Marathon Redemption

Two weeks later I look down at the medal they draped around my neck after I crossed the finish line and I still smile.

I'm a marathoner. I've got the bling to prove it.

Two years ago I started a marathon, but did not finish. Believe me, the sting of a DNF after running 19 miles lingers for a long time.

A few injuries and tweaks here and there this time around, but for the most part I kept the wheels on the wagon.

My longest training runs were a couple of 20 milers, the second one was absolutely fantastic. But I still wasn't sure whether I could do 26.2.

When race day for the Kansas City Marathon came on Oct. 18, I was eager. And ready.

My goal was to finish. If the day was going well, under 4 hours would be great. If not, just finish, at least faster than Oprah. Oprah Winfrey is a marathoner, finishing the 1994 Marine Corps Marathon in 4:29:15.

I finished. I whomped Oprah. I broke 4 hours. I still almost can't believe it.

This race was important to me. So very important.

It may be silly, but the pain, mostly emotional, still stings from the Milwaukee marathon a couple years ago. I was injured, sure. But I have been beating myself up for not getting it done. Not finishing what I started.

I started the Kansas City run with a huge monkey on my back. Think gorilla-sized. Maybe even King Kong.

That dude is heavy. It took me 26.2 miles to shake him, but I did it. Left that sucker on the ground.

As for many other areas of my life at the moment, I am not exactly maintaining a steady pace. Work, family and other aspects are filled with way too much drama and uncertainty. I may even be suffering from a bit of burnout. My running has provided much needed solace.

Didn't really mean to declare radio silence on the blog, but that was one item that had to be pushed aside for the moment.

I've strapped on the Mizunos a few times since the marathon and it's been somewhat of a struggle. My knees ached. My legs felt dead.

Went out this morning and felt more life in my legs than I have for quite some time. Maybe my body is starting to bounce back.

You know what that means.

Time to pick another goal and start training for another marathon.

More mind games for marathoners

Something is different this year. 

I blew off a race today. 

The Labor Day 5K in Leawood drew me to the starting line each of the past couple of years. It’s a flat and fast course. Last year I PR’d. 

I have been thinking about the race, and even encouraging others to partake. But this morning, I laced up the Mizunos and headed out. For a semi-long run. 

My work schedule this week is going to play havoc with my running schedule. So I wanted to be sure to get my runs in. The idea of a 5K sprint just wasn’t appealing. 

All of my running focus at the moment is on Oct. 18. The Kansas City Marathon. 

I am obsessed with redeeming myself. Two years ago I attempted a full marathon.  It didn’t work out so well. Looking back, I realize now, I started the summer with an overuse injury. 

Guess what?  Logging lots and lots of miles and running longer than I had ever run before in my life was not a good strategy for healing.  19 miles into the marathon in 2006 I was limping. Big time.  

DNF city. And the demons of self-loathing and self-doubt have been running wild inside my mind ever since. 

This summer, I have been feeling much, much better. I have been logging my miles, focused on the fall. My previous marathon failure, though, has left me toting around a bunch of extra emotional baggage. As strong as I feel at the moment, will I really be able to get it done -- finally -- in October? 

I know I should weave in some speed work. But this morning, I was much more focused on getting in a solid 8 miles with hope of making me stronger for Oct. 18.

A runner's recovery week

What a beautiful morning for a run.

I sure do love cutback weeks. The training schedule seems to have this build-you-up, slap-you-down rhythm to it.

Last week I missed a run – my stomach was churning through the night and I just didn’t hit the streets last Thursday – but still put in a respectable distance. Plus, last Saturday I did 16 miles in the blazing heat.

By Monday I was feeling a bit as if I had been hit by a bus.

Then the training schedule decided I had been slapped down enough.

Monday was a light few miles. Tuesday called for 6. This morning when I went out for 4, I found more pop in my legs than I had all summer.

It was amazing. The 65-degree temperature and the gorgeous sunrise weren’t bad, either.

Like I said before, what a beautiful morning for a run.

Of course I'm a little crazy. I'm a runner

Hi everybody. I’m Oz Runner.

“Hello, Oz,” they reply.

I’m a Garmin-o-holic.

“That’s OK. We know what you are going through. We are here for you. Admitting you have a problem is the first step.”

