She knows which birds are singin
and the names of the trees
where they’re performin
in the mornin
So if you change the lyrics “we’re getting married” to “it is her birthday,” it almost works. Especially since we’ve been married for quite a while now, and that event happened in the month of March.
Happy birthday, wife!
OK, change of plans. I could not resist the siren’s song of lentil soup the Umstead Marathon, and whaddayaknow I went and signed up for the thing.
Let’s take a trip, stumble, and fall down memory lane: last year at the race I was having ITB issues for the first time since the barefoot chapter began. My training was oh let’s just call it erratic. It was my slowest marathon ever.
This year I have an opportunity for an “easy” revenge. While I haven’t run long since Ridge to Bridge, I’ve been running. Starting this weekend, I can get four long runs in before a taper. I’m feeling good. Not super fast, but good.
So how will I run it?
1. Zen: run at a pace I feel I could maintain forever, lulling myself into a meditative trance. Finish feeling fresher than at the start, in a state of blissful Nirvana that will last until I start getting jealous of the runners who win a top 15 plaque. Estimated time: 4:00 to 5:00.
2. Run with Shannon: great company, lots of pictures (of me, for all my adoring fans!), and good practice being her pacer for the upcoming Umstead 100. Finish in a sour patch kids-induced sugar coma. Estimated time: 3:35 – 3:45.
3. Run with ac: this will be the first time I might be fast enough to hang with him. He’ll complain about an injury or three, which means he’ll be faster than last year. The effort will break me, but I’ll finish in the top 15. Estimated time: 3:18:24.
4. Run with Scott or Ash or an assortment of friendly runners. Finish with gab-fest-induced laryngitis. Estimated time: ?
Obviously, the friendly company is a major factor in my decision to sign up. I would also like a chance to prove that Ridge to Bridge wasn’t a fluke, and finish either strong or fast. Strong being the smarter objective.
This will put a damper on some of my other plans for the year. The first race of the Greensboro Race Series is only two weeks later, the Martinsville Half the week after that. Regardless of how well I recover, the times for those races will be slower than they would otherwise be. However, those developments are not too lamentable. The Beer Run (for the race series) is a big race, so I most likely won’t finish in the top ten for overall series points. And no matter how fast I could run Martinsville, it won’t be nearly as fast as The Scream’s downhill course in July. See? Totally justified from every angle.
Oh, who am I kidding. This is really all about lentil soup. There’s a Turkish restaurant in the Umstead neighborhood that serves perfection in a bowl. I must return. I need a fix.
Jason Robillard has made his objectives very clear: he wants to change the world. He wants runners to ditch their cushioned bouncy bs shoes and start running more gently. Of course, he wants his name to be associated with the revolution. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I’m certainly in no position to judge even if there was.
I bring this up because of the latest round of the “barefoot shoe” semantics debate. Jason has embraced the term, essentially stating it has entered the lexicon and isn’t going anywhere, so there’s no point in fighting it. The message needs to get out, and tripping over a couple of words impedes the relentless forward progress.
I think I’m understanding him correctly.
Then there’s the purists, who I think more than anything, simply hate the term “barefoot shoes.” I guess I’m one of them. Our arguments aren’t very strong, I think. Sure, the term is deceptive, but not very. I mean, people know there’s a difference between being barefoot and wearing a “barefoot shoe.” You don’t pay $100 for something that’s the same as nothing. If they don’t get the difference, well, they’re probably a lost cause. I do think runners are more prone to injuring themselves if they wear “barefoot shoes” before learning how to run barefoot, but does it really matter that much if critics blame those injuries on barefootery? Critics will always find something to point at.
I don’t think it’s necessary for one side to “win,” in fact it’s better “outreach” for the debate to go on, because a) across-the-board agreement looks culty, which is a turn-off, and b) diversity of delivery of “the message” equals a greater diversity of people who get “the message.” While a lot of shod runners and shoe companies accept and use the phrase “barefoot shoes,” many other runners find phrase, well, stupid. Kind of like I do. Those runners might dismiss “the message” even if they would otherwise be receptive, because “barefoot shoes” sounds so comically confused and Orwellian that they can’t take the notion seriously.
