Tucson Marathon--My first Boston Qualifier!

*****Disclaimer: My apologies that this is so long. For those of you who want just the executive summary, go all the way to the end. And thanks to Mac and all my wonderful teammates/friends for you support along the way. Robert

Let me start by saying, "Go Bulldogs!"

I'll explain.

As many of you know, the Tucson, Arizona, marathon was the race I picked for my first marathon in nearly four years. The race represented to me a milestone on along road back—18 months, in fact--from being completely out of running for more than a year and having gained more than 30 pounds. I started back up with Austin Fit and worked my way from pace group to pace group, starting with the 11minutegang and gradually working my way up into some semblance of proximity to the tail end of the 8:30 group. My coach with Austin Fit, Mercedes "Cricket" Orten, kept on suggesting to me that I join Teammac. She described her activities with the group and related stories about the various personalities. Without going into details, they sounded like completely marginal characters.


I was in.

I won't go into details about how Teammac worked for me, because many of you guys know all of this already; suffice it to say, I started getting a little faster. As many of you also know, my job keeps me too busy, sometimes insanely so, and I have to travel too much, as well. Consequently my training wasn't as consistent as I would have liked. I'm not alone in this. We have busy lives. In short, my training was a mixed bag, but overall, much improved over years past.

By Tucson I'd managed to put together a few good long runs, which was one of my goals, to do multiple 20-plus mile runs before my marathon. On one of those runs, I wound up going for several miles with Teammac ex-pat Lauren Sheinberg, who soon after I joined up with her little pack, started evangelizing about the benefits of the Galloway method, an insane approach to running marathons that insists that you walk for 20 or 30 seconds each mile, the counter-intuitive idea being that you'll run faster overall if you take frequent walk breaks. (One hilarious parody of the method takes it a step further and describes the Galloway Nap method, whereby you take a power nap every few miles, the end result being you're so refreshed you cut many minutes off your overall time. ☺)

I was in.

Of course I hadn't training for Galloway, though I did buy one of the author’s books and read parts of it that I felt applied to me. I wasn't entirely clear on the method, but Coach helped me figure out a walk/run ratio that might work, and practiced that with some success on a few runs leading up to my race. The way figured it I had little to lose. I would at worst be a few minutes slower than I’d otherwise be, and since I had no pressing timetable to get a good qualifying time—I had around 18 months to qualify for Boston 2014—I figured what the hell. Let me talk briefly about goals, something that my teammates Meg and Sunday tell me I'm a little twisted about because I am very conservative, too conservative they say. They're probably right. 

My goal is to qualify for Boston (a big marathon run annually just east of Texas). Due to Boston's ongoing policy of institutionalized cruelty, they this year made everybody's qualifying times 6 minutes faster, as if it wasn't challenging enough previously to get in. I've never qualified; my PR, accomplished on my first race five years ago, was 3:47; the next year I did a 3:51 after having been sick for the month leading up to the race. Good results both, but not what I needed for Boston. For Boston, as it turned out, I had two ways to qualify: fast and faster. I was and am in a very interesting situation Boston-wise. Because I'll be 55 years old by the 2014 running of the Beantown classic (and hence able to get the AARP discount at Austin Java), my qualifying time is 3:40.

To qualify for 2013,a race that is full, it would be ten full minutes faster: 3:30. I wanted to qualify on my own terms, to not back into it with a ten-minute head start. I wanted to be able to look those wicked marathon organizers in the eye and say, “See, I did it despite your treachery!" Or something to that effect.

Tucson seemed an attractive race for three main reasons. One, Tucson is a great town, so it would make an easy, cheapish getaway. Two, the race is a downhill one with a great record for Boston qualifiers. Three, the weather in December in Tucson is very predictably good. Even if the days are warmer than usual, the high temps don't usually kick in until after the race is done.

All of this worked exactly as I'd anticipated, except for number two. The downhill race part was as hard as it was good. More on that later.

When I got to Tucson I headed to Goodwill to grab some clothes I could keep warm in at the start and then ditch when the gun went off. I found a perfect "Butler” university grey hoodie in my size, pulled the $9 trigger and pulled it on. Later that chilly morning at the marathon expo, I started to realize the folly of my choice, as one then another then another then yet another Indiana type approached me and asked about my sweatshirt. I told them the story of getting it at Goodwill, ditch it after the start, I'm really went to school in Southern California, blah blah, but the look of disappointment in their faces was too much to bear. Moroever, even after I'd explained I had absolutely no earthly connection besides the sweatshirt to their beloved Indianapolis Catholic University they'd still proceed to tell me all about their Butler connection. After the fifth time, I went with the flow and simply told them than, yeah, I did go to Butler. Class of '82. Go Bulldogs! At some point I came up with major, a favorite professor, and had no end of opinions about the current basketball team. (Sleepers, I tell ya!) And everyone was happy.