Um, it’s not really a problem. As long as my Garmin works.

Today, my little buddy behaved like the good Garmin Forerunner I have known and loved for the past year and a half. 6 miles run. 6 miles recorded. 6 miles downloaded to the computer.

I love this guy, in a manly, recognizing it is – mostly – an inanimate object sort of way. It just seems like he really gets me.

Before my Garmin came into my life, I never was very diligent about keeping a running log. Sure, it is kind of fun to relive your training run while moving the computer mouse around the course on something like mapmyrun.com to figure out how far I went.

Or you can always drive along a running route before or after a run to check your mileage. Oh boy, that sure is a blast.

Not anymore do I have to do such things. No sir. I’ve got my Garmin.

On a whim, not really planning what route I need to run, I can get a quick glance at the training schedule, head out the door and create a route on the fly to hit just the distance I need that day.

OK, I recognize I can get a bit obsessive about this thing at times. On my weekly group runs, for example, sometimes according to my personal Garmin, I will come up short by a tenth, or maybe two-tenths of a mile from the 10, 12 or 14 miles or whatever I was supposed to run that day. Maybe my GPS was a bit off from the Garmin of the guy who plotted the course, maybe I cut some corners or maybe I just got off track by turning my Garmin off when coming in for a water stop, then walking a bit and then restarting it.

Sure, I try to be casual at the end of the run and all as I stop, sip a cup of Gatorade and chat with my fellow runners for a bit. And yes, then I have been known to run in the parking lot to get my full tenth or two-tenths of a mile in. Once I even drove home, then ran in front of my house for one-tenth of a mile.

It’s just so magical when my little buddy beeps and displays the completion of another full mile. Yes, it’s silly. I’m probably a little crazy. But I am a runner. Aren’t we all at least a little bit crazy?

My Garmin ate my homework, er, training run

I haven’t trotted out the-dog-ate-my-homework excuse since, oh, about the fifth grade.

While it didn’t work so well with Ms. Chase – she sure was a great teacher, but she didn’t put up with any nonsense – I am forced to try again. You gotta believe me. I did the work, but it just disappeared.

This time the culprit isn’t my once-beloved St. Bernard – you can’t imagine the size of the goobers that dog could produce, but I digress – but my Garmin.

Yes, yesterday I put in my miles. Seven of them. Really.

But then as I went through my morning routine – sitting around waiting for the sweat to stop dripping off my body so I could take a shower, brewing a pot of coffee, checking in on the Tour de France (Go Garmin!) – I plugged in my Forerunner 205 into my PC.

Got the electronic beep that said it was downloading the latest running history. But when I clicked into the chart……it wasn’t there!!!

What the heck?! It was like my seven miles in 1 hour and 6 minutes on a hot, steamy summer morning – July 22 to be exact – never happened. The sweat definitely was dripping off my nose so I know I ran. The hallucinations don’t usually cause me any problems until I am about 16 miles into a training run on a 90-degree morning in August. But the computerized chart wasn’t there.

Guess I am not the only one struggling to get out of no running vacation mode. Do you think the Forerunner is pouting because I only took him on one run while out in Colorado?

I had another dog once who hated to be left behind at home when I went out for a run. Even as Jesse aged and started dealing with a little arthritis that slowed his pace considerably, the dog went crazy if I put on my running shoes and didn’t grab the leash to take him along. Sometimes I would have to take him out for a warm-up mile, drop him off back at home and then finish my long run.

That dog was high maintenance. I sure hope my Garmin buddy gets back to his grab-and-go self by the morning. We’ve got to log 6 miles, according to the schedule. It’s time to get serious about training and, like Ms. Chase so many years ago, I’m not inclined to put up with this nonsense.

“The Garmin ate your training run?” I can hear her say, the scowl forming on her face. “Yeah right.”

High-altitude cross training

So there I was, 10,000 feet up, and staring at my running shoes. My running shoes stared back.

And I didn’t go running.

It was vacation, after all. I didn’t mean to take a vacation from running. It just sort of worked out that way.

Last week I flew to Denver with a mob of family members. Between aunts, uncles, cousins, a grandmother and a very good family friend, we just about had enough people for our own traveling circus.

