OMG - I am going friggin' nuts!

Books keep mentioning the importance of controlling "arousal" before a race . Fucking right I'm aroused! With only a few days until marathon, I feel like everything has an exclamation point after it. 

I am VERY excited by the fact that the marathon training program is FUCKING OVER this Friday. Don't get me wrong, it was an excellent plan that brought me here on 4 running workouts per week, since I still had to swim and bike. But let me tell you, the last 2 months were a grind.

I'm looking forward to setting my sights on some even more ridiculous endeavors in the near future. Some of my early, but not definitive, ideas are:

- Breaking 43 minutes in a real 10k (42 minutes maybe?)

- Breaking 21 minutes in a 5k

- Doing at least one half ironman distance triathlon

- Running a 50k or 50 miles race

- Running Boston if I qualify

The idea of running Boston makes me want to puke, since this would mean starting a new marathon training cycle in a month. This is crazy talk!

On the other hand, I'm looking forward to getting back into swimming and biking. Build some base, you know? Work on swimming technique. Become an adequate cyclist.

Now there is the question of this Juggernaut on Sunday. Yes, I'm talking about the Toronto Marathon. I think about it all the time. All. The. Fucking. Time. Things I think about:

- Can I finish? I was so fucking tired after the 20 miler! That wasn't event race pace!

- Where should I park my bike that morning?

- What if my toenail finally comes off during the race? Could it cut my toe off?

- Should I wear a hat?

- Which shuttle should I take?

- What if the pace bunny screws up? Will he tell us in time?

- Do I have a cold, right now? Can I take Otrivin before the race?

- How many milliliters of Gatorade do they put in a paper cup? Do they mix it right or are they cheap?

- Should I bring a couple of gels or Cliff Blocks? Where can I put them?

- What if I don't finish?

Need I say more? I'm excited. Done.

The Edge of Reason

My wife keeps asking me why I feel the need for endurance sports in general and this marathon in particular. I usually just smile. I know she will roll her eyes if I just say platitudes about going beyond my limits. The thing is, this is exactly how I feel. I live in a world where everything is defined and standardized. Everything has been decided for us. You drink in a cup. You pee in a toilet. When you see some kids protesting against '(put a popular cause here like globalization, AIDS or Afghanistan)', you smile because you understand how society actually taught them what are the cool things to rebel against.

To me, endurance racing represents the ultimate rebellion. It is not only physical, by doing something that some people say is "un-natural", but ultimately mental. Running a marathon or other long distance event says: "I do what I want". Racing it hard says "Fuck you", because ultimately there's no reason to race hard. You just chose to and nobody can do anything about it. They ask you why and the only thing you can do is smile ("Fuck you. I do what I want. I know it makes you uncomfortable, but tough.").

Endurance racing allows you to experience the edge of reason. You get to the point where your brain betrays you and actively tries to convince you to stop using completely logical arguments. The only thing that keeps you going is the belief that you should. That's what brings tears to my eyes when I see the later stage of an endurance race. You see all those faces, looking ahead but not seeing, lost into an inner battle, fighting with part of themselves to keep going against all logic. 

So my marathon is coming and I will be tested like I've never been tested before. I will hopefully reach the edge of reason and run outside of logic.

That Epic Feelin'

I've always been disturbed by the concept of brainwashing. The idea that someone can subvert somebody else's thought processes has always given me the heebee-jeebees because we all know people who have been taken advantage of. A good friend of mine got taken advantage of when he was a troubled teenager and ended up in a cult-type religion for 15 years. Every year, I would bet him 5 bucks that this year would NOT be the "End Of Days". He's extremely smart and eventually reasoned his way out of it. Few people do.

To me, going from fat to fit was a bit scary because it required a self-inflicted brainwashing. You buy books, or read blogs, that tell you what to do and how often you should do it. There are chapters on positive reinforcement where you are encouraged to use mantra-type statements (think "you fell strong"). I went around my discomfort by using mostly-technical training plans and I feel it was the right thing for me. Basically though, you have to change the way your brain thinks and make it seek something different. You need a different carrot. You have to go from a belief system where a nice vacation is a week on the beach drinking margaritas and stuffing your face at an all-inclusive, to one (in the case of a triathlete) where you go basically anywhere so you can swim a few km, bike a few dozen and run a half or full marathon. The rest of the family is rarely thrilled, so you might have to alternate.

Some people manage to train and not compete. Training as maintenance. I don't know if I envy or pity them. This is not my case though. I seek the thrill of the competition. I don't expect to "win" but I need those moments where I can do what I trained for at the highest level I'm capable of. 