I guess. I actually think it’s much ado about nothing. Words are cheap. Action is all that matters. People don’t listen to Jason because he’s a masterful wordsmith. That’s not a criticism by any means – he’s very good at expressing his ideas (some of which I strongly agree with, others, not so much; variety is the spice of life, etc etc) and can write up an engaging race report. His words have gravitas because of his accomplishments. His outreach will be effective so long as he continues to have a running life others aspire to. “Barefoot shoes” vs “bareshoes” means very little compared to running ultras and fast 5ks.
I’m not sure why I’m writing this post, as outreach is pretty low on my list of priorities. I much prefer entertaining people. I dunno, maybe that’s a kind of sneaky, indirect outreach; maybe other runners see me out there and think, “If he doesn’t need cushioning, why do I?” and then proceed to change the way they think about running without any of my goofy words to ruin it. Without saying a word, just about every runner within a 50-mile radius of my house knows that it’s possible to run fast and far without shoes on because they’ve seen me in races and on the greenways. They know I’m human because they’ve seen me put something on my feet when it’s cold or pointy. Maybe some of them find my actions more convincing than any words I could string together, no matter how prettily or logically or amusingly.
The Stoic philosophy line (and Avett Brothers lyric) is “decide what to be, and go be it,” not “decide what to be and go say it.”
Get out there and run like the good animal you are.
For the record, I’m not putting myself in the position to race an ultra just because I wanted to make a cute video. Although, making the video was fun. I might need to do more of that. What? You want to see it again? Okay!
Anyway, I should still address the fact that I’ve never mentioned any ultra-racing ambitions before. Well, that might have something to do with me not having any. Ambitions, that is. So why this all of a sudden? Three reasons.
1. When I was eleven years old, I was cast in a community theater production of Pinocchio. I played a minor role, a character by the name of Pinocchio. Opening night went well, I think. I don’t really remember. But I do remember bowing at the end to loud applause.
Applause is a hell of a drug.
I have always enjoyed entertaining people. I like having an audience. Running is very much a performance art for me, one that happens in real-time when I’m doing it. My audience has been my neighbors, other runners, race volunteers and spectators, and you guys. Running alone is fine of course, because I’m my own audience as well. The Cool Impossible is an opportunity for me to increase the size of the audience, to feed the applause monkey on my back. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of my applause addiction, it’s just a part of my life I accept for what it is.
2. I think it will be fun. That’s pretty much what dictates my running life. Being a part of a project, training with Eric, and assuming I attain the level of fitness needed to run the race the way I want, the race itself. Not sure which race, by the by, but probably something in the area, assuming I have a say in the matter. I really look forward to the training, too; I imagine all those long runs feel more like dragon hunting than mile-logging. And think of all the blog fodder! There will be so much bitching and whining, you guys will love it.
3. The way I want to run the race is fast. If this thing happens, I will want to train with the goal of being competitive. I know ultras are generally about finishing the distance, and if I achieve that I will be flabbergasted. But I really, really like racing. I want to finish near the front. There’s no way I could accomplish that alone, but if I had a big enough audience with loud enough applause I feel I could win the thing.
So to sum up, this is a chance for me to do something really interesting in my running life, something that should also be entertaining to others. If I’m selected, I will be eager for the adventure to begin.
Last month, I see this link floating around on the Books of our Faces. Summary: Eric Orton (the guy who trained McDougall for the Copper Canyon race in Born to Run) wants to train six runners for a 100-miler, and put the process up on the various medias. To be one of the six, a runner must apply via video.
I liked the idea of it, but there was no way I was going to motivate myself to make a video. If I lacked that motivation, racing an ultra might be a little ambitious.
And anyway, I’m focusing on short distances now, right?
Long story short (actually, it’s a short story to begin with), I started playing around with the YouTube editor. While stringing videos together, I started really getting into the whole idea of it. I ended up with this, which I submitted last night: