I realize that lately I have been writing only about running, and that this blog was supposed to have a broader outlook, but running is the most enjoyable and one of the most stable things in my life right now. And besides, as far as know, no one ever comes to this blog but me. So if anyone does read this, know that if you return, you'll probably just see more subjective bullshit about running.

Yet I cannot go without mentioning that Bush's approval rating finally broke through the 30-percent barrier this week. I"ll let that one speak for itself.

One thing that I felt compelled to do after last week's marathon was to make sure that I didn't have to get up early on Sunday for once; so on Saturday morning I went to the track to do my first serious workout since Nashville, a mile breakdown on a wet track that was tough, but left me feeling good afterward and not sore this morning. For those who do not know, a mile breakdown is a step-down workout consisting of a 1600, a 1200, an 800, a 400, and in my case, an all-out 200 at the end. It's designed to be a short, hard workout with a shorter recovery than a conventional speed session, as it only calls for 2.5 miles of hard running (plus a 200, the way I do them). The reps are usually run at 5K pace or a little faster. All my reps were within training range according to the McMillan calculator I just ran on my 5-mile time a couple of weeks ago, but most were on the fast end (7:19; 5:26; 3:30; 1:43; :43). It felt good to be actively training again, and I hope that my surprisingly quick marathon recovery combined with some smart training will allow me to parlay my marathon fitness into a few good race times in the coming weeks.

CMM, Part IV

Around the 19-mile mark, I hit the wall. This is what I get for not doing more long runs, I thought. I had walked through all the water stations, even the early ones, and thought that those would be all the walk breaks I would need. But I hadn't planned on these temperatures, so at around 19.3 I did something that I had never done before in a marathon: I walked on the open course. It was only a few steps, and I got back into a 10-min. pace pretty quickly; yet it was but a hint of things to come. I walked again at 20 miles, this time for nearly a tenth of a mile.

For the next half-mile or so I managed to run, but everything below the knee was one big ache, and even the liberal stops at the water stations hadn't been enough to keep me hydrated. But by the 21-mile marker I was beginning to feel a little better, and I gathered enough strength to begin running again. Actually I was running quite well -- back down to a 9:30 pace and feeling for a while like I was going to take it on home in that fashion. Within a half mile, I went from feeling that way to resolving to take another walk break at the 23-mile mark. I thought I would never get to it. "Heckofa job, Brownie," I said to myself. "Two 18s and a 16. Way to get in those long runs."

I started thinking seriously about finishing times. I had planned on a 4:10-4:15 finish, which was still within reach at 24 miles: but I had not begun to anticipate how tired I would be in the last 2.2 miles. I was more tired at the Spinx last October, but it was a different kind of tired this time. Dehydration played into it, but it was not the main culprit. This was a wheezing, slumping, aching, blurry-visioned, how-much-further-dammit kind of tired. After my first marathon a couple of years ago, I was tired mostly from the knees down. Now I was tired all over, and in no shape to do much more than put one foot in front of the other. I always adjusted slowly to the warm weather, and as most of my long runs had been done in temperatures that hovered around freezing, I hadn't had much of a chance to adjust; but this was the first time that I had dealt with that in a marathon.

When I rounded the bend past the scrapyard and headed toward the stadium, the roar of the crowd and the sight of the 26-mile marker inspired me to pick up my battered feet and run it in. I must have looked kind of bad after I entered the triage chute, as one of the medical guys asked me if I was OK. I was, but damn, was I tired. My feet had never been so tired, and my stomach was churning so badly that I wasn't able to get anything down but a few bites of a doughnut and about a third of a banana. I felt like crap, but I was done. After picking up my gear, I made my way toward the reunion area, stopping along the way to lie down for a bit in the New Balance tent.

My finish time was 4:20:22 -- my slowest one ever, but the first that I have run out of town, and in temps 30 degrees warmer than those to which I am accustomed. Yet I still managed to log sub-10-minute splits, which was adequate consolation for me, as I had once pondered that mark (a little over 4:22) as a rock-bottom goal, and had wondered a couple of times in the final miles if I would make it. My wife finished in just over six hours, her first full marathon, surprising me by finishing quite strongly despite going out much harder than she should have. I don't know how she did it, because I was totally wasted and had still missed my time goal by five minutes. But by the time we walked back to the hotel, I felt reasonably well, due in large part to the high of having finished a marathon and the added high of having someone around to share the experience with. Of course, as the beginning of this long, multi-part story indicates, our celebration would have its limits. No matter. It was still the best time that I've had in a while.

