I know you’re all sick and tired of the “Year in Review” assault which comes at you from all directions about this time, so I wouldn’t dream of adding to that pile of mush non-news. But on this New Year’s Eve, it’s worth noting that there’s always hope, and some of that hope tried to peek above the murk in these waning days of the year.
It’s been a roller coaster, from the top of the game at Boston in April, to the slab for the Big Achilles slice in August, and then even lower for that clotty adventure in September. Trying to recover from the pitfalls of the second half of this year has been more than a little disappointing. Surviving the Attack of the Platelets, thanks to being in good shape, was great (and I’m not belittling that, I wouldn’t be here otherwise!), but at the end of the day, or the end of the year as it may be, my Achilles, along with a good portion of the rest of my left ankle, still hurts, often a lot, and in a clearly related news flash, my training still falls into the range of mostly crappy.
But it’s time to put the dismay and gloom behind me. While Dr. Foot Doctor rightly preaches patience, Diabolical Physical Torture-meister pretty much declared me on the right trajectory this week. Do your exercises, stretches, heat, mantras, by all means be lovin’ those anti-inflammatories (which are, of course, performing quite nicely!), and go for it, but there’s not a lot more I can do; it’s up to you.
Indeed. Damn the Torpedoes! New Year’s Day is coming, and it wouldn’t be right not to show up at some event, so I went ahead and signed up for my New Year’s favorite, the Freezer Five. I held no delusions of grand success when I did so, but I also knew that otherwise, the first real deadline would be our Hyannis relay in February, already dangerously close to Boston, and without something nearer in front of me, it’d be hard to turn up that extra notch. Nothing lays it on the line like laying it on the line. Wednesday’s race needs to be a bit of a test, a warm-up so to speak, a return to the world of the living, even if I don’t expect to race well by previous standards. Not wishing to take a test without at least some cramming, I notched a few encouraging runs over the last couple days.
Sunday marked a first foray back into double digits since before the surgery. I hit one of my go-to loops for a ten-miler, and turned up the heat a bit, resulting in my best post-slice road pace by a significant margin. Dearest Daughter the Eldest, who happened to be leaving for work when I was walking it off immediately afterwards, did report that I looked like hell, but considering that I hadn’t approached that standard of effort in a long time, I took that as a compliment.
That under my belt, our local Highland City Striders club set out en masse last night to visit our Central Mass Strider friends for their Monday-night pub run, a very casual quasi-race, really more of a hard workout, really more of a whatever-you-want-to-make-of-it workout, followed by what one of our club-mates likes to refer to as amber fluids. It’s only three miles, so if you’re not warmed up, forget about any decent pace, but with temperatures dipping below twenty and a biting wind whipping up the street, nobody felt like warming up. I settled for some Achilles stretches and about a tenth of a mile jog to assess the atmospheric nastiness. I expected nothing in return.
Then something cool happened. A ray of hope pierced the cold, windy, long-term-disappointed gloom that’s been hanging over me for months. We gathered outside the pub, we shooed the traffic away, someone said go, and… I went… far quicker than I’d expected possible, seemingly effortlessly at first, and at reasonable effort as the miles cranked on. Perhaps it was merely numbness from the cold, but things didn’t really hurt much. Not stiff. Not sore (it would return later on the warm down, but hey, take it when you find it). Overjoyed. I ran with one other, the two of us well distanced from the laid-back pack. I let him go at the end, not worrying about winning something that can’t be won, something that nobody cares about winning, and wondering if there was still any tradition of the winner needing to buy a round. I let him go because I wasn’t interested in hurting myself, just seeing what the body would produce. And it produced three miles at nearly a minute per mile faster than the already quicker ten-miler the day before. It produced a ray of hope. Maybe this darn thing will actually heal. Maybe there will be another good round of racing from these legs. Maybe…
Happy New Year, wishing you rays of hope in whatever you seek.
31 December 2013
25 December 2013
All I Want For Christmas Is...
Yesterday’s Christmas Eve Mass, where my contemporary church band plays our annual pre-Mass concert, was a celebration of faith and music, joyful, uplifting, and a lot of fun to boot. Today, the gifts are all unwrapped, there is far too much chocolate in the house, our stomachs are uncomfortably full from a fine dinner, the brother-in-law and charming spouse have departed, and all are sated. Further, the ratty old Santa hat has absorbed its annual allocation of sweat over the last few days’ runs, usually to the delight of passing motorists, though today, oddly, on Christmas Day itself, they were mostly silent Grinches. No accounting for logic, but it’s all good.
Good running stories have been few and far between since I haven’t raced since Boston, and good running itself has been hard to reach since ratcheting down the training over the summer, August’s Big Slice, September’s Clot City, and the aftermath. While I managed both last month and this one to bump up over a hundred miles, I’m still up a few pounds, still pedestrian in pace, still fighting plenty of pain in the Achilles that I’d hoped would be fixed by now, and worst of all, feeling stiff as a board. It’s times like this that I have to admit I’m halfway to a hundred years old, and the second half of my life probably won’t be as easy breezy as the first.
Until yesterday, I hadn’t touched the stuff since mid-August. You have to lay off anything that stuff for a week or so before surgery for the simple reason that it’ll make you bleed worse when they slice you open, which is generally viewed as a bad thing. Then, based on the nature of the surgery, where the intent was to cause inflammation around the injured tendon to promote healing, you have to lay off the stuff afterward as well. And then, when you win the jackpot and land in the hospital with clots in your lungs, resulting in a three-month sentence of consuming Drāno to clear your pipes, anti-inflammatories are strictly verboten. Again, it’s highly frowned upon to bleed to death, so this is good advice. Except that four months later, especially when your training is seriously interrupted, this makes you feel, well, fifty. It makes you wonder how the rest of the fifty-year-olds who don’t do what you do feel like every day. No wonder they complain.
Lady Doc had told me that three months into the rat poison regimen, we’d run an ultrasound on my legs to be sure they weren’t growing any more unsightly clumps. Not that this would assure complete go-forward safety; nothing can do that, but this would, at least, lay to rest major concerns of a newly emerged clot-factory still at work now that the post-surgical laid-up lifestyle had passed into the past. So two weeks ago I trundled off to my oh-so-familiar local hospital where by now, after months of weekly blood tests, I’m on a first name basis with much of the central registration staff, to see what my lower veins looked like.
Combining this with the fine, if not somewhat painful efforts that Jon, my latest purveyor of what he likes to call Diabolical Physical Torture (apparently that’s what the “DPT” in his title means) has been applying over the last couple of weeks, there is, I am hoping, some light at the end of the tunnel during these short dark days. He’s worked out a lot of the issues with the rest of the ankle that have crept in while I’ve babied the Achilles. Unfortunately, no such luck yet on the Achilles itself. Both he and Dr. Foot Doctor just say patience. (Silly them, to think I could really be patient?) There’s still a big part of me that wonders if all this Achilles repair/recovery was worth it, since, after all, it still hurts. But at least, for Christmas, I can start to make the rest of me feel a little better.
Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good White (Pill).
18 December 2013
Flameless, Yet On Fire
When it finally happened, it wasn’t just cool, it was downright cold. And dark. And an embarrassing hour late. But we didn’t care. We had a ball – or more accurately, a torch, minus the flame. Take a sacred event, cross it with holy ground, and you get something ethereal, unreal, and almost mystical. Then somehow, accidentally, find yourself in the middle of it, and you question how the world sorts these things out. This time, the world sorted out the highly improbably outcome that I ended up running the Olympic torch across the Boston Marathon finish line Thursday evening.
Adding to the irony was the fact that I hadn’t been back to the finish line since the day of the race, the day of the bombing, the day the world changed, and the previous day when I’d asked the question of how world-scale events could cross paths with little old me. It was somehow fitting, I suppose, that world-scale events (that’s a bit of a stretch here, but go with me) should cross paths again with little old me, at the same place, but this time all for good. Let’s say we cancelled out that previous ugly day with a polar (and polar-feeling) opposite.
So let’s sort this all out. Mighty Employer, that same one so roundly lambasted a few weeks back regarding their rather inane online wellness programs, really is, despite that episode, a pretty interesting place to be. Mighty Employer doesn’t have the marketing power of some of the more well-known names, but quietly continues to supply a major chunk of the world’s business communications technology, and even more quietly cranks out some seriously amazing networking technology. Networking, that is, being the business of moving bazillions of packets of data around the world so that you can, amongst other things, pull up this column any time you feel like it.
It is this very seriously amazing technology that won us the honor of building the entire network for the upcoming winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Come February when the games begin, everything you see on television, every score, standing, timing, and replay, not to mention the connection for every one of the hundred thousand of devices carried by every spectator at every event, plus every feed from every one of the thousands of surveillance cameras… all if it will ride our network using a new technology called Shortest Path Bridging. I won’t go any geekier than that, but suffice to say it’s new, different, better, and way cool. Yes, I’m proud, yes, I have my fingers crossed, and no, I wasn’t personally involved, so if it burps, I too will burp, but not panic.
We’re by far not the only critical vendor to the games, but we are a critical vendor, so as part of the deal – call it a thank-you, call it hype, call it whatever – we were sent one of the torches actually used in the relay that is carrying the flame from Greece’s Mt. Olympus, throughout Russia, landing in Sochi this winter. I can’t tell you how many of these torches were made – it could have been thirty or thirty-three thousand; it matters not to me. But ours was numbered twenty-six, a nice coincidence considering where it ended up, at mile twenty-six of the marathon route.
Two days before said torch was slated to arrive in Boston on its cross-country tour, I knew nothing of these marathon plans. All I knew was that Thursday morning there would be a torch reception at our local office, after which it would be taken on a few customer visits. I begged a few customers to show for the reception, and was excited enough at the prospect of seeing it there. That, I figured, was it for my involvement.
Life is never simple. Somehow, one thing always leads to another. A simple request came in: a colleague asked if I could deliver the torch to a nearby customer, since she couldn’t make it down in time. Just the prospect of having the Olympic torch in my car made me giddy. Seriously, how goofy is that? But wow… toolin’ down the highway, just me and a real live official Olympic torch. Oh, and I’ve got the Hope Diamond in the glove box, too. I recalled seeing the torch relay come through town on its way to Atlanta in ninety-six, and remembered how cool I thought it would be just to lay my hands on it. Now they wanted me to take possession of this thing? Are you kidding?
Schedule rearranged, now a transporter for merely one leg of the torch’s day-long agenda, I was suddenly on the “torch team”, invited to the next torch planning call, and privy to the torch’s agenda. And on that agenda, there it was… at the end of the day… after the visit to Fenway Park (the Red Sox are our customer), the torch was slated to go to the finish line of the Boston Marathon, just because it was in Boston, and we were having fun in each city it visited, photographing it at local landmarks. Yeah, sort of like that famous gnome.
As I noted, take the sacred event – the Olympics, of which the torch is the symbol, carrier of the flame representing the best that mankind can be – and cross it with holy ground – the Boston Marathon finish line, holy even before last year’s tragedy, and many times more so afterward. To an athlete, a marathoner, a citizen of our global community, well, my bell went off. I made known on the call that I’d really like to be there for that stop at the finish line, would they mid if I tagged along? I didn’t say was what I was thinking: how incredible it would be to actually run the torch to – and across – the finish line! But far be it for me to impose or suggest that which I felt would be such a rush, such an honor, no, cannot ask… The team was pleased at my enthusiasm to travel with the torch to Boylston Street, and that was enough for me.
But there was a logistical problem: they’d slated only ten minutes to get the torch from Fenway to the finish line. Nobody seemed to note this problem until I pointed it out. I suggested they’d better take a cab, since trying to drive, park, get out of the garage, and to the line would take far longer than the time allotted. Murmuring all around…
…then it happened. A voice on the call said simply, “Why don’t you just run it down there?”
Seriously? As in, “You’d let me do that?”
This is where you learn one of those life lessons that sometimes things you think are high and mighty are in fact begging for someone to step up and, in this case literally, run with them. To me, this was akin to being knighted. You might as well have offered a gold medal. To them, I was solving a problem, and making their torch story all that much more interesting. Win-Win.
I couldn’t conceive of doing this alone; it was simply too cool not to share, and would be far better with others alongside. A few emails later I’d rounded up enough interest to hope I’d have a gang to run with, and maybe a gang waiting at the finish. A couple of folks from Greater Boston. A few of their friends. A couple of employees of one of the companies we visited earlier in the day. 
It happened, the crowd of perhaps a dozen converged outside Fenway at the appointed hour, while we made our visit inside Fenway, out onto the field, posing the torch with the Sox staff in front of the Green Monster (the scoreboard reading, “We Welcome The Olympic Torch”), three Sox players holding the three World Series trophies, and Wally the mascot holding the torch in one hand and a Boston Marathon medal (yes, mine, my little touch) in the other. It was one of those life moments.
Then, after a day in which all had gone to plan, suddenly it all went south (or more accurately, east). I parted from our company team to change into running duds while they carried the torch back to the Sox front office. What happened next is still unclear, but as best I can tell, our gang of assembled runners had ducked back into Fenway to keep warm, so the company team didn’t see them, thought they’d left, and they themselves then left for the finish line, in a cab, with the torch. I went mildly apoplectic, having promised these dozen runners a torch run and having no torch.
It took an hour, during which our runners showed patience beyond the call of duty, but they were rewarded when the company team finally came back with the torch. Our daylight was gone. It was that much seriously colder. I was tripping over my own apologies. But we didn’t care. We had a torch, a real live Olympic torch, even though we couldn’t light it since we had to ship it later to its next destination, and we were running to the finish line.
The best part was that it was blatantly obvious that the magic of the torch was as strong for all of the runners as it was for me. They too bounced like goggle-eyed kids on Christmas morning. Countless cell-phone pictures were snapped as we took our sweet time and savored the route. The torch was passed around the group repeatedly. The two-thirty-one marathoner in the group was ebullient to jog at ten-to-eleven minute pace, because we had the torch. We hollered at passers-by that this was the real deal, the Olympic torch. We savored every step and we stepped until we stopped traffic at the finish line for picture after picture after picture, followed by a visit to ground zero in front of Marathon Sports, where for me at least, we erased April’s tragedy with joy and triumph.
At least until our adrenaline wore off, when I remembered that it was, after all, really cold.
Unforgettable.
Adding to the irony was the fact that I hadn’t been back to the finish line since the day of the race, the day of the bombing, the day the world changed, and the previous day when I’d asked the question of how world-scale events could cross paths with little old me. It was somehow fitting, I suppose, that world-scale events (that’s a bit of a stretch here, but go with me) should cross paths again with little old me, at the same place, but this time all for good. Let’s say we cancelled out that previous ugly day with a polar (and polar-feeling) opposite.
So let’s sort this all out. Mighty Employer, that same one so roundly lambasted a few weeks back regarding their rather inane online wellness programs, really is, despite that episode, a pretty interesting place to be. Mighty Employer doesn’t have the marketing power of some of the more well-known names, but quietly continues to supply a major chunk of the world’s business communications technology, and even more quietly cranks out some seriously amazing networking technology. Networking, that is, being the business of moving bazillions of packets of data around the world so that you can, amongst other things, pull up this column any time you feel like it.
It is this very seriously amazing technology that won us the honor of building the entire network for the upcoming winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Come February when the games begin, everything you see on television, every score, standing, timing, and replay, not to mention the connection for every one of the hundred thousand of devices carried by every spectator at every event, plus every feed from every one of the thousands of surveillance cameras… all if it will ride our network using a new technology called Shortest Path Bridging. I won’t go any geekier than that, but suffice to say it’s new, different, better, and way cool. Yes, I’m proud, yes, I have my fingers crossed, and no, I wasn’t personally involved, so if it burps, I too will burp, but not panic.
Two days before said torch was slated to arrive in Boston on its cross-country tour, I knew nothing of these marathon plans. All I knew was that Thursday morning there would be a torch reception at our local office, after which it would be taken on a few customer visits. I begged a few customers to show for the reception, and was excited enough at the prospect of seeing it there. That, I figured, was it for my involvement.
Life is never simple. Somehow, one thing always leads to another. A simple request came in: a colleague asked if I could deliver the torch to a nearby customer, since she couldn’t make it down in time. Just the prospect of having the Olympic torch in my car made me giddy. Seriously, how goofy is that? But wow… toolin’ down the highway, just me and a real live official Olympic torch. Oh, and I’ve got the Hope Diamond in the glove box, too. I recalled seeing the torch relay come through town on its way to Atlanta in ninety-six, and remembered how cool I thought it would be just to lay my hands on it. Now they wanted me to take possession of this thing? Are you kidding?
Schedule rearranged, now a transporter for merely one leg of the torch’s day-long agenda, I was suddenly on the “torch team”, invited to the next torch planning call, and privy to the torch’s agenda. And on that agenda, there it was… at the end of the day… after the visit to Fenway Park (the Red Sox are our customer), the torch was slated to go to the finish line of the Boston Marathon, just because it was in Boston, and we were having fun in each city it visited, photographing it at local landmarks. Yeah, sort of like that famous gnome.
As I noted, take the sacred event – the Olympics, of which the torch is the symbol, carrier of the flame representing the best that mankind can be – and cross it with holy ground – the Boston Marathon finish line, holy even before last year’s tragedy, and many times more so afterward. To an athlete, a marathoner, a citizen of our global community, well, my bell went off. I made known on the call that I’d really like to be there for that stop at the finish line, would they mid if I tagged along? I didn’t say was what I was thinking: how incredible it would be to actually run the torch to – and across – the finish line! But far be it for me to impose or suggest that which I felt would be such a rush, such an honor, no, cannot ask… The team was pleased at my enthusiasm to travel with the torch to Boylston Street, and that was enough for me.
But there was a logistical problem: they’d slated only ten minutes to get the torch from Fenway to the finish line. Nobody seemed to note this problem until I pointed it out. I suggested they’d better take a cab, since trying to drive, park, get out of the garage, and to the line would take far longer than the time allotted. Murmuring all around…
…then it happened. A voice on the call said simply, “Why don’t you just run it down there?”
Seriously? As in, “You’d let me do that?”
Then, after a day in which all had gone to plan, suddenly it all went south (or more accurately, east). I parted from our company team to change into running duds while they carried the torch back to the Sox front office. What happened next is still unclear, but as best I can tell, our gang of assembled runners had ducked back into Fenway to keep warm, so the company team didn’t see them, thought they’d left, and they themselves then left for the finish line, in a cab, with the torch. I went mildly apoplectic, having promised these dozen runners a torch run and having no torch.
At least until our adrenaline wore off, when I remembered that it was, after all, really cold.
Unforgettable.
01 December 2013
Plan B
I spent Thanksgiving in the Witness Protection Program. With Turkey Trots nearby in all directions, and the local high-school-versus-alumni-versus-local-club cross country race a mere mile from my door, and free to boot, I’d like to say that the temptation to show up at a race was as irresistible as the aroma of our meal later that day. Truth is, it was nasty windy, nasty windy and cold, nasty windy and I’ll just stay in bed and enjoy an easy morning not racing on Thanksgiving for a change, protecting myself from the inevitable urge to run hard – and perhaps hurt myself – once the gun went off, no matter how much I’d have told myself that I’d take it slow and easy.
Spared from stupid injuries, I did head out at noon when it was still nasty windy, and put in what was, at least at present for me, a decent distance at a relatively decent pace, still pathetic by my normal standards, but better than the week before. But sadly, the state of the recovery is at best tenuous. I’m touched that so many ask my status and seem to give at least a minor hoot, but I’m tired of not having good news to report. The bottom line is, it still hurts. Sometimes more, sometimes less, and running does seem to do it good as Dr. Foot Doctor said it would, but not good enough that it seems like actual progress. I remain cautiously optimistic, and will encounter a new Physical Terrorist soon in hopes of actively bludgeoning that ankle into painless submission.
So I’m not doing what I expected to be doing by this time, but that’s sometimes how things turn out. I have to be cool with that, and roll with it as it comes. It’s a universal lesson we can all absorb. This morning, a whole lot of people found themselves not doing what they expected to be doing at that time, and the great thing was that they were all cool about it, and rolled with it as it came. It’s refreshing to see no kvetching when the world is forced to turn to Plan B.
Since racing is out, there was no chance I’d run our local club’s “Tough Thanksgiving Ten-Miler”, a fest of the best of my local training hills. Instead, Darling Daughter the Younger and I set out this morning to work the race volunteer side. Our ten-milers (nine-point-eight-five for your OCD types) have been held for years, through heat, cold, rain, and snow, and they’ve always come off, one way or another. We had no reason to think otherwise this time, as the forecast called for high thirties, overcast, and rainless. But a quick glance out my window on rising hinted that the meteorological supercomputer cabal of the world had missed slightly, since the roads looked damp.
Stepping out for the newspaper a few minutes later, I nearly flew off the front porch, bringing back really bad memories of having executed that very stunt many years ago, at high speed, bouncing off each concrete step…All…The…Way…Down…imparting bruises that graced my hips and hind quarters for months, but that’s another story. This morning wasn’t high speed, I caught the rail, and took note that the surprisingly iced-over morning wasn’t as we’d expected.
It’s under two miles to Ghiloni Park, base of operations for the Ten Miler. Edging cautiously onto the public thoroughfares, it seemed the hazard was local to my north-facing down-sloped lot, not an uncommon occurrence, and I gradually gained confidence as we motored carefully down what appeared to be wet but ice-free roads – until about a quarter mile from the park, that is, when we found ourselves on the wrong side of the road, twice. Holy Yikes! (Not what I said at the time.) Creeping into the park, it was instantly clear this wasn’t a normal race morning. As our runners likewise crept into the park, each told their story of the dangers they’d endured and wreckage they’d avoided en route, none carrying a pretty story, one nearly reduced to tears. Wreckage. Over by the skating rink. Downtown Northborough. Route Nine in Westborough. And sixty-five cars and a bunch of trucks on the interstate in Worcester. It was seriously ugly. Seriously “I’ve run and raced in almost everything including blizzards but this is downright dangerous” ugly.
This was the kind of day when one is eternally grateful not to be wearing the tag that reads, “Race Director”. Our event leader had a serious quandary on his hands: Nearly a hundred runners, and a major safety problem. The roads right around us seemed acceptable, just wet. But we’d all experienced the nightmare of arriving. It felt like the temperature was rising, but cold spots would persist, and roads don’t thaw immediately (and we’d later confirm that it wasn’t getting any warmer, we were just growing more numb). Send the runners out, and all might be well. Or a car might take out a tree trying to avoid a runner on a patch of ice. Or worse, a runner might slide into a car. We’d be dealing with an instant tragedy, and worse, probably an instant lawsuit and an instant ban on future races, because we’d have known about the danger. But send the runners home, and most wouldn’t be too happy, despite the danger. Runners are, after all, a hardy lot. Damn the torpedoes, right?
Race Director Mark wisely devised Plan B. We were, after all, in a large park, a park graced with a half-mile dirt track and numerous trails, a park where every local cross country team, including the one coached by our race director as well as the one I used to coach, both trains and competes. A few heads knocked together and the plot evolved, starting with twenty-one laps of the track (it’s a bit less than a true half mile), and evolving into what was thought to be about a mile loop incorporating more of the park, times ten.
That’s when the coolest part happened. Save for a couple of folks who had to bail simply due to time constraints (we’d delayed the start to allow stragglers to arrive and hope conditions improved), not one person complained or second guessed the race director’s call. Eighty or so people who expected a hilly ten-mile road race lined up for a relatively flat ten-lap park circuit. And they didn’t even complain when we realized due to runners’ GPS reports that our loop was only nine-tenths of a mile, and announced on lap two that it was now an eleven lap race, or that we had no practical way to count their laps and just left them on their own, to their own memories and honor. Not a peep of discontent. In fact, with the water stop now available every few minutes, bathrooms handy, and race staff ready to grab unneeded clothing (creating a colorful display on the fence), and, for a few, the convenience of saying the heck with it when the time had come shy of ten miles, everyone made what could have been a tragic and horrible day into a terrific, albeit cold and wet, one.
Call it Thanksgiving spirit. Our club doesn’t charge for this race. The entry fee is a sack of food for the local food pantry. Our pickup truck was loaded to twice the height of the bed and riding low with literally a ton of food. Our runners come to enjoy the run, but also to give back this way, and to their credit, their giving frame-of-mind extended to a whole lot of tolerance when we were forced to take the safe route and involve Plan B. They ended up not doing what they expected to be doing, and they were all cool about it, and rolled with it as it came.
Spared from stupid injuries, I did head out at noon when it was still nasty windy, and put in what was, at least at present for me, a decent distance at a relatively decent pace, still pathetic by my normal standards, but better than the week before. But sadly, the state of the recovery is at best tenuous. I’m touched that so many ask my status and seem to give at least a minor hoot, but I’m tired of not having good news to report. The bottom line is, it still hurts. Sometimes more, sometimes less, and running does seem to do it good as Dr. Foot Doctor said it would, but not good enough that it seems like actual progress. I remain cautiously optimistic, and will encounter a new Physical Terrorist soon in hopes of actively bludgeoning that ankle into painless submission.
So I’m not doing what I expected to be doing by this time, but that’s sometimes how things turn out. I have to be cool with that, and roll with it as it comes. It’s a universal lesson we can all absorb. This morning, a whole lot of people found themselves not doing what they expected to be doing at that time, and the great thing was that they were all cool about it, and rolled with it as it came. It’s refreshing to see no kvetching when the world is forced to turn to Plan B.
Since racing is out, there was no chance I’d run our local club’s “Tough Thanksgiving Ten-Miler”, a fest of the best of my local training hills. Instead, Darling Daughter the Younger and I set out this morning to work the race volunteer side. Our ten-milers (nine-point-eight-five for your OCD types) have been held for years, through heat, cold, rain, and snow, and they’ve always come off, one way or another. We had no reason to think otherwise this time, as the forecast called for high thirties, overcast, and rainless. But a quick glance out my window on rising hinted that the meteorological supercomputer cabal of the world had missed slightly, since the roads looked damp.
Stepping out for the newspaper a few minutes later, I nearly flew off the front porch, bringing back really bad memories of having executed that very stunt many years ago, at high speed, bouncing off each concrete step…All…The…Way…Down…imparting bruises that graced my hips and hind quarters for months, but that’s another story. This morning wasn’t high speed, I caught the rail, and took note that the surprisingly iced-over morning wasn’t as we’d expected.
It’s under two miles to Ghiloni Park, base of operations for the Ten Miler. Edging cautiously onto the public thoroughfares, it seemed the hazard was local to my north-facing down-sloped lot, not an uncommon occurrence, and I gradually gained confidence as we motored carefully down what appeared to be wet but ice-free roads – until about a quarter mile from the park, that is, when we found ourselves on the wrong side of the road, twice. Holy Yikes! (Not what I said at the time.) Creeping into the park, it was instantly clear this wasn’t a normal race morning. As our runners likewise crept into the park, each told their story of the dangers they’d endured and wreckage they’d avoided en route, none carrying a pretty story, one nearly reduced to tears. Wreckage. Over by the skating rink. Downtown Northborough. Route Nine in Westborough. And sixty-five cars and a bunch of trucks on the interstate in Worcester. It was seriously ugly. Seriously “I’ve run and raced in almost everything including blizzards but this is downright dangerous” ugly.
This was the kind of day when one is eternally grateful not to be wearing the tag that reads, “Race Director”. Our event leader had a serious quandary on his hands: Nearly a hundred runners, and a major safety problem. The roads right around us seemed acceptable, just wet. But we’d all experienced the nightmare of arriving. It felt like the temperature was rising, but cold spots would persist, and roads don’t thaw immediately (and we’d later confirm that it wasn’t getting any warmer, we were just growing more numb). Send the runners out, and all might be well. Or a car might take out a tree trying to avoid a runner on a patch of ice. Or worse, a runner might slide into a car. We’d be dealing with an instant tragedy, and worse, probably an instant lawsuit and an instant ban on future races, because we’d have known about the danger. But send the runners home, and most wouldn’t be too happy, despite the danger. Runners are, after all, a hardy lot. Damn the torpedoes, right?
Race Director Mark wisely devised Plan B. We were, after all, in a large park, a park graced with a half-mile dirt track and numerous trails, a park where every local cross country team, including the one coached by our race director as well as the one I used to coach, both trains and competes. A few heads knocked together and the plot evolved, starting with twenty-one laps of the track (it’s a bit less than a true half mile), and evolving into what was thought to be about a mile loop incorporating more of the park, times ten.
Call it Thanksgiving spirit. Our club doesn’t charge for this race. The entry fee is a sack of food for the local food pantry. Our pickup truck was loaded to twice the height of the bed and riding low with literally a ton of food. Our runners come to enjoy the run, but also to give back this way, and to their credit, their giving frame-of-mind extended to a whole lot of tolerance when we were forced to take the safe route and involve Plan B. They ended up not doing what they expected to be doing, and they were all cool about it, and rolled with it as it came.
27 November 2013
Tiny Bit of This
On the eve of a Big Day (a Big Turkey Day, of course), I have to tell you about another Big Day. Not that it was Big for me, but it was extremely Big for those immediately involved, mildly Big for those peripherally involved, and of great amusement (and happiness) to someone who is only relationally involved, that being yours truly. As I said, I’m only relationally involved. But I feel like I had a tiny bit of influence on this coming about, and that brings a smile.
Call me self-centered, but I run for me. The list of wins are obvious and long: physical health, mental health, friends, fun, and a lot of laundry. Once I get over that, I run so that what I get out of it might keep me around a little longer to continue to keep my wife up while I read late into the night (truth: she’s out before I’m on page three and never complains about my leaving the light on), and torture my daughters with bad jokes, which they do often enjoy even if they don’t like to admit it. Go one or more notches down the reasons why list, and it’s fair to say I run to give others the hint that it’s not a bad idea to go back and look at reason number one as it applies to themselves.
When I think of my influence on others, I don’t forget that it was a co-worker’s influence on me that brought me back to the sport and all of the life-changing effects it’s had over the last eight and a half years. Thanks, Joan! Over the years I like to think I’ve given that forward. I don’t fool myself into thinking that I can be the only reason someone else decides to strap on a pair of shoes and take some control of their destiny, but I can’t disown the few grains I may have put on one side of their scale of decision.
A few years back, Niece the Elder, now Dr. Niece the Elder and a licensed physical therapist who sadly lives too far away for me to mooch random services (lucky her) took up our sport. I certainly wasn’t the primary cause, but my being wrapped up in this endeavor wasn’t lost on her, either. We’ve since enjoyed joint adventures at the Boilermaker, Wineglass, on random roads, and notably at the annual Pie & Glove, the local turkey trot in her area (which I’ll miss this year, not travelling, all the better with the nasty weather). That latter event isn’t grand and glorious, but with more than one of us sucked into the sport, it became a family event. The last few years our clan – mine and sis’s – have made the trip to the starting line, and just about everyone has jumped in. Positive good spread around.
Cut to the next scene, and Niece the Junior, now in grad school in the grand capital of hill work, Miami (flatter than Houston, I think, and that’s saying something!), has caught the bug. Again, I certainly wasn’t the primary cause, or probably even secondary. But with Big Sis in on the fun, Ancient Uncle hovering about, and other friends and acquaintances, running and fitness become mainstream norms, so much easier to plunge into. Of course, not having to run hills, or run in snow, and having the beach and ocean to plunge into just down the street can’t hurt, either. Anyway, the point is that Niece the Junior dove in and decided she’s was going big or going home, and targeted her first half marathon. For this I have one word: Woot!
Sixth paragraph, and we aren’t even to the action. (Dearest Spouse was right this evening in telling me I’m too verbose.) My point up to here is that we all influence others by what we do, and those who we’ve influenced continue to influence, and so on, ad nauseam. So when something cool and good happens that might not have happened, or at least might not have happened quite that way, we can smile and say, “I had a tiny bit of this.”
Niece the Junior signed up for her first half marathon, the Disney Wine & Dine, which is somewhat unusual in that it’s held at ten at night, perhaps the better to increase your consumption of flying protein, also known as insects, in the Florida climate, or more likely to avoid the crowds in the theme parks you’re running through and not have to get up at three in the morning to do it. Like everything else Disney, it’s highly produced (no judgment attached to that statement, just the facts, ma’am), so whereas there’s a reasonably big video screen at the Boston Marathon Athlete’s Village, there is (I am told) a REALLY BIG video screen at the Disney equivalent, where fourteen thousand runners are milling about, pondering their upcoming journey through the Magic Kingdom, and staying entertained out of a corner of their eye. Amidst this mass of track-shoed humanity, many of them in costume for added fun, a Roving Video Crew wanders, randomly cornering anyone they find generally interesting, cute, or simply in their path, stuffing the microphone in their faces and doing live interviews, broadcast live on that REALLY BIG screen for all to see, and through the REALLY BIG sound system, to hear as well.
Disclaimer: I wasn’t there. Most of this is based on what I heard later. Some of it I may fill in with conjecture because I like to tell a good story. And let’s face it, this is a good story.
Said boyfriend of Niece the Junior, who is also running the race albeit injured (spoiler alert: she smokes him, but he had a good excuse) apparently knows people who know people who know where to get good stuff off the back of a truck, or if not that, at least how to contact – and manipulate – entities like a Roving Video Crew wandering among the masses at a Disney event. Said boyfriend has a plan, but operational security is a must. Said boyfriend executes plan, informing just enough assets on the ground (such as Dr. Niece the Elder, who flew in for the race with little sis) to assure the event attains Epic Status, while still assuring operational security.
Roving Video Crew just so happens upon Niece the Junior and interviews her, live on the REALLY BIG screen, in front of fourteen thousand milling runners about her upcoming first half marathon. You ready? You nervous? You look good in that tutu! Many likely don’t notice, as this scene has graced the screen many times that evening. But when they’re done with her, they turn to him, and presumably, knowing that this was just a little bit pre-arranged, don’t fret when he takes the microphone…
And fourteen thousand people scream.
Now, was that cool, or what?
(She said yes.)
Besides due congratulations, I smile, thinking that I had a tiny, tiny, tiny (really tiny, but non-zero) bit of this. The Moment would have happened, sometime, somewhere, maybe just as it did, but maybe, possibly, not quite, not there, not like that, because for it to happen like that, she had to run. And why stop there? Let’s take this back a notch. Really, Joan had a tiny bit of this, too, and until I send her the link to this story, she’ll have had absolutely no idea what she helped wrought.
Congratulations! And never stop being a positive force in the world.
Call me self-centered, but I run for me. The list of wins are obvious and long: physical health, mental health, friends, fun, and a lot of laundry. Once I get over that, I run so that what I get out of it might keep me around a little longer to continue to keep my wife up while I read late into the night (truth: she’s out before I’m on page three and never complains about my leaving the light on), and torture my daughters with bad jokes, which they do often enjoy even if they don’t like to admit it. Go one or more notches down the reasons why list, and it’s fair to say I run to give others the hint that it’s not a bad idea to go back and look at reason number one as it applies to themselves.
When I think of my influence on others, I don’t forget that it was a co-worker’s influence on me that brought me back to the sport and all of the life-changing effects it’s had over the last eight and a half years. Thanks, Joan! Over the years I like to think I’ve given that forward. I don’t fool myself into thinking that I can be the only reason someone else decides to strap on a pair of shoes and take some control of their destiny, but I can’t disown the few grains I may have put on one side of their scale of decision.
A few years back, Niece the Elder, now Dr. Niece the Elder and a licensed physical therapist who sadly lives too far away for me to mooch random services (lucky her) took up our sport. I certainly wasn’t the primary cause, but my being wrapped up in this endeavor wasn’t lost on her, either. We’ve since enjoyed joint adventures at the Boilermaker, Wineglass, on random roads, and notably at the annual Pie & Glove, the local turkey trot in her area (which I’ll miss this year, not travelling, all the better with the nasty weather). That latter event isn’t grand and glorious, but with more than one of us sucked into the sport, it became a family event. The last few years our clan – mine and sis’s – have made the trip to the starting line, and just about everyone has jumped in. Positive good spread around.
Cut to the next scene, and Niece the Junior, now in grad school in the grand capital of hill work, Miami (flatter than Houston, I think, and that’s saying something!), has caught the bug. Again, I certainly wasn’t the primary cause, or probably even secondary. But with Big Sis in on the fun, Ancient Uncle hovering about, and other friends and acquaintances, running and fitness become mainstream norms, so much easier to plunge into. Of course, not having to run hills, or run in snow, and having the beach and ocean to plunge into just down the street can’t hurt, either. Anyway, the point is that Niece the Junior dove in and decided she’s was going big or going home, and targeted her first half marathon. For this I have one word: Woot!
Sixth paragraph, and we aren’t even to the action. (Dearest Spouse was right this evening in telling me I’m too verbose.) My point up to here is that we all influence others by what we do, and those who we’ve influenced continue to influence, and so on, ad nauseam. So when something cool and good happens that might not have happened, or at least might not have happened quite that way, we can smile and say, “I had a tiny bit of this.”
Niece the Junior signed up for her first half marathon, the Disney Wine & Dine, which is somewhat unusual in that it’s held at ten at night, perhaps the better to increase your consumption of flying protein, also known as insects, in the Florida climate, or more likely to avoid the crowds in the theme parks you’re running through and not have to get up at three in the morning to do it. Like everything else Disney, it’s highly produced (no judgment attached to that statement, just the facts, ma’am), so whereas there’s a reasonably big video screen at the Boston Marathon Athlete’s Village, there is (I am told) a REALLY BIG video screen at the Disney equivalent, where fourteen thousand runners are milling about, pondering their upcoming journey through the Magic Kingdom, and staying entertained out of a corner of their eye. Amidst this mass of track-shoed humanity, many of them in costume for added fun, a Roving Video Crew wanders, randomly cornering anyone they find generally interesting, cute, or simply in their path, stuffing the microphone in their faces and doing live interviews, broadcast live on that REALLY BIG screen for all to see, and through the REALLY BIG sound system, to hear as well.
Disclaimer: I wasn’t there. Most of this is based on what I heard later. Some of it I may fill in with conjecture because I like to tell a good story. And let’s face it, this is a good story.
Said boyfriend of Niece the Junior, who is also running the race albeit injured (spoiler alert: she smokes him, but he had a good excuse) apparently knows people who know people who know where to get good stuff off the back of a truck, or if not that, at least how to contact – and manipulate – entities like a Roving Video Crew wandering among the masses at a Disney event. Said boyfriend has a plan, but operational security is a must. Said boyfriend executes plan, informing just enough assets on the ground (such as Dr. Niece the Elder, who flew in for the race with little sis) to assure the event attains Epic Status, while still assuring operational security.
Roving Video Crew just so happens upon Niece the Junior and interviews her, live on the REALLY BIG screen, in front of fourteen thousand milling runners about her upcoming first half marathon. You ready? You nervous? You look good in that tutu! Many likely don’t notice, as this scene has graced the screen many times that evening. But when they’re done with her, they turn to him, and presumably, knowing that this was just a little bit pre-arranged, don’t fret when he takes the microphone…
And fourteen thousand people scream.
Now, was that cool, or what?
(She said yes.)
Besides due congratulations, I smile, thinking that I had a tiny, tiny, tiny (really tiny, but non-zero) bit of this. The Moment would have happened, sometime, somewhere, maybe just as it did, but maybe, possibly, not quite, not there, not like that, because for it to happen like that, she had to run. And why stop there? Let’s take this back a notch. Really, Joan had a tiny bit of this, too, and until I send her the link to this story, she’ll have had absolutely no idea what she helped wrought.
Congratulations! And never stop being a positive force in the world.
25 November 2013
Assumptions
Spring is certainly not in the air, so a young man’s fancy does not turn to love. Rather, with the fall nip in the air, it’s time for that annual ritual of American corporate life, open enrollment for health care and other benefits. It’s time to find out how much your premiums and deductibles went up and your company’s contribution (inevitably, it seems) went down. But I’m not kvetching, really. I’m glad to have health care benefits, and I’m glad that the accessibility of that benefit now isn’t at risk should I, through choice or chance, cease to be employed. I am, however, kvetching over the assumptions that the corporate world lays upon the masses during this time of wonder.
The health of the average American is at a crisis level. Few would not argue with that; nor would I. But there’s a key word in that statement that gets forgotten in the application of large programs to large numbers of people: average. Yes, there is a problem with the average, but any average is made up of the proverbial bell curve, and people at both ends (as well as the middle) of that curve need to be handled appropriately. That often seems to be forgotten. A huge assumption gets made all too often that we are all average. We are not, and we shouldn’t be handled that way.
What spurred this ranting was a well-intentioned plan by Mighty Employer to encourage healthier lifestyles amongst its five-digit count of employees, not only out of concern for their general welfare, but with the hope of reigning in long-term healthcare costs. It’s a reasonable effort, and I repeat and phrase well-intentioned, because I ascribe no malice to this enterprise. It doesn’t take much looking to see plenty of people who could benefit from some changes. And nothing encourages like the Almighty Dollar, so Mighty Employer put some teeth behind their plan: this year, five hundred bucks of your benefit contribution is riding on making a reasonable effort to be healthy. So far, so good, nothing motivates like the Almighty Dollar. But here’s where things go sour.
Assumptions. America’s health may be in a sorry state, but that doesn’t mean you can assume that everyone’s health is in a sorry state. Yet it appears that they – if not the corporate benefits folks, then certainly the outfit they hired on to administer the program – do just that.
I’m not claiming perfection, genetic superiority, or general awesomeness. But despite my recent tendon and cloggy setbacks, I’m in pretty good shape, and to assume otherwise, and therefore tell me that I need to participate in programs to fix all the problems that you assume I have, well, that’s a little annoying to say the least, rather patronizing, perhaps even debatably insulting, but more important, it’s simply counterproductive.
Like many of these programs (yes, I’ve seen them before), there’s an elaborate point system, with the goal of amassing enough Magic Points to claim your Five C-Note Carrot. Family members are welcome to join in the fun, so Dearest Spouse and I sat down and filled out the online health assessment, which was harmless. We could win more points by placing an administrative burden on our doctor to fill out a form with basic stats (including, interestingly, neck size, thus guaranteeing more than just administrative work but an actual visit, burning their time and ours for something that never in my life have I had, or seen the need to have, measured). But that really doesn’t seem fair now, does it? Why place even more burden on Lady Doctor to work for free? Besides, that alone wouldn’t generate enough Magic Points, so we’d have to look further anyhow.
Ah yes, we can participate in Online Wellness Programs. What joy! Because, after all, if I was underactive, overweight, or otherwise afflicted, clicking on a web site would clearly change my behavior, right? Think of mom, smoking for fifty years, who ignores doctors and other real people, but who I’m sure would instantly change her tune when faced with the delights of a web site.
Skepticism of effectiveness aside, let’s consider the cornucopia of programs laid at my feet. A breadth of ten programs, all with cute names that needlessly trademark commonly used words, like the “Achieve® Cholesterol Management Program” or the “Care for Your Health® Chronic Condition Management Program”. Gosh, they had to trademark the phrase “Care for Your Health”?
So, let’s see… I can manage my cholesterol, which I’ve already done. I can control my blood pressure, which really isn’t a problem. I can care for back pain or those chronic conditions I also don’t have. I can manage depression or reduce stress, both of which running has pretty much handled (though programs like this are capable of inducing). I can sign up for a nutrition program, and while my diet isn’t perfect, I know what good nutrition looks like and what to strive for, and I really don’t care to be told to eat tofu on Tuesdays. Or I can quit smoking.
Question: Do I lose points if I start smoking, just so I can gain points by quitting?
Of course, I left one out of that previous list. It’s called “Energize®” (that trademark thingy again), and it’s the only one I can realistically sign up for which won’t constitute a bald-face lie. Now, I’m not into bald-face lies, especially just to get money, and yes, I certainly will exercise, so this isn’t a lie. So both Dearest Spouse and I plunged into this one.
Step back and consider that even in my injured and recovering state, I’m still tracking about a hundred miles a month. And Dearest Spouse, while not infected with the running bug, is highly active and hits the gym four or more times a week. So neither of us qualify as the Assumed American Couch Potato.
Into the woods! We dive in. And we are each faced with a multi-page survey of our present activities, how often, for how long, what do you think about this, that, and the rest. These queries are of course fraught with the usual, “I’m a robot and don’t understand reality” issues, such as when I tell it that I hike, which isn’t every week, but when it happens, often comes in the form of Adirondack Death Marches and the like, it wants to know, “How many minutes?” It rather freaks out when I tell it that I’m on the mountain for twelve hours. Whatever… We are both amused at the question, “Do you think exercise is boring?” to which we both answer a solid ONE on the one-to-ten scale where one is “I Live to Exercise!” and ten is “YES, It’s God-Awful Kill-Me-Now I-Can’t-Stand-This BORING”. OK, it didn’t use those phrases, but you get the idea.
You’d think the magic automated program might catch on, given an answer like that. But no, it assumes we are all…average. And so it takes over and generates a customized plan, just for you! Yes, with lots of exclamation points! I didn’t add those!
You can guess where this is going. The seventeen page (!) document produced is comical only to the extent that it not entirely sad, insulting, and completely irrelevant. Never mind the simple programming bugs (for some reason, every apostrophe comes out as three question marks), the content is largely inane and the attitude is patronizing at best.
It acknowledges that I’m “Staying Strong”, in the top tier, stage four of their lingo (good thing this isn’t about cancer!). But since Mighty Employer paid real money to Health Program Consultant who likes to Trademark Programs, they have to tell me that their Energize® program can help me improve my sense of well-being, manage my stress, maintain my weight, and tone my body. Yes, all this can be yours, just for the price of a few hundred clicks on a web site.
It gets better. I’ll quote directly a few times here while you hold your head out the window and vomit: “You're not alone. A lot of men in their 50's lose sight of their own needs.” Note to Composers of Introduction: I haven’t lost sight. They tell me how many men find it hard to stay active. Note to Perky Twenty-Three-Year-Old Copy-Writer: I don’t have that problem. They tell me I can keep up my current level of exercise, which they had to acknowledge exceeds the amount that experts recommend, and still have a life. Note to H.R. Benefits Staffers: I do have a life. They tell me that most people find that exercise gives them a net gain in energy. Note to those who can’t imagine it: DUH, why do you think I already do it? Their perkiness knows no bounds… “Great! Read on. It only gets better.” Good God, really? I’m only on page two!
I cannot begin to enumerate the masses of mindless mush that this customized report pours into the dumpster of my soul. I’m told why I like hiking. I’m told that if I’m overweight (which I told it I’m not), I should avoid running. I’m enlightened that mowing the grass with a power mower is an example of cardio activity. Really? Gosh, I didn’t know that! Do I get bonus points for my human-powered squirrel-cage manual mower? I’m given basic math lessons: if I add ten minutes of walking, I’ll make it to Portland, Maine, by the end of next year. Of course, if I ran during the time I spent on this program, I’d make it to Portland, Maine, by next month. But my favorite part has to the section where they state that, “Since you are already active, we suggesting building on what you’re already doing,” at which point they suggest (I’m not making this up) that I pace while I’m talking on the phone, take an extra lap around the grocery store, and when I run errands, park farther from the door.
Seriously. This is building on what I’m already doing? Do these folks realize that when I run errands, I run errands? I run to the bank. I run to City Hall. I run to the doctor. Heck, I run to the store if the object I’m buying is small enough. Can I park any farther from the door than that? Oh, and does using a bathroom on a different floor of the building (another real suggestion) really add to the exercise of one to two hundred (or more) miles per month? (Note to Clueless Writers: My home office is in the basement. There are no bathrooms here.) That’s why I use words like patronizing and insulting. Even before page fourteen, where they tell me how to cope with their view that I think exercise is boring. Hello?
I could go on, but you should be spending your time exercising rather than reading this blather. And that’s my point entirely: the time I spend clicking on their web site, playing their games, gaming their system, would be far better spent either actually exercising, or really working. Remember work? After all, I do think they want me to do that.
I can, and probably will have to, waste time clicking on their web site, trying to convince it that a hard interval workout at the track does satisfy the need for twenty to thirty minutes of moderate walking. But as I noted, it’s simply gaming the system. I called the benefits folks and tried to reason. I’ll send you training logs and spreadsheets. I’ll send you race results. You name it. Just don’t waste my time. No dice. I do have a senior manager in Human Resources lined up for a chat next week, and I am hoping to find some sanity in that meeting. I’ll happily eat my words to the extent success there guides.
At this point it’s no surprise to you when I say I can be as sarcastic about these kinds of programs as the most jaded and acerbic person out there, so it’s worth reminding you of my point. I get it. I see what they’re trying to do. I see the need, and it’s dire. There’s no question about that. I’ll also concede, sarcasm aside, that even though of questionable effectiveness, web-based programs (to be fair, in some cases followed up with human phone calls) are a tool in addressing a large population. But there has to be a safety valve, a sanity lever, a willingness to look around and recognize that a portion of your population is doing what you want them to do, so trust but verify, ask them to show you evidence, but believe them, embrace them, encourage them.
All I ask is that you don’t assume we’re all average.
The health of the average American is at a crisis level. Few would not argue with that; nor would I. But there’s a key word in that statement that gets forgotten in the application of large programs to large numbers of people: average. Yes, there is a problem with the average, but any average is made up of the proverbial bell curve, and people at both ends (as well as the middle) of that curve need to be handled appropriately. That often seems to be forgotten. A huge assumption gets made all too often that we are all average. We are not, and we shouldn’t be handled that way.
What spurred this ranting was a well-intentioned plan by Mighty Employer to encourage healthier lifestyles amongst its five-digit count of employees, not only out of concern for their general welfare, but with the hope of reigning in long-term healthcare costs. It’s a reasonable effort, and I repeat and phrase well-intentioned, because I ascribe no malice to this enterprise. It doesn’t take much looking to see plenty of people who could benefit from some changes. And nothing encourages like the Almighty Dollar, so Mighty Employer put some teeth behind their plan: this year, five hundred bucks of your benefit contribution is riding on making a reasonable effort to be healthy. So far, so good, nothing motivates like the Almighty Dollar. But here’s where things go sour.
Assumptions. America’s health may be in a sorry state, but that doesn’t mean you can assume that everyone’s health is in a sorry state. Yet it appears that they – if not the corporate benefits folks, then certainly the outfit they hired on to administer the program – do just that.
I’m not claiming perfection, genetic superiority, or general awesomeness. But despite my recent tendon and cloggy setbacks, I’m in pretty good shape, and to assume otherwise, and therefore tell me that I need to participate in programs to fix all the problems that you assume I have, well, that’s a little annoying to say the least, rather patronizing, perhaps even debatably insulting, but more important, it’s simply counterproductive.
Like many of these programs (yes, I’ve seen them before), there’s an elaborate point system, with the goal of amassing enough Magic Points to claim your Five C-Note Carrot. Family members are welcome to join in the fun, so Dearest Spouse and I sat down and filled out the online health assessment, which was harmless. We could win more points by placing an administrative burden on our doctor to fill out a form with basic stats (including, interestingly, neck size, thus guaranteeing more than just administrative work but an actual visit, burning their time and ours for something that never in my life have I had, or seen the need to have, measured). But that really doesn’t seem fair now, does it? Why place even more burden on Lady Doctor to work for free? Besides, that alone wouldn’t generate enough Magic Points, so we’d have to look further anyhow.
Ah yes, we can participate in Online Wellness Programs. What joy! Because, after all, if I was underactive, overweight, or otherwise afflicted, clicking on a web site would clearly change my behavior, right? Think of mom, smoking for fifty years, who ignores doctors and other real people, but who I’m sure would instantly change her tune when faced with the delights of a web site.
Skepticism of effectiveness aside, let’s consider the cornucopia of programs laid at my feet. A breadth of ten programs, all with cute names that needlessly trademark commonly used words, like the “Achieve® Cholesterol Management Program” or the “Care for Your Health® Chronic Condition Management Program”. Gosh, they had to trademark the phrase “Care for Your Health”?
So, let’s see… I can manage my cholesterol, which I’ve already done. I can control my blood pressure, which really isn’t a problem. I can care for back pain or those chronic conditions I also don’t have. I can manage depression or reduce stress, both of which running has pretty much handled (though programs like this are capable of inducing). I can sign up for a nutrition program, and while my diet isn’t perfect, I know what good nutrition looks like and what to strive for, and I really don’t care to be told to eat tofu on Tuesdays. Or I can quit smoking.
Question: Do I lose points if I start smoking, just so I can gain points by quitting?
Of course, I left one out of that previous list. It’s called “Energize®” (that trademark thingy again), and it’s the only one I can realistically sign up for which won’t constitute a bald-face lie. Now, I’m not into bald-face lies, especially just to get money, and yes, I certainly will exercise, so this isn’t a lie. So both Dearest Spouse and I plunged into this one.
Step back and consider that even in my injured and recovering state, I’m still tracking about a hundred miles a month. And Dearest Spouse, while not infected with the running bug, is highly active and hits the gym four or more times a week. So neither of us qualify as the Assumed American Couch Potato.
Into the woods! We dive in. And we are each faced with a multi-page survey of our present activities, how often, for how long, what do you think about this, that, and the rest. These queries are of course fraught with the usual, “I’m a robot and don’t understand reality” issues, such as when I tell it that I hike, which isn’t every week, but when it happens, often comes in the form of Adirondack Death Marches and the like, it wants to know, “How many minutes?” It rather freaks out when I tell it that I’m on the mountain for twelve hours. Whatever… We are both amused at the question, “Do you think exercise is boring?” to which we both answer a solid ONE on the one-to-ten scale where one is “I Live to Exercise!” and ten is “YES, It’s God-Awful Kill-Me-Now I-Can’t-Stand-This BORING”. OK, it didn’t use those phrases, but you get the idea.
You’d think the magic automated program might catch on, given an answer like that. But no, it assumes we are all…average. And so it takes over and generates a customized plan, just for you! Yes, with lots of exclamation points! I didn’t add those!
You can guess where this is going. The seventeen page (!) document produced is comical only to the extent that it not entirely sad, insulting, and completely irrelevant. Never mind the simple programming bugs (for some reason, every apostrophe comes out as three question marks), the content is largely inane and the attitude is patronizing at best.
It acknowledges that I’m “Staying Strong”, in the top tier, stage four of their lingo (good thing this isn’t about cancer!). But since Mighty Employer paid real money to Health Program Consultant who likes to Trademark Programs, they have to tell me that their Energize® program can help me improve my sense of well-being, manage my stress, maintain my weight, and tone my body. Yes, all this can be yours, just for the price of a few hundred clicks on a web site.
It gets better. I’ll quote directly a few times here while you hold your head out the window and vomit: “You're not alone. A lot of men in their 50's lose sight of their own needs.” Note to Composers of Introduction: I haven’t lost sight. They tell me how many men find it hard to stay active. Note to Perky Twenty-Three-Year-Old Copy-Writer: I don’t have that problem. They tell me I can keep up my current level of exercise, which they had to acknowledge exceeds the amount that experts recommend, and still have a life. Note to H.R. Benefits Staffers: I do have a life. They tell me that most people find that exercise gives them a net gain in energy. Note to those who can’t imagine it: DUH, why do you think I already do it? Their perkiness knows no bounds… “Great! Read on. It only gets better.” Good God, really? I’m only on page two!
I cannot begin to enumerate the masses of mindless mush that this customized report pours into the dumpster of my soul. I’m told why I like hiking. I’m told that if I’m overweight (which I told it I’m not), I should avoid running. I’m enlightened that mowing the grass with a power mower is an example of cardio activity. Really? Gosh, I didn’t know that! Do I get bonus points for my human-powered squirrel-cage manual mower? I’m given basic math lessons: if I add ten minutes of walking, I’ll make it to Portland, Maine, by the end of next year. Of course, if I ran during the time I spent on this program, I’d make it to Portland, Maine, by next month. But my favorite part has to the section where they state that, “Since you are already active, we suggesting building on what you’re already doing,” at which point they suggest (I’m not making this up) that I pace while I’m talking on the phone, take an extra lap around the grocery store, and when I run errands, park farther from the door.
Seriously. This is building on what I’m already doing? Do these folks realize that when I run errands, I run errands? I run to the bank. I run to City Hall. I run to the doctor. Heck, I run to the store if the object I’m buying is small enough. Can I park any farther from the door than that? Oh, and does using a bathroom on a different floor of the building (another real suggestion) really add to the exercise of one to two hundred (or more) miles per month? (Note to Clueless Writers: My home office is in the basement. There are no bathrooms here.) That’s why I use words like patronizing and insulting. Even before page fourteen, where they tell me how to cope with their view that I think exercise is boring. Hello?
I could go on, but you should be spending your time exercising rather than reading this blather. And that’s my point entirely: the time I spend clicking on their web site, playing their games, gaming their system, would be far better spent either actually exercising, or really working. Remember work? After all, I do think they want me to do that.