The morning of the marathon came for me at 1 am, which is when I awoke and couldn't get back to sleep. I did get in another three and half solid hours of tossing and turning, which is par for the course for a marathon for a lot of folks. I didn't have to be alert, I reasoned, just moving.

We got to the bus pickup at 5, boarded a brand new charter bus and I proceeded to nap on and off while the driver took us the 30-some-odd miles out of town to the race start in a beautiful and weird little town called Oracle, where we all sat on the warm comfy bus instead of going out to the start and milling around for an hour. When we finally got out, we were greeted by a surreal scene. The start was on small desert road surrounded by hills with granite boulders and cactus on both sides. It was all lit up by floodlights, and in the air were the competing sounds of the Rolling Stones and the portable generators. The air was a perfect 45 degrees. I shed my extra layers (putting my by-now beloved Butler sweatshirt in my drop bag) and headed for the bathroom.

We timed it badly, though, as it turned out there weren't enough porta potties We lined up clear across the road, on the desert hill and waited while the line slowly, slowly made its way. It was nerve wracking. We barely made it in time for the start, but we'd been unable to make it anywhere near the front of the pack. Oh well. The gun went off and the crowd began to slowly surge forward toward the starting gate, a hint of the sunrise lighting up the desert sky with orange and blues. It was gorgeous, and I was ready to run. Because we'd been unable to make near the front, we spend the next several minutes picking our way through the slower runners around us. I ran for the first few miles with my friend and coach, Quincy Arey, and it was nice to have the company at the start.

There were some prodigious downhill sections near the start, and after three miles I was right around 7 minute miles and feeling no pain. As the crowd thinned out a little and as I settled on a pace, the character of the course started making itself clear. There were downhills, for sure, but there multiple uphill sections too, with challenging three, four hundred yard climbs interspersed with the downs. This was going to be work. But I was running well. My breathing was under control—as many of you know, this can be an issue for me, as well—and I `d started doing my Galloway thing. At my mile-three walk, a guy told me to hang in there, as though I'd already started to hit the wall. It struck me as cute and sweet that he thought a pep talk could help somebody who'd hit a wall at mile three.

One principle of Galloway is that you need to do it from the start for it to work, and I did. I'd figured out in practice with Mac that 41 fast walking steps equaled 20 seconds, so there was no timing involved, which simplified things. Through the first 10K I was still fast, faster than my 10-K PR, in fact. But I felt really good, too. It wasn't until Mile ten that I started to struggle a bit. At that point in the race, you do an out-and-back section, up toward the world-famous Biosphere (where a bunch of really smart kooks lived totally enclosed in a sphere for like a year). The two-mile trip up toward the `sphere was hellish. Runners were already starting to crash. I kept Gallowaying my way up the hill, but it began to sink in that I wasn't going to do this race as fast as I'd been fantasizing about.

The next bad thing to happen was when I made the turn back down the Biosphere road and realized that running downhill was no longer as much fun as it had been just a half hour previous. Oh, it was more fun than that uphill was, but I wasn't flying down this hill. I'd have to keep my eye on that phenomenon. Near the end of the back part of the out-and-back was the half-marathon mark. I was sub-PR for that, too. At around 1:39, it was eight minutes better than my PR, which I'd set in Austin just last year. Interesting.

As is the case with the Austin Marathon course, the second half of Tucson is very different in nature than the first half. Half two is characterized by long, flattish sections along a major three-lane highway, with one lane blocked off for the runners. There are long sections of slight downhills, but the grade is so gradual, it was hard for me to tell if I was running flat or downhill. It was disconcerting. Still, I kept cruising, though was finding my walk breaks not lasting as long as I'd hoped they last. I was still on pace for a very fast marathon, around 3:20, not that I thought it would really happen that day. There was a lot of running left to do. As it turned out, I got to do a lot of that running with terrible pain in my left foot. Well, I should say that it wasn't a constant pain: it only hurt when I stepped on my left foot, which was only half the time I stepped down at all. I’m such a complainer.