CMM, Part III

At around 7.5 miles we began to emerge from the neighborhoods, and the already-crowded sidewalks became more and more packed as we went down Music Row. People were everywhere: on the streets, on the steps of buildings, hanging out of windows and leaning from overpasses. The concentration of bands along the course increased until one could get just out of range of one band before beginning to hear the next one up ahead. It was the craziest thing I have ever experienced as a runner. Only the slow onset of fatigue kept me focused upon the task at hand.

Ahead were a couple of low, long hills, which kicked the fatigue up another half-click. Then around the bend came a welcome break: nearly four miles of mostly downhill and flat, into a park and along a levee beside the Cumberland River. As we descended the hill into the park, I saw six nuns high-fiving runners on the left side of the street. What the hell, I thought. With a lightness of mood that I rarely achieve these days outside the confines of a road race, I went down the row, slapping hands with them all. High-fiving nuns: that's new. The day just got a little weirder.

By by halfway point, I was somewhat more fatigued then I had hoped to be, but was still running well, so I wasn't terribly worried. The run down the empty levee was eerily quiet compared to the cheering throngs we had encountered most of the way; but before long, I heard a roar up ahead, and soon was back into town with the crowds and the bands to provide distraction and positive energy. But the temperatures had gotten warmer, and all that concrete intensified both the warmth and the blinding light of the sun. As we moved along the opposite side of the rolling street that we had come down, I passed my wife as she approached the 11-mile mark.

"You're just a few minutes behing a four-hour pace," she yelled over to me. Having realized that a sub-four was out of reach, I nodded and told her to hold steady. A couple of minutes behind her, I saw the 5:30 pace team come up the street. Oh crap, I thought: she's going way too hard.

Still more to come ....

Country Music Marathon, Part II

OK, that took longer than I thought.

Anyway,it shouldn't have been any surprise to me that Nashville knows how to throw a party. Granted, my wife and I missed all the evening's festivities because we were just too damn exhausted to do anything but drive out to the Olive Garden for dinner and drinks, then go back to the room to sit up in bed and watch the Braves game on TV. I was out like a light by a quarter to nine, a half-empty beer going flat on the nightstand beside me.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Perhaps I should write about the race.

Actually, I'll back up to the day before. The expo was at the convention center downtown, about a mile around the corner and up the hill from our hotel. We drove up there first, only to discover about halfway there that we had forgotten our confirmation sheets. We were pretty pissed at ourselves and each other until we realized that there wouldn't have been any place to park anyway; so when we got back to the room, we decided to walk back up. Not a bad decision. The walk was uphill, but was a good way to work out some nervous energy before trying to sleep that night. We were both worried when we walked into the convention center and saw all the people -- thousands of them -- going in and out of the expo; but despite the crowds, it was one of the quickest, most glitch-free packet pickups that I've ever done. We breezed through the expo, and back to the room to get some dinner and rest. I went to bed at 9:00 CST, 10:00 by my internal clock, and got my usual fitful pre-marathon 4 hours or so of sleep.

The next morning at 4:30, we left the hotel to walk the half-mile down the street to the Titans' stadium, where we would catch the shuttle to the start in Centennial park near Vanderbilt. We were among the early arrivals, and it was still dark when we got there, so the scene didn't look too crazy. But as the sun came up and we started moving toward our start corrals, I began to realize just how many people were there. Thirty thousand, the paper would say the next day. On the way to my corral, I used the porta-potty for what would turn out to be the last time. It was still an hour till the start.

That was a mistake. By 6:30, as I started to feel a little twinge in my bladder, I walked around the row of porta-potties and saw lines of 60 feet or more in front of each of them. OK, I thought, this is not optimal, but I can handle it. There will be porta-potties somewhere along the course, and it worse comes to worse ... well, you are wearing wicking shorts, and it is a marathon, and no one is going to smell very good at the finish line.

Such was my state of mind and body as I began my first out-of-town marathon. Once I started running, however I quickly saw that the discomfort was bearable, for a while anyway, and thus did not alter my stride. Then at around the 2-mile mark, I saw a row of porta-potties in a parking lot to my right. The stop took me 30 seconds. Problem solved. Time to get down to enjoying the race.

The first miles of a marathon are easy, as people try to hold back on their paces and save their energy for later when the running gets really tough. And as three times as many people were running the accompanying half-marathon as were doing the full 26.2, I wound up running in a cluster of mid-pack half-marathoners running 9:30 miles and telling some interesting stories. We went through some ritzy neighborhoods where people were sitting in their yards drinking beer and wine and eating cheese. All kinds of people of all nationalities were out in the adjoining neighborhoods. A large grassy lot backed by a line of trees provided an impromptu toilet for a few guys who apparently had hydrated even better than I had. At the next water station I was once again made aware of the enormity of the event, as I waded through sticky puddles of orange peels, bananas, and Accelerade. For a while I ran beside a large African-American man with a cleanly-shaved head. He was wearing a red shirt and a yellow half-marathon bib, and stood out among the hundreds of runners around me on the street for his sheer size -- about 6'4'' with arms as big as my legs. I found out later that he was Eddie George.

More later ....

Country Music Marathon

After a six 1/2-hour drive today, rolling across Tennessee and North Carolina as fatigue slowly turned to soreness, I am now back home, sitting amongst the untidy array of books, bills, newspapers, magazines, training logs, clothing clean and dirty, and shoes that is my life. I pick up my dog from my father-in-law tomorrow morning, I go back to work Tuesday, and then everything will be back to normal. Damn.

But at least I'll get some rest, and get to run normally again. That'll be nice. No more tapering, no more worries about length of long runs and weekly miles and how fucking many sets of Yassos to do or how much speedwork to not do or catching colds or any of the other physical and emotional crap that comes from doing a marathon.

As soon as the soreness subsides, I'm going to do a different kind of training for a while. I've got a couple more races -- both 8ks -- this Spring, after which I plan to go back to square one and do some base training -- easy miles with emphasis on building weekly mileage, and weightlifting. Until then, I think that I will train to see how fast I can do miles and two-miles at the all-comers' meets this summer.

Anyway, I didn't run my best marathon yesterday, but I did have a good time. I will post the details tomorrow after I've had a chance to get a bit more rest.

Bart Wright Remembers Halberstam

Once again, I have to get some sleep before Saturday;s marathon, so this is going to be another short one.

I had  to take this opportunity to link to Bart Wright's column about David Halberstam, which I have to admit is pretty good. I thought it interesting, however, that his assumptions about Halberstam prior to meeting him, i.e. that he was an East-Coast elitist, made him realize "how incredibly and inherently defective such stereotypes of people can be ... [T]he experience of meeting and getting to know Halberstam just a little bit redirected me to a different way of thinking about people I didn't know."

Too bad that didn't carry over into his interaction with me, when he assumed that because I did not buy into the grand illusion that minor-league baseball in Greeenville has become, I was some bitter malcontent who hated downtown Greenville and was blinded by some unspecified political grudge. That could not be further from the truth. I love downtown Greenville, which is why I don't want to see it a bunch of greedy bastards and their sycophantic "journalist" shills ruin it.

But then again:

"I guess it take all kinds"

David Halberstam (1934-2007)

I saw this on the web just a few minutes ago, and it floored me. I'm sure that there are more detailed obits out there than this one from MLB, but it was the first one that I came to, and I need to get some sleep before Nashville.

Halberstam was the author of many wonderful, well-researched works of popular history. Although I read The Teammates and liked it, I particularly enjoyed and recommend The Fifties as both a good, accessible history of the decade and a good introduction to the work of this late, great American journalist.