I can, and probably will have to, waste time clicking on their web site, trying to convince it that a hard interval workout at the track does satisfy the need for twenty to thirty minutes of moderate walking. But as I noted, it’s simply gaming the system. I called the benefits folks and tried to reason. I’ll send you training logs and spreadsheets. I’ll send you race results. You name it. Just don’t waste my time. No dice. I do have a senior manager in Human Resources lined up for a chat next week, and I am hoping to find some sanity in that meeting. I’ll happily eat my words to the extent success there guides.
At this point it’s no surprise to you when I say I can be as sarcastic about these kinds of programs as the most jaded and acerbic person out there, so it’s worth reminding you of my point. I get it. I see what they’re trying to do. I see the need, and it’s dire. There’s no question about that. I’ll also concede, sarcasm aside, that even though of questionable effectiveness, web-based programs (to be fair, in some cases followed up with human phone calls) are a tool in addressing a large population. But there has to be a safety valve, a sanity lever, a willingness to look around and recognize that a portion of your population is doing what you want them to do, so trust but verify, ask them to show you evidence, but believe them, embrace them, encourage them.
All I ask is that you don’t assume we’re all average.
09 November 2013
Rescued By the Blogosphere
If sneaking a run in while only in Pennsylvania was a motivation enough to boldly test the Achilles (now STOP, that’s not an insult to Pennsylvania, it only reflects that it’s not very far away!), notching a run in the Golden State wasn’t even a question of motivation. It was obvious. Oddly, despite having travelled there extensively in years of yore, I’ve managed to avoid the place entirely since the mid-nineties, so it too was missing from the Obsessive Compulsive list of states within which I have donned shoes and treaded miles.
Besides, when trapped in a cavernous urban hotel, a cavernous urban convention center, and a cavernous company rah-rah meeting (the corporate tradition known as the sales conference) for days, getting out running would be a mental stability necessity. Not that I fault my employer for holding said rah-rah meeting; as rah-rah meetings go it was pretty good, not to mention it meant our whole gang was together to watch the Red Sox win it all (Big Screen, Big Papi, Big Night!). But still, mental stability. Must. Run.
Alas, have you looked at a map of Anaheim, California? It’s been forty-five years since the song came out, but I’ll give you a hint: L.A. is still a great big freeway. In fact, even the “surface roads” as they say in California lingo, are, to my view, nearly freeways. Granted, they have traffic lights, but they’re wider than most freeways back east, and traffic moves, well, faster than it does on most of the clogged freeways. It’s not conducive to gentle, calm, and peaceful outings.
Morning One’s target was a circumnavigation of the spot on the map called Disneyland. Knowing I’d be out in the early morning dark (early morning not being my forte by any means, but doable when still on east coast time), this option offered the advantage of relatively few street crossings. And gee, perhaps a sighting of some tall landmark within the Marketing Empire of Disney?
Not a chance. Far be it for mere mortals to actually see into the empire without having paid a large quanta of wampum. The Imagineers are masters of landscaping. I might as well have been circling a typical California gated community, expertly hidden from prying eyes. So rather than something interesting to behold, it was merely concrete sidewalks and headlights screaming by at close to fifty on the flat boulevards, boulevards of sameness. Amusingly, a club-mate from back home related he’d been in the same convention center trap, had tried the same lap for the same strategic reasons, and experienced the same disappointment. It wasn’t just me. I felt no regret for being limited to only a few miles in my hobbling state, since I knew that adding more miles really wouldn’t have changed the scenery.
Morning Two, accompanied by a couple co-workers, one a local friend, the other a new one in from Germany (a high point of these conferences is the people from all over the world), I targeted a meander through the residential neighborhoods to the south. This wasn’t a simple exercise. They are a maze of twisty passages, all alike (for those of you who remember the original “Adventure” game from the seventies). Even had it been daylight, it would have been easy to get lost; bad enough on my own, but downright embarrassing when dragging along a couple of colleagues. But I used my usual strategy of minimizing turns you have to find, instead leveraging roads that end in a T and force your next move. And so we made it back alive, the experience far better for the presence of friends, the empty streets, and the ability to use of asphalt rather than concrete. But still, rather unsatisfying. I’m sure each homeowner’s estate we passed was a place of pride, but to us, they all looked the same. But I knew that would happen, so I prepared for the experience by planning redemption.
As it turned out, my recent romp in the world of clots had a secret sunny side. Dr. Lady Doctor made it crystal clear: if you’re flying, you’re active on that plane, walking every half hour (which at one point turned into push-ups in the galley, but that was another story…). As a result, I couldn’t take the red-eye home as corpo-directed (sleep and walk around? Incompatible!), which offered up a post-conference afternoon to escape the L.A. basin grid. But where to go? With only a few hours between busting out and dusking out, it had to be close, and after days of urban captivity, it had to be great.
And as it turned out, I knew exactly where to go. No, not physically, but among our blogging world, for advice. There happens to be a lady named Lauren who, to my view, knows every trail in Southern California (and after running the city streets, I know why!). She’d linked onto my blog years back when I’d done some podcasts for my old buddy Chris of Run Run Live, and I’ve wandered over to her blog, On the Run, from time to time. We online literate runner types are nothing if not willing to connect and chatter endlessly via the web, so it was worth a shot to look her up and beg some tips. And tips she did provide. So it is with great thanks to Lauren that I happily report that my urban anesthetization was erased with a delightful, if a bit dusty, amble through some fine California trails. Rescued by the Blogosphere, indeed.
Our target (I say ours, as co-worker Vic tagged along to walk the trails, likewise needing a convention cure) was the Aliso & Wood Canyons Wilderness Park. Honestly, the part that I saw, while pleasant and highly enjoyable, didn’t qualify as wilderness by any means, but I’ll also hedge by noting that I certainly didn’t see the whole park. Mattered not, it was wilderness by comparison. Lauren vectored us into an entrance at the park’s northern extent, and suggested a trek to the Top of the World, where vistas of the Pacific awaited. What’s not to love?
Pause for a moment and remember that Dr. Foot Doctor did tell me to run, but cautioned against big hills, especially downhills. And remember that Lady Doctor, besides decreeing my airborne exercise, had warned me of the hazards of bruises, bumps, and sharp objects, owing to my now being on Drano, a.k.a. rat poison, a.k.a. blood anti-coagulants. Thus consider my amusement when after a brief mildly-downhill start, a turn up the Cholla Trail brought not only an immediate sharp climb, but an immediate sharp environment. About five million not-so-little hypodermic needles presented themselves along the trail, attached to a plethora of cacti. I couldn’t help but find the irony in that. One slip and I’d look like a Holiday Inn showerhead crossed with a Hitchcock movie, but not in black and white.
OK, it wasn’t really that dramatic, but it was worth the laugh as I plucked my way carefully up the trail, treading carefully on the healing Achilles, the footing being tenuous from what was obviously a lot of mountain bike abuse.
Reaching the crest at the West Ridge Trail, the hills leading ocean-ward spread out on an absolutely perfect day. West Ridge is more of a broad dusty road than a trail, but side trails offered more confined trail-like experiences, and vistas poked out in all directions, across the vast populated basins to the distant ranges, and with the crest of each successive rise, closer and closer views of the sea. I snapped plenty of shots on the mini-cam, including a couple of amusing attempts of simply aiming the camera behind me while on the run, trying successively to get it straight. These are better left unedited, unrotated, uncropped, the better to show off the fun.
The geography of the place befuddles and deceives. Just before reaching the Top of the World, about a mile from the coast and a thousand feet up, civilization suddenly encroaches unexpectedly with an park entrance from a neighborhood of homes, but not from the direction you expect. Combined with the angle of the coast, it’s hard to figure exactly which way is north, and where the rest of the park, the southern extent I didn’t have time (or a healthy-enough Achilles) to explore, actually is. But it mattered not, the views to the sea, with Catalina Island barely visible in the foggy haze, were sublime. And the company up top, a friendly local couple, Rene and Phil, kept me engaged in chatter so long that Vic, even in his jog/walk (which couldn’t have been all that much slower than my injury-induced tortoise-like pace), caught up and arrived to share the summit.
We strategized our return, I opting for a longer route and he a shorter, with a plan for signaling at our point of convergence with a pile of rocks to know who’d arrived first, and set out. After a stretch back down the
West Ridge, I turned down the Rock-It (not to be confused with Rocket John, though the thought occurred to me; this one was more of a descriptive moniker), which quickly shrunk down to single track and just as quickly turned as rocky as its name promised. True to Dr. Foot Doctor’s orders, the steepest parts called for careful walking rather than running, which also offered the benefit of slowing up and soaking in the scenery of the descent into Wood Canyon. By the time I’d reached rock bottom, so to speak, the sun had already dipped behind West Ridge, and the Wood Canyon Trail proved cool and pleasant with easy footing, surprisingly, even with some water in the stream bed, a surprise for this arid land.
Vic had just finished creating his signal – V marks the spot! – when I arrived at our meeting point at the base of the Lynx Trail, at which point my poor abused Achilles had had enough, so we walked it out from there. It was sore, yes, but also nicely stretched and loosened, and actually working better than when I’d started. Running state number twenty-two was in the bag, and happily, with the memory of a great afternoon on the trails far overshadowing the earlier grid grinds.
Thanks, Lauren!
Alas, have you looked at a map of Anaheim, California? It’s been forty-five years since the song came out, but I’ll give you a hint: L.A. is still a great big freeway. In fact, even the “surface roads” as they say in California lingo, are, to my view, nearly freeways. Granted, they have traffic lights, but they’re wider than most freeways back east, and traffic moves, well, faster than it does on most of the clogged freeways. It’s not conducive to gentle, calm, and peaceful outings.
Morning One’s target was a circumnavigation of the spot on the map called Disneyland. Knowing I’d be out in the early morning dark (early morning not being my forte by any means, but doable when still on east coast time), this option offered the advantage of relatively few street crossings. And gee, perhaps a sighting of some tall landmark within the Marketing Empire of Disney?
Not a chance. Far be it for mere mortals to actually see into the empire without having paid a large quanta of wampum. The Imagineers are masters of landscaping. I might as well have been circling a typical California gated community, expertly hidden from prying eyes. So rather than something interesting to behold, it was merely concrete sidewalks and headlights screaming by at close to fifty on the flat boulevards, boulevards of sameness. Amusingly, a club-mate from back home related he’d been in the same convention center trap, had tried the same lap for the same strategic reasons, and experienced the same disappointment. It wasn’t just me. I felt no regret for being limited to only a few miles in my hobbling state, since I knew that adding more miles really wouldn’t have changed the scenery.
Morning Two, accompanied by a couple co-workers, one a local friend, the other a new one in from Germany (a high point of these conferences is the people from all over the world), I targeted a meander through the residential neighborhoods to the south. This wasn’t a simple exercise. They are a maze of twisty passages, all alike (for those of you who remember the original “Adventure” game from the seventies). Even had it been daylight, it would have been easy to get lost; bad enough on my own, but downright embarrassing when dragging along a couple of colleagues. But I used my usual strategy of minimizing turns you have to find, instead leveraging roads that end in a T and force your next move. And so we made it back alive, the experience far better for the presence of friends, the empty streets, and the ability to use of asphalt rather than concrete. But still, rather unsatisfying. I’m sure each homeowner’s estate we passed was a place of pride, but to us, they all looked the same. But I knew that would happen, so I prepared for the experience by planning redemption.
