Marathoning Matters

Sawyer Camp Trail and the Milestones after the Layoff

It’s still dark when I drive out of the Bar Mitzvah hotel parking lot and head up the hill to the Sawyer Camp trail head, a classic out and back asphalt trail with milestone markers. I used to run here a lot. It’s like running into my past.

Even in the dark, going around the first bend and catching a glimpse of fog coming off the reservoir formed in the rift of the San Andreas fault, running here feels familiar.

A slight climb to the mile one marker.  I remember coming back here for my first run after a six months layoff, uncertain.  But that was more than a decade ago.  Shin splints had really hit hard and suddenly as I was going across the Golden Gate Bridge at the beginning of the 1996 San Francisco marathon. I probably wouldn’t have needed such a long layoff had I the sense to stop once I had gimped across the bridge. I was pretty sure the shin splints were gone, or at least I hoped they were as I started that first run after the layoff. Certainly my conditioning was gone.  A bit like how I feel today.  Not great, not like when you have the feeling that you can run forever. More like the relief that you can still run at all after a long layoff.

Mile two marker.  The two mile marker reminds me of running around that bend with Bob, the VP of marketing for an enterprise software company who had run cross country in college. Bet he thought it was weird to get invited out for a run by some technical magazine editor/publisher, but he didn’t let on.  He wanted the story. I was hoping he’d buy a page if I wrote a story.  We were both in shape, able to carry on an interview at 7 minute pace. Heck, he could have given me good quotes at six minute pace. But I would have only been able to keep up for a few paragraphs. Last time I ever really talked to Bob.  Didn’t get an ad page. Story wasn’t bad though, considering I couldn’t take notes. Too bad about print journalism dying.  I kind of miss it.

Mile three marker. I used to take Theo running on Sawyer Camp trail in the jog stroller when he was a baby.  He used to hang in for most of the full 12 miles, six out and back.  But he’d be lulled by the miles and sleepy by the time we came back to the three mile marker by the ranger's house and he’d cry himself to sleep.  How could a happy baby need crying to sleep? Parents strolling along the trail looked at me like I was torturing the poor kid by making him come along on my run.

Mile four marker.  Still thinking about Theo.  He’s eight now. What is he going to think if there’s no college fund for him, or money for a Bar Mitzvah weekend like his cousin Jeremy was having? Especially with the pushing he gets from us? Even on the running front. I had invited Theo to run with me this year. Only 1.3 miles, loping along with me and the dog. I thought I had invited him, anyway, not made him.  And how hard could 1.3 miles be?  Must have been hard, though.  He got side aches. Blisters. Shin splints, maybe, the way he complained later. Didn’t realize I was making him run against his will. He just wanted to make me happy, my wife says.  It took him three weeks to get up the courage to tell me he didn’t want to run anymore.  “I’m not getting better, Dad.”  Don’t know how many weeks it will take me to tell him and his brother Zane if things really get bad on the money front.

Mile five marker.  Turn around point.  Skip the steep last mile out and mile back. I’m just not in shape for it after this layoff. Spot a redwood bench.  Is that one of those memorial benches that are popping up everywhere on the trails?  Yep, to a Greenwald. I had always wanted to push my Mom on Sawyer Camp Trail after she came down with Lou Gehrig’s disease, maybe then put up one of those benches to memorialize that this was her favorite place.  Probably okay that I never pushed her here.  She liked going to the movies more. I think it helped her forget.  The sillier the movie the better.  Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigilo. I’m sure the laughs beat watching me run. Or, rather, looking straight ahead and worrying about whether her son running behind her was going to lose control of the wheel chair on the downhills.  Glad Dick Hoyt and his son don’t have that problem. Yes, better to go to the movies. Me pushing her in her wheel chair down to the front row, very controlled.  Later, after she had the tracheotomy in her throat and needed her lungs suctioned every few hours, she really worried about losing control. Once we unfurled the whole reel of air line tubing, moved the oxygen machine close to the front door, and rolled Mom out of the house onto the driveway.  Her first time outside in months.  Thought she would find it a marvelous thing, like an astronaut floating in space with shining blue mother earth below. Instead Mom looked scared.  Like she was sure we’d let the oxygen tether kink or pull loose like in 2001, A Space Odyssey.  Asked her if she wanted to go back in and she blinked yes. We got her back inside stat, back in front of the television and her favorite shows on the romance channel. She relaxed. That was her last time outside. Would have to put the memorial bench commemorating her favorite place in her family room. Maybe in the movie theater.