Nine Days to Nashville

I don't have much to say about VA Tech that hasn't already been said -- except that my niece, who graduated two years ago, was in the marching band with the guy who was shot in the dorm. With all the coverage that this has gotten -- including the crass, ghastly repeated airing of this twisted asshole's "manifesto" on national TV -- there has been little mention of the sordid state of mental health care in the U.S., and not nearly enough of the apparent total absence of a comprehensive emergency response plan on campus. OK, maybe I did have a little something more to say ...

Anyway, it's nine days to the Nashville Marathon, and I'm hoping that the rainy forecast for next weekend changes. My wife is worried about running the race (her first marathon) but not about the logistics of getting there, packet pickup, hotel room, getting to the start, etc. I am worried about all that logistical crap, but not at all about the running, which I hope will combine the psychological satisfaction of finishing a marathon with a physical state similar to what I might expect upon finishing a particularly grueling half-marathon: fatigued, but able to move well enough to get around without a struggle. We'll see. As of now, I'm feeling good, reasonably fit, not too bloated, and ready for a 5-mile tune-up at the Earth Day races this Saturday.

Am I ready?
I officially began my taper for Nashville last weekend, but I did my last set of Yassos this morning. the workout went OK, but I didn't feel as good as I'd hoped to feel. The weather was 65 degrees and humid, and I was wearing a tight UnderArmor shirt that I wasn't used to; but running those last 2-3 reps was pretty tough. My goals at Nashville are to finish respectably (4:10-4:15) and not feel like a walking corpse afterward. Since a 4:12 would be 15 minutes slower than my marathon PR, I think that I can meet both those goals -- if I have done enough miles and enough tempo. My long runs -- two 18s and a 16 -- have not been as long as I usually like to stretch them for marathon training. I've done four sets of Yasso 800s since January, plus one long tempo of 5 miles, several shorter tempos, a half-marathon and a 10-mile race, three 5Ks, a 10K, and a handful of pace runs. My highest-mileage week was 39. Not optimal marathon training, by any means; but it will be enough to get me to the finish if I pace myself appropriately. The real question is: how will I feel afterward?

Not a Bad Weekend, Part II

At 1:55 p.m., as the elite milers filed onto the track to warm up, temperatures had barely climbed over 40, and 15-20-mph. winds enveloped the complex. All across the edge of the football parctice field behind the bleachers lay improvised pallets of tarps and gear, upon which high-school and collegiate track athletes sat huddled in blankets. I was in the bleachers just above the finish line, layered in a long-sleeve t-shirt, a short-sleeve t-shirt, and a hooded windbreaker, and was freezing my ass off. It was not the best weather for a mile race, to say the least. The wind appeared to die down a little as 2:00 crept closer, but as the runners were introduced, it began to gust again in earnest.

Still, there was hope. I had seen Webb seemingly coast to sub-4 finishes throughout the indoor season, and knew that even though he had been criticized for not having a kick, he did indeed have an extra gear that he saved for the last lap, and rarely did it not work for him.

The gun sounded, and they were off. For about ten seconds. Then the action stopped. I had my eye on Webb, who had already rounded the bend and was starting into the back stretch. when I looked back down the track, I saw that one of the outside runners -- the rabbit, in fact -- had gone down in the turn. The runners were called back, and a hush fell on the crowd. Not good, I thought, not good at all. But as Webb ambled back to the start, I noticed that he had a big grin on his face. He must know something the rest of us don't, I thought.

The race restarted, clean this time, with the rabbit out front and Webb right on his heels. They were running well, working hard, but the splits were not great: a 59-second 1st lap, 1:00 flat 2nd; then, as I had seen happen so often before, the rabbit peeled off and Webb took off -- just not as fast as I had seen him do before. As he approached the bell lap, the clock crept up to 3:00. Again, not good. But as he began his last lap, Webb cocked his head slightly toward the crowd and raised his right had to his ear. The crowd, already cheering loudly, went bonkers. Clearly he knew that he had it. Then came the extra gear. Fwooosh... 26 seconds for the next 200. Then the wind hit, and his stride slowed a bit, but by that time it was all but a done deal. "He's got it," I exclaimed to my wife. The intense roar built to a crescendo as he snapped the tape at 3:57:83, a new SC record and the only sub-4:00 mile that this writer has ever witnessed.