As it turned out, my recent romp in the world of clots had a secret sunny side. Dr. Lady Doctor made it crystal clear: if you’re flying, you’re active on that plane, walking every half hour (which at one point turned into push-ups in the galley, but that was another story…). As a result, I couldn’t take the red-eye home as corpo-directed (sleep and walk around? Incompatible!), which offered up a post-conference afternoon to escape the L.A. basin grid. But where to go? With only a few hours between busting out and dusking out, it had to be close, and after days of urban captivity, it had to be great.
Our target (I say ours, as co-worker Vic tagged along to walk the trails, likewise needing a convention cure) was the Aliso & Wood Canyons Wilderness Park. Honestly, the part that I saw, while pleasant and highly enjoyable, didn’t qualify as wilderness by any means, but I’ll also hedge by noting that I certainly didn’t see the whole park. Mattered not, it was wilderness by comparison. Lauren vectored us into an entrance at the park’s northern extent, and suggested a trek to the Top of the World, where vistas of the Pacific awaited. What’s not to love?
OK, it wasn’t really that dramatic, but it was worth the laugh as I plucked my way carefully up the trail, treading carefully on the healing Achilles, the footing being tenuous from what was obviously a lot of mountain bike abuse.
The geography of the place befuddles and deceives. Just before reaching the Top of the World, about a mile from the coast and a thousand feet up, civilization suddenly encroaches unexpectedly with an park entrance from a neighborhood of homes, but not from the direction you expect. Combined with the angle of the coast, it’s hard to figure exactly which way is north, and where the rest of the park, the southern extent I didn’t have time (or a healthy-enough Achilles) to explore, actually is. But it mattered not, the views to the sea, with Catalina Island barely visible in the foggy haze, were sublime. And the company up top, a friendly local couple, Rene and Phil, kept me engaged in chatter so long that Vic, even in his jog/walk (which couldn’t have been all that much slower than my injury-induced tortoise-like pace), caught up and arrived to share the summit.
We strategized our return, I opting for a longer route and he a shorter, with a plan for signaling at our point of convergence with a pile of rocks to know who’d arrived first, and set out. After a stretch back down the
Vic had just finished creating his signal – V marks the spot! – when I arrived at our meeting point at the base of the Lynx Trail, at which point my poor abused Achilles had had enough, so we walked it out from there. It was sore, yes, but also nicely stretched and loosened, and actually working better than when I’d started. Running state number twenty-two was in the bag, and happily, with the memory of a great afternoon on the trails far overshadowing the earlier grid grinds.
Thanks, Lauren!
06 November 2013
John Would Have Laughed At That
There are days when you marvel over how perfectly the gears turn, how everything goes as planned without a hitch, and how you can’t believe that you navigated the rapids of random events with no surprises. And then are those other days. But the beauty of life is that while some of those not-quite-so-perfect other days may spell disaster, some are instead the kind of days when you just smile, enjoy the ride, and know that it just doesn’t matter. All is well anyway, whatever happens. A couple of Sundays back, the first ever John Tanner Memorial 5K was one of those kind of days.
Other than nagging pain of thinking how I shouldn’t be wearing the name of my dear friend across my chest, unless he had just opened a new bar or something like that, it was a joy to honor John’s legacy. By and large, for a first-time event, it was a stellar day. Fine weather, fine crowd, fine food (and plenty of it!), fine fun, and a fine chunk of change raised in John’s honor for his charity of passion, the Our Promise to Nicholas Foundation, all due to the efforts of a fine bunch of people who built this event on love for John and passion and conviction for their cause. There was just one eensy, weensy, tiny little thing though, a minor detail in that, well, the five kilometer race turned out to be barely three kilometers for the first couple dozen runners. The winner, my bud and training partner Issam the Problem Child, just about ran me over as I strolled leisurely through the finish chute, not expecting any action for another seven or eight minutes. He might have wondered why I was in the chute, in the way, but mostly he wondered why he was in the chute to begin with…already. Ah, Houston, we had a problem here.
Amidst the confusion, someone – I recall not who – made the comment of the day: John would have laughed at that. And it was true. John Tanner, the man we honored that day, the man I’d never heard say a bad thing about anyone despite many miles of my harping on one topic or another during our runs together, simply would have laughed off a major screw-up in his own race. He’d laughed off bad lap counts on that day we did the silly indoor half-marathon. He’d laughed off bad race logistics, bad post-race food distribution, bad weather, and just plain bad races. In fact, he’d laughed off just about any misstep in the road of racing and the road of life that he’d faced. And had he been there for his own memorial, he would have laughed at this one, too, loudly and heartily. So at the end of the day, we just smiled and enjoyed the ride. It just didn’t matter.
I’d held back in getting involved in the planning of this event. As much as I would have liked to do so, I just didn’t think it prudent to commit my involvement knowing that I was heading for surgery and a recovery of unknown dimensions. In hindsight, that was likely a wise choice, considering I never counted on being down for the count again from the Clotskys, and up till just recently I still fell pretty firmly into the category of mobility impaired. Thus, come race day, my official role was simply to be the floater, the Wizened Old Goat of race organization, wandering around looking at what was broken amidst the myriads of plans, well thought-out but done so by a first-timer crew who wisely knew that they didn’t know everything. This title was also, of course, a euphemism for, “What do we do with this guy who can’t run at the moment, when we’ve filled all our volunteer slots?” I was tasked to plug the holes and seek that which could be improved at the last minute.
On the whole, the race team did a great job on the event in general, so I focused on the running experience. At the tail end that meant working with the hired-on timing crew, which included a comically frightening drive from the start to the finish, separated by about a half mile, with one of their team clinging to the trunk of their packed-to-the-gills car, just so they could give ol’ cripple here a lift…yikes! It meant calling in my Highland City Strider Lifeline to deliver and set up our finish chute, a detail overlooked (future note; no, the timing company doesn’t provide that). It meant doing a little pre-race consulting on the weird little twists, turns, and a double-back they’d built into the start of the race. To me, that first quarter mile looked a bit ugly, so I counseled them on staffing the turns thoroughly. After all, we didn’t want to have to launch any search parties for lost runners. I figured if we got them out of that mini-maze, we were all set. As so often happens, I figured wrong.
Having been to so many races where the course isn’t even posted, I was pleased that each runner was given a course map. Granted, the early mini-maze just appeared as a smudge, but we had that covered. Everyone else could clearly see the out, the side loop, the further out, the turn-around, the back, and the cut-into-the-driveway-to-the-finish. Clear as mud to everyone, right? So it came as somewhat of a shock when Issam showed up at the finish line barely a minute after the timing crew managed, after a significant fight against stubborn technology, to get the show clock operating.
Yep, it was clear as mud to everyone except the two course marshals at the end of the side loop, who somehow weren’t in the loop, and knocked the race for a loop. Issam the leader knew the course and tried to debate them when they sent him astray, but they were insistent, and they were the officials. It’s a tough spot for any runner. I’ve been there myself. You think you know the course. You’re being told otherwise. You have only seconds to make the decision: obey or ignore the officials, the former at the risk of going what you believe to be the wrong direction; the latter at the risk that no matter how right you think you are, you might not be.
He buckled and heeded their instructions. Twenty more followed him. Many of them thus ran world record times for a 5K. Meanwhile, at the finish line, just about the time we figured out what happened, apparently so did those course marshals, who started sending people the right way. A ten minute runner-free gap ensued before runners who went the entire distance started filtering in.
The irony is that both course complexities – the early mini-maze and the mid-race side-loop – could have been eliminated by just moving the turnaround on the out-and-back portion further out, and that would have added some nice scenery as well. Ah well, we live and learn…
Well before such contemplations of future upgrades could be entertained, there was the immediate mess to clean up. Some in the organizing staff felt that the awards needed to go to those who ran the entire distance. That didn’t sit well with my runner’s perspective, considering that the error wasn’t the athletes’ mistake, and since I knew that nobody in the field would have challenged Issam had he and all the rest run the full distance. We kibitzed on the concept and converged at honoring the winners, no matter the distance, and devised some makeshift awards – Our Promise hats – for the “full distance” division. This left a few heads spinning, not unlike trying to explain scoring in a cross country meet, so the organizers decided they’d better hand me the microphone to announce the explanation of the awards. Starting the day as a volunteer without portfolio, I ended up as emcee of the podium. Funny, life goes that way sometimes. It was fun announcing the new world records in the ersatz 5K.
Nobody complained, nobody worried, because we weren’t there to do so. We were there to honor the man, the giant we’d lost, and we did so no matter what burps interrupted our day. John’s family reported en masse. Nicholas’ family and the Our Promise to Nicholas folks arrived in force. John’s coworkers and friends, present and accounted for. The Highland City Striders, John’s (and my) club, made a strong showing. And another John, Vermont John, the man who’d been present in New York City when our Rocket John went down, the man who was the only link to provide comfort to John’s family on how his demise was mercifully quick and painless, the man who’d been thrown into something he hadn’t asked for and had no previous connection to, yes, Vermont John showed true class by making the three-hour trip to come and honor the man.
Honoring Rocket John Tanner was easy. He just had that effect on people.
Other than nagging pain of thinking how I shouldn’t be wearing the name of my dear friend across my chest, unless he had just opened a new bar or something like that, it was a joy to honor John’s legacy. By and large, for a first-time event, it was a stellar day. Fine weather, fine crowd, fine food (and plenty of it!), fine fun, and a fine chunk of change raised in John’s honor for his charity of passion, the Our Promise to Nicholas Foundation, all due to the efforts of a fine bunch of people who built this event on love for John and passion and conviction for their cause. There was just one eensy, weensy, tiny little thing though, a minor detail in that, well, the five kilometer race turned out to be barely three kilometers for the first couple dozen runners. The winner, my bud and training partner Issam the Problem Child, just about ran me over as I strolled leisurely through the finish chute, not expecting any action for another seven or eight minutes. He might have wondered why I was in the chute, in the way, but mostly he wondered why he was in the chute to begin with…already. Ah, Houston, we had a problem here.Amidst the confusion, someone – I recall not who – made the comment of the day: John would have laughed at that. And it was true. John Tanner, the man we honored that day, the man I’d never heard say a bad thing about anyone despite many miles of my harping on one topic or another during our runs together, simply would have laughed off a major screw-up in his own race. He’d laughed off bad lap counts on that day we did the silly indoor half-marathon. He’d laughed off bad race logistics, bad post-race food distribution, bad weather, and just plain bad races. In fact, he’d laughed off just about any misstep in the road of racing and the road of life that he’d faced. And had he been there for his own memorial, he would have laughed at this one, too, loudly and heartily. So at the end of the day, we just smiled and enjoyed the ride. It just didn’t matter.
I’d held back in getting involved in the planning of this event. As much as I would have liked to do so, I just didn’t think it prudent to commit my involvement knowing that I was heading for surgery and a recovery of unknown dimensions. In hindsight, that was likely a wise choice, considering I never counted on being down for the count again from the Clotskys, and up till just recently I still fell pretty firmly into the category of mobility impaired. Thus, come race day, my official role was simply to be the floater, the Wizened Old Goat of race organization, wandering around looking at what was broken amidst the myriads of plans, well thought-out but done so by a first-timer crew who wisely knew that they didn’t know everything. This title was also, of course, a euphemism for, “What do we do with this guy who can’t run at the moment, when we’ve filled all our volunteer slots?” I was tasked to plug the holes and seek that which could be improved at the last minute.
