my first interaction with a would-be spectator, and when I responded to his question with "I'm still going, just about to finish off 20 miles", the guy's face registered a look of such incredulous shock at my nonchalant utterance of that statement that one might assume his internal thought process was interpreting what I really said as "I am a cyborg from the year 3022. I am skipping through time collecting pivotal information that will eventually be used to finally overthrow the fascist hybrid canine rule of the planetary alliance of galactic star chasers. Do you sir, own a dog?"


I've seen that look time and time again, as non-runners, hearing someone confess their goal of getting to 26.2 in one long run, immediately look disgusted by the mere thought of it. But I've come to question something myself out of this look: is the disgust really with the runner, or is it with their own realization they're not doing anything active & healthy in their lives? I don't mean to sound conceited here, just throwing that idea out there, because along with that look of disgust inevitably comes a more guilty introspective downward glance at the ground, wondering, even if ever so briefly, how far they themselves could move along that same ground. Or maybe the thought of, "I no longer want to be in a conversation with crazy here anymore" is what's really going on. Either way, I certainly encourage all to run, but of course, at this point in my life I may be biased. 


It wasn't all that long ago that I gave Vincent that same look on a day when I picked him up at Trenton train station, and his first question to me when hoping in the car was, "Do you want to go for a run?". The hem & haw routine started almost immediately. I didn't want to run, but I was also extremely curious about what would happen if I started to—I was on the cross country team for exactly 2 weeks in high school. It took me exactly 1 week to realize I didn't want to be running long distances out in the winter weathered air, and exactly another week to decide I was right about my initial instinct on that first week. I quit— and though there's a lot more to that story, we'll gloss over it for another time, because, as you might might guess, the outcome of that fateful day is that I'm here typing this running blog 3 weeks away from my first marathon...


Let's get down to the nitty gritty shall we?

Groundhog Day

So, I've been forced to trek out as much as my training as permissible bunkered below ground in my aunt's basement while the rest of suburban Philadelphia has been glazed over day after day with a fresh coat of snow & ice. There is good news in the forecast however—well, not so much in a meteorological sense, but in a traditional one— since that lovable 125 year old li'l rascal Punxsutawney Phil has gone on record as noting we are in for an early spring.

He saw no shadow when emerging from his hog-cave this frigid wintery morning. I find the great irony in all of this is that if he's right, we only have 2 more weeks of egregious winter weather to make it through, but for me, with a 20 miler on the calendar for this weekend I need the spring break now, because in 2 weeks, I'll be 6,800 miles away and I don't know if Groundhog premonitions apply to international weather systems. I'm sure as I leave Pennsylvania, I'll take with me the knowledge that even if not scientifically accurate, at the very least, what I hear the Groundhog saying is "I know, I hate all this snow too, so let's be done with it already". He's a hog after my own heart.

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.