My working theory was that it was a toenail gone bad, and I tried to keep my gait as even as possible, so my favoring the hurting foot wouldn't mess up my stride and cause an injury somewhere else. That seemed to work. I was also getting tired and I was thinking those terrible last-7-mile thoughts: why did I do this? Will it ever be over? Why don't I just start walking now and give up on the time goal? I battled each and every one, telling myself that if I somehow just kept going, I would be so happy that I did and that if I gave up, I’d be hating myself for a long time for not giving it all I had. It was true.

I kept it up.

At mile 20 in the Galloway universe of thought, you stop taking your walk breaks and run the last 10K as though it's a normal race. This was not in the cards for me. In fact, I wound up walking about twice every mile, though I did my best to keep the break to 20 seconds, though it was really hard to do. To complicate matters, the course got tougher at the end, with a number—I lost track—of hills leading up to the finish. I struggled up them and kept moving for the most part. I was still looking at sub-3:30 if I could just, somehow manage to keep moving. My foot was killing me, I was weak, I was exhausted. Other than that, it was a lovely day.

The 24/25-mile point nearly did me in. I felt I was barely moving, I was starting to stagger a little in my stride. Then, with about a half mile left, the 3:30-pace group, which I'd been way out in front of the entire race caught me from behind, and I thought. I'll just keep up with these guys and I'm home free. I did keep up with them, for about 90 seconds, and I walked. At that point, I decided to just keep running, and instead of looking up, I looked down, watching my feet hypnotically swapping places as I went. Then I saw the finish corral, and I knew I was going to make it. I actually, somehow barely managed to pick up the pace, and as I crossed the line I glanced up at my time: 3:30:10, and I knew, because I started so far back in the pack, I'd done it, my first Boston qualifying time! (The official time turned out to be 3:28:45;sweet!)

I then heard Quincy's voice: she was so excited to see me crossing and she, too, knew I'd done it. I was so happy to hear her voice, somebody there who knew what my race meant to me. I grabbed my medal, then stumbled directly to the med tent, where I collapsed on a cot next to some guy named Nate who seemed perfectly fine compared to me. The doc in attendance looked at my toe, didn't find anything broken right off, gave me a bunch of Gatorade and congratulated me on my race—must be a runner, I reasoned.

After about 15 minutes, I got up, with help, and hobbled off to find Quincy, who’d done the race in a PR of 3:22! We found food—it was great. And wandered off to find our drop bags. I'd done it. I was sore, exhausted, ready to sleep, hungry and did I mention sore, but I was happy, so happy to have reached my goal.

Later at the airport heading out of town I was one of those couple of dozen finishers wandering around the terminal wearing my race medal, still grinning like an idiot, and I reflected on this crazy thing we all do, knowing even more than I usually do that it does make sense some way, in some kind of crazy way you just feel in your bones and you know is true.

Go Bulldogs!

****Executive Summary: My first race in four years. Previous PR: 3:47 five years ago. Time in Tucson: 3:28. PR by 19 minutes. Did Galloway. I think it really worked for me. First half I rocked it: PR for 10K and half marathon by a lot. Course was downhill but very tough. My quads are trashed. A week later, I’m still recovering. Would do it again in a heartbeat, though. Great race, great people, very well organized and runner friendly. Five stars. Special thanks to Erika, Coach Mac, Mercedes, Lauren, that Bastard James Booher (my first running coach), friend and running buddy Tom Howe, Meg, Btit, Kelly, Sunday, Charles, Shannon, Alex, Lisa, Jenn, Mike, Bobby, Chris, Aaron, Jamie, Betty, Patricia, Carmelo, Dan, Lisa (who got me started on this insanity), Mika, Jim, my grandfather Eli (who ran Boston 100 years ago), and my good pup Django, who puts up with me leaving the house without him more often than he'd like. Which is ever.

First Half Marathon

My first half marathon was supposed to nothing more than an exercise, a formality, but it turned into something else entirely. You see, unlike runners who concentrate on the half marathon distance, I signed up to run the Austin Livestrong Half Marathon more as a benchmark than a race. My goal since restarting training nine months ago was simply to get back in running shape, a goal I hoped would be evidenced by a decent time (4:00 hours or less) in a marathon sometime within 12 months' time.