Having been to so many races where the course isn’t even posted, I was pleased that each runner was given a course map. Granted, the early mini-maze just appeared as a smudge, but we had that covered. Everyone else could clearly see the out, the side loop, the further out, the turn-around, the back, and the cut-into-the-driveway-to-the-finish. Clear as mud to everyone, right? So it came as somewhat of a shock when Issam showed up at the finish line barely a minute after the timing crew managed, after a significant fight against stubborn technology, to get the show clock operating.
Yep, it was clear as mud to everyone except the two course marshals at the end of the side loop, who somehow weren’t in the loop, and knocked the race for a loop. Issam the leader knew the course and tried to debate them when they sent him astray, but they were insistent, and they were the officials. It’s a tough spot for any runner. I’ve been there myself. You think you know the course. You’re being told otherwise. You have only seconds to make the decision: obey or ignore the officials, the former at the risk of going what you believe to be the wrong direction; the latter at the risk that no matter how right you think you are, you might not be.
He buckled and heeded their instructions. Twenty more followed him. Many of them thus ran world record times for a 5K. Meanwhile, at the finish line, just about the time we figured out what happened, apparently so did those course marshals, who started sending people the right way. A ten minute runner-free gap ensued before runners who went the entire distance started filtering in.
The irony is that both course complexities – the early mini-maze and the mid-race side-loop – could have been eliminated by just moving the turnaround on the out-and-back portion further out, and that would have added some nice scenery as well. Ah well, we live and learn…
Well before such contemplations of future upgrades could be entertained, there was the immediate mess to clean up. Some in the organizing staff felt that the awards needed to go to those who ran the entire distance. That didn’t sit well with my runner’s perspective, considering that the error wasn’t the athletes’ mistake, and since I knew that nobody in the field would have challenged Issam had he and all the rest run the full distance. We kibitzed on the concept and converged at honoring the winners, no matter the distance, and devised some makeshift awards – Our Promise hats – for the “full distance” division. This left a few heads spinning, not unlike trying to explain scoring in a cross country meet, so the organizers decided they’d better hand me the microphone to announce the explanation of the awards. Starting the day as a volunteer without portfolio, I ended up as emcee of the podium. Funny, life goes that way sometimes. It was fun announcing the new world records in the ersatz 5K.
Nobody complained, nobody worried, because we weren’t there to do so. We were there to honor the man, the giant we’d lost, and we did so no matter what burps interrupted our day. John’s family reported en masse. Nicholas’ family and the Our Promise to Nicholas folks arrived in force. John’s coworkers and friends, present and accounted for. The Highland City Striders, John’s (and my) club, made a strong showing. And another John, Vermont John, the man who’d been present in New York City when our Rocket John went down, the man who was the only link to provide comfort to John’s family on how his demise was mercifully quick and painless, the man who’d been thrown into something he hadn’t asked for and had no previous connection to, yes, Vermont John showed true class by making the three-hour trip to come and honor the man.
Honoring Rocket John Tanner was easy. He just had that effect on people.
Images from the day
Issam is confused to be done, but pleased to be first in line!
John’s brother Jim motors it home and enjoys the finish
Hey! Look who ran today! It’s Dearest Spouse!
This was one day where it was very cool to wear the race shirt in the race
And some even wore John’s medals…here, a Boston Marathon medal.
John’s love Kim left no doubt as to why we were here
And the Highland City Striders even brought the tent
03 November 2013
Return On Questionable Terms
[ Ed. Note: Travel and schedule have left me several weeks behind, weeks in which a bunch of somewhat interesting – or at least blog-worthy – occurrences came about. Brace yourself for an attempted catch-up onslaught over the next few days! ]
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that when last I wrote, I didn’t disclose all. I harbored a guilty secret, a plot in my mind that was about to hatch, one born of pure obsessive compulsiveness, and one that a corner of my mind suggested might not be a very good idea. But I knew I couldn’t – and wouldn’t – resist.
To thy own self be true, right? Easier said than done when you don’t really know the truth (or, so it was said in that famous movie line, you can’t handle the truth). Dr. Foot Doctor had indeed set the schedule. While still in the boot, start with the recumbent bike in the gym (check!), then graduate to the elliptical (check!), and when boredom from those torture devices reaches a fever pitch, it will be time for escape. Then, upon exiting the confines of the Dreaded Boot, walk for a week before starting to jog, slow and easy, using common sense. “You’ll know what to do,” or something like that, I think he’d said. But would I? How does one really pick the date to venture back into the pool, waiting long enough to come at the event whole enough so as not to break again, but not waiting so long as to suffer more damage from atrophy and sloth? The truth is usually not simple.
Boot Escape Day had been set for the weekend of October 12th, but with His Blessing, I’d moved it up to Wednesday the 9th. Why such precision in reporting? Simple: if Escape Day was the 9th, Try ‘N Jog day, a week later, would be the 16th, right? Now, we all know that bodies don’t heal on these exact schedules, but… to thy own self be true, right? So wait the week till the 16th, right?
And it so happened that on the 16th, I’d be in Pennsylvania with Dearest Daughter the Elder on yet another college tour. And it so happened that Pennsylvania wasn’t on my Official Obsessive Compulsive list of states in which I’d run (in my second lap that is, since I’d hit it in my youth, but to a true O-C, that’s a different list!). This meant that I could add a state to the list, but I’d have to do it by stretching the spirit while skirting the letter of the law on when I should, in fact, run.
We’re not talking about a far distant or obscure location that I wasn’t likely to get back to at some point fairly soon, like the upcoming trip to California, so the need to add this state to my running list really wasn’t so critical as to risk re-injury with a slightly accelerated return to the roads. But Pennsylvania nagged. I pass through an edge of it frequently en route to family gatherings with never the chance to stop and pop in a few miles. No, it’s not obscure or far, but I’ve been running over eight years and it hasn’t happened and it was simply time to fix that. But oh! The cloud of Catholic Guilt hung heavy! Was this a good idea, or simple foolhardiness?
The truth was that the five-plus-hour drive had left me stiff and sore, and it wasn’t a stretch to announce I needed to get out the morning for a stretch, at least a walk, and perhaps a jog, leaving DDE to drag herself awake in the hotel room. I conveniently left out the detail that days earlier I’d plotted a three-mile loop and committed it to memory. You know what happened before I write it.
After a warm-up walk across the parking lot, it was simply impossible not to break into a jog, or at least something that barely resembled one. I can’t be too critical of my pace since there are many for whom that pace is a normal event, but suffice to say that a casual glance at my watch – actual accurate timing being out of question – hinted that I moved no faster than I had a week and a half back while power walking the Main Street Mile in the Dreaded Boot. Perhaps this was a preview to me at eighty?
And it was a joy. No worries about timing street crossings, just pause, smile, and wave. No worries about sucking wind when you’re barely working, barely breathing. No worries about performance, pace, or time. No worries at all, really, other than being sure to take the one up-slope ridiculously slow, and, well, yeah, one big worry. I sure hoped I wasn’t hurting myself. After the surgery, the recovery, the clots…that would be a shame, and just plain stupid.
But if I seriously thought I’d hurt myself, I wouldn’t have done it. And in truth, that pesky Achilles started to feel better while I ran. Endorphins? At that pace, hardly. It just loosened up nicely. I’d pay for my morning joy later in the day, while walking gingerly around that college campus, sore enough to give me real worry that I had indeed been foolish. And I’d back off for the following week just to be sure I wasn’t compounding stupidity with idiocy.
But in hindsight, I know now that my intuition was right. The later-in-the-day pain was a payment worth making. Not so much for adding state number twenty-one to the running list, that obsessive desire which perhaps pushed me a bit ahead of plan, but for jumping back in the pool, feet first.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that when last I wrote, I didn’t disclose all. I harbored a guilty secret, a plot in my mind that was about to hatch, one born of pure obsessive compulsiveness, and one that a corner of my mind suggested might not be a very good idea. But I knew I couldn’t – and wouldn’t – resist.
To thy own self be true, right? Easier said than done when you don’t really know the truth (or, so it was said in that famous movie line, you can’t handle the truth). Dr. Foot Doctor had indeed set the schedule. While still in the boot, start with the recumbent bike in the gym (check!), then graduate to the elliptical (check!), and when boredom from those torture devices reaches a fever pitch, it will be time for escape. Then, upon exiting the confines of the Dreaded Boot, walk for a week before starting to jog, slow and easy, using common sense. “You’ll know what to do,” or something like that, I think he’d said. But would I? How does one really pick the date to venture back into the pool, waiting long enough to come at the event whole enough so as not to break again, but not waiting so long as to suffer more damage from atrophy and sloth? The truth is usually not simple.
Boot Escape Day had been set for the weekend of October 12th, but with His Blessing, I’d moved it up to Wednesday the 9th. Why such precision in reporting? Simple: if Escape Day was the 9th, Try ‘N Jog day, a week later, would be the 16th, right? Now, we all know that bodies don’t heal on these exact schedules, but… to thy own self be true, right? So wait the week till the 16th, right?
And it so happened that on the 16th, I’d be in Pennsylvania with Dearest Daughter the Elder on yet another college tour. And it so happened that Pennsylvania wasn’t on my Official Obsessive Compulsive list of states in which I’d run (in my second lap that is, since I’d hit it in my youth, but to a true O-C, that’s a different list!). This meant that I could add a state to the list, but I’d have to do it by stretching the spirit while skirting the letter of the law on when I should, in fact, run.
We’re not talking about a far distant or obscure location that I wasn’t likely to get back to at some point fairly soon, like the upcoming trip to California, so the need to add this state to my running list really wasn’t so critical as to risk re-injury with a slightly accelerated return to the roads. But Pennsylvania nagged. I pass through an edge of it frequently en route to family gatherings with never the chance to stop and pop in a few miles. No, it’s not obscure or far, but I’ve been running over eight years and it hasn’t happened and it was simply time to fix that. But oh! The cloud of Catholic Guilt hung heavy! Was this a good idea, or simple foolhardiness?
The truth was that the five-plus-hour drive had left me stiff and sore, and it wasn’t a stretch to announce I needed to get out the morning for a stretch, at least a walk, and perhaps a jog, leaving DDE to drag herself awake in the hotel room. I conveniently left out the detail that days earlier I’d plotted a three-mile loop and committed it to memory. You know what happened before I write it.
After a warm-up walk across the parking lot, it was simply impossible not to break into a jog, or at least something that barely resembled one. I can’t be too critical of my pace since there are many for whom that pace is a normal event, but suffice to say that a casual glance at my watch – actual accurate timing being out of question – hinted that I moved no faster than I had a week and a half back while power walking the Main Street Mile in the Dreaded Boot. Perhaps this was a preview to me at eighty?
And it was a joy. No worries about timing street crossings, just pause, smile, and wave. No worries about sucking wind when you’re barely working, barely breathing. No worries about performance, pace, or time. No worries at all, really, other than being sure to take the one up-slope ridiculously slow, and, well, yeah, one big worry. I sure hoped I wasn’t hurting myself. After the surgery, the recovery, the clots…that would be a shame, and just plain stupid.
But if I seriously thought I’d hurt myself, I wouldn’t have done it. And in truth, that pesky Achilles started to feel better while I ran. Endorphins? At that pace, hardly. It just loosened up nicely. I’d pay for my morning joy later in the day, while walking gingerly around that college campus, sore enough to give me real worry that I had indeed been foolish. And I’d back off for the following week just to be sure I wasn’t compounding stupidity with idiocy.
But in hindsight, I know now that my intuition was right. The later-in-the-day pain was a payment worth making. Not so much for adding state number twenty-one to the running list, that obsessive desire which perhaps pushed me a bit ahead of plan, but for jumping back in the pool, feet first.
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