Mile two marker.  Says four on the other side.  That makes six miles total, four to go.  Just couldn't do 12, could I? Well, anyway, it wouldn’t do to miss the brunch the day after Jeremy’s Bar Mitzvah. Jeremy’s d'var Torah speech after all the great reading he did from the Torah was about choices and names.  MarathonMatters.  Yes, I got it. He even had worked some laughs into his speech. Moses mumbling. And he talked about messing up a try-out for a kids’ role in a commercial. Heck, we lived in LA and MY kids hadn’t tried out for a commercial.  Jeremy said he had failed to rehearse enough and blew his line. Self-aware kid, Jeremy. He was going places. No lucky break TV commercial needed.  Maybe I better start taking my boys to tryouts. My boys, or at least Theo, didn’t have that self aware thing going for them yet.

 Mile three marker again. Would my boys want to do the Bar Mitzvah thing? With me being laid off and the economy hamstrung, maybe we’d missed the window for financing the kind of Bar Mitzvah spectacular they would expect.  Free sunglasses in hotel ballrooms with high tech DJs and professionally produced slide shows and hand-painted Tshirts and crepes by a man in a chef’s hat? Didn’t look to be in the cards.  Jesus, this Bar Mitzvah thing would be hard enough for Theo, crying himself to sleep Theo, building up with anxiety about his performance Theo, without him also worrying about the affair seeming cheap. Would that be the end of their Jewish heritage? Or just their free sunglasses in hotel ballrooms heritage?

Mile two marker.  Journey nearly over, eight down and two to go, but call it the middle, sort of like the way we call my age middle age. I’d never had Zane out on this trail.  Zane was two years younger than Theo, had never lived near Sawyer Camp trail, had never needed to cry himself to sleep.  After we moved to Woodland Hills, I’d take him and Theo out in the double-jog stroller with harness belts and a roll bar.  Zane would fall asleep peacefully while I’d listen to Theo yammer on asking really smart questions from the back seat of the jog stroller. Really smart questions that were also safe because he knew the answer to them while I labored pushing the two of them dead weight up the big hill to the apex of the run.  Theo had grown too big for that double-jog stroller now.  Zane could still fit if I put him in the back so he could stretch out his feet and we’d run in it just the week before.  He’d gotten over his fear from the time a giant bumble bee had flown into my face and I’d reflexively slapped at it, letting go of the handlebar, sending the double jog stroller crashing, putting the roll bar and harness belts to good use.  People driving on Canoga Avenue had pulled over to ask if we were all okay. Wish Zane was out here, Theo too, to see the fog rising off Crystal Springs Reservoir as the sun rose higher next to Camp Sawyer trail. Easy running compared to that double jog stroller crash. No way I’d ever let them go crashing, even after a layoff.

Mile marker five, one mile to go.  Maybe we’d go by the house where Theo spent his first year, visit the lady across the street who’d given Theo the stuffed dog he still slept with, meet the dog that looked just like his favorite stuffed animal.  Maybe go by the house where I grew up too.  Not to stop.  Did Jeremy say something about being estranged in his Bar Mitzvah speech? No, I must have read it somewhere this weekend.  Or just thought about it because I didn’t want to see my Brother who still lives there where my Mom’s memorial bench should be in front of the TV.  Maybe we could stop by the school where in the summertime I learned to play baseball without parents and umpires and league jerseys. Where in the winter I used to love it when our PE instructor sent us out for some laps.  It was different when we were kids.

Wow, mile zero marker so soon?  Runners high? Where did the miles go? What does "mile zero" mean in the milestones of life, anyway?  Sun’s been up for 30 minutes.  Be careful, like with the boys and for the boys, so look both ways before crossing the road.  Get in the car. A little hard to step up into the driver’s seat, a little creaky from the miles. Not good when a layoff lasts too long.  I drive back to the hotel.  The bill has been slipped under the door while I was gone. Yikes, that much?  Sylvia and the boys are still sleeping peacefully. Think I’ll check Ladders.

A Marathon Resolution to Run More Than So Many Miles a Year. Resolve to Run the Rest of Our Lives.

Run to have a long run. It seems that the New Year’s Resolutions of non-runners are rarely observed for a month, much less the whole year. Witness the January fitness center attendance surge and decline. 

Marathoners do better. We have the resolve to complete marathon training, after all.

But our plans rarely extend more than a year.  We resolve to run so many miles in the coming year, or train for the following marathons in the spring, summer, fall and winter.

I believe the best set of marathon resolutions has to be scoped for a lifetime.  Sure, it’s fine to include a few marathon sign-ups for the present and near future, and maybe a mileage goal too, but the ultimate reference point should be on why you started running in the first place. Doesn't that mostly boil down to leading a better and, you would hope, a longer life.

Thus I hope the following resolutions make sense, or make the rest of my blog make a little more sense, even if they don’t inspire you to make a similar set of resolutions yourself.

I also hope it makes you think of the larger meaning when you see one of those “runners do it longer” bumper stickers.