As I escalated the type of events I'm participating in (Olympic triathlon, marathon) I'm started to experience the "epic" state of consciousness. To me, the epic state starts when some subvertive part of my mind starts talking to me and tells me to stop RIGHT NOW (some hard-core people might say that nothing short of an Ironman or a 100 miler is "Epic" but they can go to hell).  Funny that I should seek a state that is defined by that fact that I want it to stop. Yet that's how it is.

Once you've experienced that epic feeling, you have changed. The epic state can be shortly experienced by looking at people in wetsuits, on bikes (with aerobars works better for me) or in running gears. Watching certain sport videos where the athletes are obviously experiencing an epic moment themselves can actually make you cry. Their pain is your pain and their victory is shared as well. You know.

As big races get closer, I tend to seek mental reinforcement, the very brainwashing device that I was scared of. It just cannot be helped. You just can't run an epic race like a marathon without some mental manipulation. There's no logic to it. Each increasing level of "epic-ity" requires increasing levels of self-reinforcement that become harder and harder to sustain by yourself. You seek your peers on the internet. You quit your regular gym and join an endurance-sport-specific gym where you can meet other crazy people like you. Anything to elicit the epic state.

The next two weeks are going to be mentally challenging. After tomorrow's 20 miler, I'm starting a 2 week taper leading up to the race. Nothing more can be done. I need my body to recover and refuel, but I also need my mind to accept and embrace the upcoming epic experience of running 42.2km.

Some might argue that I'm not that different from my friend. I've been ensnared. Maybe. But NOBODY is telling me what to do and what not to do. Other than "Thou Shall Not Draft" of course.

Pondering Boston

I was looking at the Boston qualifying times yesterday and noticed that the time applied to the date of the Boston Marathon, not the date you run the qualifying race. I wasn't considering trying to qualify for Boston this year. I'm 44 years old and I thought this meant a qualifying time of 3:20, which is way out of my league right now. But I will be 45 on April 20th, 2009. This means that if I run a 3:30 marathon or better, I qualify. 

Now, in theory I should be good for 3:30. I had a fantastic half last Sunday and finished right on my A target of 1:40, which gives me a predicted marathon time of 3:28. But. This is my first marathon and I know very well that the half I ran is the EASY half. My longuest run will be this Sunday at 20 miles. This will be the first race I do where I never actually ran the distance in training. There's a black hole of 6 miles where anything can happen.

I think I WILL go for it though. Over the last few weeks, I've been f@#king around thinking that maybe I should run a bit slower since this is my first marathon. A bit of fear of failure, I think. Thankfully, last Sunday's race showed me that I can do it, IF I decide to try. The thing with racing long distances is that shit doesn't just happen. There are no (good) surprises. You have to plan your pacing and stick with it or there WILL be a surprise and it won't be a good one.

So, on October 19, 2009, if the weather is right, my body is unhurt and my mind is clear, I will run the Toronto marathon as fast as my body can sustain and try to qualify for Boston.

Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon

Well, mission accomplished. This morning I got up at 5 am, did what I do in the morning, applied my BBOR tatts and left around 6 for the race course. I rode my bike there since it's close to my house. The weather was nice, if maybe a bit humid, but cool enough to still be comfortable. I went into my corral about 10 minutes before the start and got close to the 1:45 pace bunny.

The race started exactly on time. Took me about 2 minutes to cross the line and as soon as we crossed, we were running at a good pace. That's a nice thing about the "faster" corrals, you get to go first and you're no stuck in a sea of people. Anyway, about 200 meters in, my Garmin hit something or someone and it flew off my wrist craddle. The pin had broken. I had run maybe 20m before I noticed and had to run against the flow to get it. Other runners were not impressed with the guy running the wrong way! Anyway, I got my Garmin and caught up with the pace group after about 1k. My Garmin was useless, with the tall buildings all around. As soon as we got out of the core, we ran under an elevated freeway for a while and that didn't help. 

After about 6km I felt pretty darn good so I decided to push past the pace group. Never saw them after that. There isn't much to say. I lost my shades taking off my hat to empty a cup of water on my head. I had planted them on top since it was cloudy and they flew off and I decided to forget about them. The course is really flat. I upped the pace for the last 2k and sprinted the last 300m as best I could. 

It's me in black, I had my number belt facing back.

Finished in 1:40:22 (Chip time), 4:45/km (7:39/mile) pace

400/2838 Participants

63/436 M40-44

It's really impressive how precise those time prediction charts can be. From my 10k and 5k times, my predicted half-marathon time was 1:40:20. One could say that it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy and I agree up to a point. For a big chunk of the race, I had a very vague idea of my pace, due to the highway and buildings. I just went as hard as I dared. I really thought I was going to be under 1:40 but it was not to be. So the chart wins. 