My readiness for Austin as a first marathon back was questionable. I felt extremely confident in my ability to run a 4:10 26.2 miler and reasonably confident in my ability to come in under 4 hours. But my problem, if you can call it that, was that my running had been improving at a rapid rate over they past two months. Since the fall, I'd gone from running 11-plus minute miles on long runs to 9 or slighter faster splits. Of late, I'd been regularly doing double-digit runs at an 8:30 pace. I felt as though a 9-plus minute paced marathon was going to be a disappointment to me. So instead of doing that just to do it, I decided instead to run a half at a pace I'd feel happy with. Austin is a tough course, with long climbs early on and several substantial hills later in the race, so I wasn't looking to set the world on fire. But I did think I could reasonably aim for 8:30 miles and with some great effort, come close to hitting that.

As the race got closer, however, I thought that maybe I wasn't pushing the envelope hard enough. While the course was tough, I'd done close to 8:30 at nearly that distance more than once over the past month, so why not ask for more. With the encouragement of a former coach and friend, I decided to shoot for around 8:00 miles with a goal of a sub-1:50 half.

The race start was busy and the winding turns with hordes of racers I found really fun, like Formula One racing. I kept up with my 8:00 pace group through the turns and by the start of the climb up Congress, I was right with them. On the gradual rise after Oltorf, I went out beyond them, eventually picking up a few hundred yards on the pacers, a lead I gave back, and then some, on the tough climb up Ben White toward South First. I was feeling the pace. My legs felt fatigued, and while I knew I could keep up the pace for a while, I didn't feel as though I could keep it up for the next 8-plus miles. My concerns were validated when, after making the turn down South First, a long, downhill that parallels the long uphill I'd just done up Congress, I realized that the benefit of the downhill was negligible. I was seeing on my Garmin a pace of between 7:45 and 7:50, not enough to put much in the bank for the rugged hills I'd encounter toward the end.

As I bottomed out on South First, I started seeing some friends from Austin Fit, and that helped. Mia Zmud spotted me and high-fived me--a much needed jolt of encouragement, and minutes later I saw Diane Booher, an Austin Fit coach and wife of my first first running coach, James Booher. It was just what I needed.

Down Cesar Chavez I made a good pace, right around 8:00, and I was still, believe it or not, still slightly faster on my watch than 8:00 per mile, though the pace group was 30 or 40 seconds in front of me.

That's when the wheels started coming off.

I don't know quite what it was, but as we passed MoPac and started to climb toward the boulevard paralleling it heading north, I crashed inside. Passing the 10 mile mark, I was just slower than 8 minute miles but I felt defeated. I stopped running and started walking. Then I asked myself, "Am I walking because I can't run or because I don't want to run?" Knowing the answer immediately, I was back at it, powering up the hill though the fatigue and making the turn. Up ahead where the half and full split off I began to realize that, hey, I was almost there. I had a 5-K left to go, and I can do a 5-K, right?

Then I saw our program director, Jen, and got a high-five from her, and THEN I saw my friend Mercedes, who'd been so encouraging to me throughout my training, and I made beeline across the course for a big smile. (She later told me I looked so strong at that point....ha! Nothing could have been further from the truth, but seeing my friends must have made it look that way.)

I was stoked, I could do this, I told myself. Then we dipped down under Mopac and started a series of steep hills that tested all the racers, many of whom simply started walking them. I was tempted, but decided that even if it wasn't pretty, I was going to keep the legs moving in something resembling a running gait. My Garmin read 8:05 by the time I topped one hill, and it read just 8:08 when I topped the diabolical hill at 15th just east of Lamar. Nasty.

Somewhere on 15th I spotted a sign. Now, signs are a source of much-needed distraction when you're running a long race. Most of them are funny. Some are touching. This one got me: it said simply," Remember the reasons you're running." And I thought of my family, my friends and my late mom, whose dad had run the Boston Marathon 99 years ago and who was so proud of my first marathon. I started welling up and wondered how balling my eyes out would affect my pace. Which made me smile. And I picked it up again.

Around the corner on 15th we turned as a group only to see San Jacinto, a hill I'd run countless times with the group, and I told myself, "This ain't a hill; it's a speed bump!" and powered up it, still under 8:10 on the Garmin--this had become my new goal, along with sub-1:50, which looked like a lock at this point.

Making the turn at 11th I started getting passed by a handful of random runners in nearly a full sprint. First thought: if they had that much steam left, they should have used it before. Second thought: I'm good just doing what I'm doing right now.

