After seventeen years of writing this blog on and off, how do you find topics that are new, compelling, and worthy of taking a wee bit of my vast (not) readership’s time? First, you hope people have a short memory (or that you’ve found some new victims). Second, you remind Dear Readers that every time a seemingly similar theme rolls around, it is tinged with few more years of age, uncertainty, and doubt, so hopefully it’s still compelling to journal another round of ‘active longevity’ facing the forces of age and decrepitude.
In our ongoing theme of running and racing as time takes its toll, my almost total silence over the last year has been a direct result of what might best be described as a period of quiescence. No races, so no good reason to write, right? Last fall’s Achilles woes, not vanquished till spring, knocked out all semblance of racing fitness. And when the weather warmed, I finally lost the long-running argument with Most Recent Doctor and had to start chugging blood pressure meds (thanks, Mom! …Love you, love those genes!), which aren’t supposed to have performance side effects, but… sure seems like… aw, who can tell? Net result, after wrapping up last summer’s Grand Prix with a whimper at Lone Gull, I fell off the cliff.
Since then, it’s been socially enriching but often athletically lame runs. The few races I hit weren’t really races: slugging out Stu’s at a moderate training pace (had to do it, it was the last running, no regrets), cruising Boston at an even slower clip (sure, a surprise qualifier, but it’s all relative, and six seconds doesn’t win a repeat dance ticket), and then the train wreck that wasn’t at Mt. Washington, which never was a race, anyway. Though I’d be remiss not to record in these pages my intense dismay when my nearly twenty-year wait to run that Just One Hill I’ve so often hiked was unceremoniously chopped in half by the organizers under questionable circumstances. Boo to you, Mt. Washington Road Race.
So, no racing for this lad in over a year. Why pay to run slow? I can do that for free.
But there have been a few bright spot runs of late, and they make you wonder, have you still got it? Is the ‘it’ still in there? Should you chase it? Or just keep lumbering on pleasantly?
Sometimes you need a little nudge from your friends to push you over the (good) edge.
So when those clubmates, they who have enticed so many to make poor (or excellent, depending on your perspective) life choices, goaded me to shake my stupor… Damn it, had to. A mere week ahead of the event, I signed up for the Western Mass Ten-Miler.
Seriously. Don’t overthink this. Don’t plan ahead. Just jump in.
It’s a tradition in this column not to quote numbers; these stories are for all at any level of ability. Numbers are irrelevant, and let’s face it, they’re boring, and, as already noted, everything is relative. In keeping, I won’t here. But suffice to say my velocity has slipped a lot, and while I accept I’m getting older and inevitably slower, I don’t have to like it. So, Western Mass Ten? Let’s go, and target an even-minute pace boundary that I hadn’t hit in over a year at anything longer than a track interval. Roll the dice.
The funny thing is, telling this story to non-running friends, the first thing they focus on is the ten-mile part. They, of course, miss the point. Sure, I’m slower now, but the real joy is that ten miles still isn’t an issue, and I’m immensely glad for that. Hey, it’s only ten miles. A typical Sunday morning… that would kill most of my co-workers. I’m thankful to the sport and my buds for keeping that real as the years go by. But, back to the point, moving at a pace that seems respectable to me? That certainly was an issue.
This was, in short, a delight of an event. The hosting organization, the Hartford Marathon Foundation, pretty much did everything right. No, let me edit that, they did everything right. And yes, you heard that from me, who can, and usually does, find something to complain about (you listening, Mt. Washington?). Yes, I’m guilty of that – usually for good reasons so I’ll own it – but that makes it all the more impressive when a race elates me.
From Northampton, (a town I’ve spent little time in, and which by the end of the day I’d realize what a gem I’d missed,) we were shuttled to UMass Amherst, where, to my delight, one of my highly competitive (and favorite) clubmates, on recovery from her outstanding run at the Chicago Marathon and therefore not looking to push any limits, offered to accompany this old decrepit guy looking for redemption from the World of Meh on the point-to-point trajectory that would bring us back to Northampton, seeking what we’ll call ‘X’ minute pace. I hate to call her service pacing, since we really didn’t know what our speed would be, but the service is the point: Clubs give you the joy of people who, based on where they are at that particular moment, are willing to turn a race into a supportive event, or do oh so many other things for you. Case in point, at the same time, two other clubmates were equally offering similar services to a third. We are, in our very genes, tribal. It brings out the worst in us. It brings out the best in us.
But all that settled… a race! At last! It’s been too long!
We set out on a slight upgrade and by the mile were already ahead of that hoped for X. I hadn’t expected to reach terminal velocity for a few miles. Bonus. And from there it only got better. The juxtaposition of targeting a pace with the attitude of “it’s only ten miles’ turned into almost a comedy. After a few miles of streets through Amherst, we hit the rail trail – the Norwottock, part of the Mass Central, which will eventually connect all the way to just a mile north of home-sweet-home – and hunkered down.
After all, it’s only ten miles. Actually, by then, eight.
Soon, we weren’t cranking X. We were cranking a lot quicker. So maybe there still was some ‘it’. It wasn’t a cruise, it was work. And that was glorious, because I hadn’t felt that ‘racing isn’t support to feel comfortable’ feeling in a long time.
It’s only six miles.
Mid race, she’d admit that her coach might not be thrilled with the pace we were laying down – she was supposed to be recovering, remember – and that she couldn’t keep it a secret from him – a good reason why I don’t use Strava. I suggested she just step on her watch.
It’s only three miles.
If I have one complaint about this event, which was, as noted, perfectly run, is that the course got a little tedious. The rail trail was delightful, but uniformly so. Can you complain about that? Answer? No. But it made our focus on the pace all that much more front-and-center.
Working hard, my verbal commentary degraded into grunts. I wasn’t sure I could hold the effort for the distance, but isn’t that the glory of pushing the envelope? My high-tech watch would later tell me (erroneously, of course) that my heart rate reached a level that would kill a younger person and most livestock. Clearly an aberration, but amusing. And it felt great. Someday, there may no longer be any ‘it’ left, but that Sunday wasn’t someday; there was still ‘it’.
Could I get back to the world of the living? Could I hit that target pace, not seen in a year? Yes. With a little help from my friends, a better phrase was eviscerated. And would I have even tried this without said friends alongside to push me back into the pool? Probably, no. Oh, and did those other two clubmates bring home their charge? Of course.
Remind yourself that there is no last time, no ‘not going to do that anymore’ – at least till we’re in the ground or our legs fall off. Even then, take a break, get back on the horse; let your friends talk you into it. Use every drop of your ‘it’.
Postscript: Two weeks later (since I never get these stories out in time) a different clubmate asked if I’d pace her in an upcoming race I wasn’t really planning to run. Seriously, how can I not?
