 |
|
|
|
Hopping to HopkintonA lot of the attraction of the marathon for me is wrapped up in the quest. What some may consign to the realm of hot, Houston, training drudgery, I see as a splendid adventure. The more heat, humidity and hard running the better! In our country of increasing convenience, I am an anachronism, longing for the days of legend where people did things that were impossible. People like the crusaders making a quest for the Holy Grail, Christopher Columbus "discovering" the western hemisphere, and Lewis and Clark "finding" the Pacific Northwest. Sure some of their followers died in the process, but the adventure and glory made it all worthwhile. Some of us are still adventuresome in spirit. I notice that my two boys follow Frodo Baggins in their imagination into Mordor to destroy the ring of power. I know that when my wife gives me that once a quarter privilege of selecting the video, I pass right by the romantic comedy section in favor of action adventure! There are as many quests in marathoning as there are runners I am sure. Some are finding their 18-year-old figure; others are discovering more energy and better health. None of these more important ends motivated me however. I found my running quest just one month after becoming a runner. I was signing up for the Conoco Rodeo run in 1995, when this skinny guy told me he had run the previous Houston marathon in 3:28, fifty minutes faster than I had. He proceeded to say that he needed to cut 18 minutes in order to qualify for Boston. I was just floored! Here was a guy light years ahead of me in marathoning that still had another light year to go to make it to the Boston starting line. He told me you got a 5-minute reprieve for every five years over 35. That was no comfort to me at 33 years of age. I did the math when I got home and could not believe it, I would have to move my 9:45 mile pace that I had run down to 7:15! How could anyone do it? But in the improbability of it all, my marathon quest was born. After all the crusaders, Columbus, Lewis and Clark had to travel hundreds of miles through adverse conditions and hostile territory. I just had 26 miles and no one would be trying to kill me! It would just be me killing myself. I went to the Houston public library and checked out a book called Marathoning, by Hal Higdon. I thought if Columbus had his charts, I needed a road map too. Armed with enough knowledge to be dangerous, I hit the streets of Katy in earnest. By the summer of 1995, I was running 50 miles a week all on hard pavement. The wheels came off in early September when my left knee started tingling. Training half hurt in September and October, I was encouraged when I got a 1:28 in the 20K warm-up race. I went home and looked at those comparison charts and believed I could get a 3:20 in the upcoming 1996 Houston marathon. Unfortunately my knee only worsened and I only was able to run ten miles a week. I should have stopped running to heal, but I was on the quest. And when January came around, I was very disappointed in running 3:49. The quest had faded into a dream. Dreaming of Boston was what kept me motivated, despite more injuries that kept me sidelined eight months out of the next two years. Then by 1998 I finally got smart. Two things really helped: knowledge and group running. I gained the knowledge through reading more books and Runner's World magazine. My own training set backs confirmed what I had ignored previously. I found that I needed to run most of my workouts at just an easy pace and on soft surfaces. Just this adjustment would keep me running instead of dreaming of running. The other improvement I made in 1998 was joining a group of runners. I joined the Tornado running club and found out how really slow I was. But they were patient with me and very encouraging so that their energy started to pull me along faster. The quest was starting to become more of a possibility for me in 1999 and 2000. Not only was I older to where my qualifying time was coming down to meet me, but I was now faster. Warm Houston marathons mitigated my reaching 3:15, but I did run 3:23 in 1999 and 3:16 in 2000. Giving up on the notion that a Houston marathon would ever be a cool marathon, I rolled the dice and went with my good friends Ramona Zamudio and Greg Felts up to Wichita, Kansas in October 2000. The course was point-to-point, flat, and the prevailing wind would be at our backs. It turned out to be a day with good weather, with temperatures in the low 40s. Greg and I ran together until mile 8 at about 7:20 pace, I gradually pulled away from him as we entered McConnell Air Force base. I came through the half at 1:35, over 2 minutes ahead of schedule. Shortly thereafter, I started to slow and Greg passed me on a B-2 bomber runway. Greg just kept pulling away towards the 18-mile mark, but I could still see him and he pulled me too! At mile 21 I finally caught him on a bike path. I passed him as fast as I could as his calf cramped up. I felt a little bad taking advantage of a temporarily fallen comrade, but this had become a race within a race. For the next three painful miles, I and this 50-year-old guy from Missouri hung together as a cold 40-degree rain started to envelope us. But then it happened the bike path ended at mile 24 into downtown Wichita and the volunteer called out 2:57. I did the math in my increasingly numb mind and I had 18 minutes to run 2.2 miles. It was at this point that I knew I had made it, barring a last minute collapse. I was Boston bound! My pace slowed some as the rain came down in torrents. I could barely see into a surreal world as my sore feet splashed through large puddles. I finished in 3:14:01, making Boston by 59 seconds. I was never so happy in my running life! Good weather and good running friends had made all the difference. I signed up for Boston