I turned the corner back onto Congress and headed for the finishers chute. Past the pads, arms raised, big smile on my face: 1:47. I'd asked for way too much and gotten nearly all of it. Lucky me.

Somehow, the half marathon, which I'd intended as nothing more than a benchmark, had turned into an important event, and before the day was done, I'd started thinking about the wonderful challenge and opportunity this distance has to offer me.

As I'd done with my first marathon a few years ago, I'd established an automatic personal record (PR; your first one is automatically a PR because it's your best ever), but one that I could be happy with and that wouldn't be easy for me to better. I'm proud of both marks, not for what because they'll get me on the cover of Runner's World, but but for what they mean personally. The trip back has been incredible, with great friends--many of whom had great marathons or half marathons on Sunday, too--great scenery, great challenges and wonderful memories.

As I said, lucky me.

Sick and Running

I'm a bit crazy, but I was really looking forward to our 18 miler on Saturday morning. So when, on Friday afternoon, I started feeling a little dizzy, then a little nauseous, then really headachey . . . well at that point I decided I was in trouble.

Like a perfect idiot, I stayed positive though. That night, with a slamming headache and cold sweat on my brow, I carefully laid out my running gear, doing an extra careful job so I could, I imagined in my delirium, get ten minutes more sleep the next morning.

I got to bed at a reasonable hour, and then proceeded to wake up every hour on the hour for the rest of the evening. I felt like hell, and I might have slept, I don't know, maybe four hours.

I did get out of bed though. I made coffee, I took a quick shower (hoping that would revive me) and threw on my running togs. I grabbed my keys and started to make my way to the door. As I did I noticed that I was having a hard time keeping a straight line. I grabbed onto the couch for support, and realized only at that moment that I was an insane person. I slipped off my shoes, put down my bag and headed back to the bedroom. I slipped into bed next to my wife. She awoke briefly and cast a glance my way as if to say, "Well, you've come to your senses, have you?" Yup.

I woke up around 11.

Later that day I emailed one of my coaches, James, and told him about the whole thing, along with my newly hatched plan to make up the 18-miler the next day. He wisely counseled me to get some rest and not worry too much about the miles. I could, he suggested, add a few miles to a future run. Rest, he said, was the key.

I thought about that sage advice as I hit the road the next am to see how many miles I could get in. I'm a stubborn sot and a slow learner.

About three miles into my run it became clear to me that I was going not much further. I was light headed, drained of all energy and a little woozy. The running part felt great, but there was no foundation to support it, like a really nice house on quicksand.

I was on the trail--I had shown some foresight--so I hung a U-turn at the Lamar pedestrian bridge and headed back towards home. The run up the notoriously long Robert E. Lee hill was actually pretty easy, thanks to the three stops I made along the way.

I stumbled back into the house and got another one of those looks from my wife. I smiled and headed off to the shower, a short detour from my eventual destination for much of the rest of the weekend, bed.

Which is where I should have been in the first place.

Fast at Last

My run had started out in the twilight but now, 40 minutes later, it was dark, pitch black in fact, as I worked my down the hopefully smooth crushed granite trail that I could feel but not really see in front of me. A faster runner ahead with a handheld flashlight was creating a surrealistic effect, as the light bobbed and darted, illuminating dimly bits of the trail here and there, like a paintbrush trailing light but leaving no trace of where it had been nor any clue of where it was going. 

I was a mile from the car, cruising down an embankment near the park, and in the dark I was hyper-conscious of my body as I ran, like I was in an isolation tank but in motion too. I was going fast, and with it being so dark, I didn't want to take the time to glance down at the Garmin to see how fast I was going, but it was fast for me (maybe a 7:30 pace?) and it felt good. 

What hit me then was that I already had four miles under my belt at a good pace  and it still felt good to go this fast. 

At that moment, I realized that I was recovered from my marathon.

My  post called "Slow" recounted my frustration with how long it's taken me to get back into good running shape following my 26.2 mile run last Februrary in the Austin AT&T Marathon. I had no earthly idea that recovering from a marathon would turn out to be a six-month process for me, but it has. 

And the other night, moving through the darnkess, feeling my legs stretch out in front of me as covered unseeable terrain, hearing my own breathing in my ears, I knew something, something good.

And in running as in life, that's not an everyday thing. 

And with that realization, I smiled, a smile that no one else could see, as I moved through the dark and felt my way along the trail. 