I resolve to run marathons for as long as I live.   Running keeps me fit, keeps my weight closer to a healthy ideal, relieves my stress, sharpens me mentally, revs my metabolism higher, all of which combines to make me happy.  Okay, and I also like the runner’s high. 

My goal time used to be 3 hours, but now I resolve to maintain my age grade. My previous resolution can be difficult because of the aging process in any case, and one has to take the typical one minute a year slowdown in stride.  Thus I’ve abandoned my goal of a PR for an age graded PR.  I need to keep why I run in perspective.

To keep running longer, I resolve to run less.  This one might seem a bit counterintuitive for someone who loves to run, particularly given that more mileage tracks to better performance and the ultimate pleasure of running long and well, but I think it’s inevitable. Coping with the wear and tear of running requires more recuperation time as I age.  Getting out there with enthusiasm EVERY day can also get old, particularly with the other demands of my life. And I enjoy runs more if I do them a little less often. 

The fact that the Furman plan of running only 3 days a week with cross training on two other days resulted in my highest placement at the LA Marathon makes this resolution easier to take. 

I resolve to always ramp mileage back up slowly.  I know that every time I’ve ramped up mileage too fast, I’ve suffered the same injury: a calf strain, once in combination with shin splits. It’s a great pleasure to go back out for your favorite mid-length run after a post-marathon recovery layoff, but as you grow older you may pay the price with an unwanted layoff. 

I remember reading that calf strains are “commonplace among older runners.”  (Sigh.) I’ve also read that repeating the same action while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. (Insane sigh.) In my case, I think it’s more like foolishness than insanity. (Foolish sigh).

If you’re thinking you need to make a similar resolution because you’ve suffered a recurring injury, figure out what caused it and stop.  Ramping up too quickly, pushing too hard, recovering too little, recuperating for too short a time ... resist the urge to overdo it and you'll be more likely to make your longer term goals.

I resolve to connect again with a running club and regular running partner.  No better way to make sure you show up than having someone expect you to (Woody Allen's maxim that showing up is 80 percent of success applies to marathons too).  My 3:13 at LA came when I trained with an Irvine City recreation department running group, and found one partner for weekly long runs. And my 3:06 PR came after I ran tempo runs once a week with the Palo Alto running group and ran long runs with my buddy Zack.

I resolve to run a few benchmark races every year. I admire the people who've run the LA Marathon every year since it's inception, although many find their streak is in jeopardy because of the date change to a potentially hot Monday. My goal is settle on one big city spring marathon to run every year, one hilly half marathon (my favorite being the Mulholland Fire Trail run that's run on my favorite long-run route), and any old flat 5K. 

I resolve to help try to save the LA Marathon. This resolution fits in with my overall goal of running to run longer because the LA Marathon has become my annual ritual run and benchmark of what kind of shape I'm in. It's a tough resolution, especially since the LA Marathon doesn’t seem to realize it needs saving. 

Maybe I’m an alarmist, but the announcement of a second date change of the 2009 LA Marathon by about 12 weeks to Memorial Day on Monday, May 25^th could be the LA Marathon’s death knell. The city seems unlikely to accept a further decline in attendance during a deep recession given the high cost of putting the race on. You can catch up on the background here. Disrupting the training plans and flight bookings of thousands, ignoring how many people don’t have that Monday off, failing to recognize that the LA Marathon lacks the allure that allows the Boston Marathon to be a favorite even through it’s run on a Monday, and scheduling LA opposite the far more popular and relatively nearby San Diego Rock ’n’ Roll marathon are sure to make many people decide not to sign up. 

The organizers seem to realize there's a problem, but not the extent of it.  They announced on Dec 31 that they're working on an earlier start time, which will mean the race is a bit cooler. While the race organizers seemingly were satisfied that average LA temperature for May 25^th is 74, they've recognized that's about 25 degrees higher than optimal temperature for a marathon.  Averages are always misleading. In both 2003 and 2005, LA experienced heat waves during that week in May.  High temperature in LA on May 23, 2003 was 101!  High temperature on May 22, 2005 was 102! 

I don’t want the LA Marathon to die: it’s my local marathon, my yearly ritual run, my annual benchmark.  And I certainly don’t want people to die running LA.  Or even to be hospitalized, or to have to stop midway ala’ Chicago 2008.  I don’t think LA is strong enough to survive those kinds of shocks, given how easily churches were able to force the event from a Sunday date. 

An earlier start helps. Better yet would be a change in course to the cooler clime near the Pacific (instead of sticking to the hot and far less scenic interior of LA). And absolutely they need to change the date going forward back to President's Day in February if they have to stick to holiday Mondays. 

You can resolve to help save the LA Marathon by commenting below.  I'll be forwarding comments to the LA City Council and LA Marathon LLC.