I never look at my heart rate during the race but I do wear my strap to record it for post-race "analysis". Call me a geek. Since I dropped my Garmin and it got pretty far from me I don't know how reliable the numbers are at the beginning of the race, but they look pretty good for most of it. My max HR is ridiculously high (196 bpm) so 170 to 180 is pretty comfortable for me. I didn't get above 180 until the last 10 minutes. This tells me I could have gone harder. Things never got uncomfortable until the last 2 km. I wasn't too sure what to expect and I didn't want to blow up right at the end. Maybe next time!

Anyway, a most excellent race that confirms that I'm right on track for my marathon on October 19th!

Dressed Rehearsal

Tomorrow is the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon and in case I haven't mentioned it enough, I'm running the half-marathon as a tune up race for my full marathon, coming up in another 3 weeks. I'm pretty stoked. I have to admit I had a low period there for a few weeks, doubting my training and all that. But I feel good about tomorrow. I had a decent tempo run yesterday at race pace and I think I can sustain that speed. Excitement of the race and all that. I did not carbo-load since the half doesn't stress the glycogen reserves. I did eat easily digested food today to minimize my number-2 production.

The start is at 7:30am so I set my alarm for 5:00am. I want to have a long shower, a nice expresso and slowly get ready. I decided to ride my bike to the race since it's only a few km from my house. I thought of running there, but I don't think I'll feel like running BACK. I trimmed my nails, placed my Bodyglide in my shoe so I don't forget to apply.

I also need to apply my BBOR temporary tattoos. They might not make it to the end of the race, because the material is non-porous and sweat pockets tend to accumulate under the material during long runs.

I finally decided to run the race in my Nike Free 3.0 shoes. I might not run the marathon in them but I think this is the right choice for a shorter race. I feel just so grounded in them. My knee feels more stable and I tend to feel less strain when I run in the Frees.

This race might not be my "A" race, but I'm still excited. 21 kilometers is a long way to run. As much as I hope to run in the 1:40-1:45 range, I don't expect to run faster than that. If I feel great I might pick it up in the last few km, but that won't really change my time by all that much. I think I will run the first few km with the 1:45 pace group and then pick it up if I feel good. Sounds like a plan.

Wish me luck.

Look into Yourself

It's easy to forget that this Sunday's half is not really a race, but rather a "workout" or" tune-up race". There's no real tapering. This week is a recovery week, thank god, but no formal taper. I don't plan on doing any complex carbo-depleteing-loading diet. A half-marathon shouldn't deplete my glycogen so there's no need to overdo it.

That being said, I am getting excited. As race day approaches, my determination to go hard increases. Matt Fitzgerald, the author of the book containing my training program says that he uses the tune-up races as an opportunity to suffer as much as he can. I'll certainly give it a go. 

I think the most interesting aspect of endurance sports is why we choose to do it. For mid-distance races the distance itself is immaterial. People who run those races routinely run further than the actual race. We know we can run the distance. It's all about speed. You can allow yourself to run faster than you would, for this one glorious 5k, 10k or 21k. As you strech the limits of what the human body can comfortably do, you move into the realm of endurance sport, and distance itself becomes the enemy. Runners almost never run the full distance when they train for a marathon, an ultra, an Ironman. Why do I want to tackle that challenge. I'm quite not sure yet. I just know that I want to.

It's possibly my age (I'm 44). Some 40-something feel like they have to buy a Porshe, others need to prove they are not getting older by accomplishing feats that they were not able (or willing) to do when they were younger. According to Marathonguide.com statistics, the Men 40-44 age group is historically the largest AND fastest marathon running age group. WHat does that tell you?

But I don't really care why others run or tri. I'm just happy that they do. Sometimes I feel like I do it so that I can find out why I do it. How fucked up is that? Other times, it's the intensity. There are few moments that are as intense as a race where you plan to give a maximum effort. You can usually tell by looking at people's faces. Even when people joke around before the gun, there's a tension, an edge. The further up you start, in other word the faster people plan to race, the more tension there is. People have race plans. Their brain is busy trying to evaluate how hard to go. Is it hot, cold, windy? There is a clarity of purpose in a race that we seldom experience in everyday life, where things tend to be shades of grey. I believe that this "moment of clarity" is something I seek. The longer the race, the larger the window but the higher the price. The funny thing is that after a few days, you can only remember a faint shadow of those moments. You still have stunningly vivid memories of the race, but you also know that it's nothing like living it. You just know that you will have to race again. 

And maybe, just maybe, if you swim-bike-run even further you will experience something even more intense.