Just doing it. What a stupid idea! Or is it?

When I first got into running on a regular basis, I was in mid-30s and I badly needed a regular physical activity. A few years of sitting at a desk and tapping away at a keyboard had made me soft, something I naively never expected to happen. If I wanted to get back into shape and keep some semblance of my formerly hot bod, I had to get it in gear.

Early on I recognized that the same competitive spirit that had made me a good athlete could work against me as a runner. How so? Suffice it to say that it's hard to get out to the track or trail or roadway the first time . . . keeping it up is even harder. And when I saw that my times as a not-so-svelte-anymore 30-something dad were embarrassingly slow, well, that's about all it took for me to become a former runner. For the first time, anyways.

I actually went through that dance a few times, getting back out to the trail, getting disappointed and depressed and then giving it up.

After a while I figured out that one solution was to take the pressure off of myself. I decided then and there that a successful run was getting my ass out the door and taking one stride. Anything on top of that was gravy. And you know what? It worked. I forgot about the Olympics and was finally happy to just be running.

When I moved out to Texas I started running with a few friends, one of whom was training for a marathon--she did it. Eventually I hooked up with a group, Austin Fit (part of USA Fit), which provides a very cool, pretty non-competitive training resource for people here in town. And surprise, surprise, I loved it. I liked the people, the camaraderie, the structure. I was hooked. And thanks to the training I got, I completed my first marathon last February, in a time I was and am pretty proud of.

But the question keeps coming up: should I be faster?

Well, the little devil side of me says, "yes!" The smart, conservative running is lifetime activity side says, "maybe, but let's be careful about how we pursue this."

The danger of course is, that I'll push myself, not achieve my goals, feel bad about and stop running.

Because I know I can be faster. Probably a lot faster. At least that's what I think. But the risk of pushing for that extra speed is not getting there and being bummed about it, too bummed. Or worse yet, turning running into something that's so hard it isn't really fun any more. What's the point of that?

Unfortunately, none of the Nike ads I've seen seem to give me any help at all with this dilemma. And you know what, if they want to keep selling shoes to me, and to people like me, maybe they should think about it a little.

Just do it? The real question, I guess, is how to do it. Wish I knew.

Slow

I've come to a hard conculusion: I'm slow, and I'm never going to be fast again. And you know what? I can live with it.

As a younger person, in my teens and twenties, I was pretty fast. With little training I ran a 4:30-something mile, and my first 10-K, also without training, was low-40s. When I got back into running, thirty-five pounds overweight and in horrible cardio shape, I somehow thought that I'd get back to those numbers. Ha! I'll save the details of my early struggles for a later post, but suffice it to say that I'm a solid mid-20s 5-Ker and a high-40s 10-Ker, with little signs of getting much faster soon. At first it was hard to deal with that, but gradually it hit me. I could accept who I was and where I was or I could quit. Quitting would have been, let me assure you, much easier than not quittting. I'm very happy to be as slow as I am today, twenty-five pounds lighter, much fitter, much happier and with a full marathon under my belt. Without having accepted that I simply am what I am today and not what I want to be or used to be or dream of being, I wouldn't be a runner. Maybe I'll get faster. I'm kind of working towards that, but not in a way that puts pressure on me not to enjoy and appreciate the greatness of being a runner, a runner who's exactly as fast as he's meant to be, today.

Post Marathon Blahs

There are a lot of things about running a marathon that you don't know until you've run a marathon. In fact, even four months after my virgin fling, I'm still learning things, not all of them pleasant. In fact, almost none of them pleasant.

I'm one of those people who thinks they know everything before they know anything. I know, we're incredibly annoying. But the point is, I thought I knew pretty much everything there was to know about running a 26.2 mile long run before I'd ever run ten miles. I was so wrong.

I won't go into all the ways I was ignorant, because this is a blog and not a set of encyclopedias, but I will say that I've been absolutely shocked at how hard it has been to get back into the swing of things after the race. And it's been four months. You'd think that would be enough time, and maybe it is, but just barely, for me anyways.

I won't go into all the aches and pains, though they were very real. I think I'm over the hump in that regard.

No, the big challenge for me has been motivation. It's not that I'm not excited about running. I clearly am. It's that I have a hard time mustering the energy and enthusiasm to get on the trail.

My therapy for this problem, like it is for so many others, is to go running. Works wonders.