the next week; I did not want to miss the party. I went on and ran it in April of 2001. It was truly a glorious place, a runner's Disney World. It had all the media trucks, all the world class runners, all that history and I was with all my friends: Greg Felts, Jeff Eisele, German Collazos, Larry Lindeen, Eddie Espinoza, and Monica Montes, Duval Ruiz and others. I did not count them all, but it seemed like there was ten times the number of fans along the course as in Houston. They were loud and spoke with such boisterous accents. The women of Wellesley College were the pinnacle of the whole experience. We ran through a half-mile scream tunnel, louder than a rock concert. Hundreds of these college women held out their hands and I made sure that I slapped everyone of them! The hills were incessant, constantly going up and down, I swore there was not one flat spot on that entire course. For a Houston runner like me, it became an ordeal after ten miles. I am sorry to say that after mile 12; I made a pledge to myself to walk every uphill, even heartbreak hill itself but I made it in 4:02, almost 2 hours after LeeBong-Ju, but a finisher nonetheless. The quest had really been worth it. It motivated me to run five years and nine marathons. Like all quests when one does not find another one, I soon became fat and happy. I stopped running all together for 2 months and then tried to come back too quick and got hurt and had to lay off for five months, came back again and got hurt for a second time. Then after gaining 20 pounds, I joined Katyfit in July of 2002. I did not have a quest anymore, but just had a lot of fun running with Ken, Jackie, Karen, Mike, Olaf, Eric and the other blues. My left knee was still sore most of the fall so that I could not do any intervals. But I did lose 25 pounds mainly from going cold turkey on Dr. Peppers (I was drinking more than just 10, 2 and 4). I was able to go to Memorial Park once a week and do a 4-6 mile tempo run. So in January of 2003 I got in a van full of Katyfitzians, and Pat drove us to the George R. Brown. My medical participant pass got us some fabulous parking, but what was even more fabulous was that 38-degree weather, in Houston! My goal for that day was to PR and my dreamtime was to break 3:10. I ran most of it with a good running friend, Rob Walters from the Bayou City Road Runners. But to my amazement, I ran a 3:06. I am still in denial! Shortly after I crossed the finish line last January another quest was born, breaking the 3-hour barrier. I do not feel overconfident of reaching this particular Holy Grail. I have many marathoning friends who have tried to break this barrier, only to come up short. I have no great will power to drive my body to run 6:50 mile pace for 26 miles either. So I am just dreaming of 2:59 as I do my 8:00 per mile easy runs. I am hoping too that a couple of things may assist me on my new journey: joining the Katyfit ATP group and secondly having friends to run it with next January. I know some Tornados and Rob will be there to run it with me, and hopefully and some other ATPers.So far after two months, 35 of us ATP adventurers have been on the quest for dramatic running improvement or to Boston qualify. We have come together with all of our running dreams to form a fabulous new running body. Through all the ever present heat and humidity; combined with time trials, hopping, push-ups, toe raises, waddling and hopping we have been woven together as one. We are not on a one-dimensional running regimen; we workout latterly, diagonally, on the ground, and in the air. Our running body is more about balance, trunk-strength and beautiful pectorals! Running is just the icing on the cake. The Navy SEALs spend less time in the dirt than we do! So do not look at us as individual runners any longer, we are a grass stained, highflying kangaroo, hopping our way to Hopkinton. For if some of us do not make it to Boston, we will carry the others with us in our hearts. Ours has been a shared experience. It's the age-old formula of mutual embarrassment combined with shared sacrifice that forms our body. For us it's not about time, it's the adventure of getting there that really matters. It has been all about learning and laughing with my ATP group, catching their spirit and being swept away by their joy. In my imagination, we are not so much of a training group, but rather a fellowship, the Fellowship of ATP. Instead of having four Hobbits, an elf, a dwarf, two men and a wizard, we have a few more men, but more importantly we have a bunch of women! And we have already benefited from their wisdom and perspective, like Disco reminding us that we were not doing a proper cool down or her correcting my improper bicycle kick. Not only do they help us through correcting our over training instincts and poor form, they also inspire us with their perfection. I still cannot get the image out of my mind of Geraldine gracefully floating over the earth as she did those double kicks. I am still in awe! Or if her artistry is not enough, there is Terry and Courtney, who can-canned and kicked their way down the path as well as any Vegas showgirl! Although I missed this session, I heard that Terry could sing New York, New York while doing all of the above! And not to be outdone is our fearless leader (reputed to have done silly walks all by himself) who can sing happy birthday and do the hot stove bounce at the same time! Certainly way above the talent level of any other color group leader that I have ever seen! Steve has been the glue holding this kangaroo together. He has been exceptionally organized, very knowledgeable, and his love for running and care for us shines through. With Steve and our ATP women, we certainly are way ahead of those boys who journeyed towards Mordor! |
|
For questions or comments about this web site,
|