On the first day, I did strap on my Mizunos and go for a run around Denver. I cruised by Coors Field, the Lower Downtown area and then back up the state capitol.

Felt pretty good considering that I was a mile above sea level. It also was fun to get the runner’s view-vantage point to see how much my hometown has changed over the years.

But then we piled into a couple of vans and headed for the high country. Stayed in a cabin that was at least 9,000 feet high with a few dirt roads and a bunch of rocky trails nearby.

Between all of the horseback riding, river rafting and hiking – I did do a bunch of mondo hikes – I just didn’t make the time for a morning run. Best hike of the week: A steep, winding three-mile trail that takes you from the rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison down to a beautiful secluded reservoir. Then, of course, after visiting the site known as Hermit’s Rest, my son and I had to drag ourselves back up. The 7-year-old Ozling and his love of hiking in the mountains and fierce determination left his Daddy proud.

I drank more beer in the past week than I have in the past six months. Maybe as many as three or four for the week. I didn’t end up paying too big a price. Only came back with a couple more pounds than I left with.

My training schedule was waiting for me upon my return. It’s only a piece of paper, but I think it was glaring at me.

I realize I can’t get this week of training back. It’s important, I realize. Just before I left, I did take the plunge and sign up for one of those lengthy fall races.

Definitely time to get back to work.

Can we just call this past week a bout of high-altitude cross training?

An oasis for runners

I figured something out this morning.

You’ll probably think it’s silly that I haven’t noticed before now.

But here it is: I’m not a camel.

No, really. I just checked. I looked in the mirror – it was kind of hard to turn my head around to the back, but I did it – and found that I didn’t have any humps. Not even one.

So, I must ask myself, why have I been wandering in the desert without any water?

Well, in this case the desert consists of the streets in my neighborhood that I use to piece together routes of a few miles during the weeks. But on these steamy summer mornings, I might as well be running in a desert.

Hydration is important under those conditions. But I never liked to carry water. The sloshing in the bottles drove me nuts. Trying to stash bottles along my route didn’t really work all that well either.

I saw those runner’s fuel belts, but they always looked uncomfortable. I know how bad it feels when my shirt rubs in the wrong places. Can’t imagine what my hips would look life after five miles of chafing against a fuel belt.

But then I saw one of those Amphipod belts. I got a small one a while back to stash my cell phone in on longer runs. My ankle had a nasty run in with a pot hole a few years back and I made the not-wise decision to walk back home, more than a mile. I decided that if I ever have another problem like that again, I want to be able to get on the cell phone and call the Mrs. Oz taxi to come pick me up. But I digress.

The point is, the Amphipod belt worked great. No chafing. It made me start wondering, hmmmm….look at that other Amphipod belt that comes with a form-fitting water bottle tilted to the side. Bet that wouldn’t slosh too crazily.

I picked it up, admiring it, each time I went into the local running store over the past month. Price seemed a bit steep, but I finally brought one home.

It was amazing this morning as I took it along and was able to take a few gulps of water at two miles, then again at four. I didn’t feel nearly as run down at the end of the run.

So, to review, here are the big lessons: 1. I am not a camel. 2. Runner’s need water.

Give me time. I just might start to figure out some of this running stuff. Eventually.

Runners and peer pressure

Don’t know if I set a very good example for the Ozlings this morning.

They both still are in elementary school, but we already have been warning them about the evil pull of peer pressure and, more importantly, how to resist.

Some of your so-called friends, we say, eventually may offer you drugs (“No, not like the ibuprofen daddy pops like M&M’s after a long run. Some drugs aren’t really medicine and don’t come from the doctor,” I say), some may offer you alcohol (“Yes, little Ozling, no need to be alarmed that daddy is drinking a couple of glasses of wine with dinner tonight. The kind of alcohol your “friends” may offer is different,” I say, drifting off for a moment as I recall various dalliances in the past – it really was a long time ago -- with wine coolers, pitchers of beer and the occasional pitcher of Kamikazes…..Mmmm, Kamikazes…), and some may offer you various forms of inappropriate hanky panky (“Umm, we aren’t going to get into the details of this just yet. Probably not a problem because I don’t think you are going to be allowed to date boys until you are 35, maybe 38,” I tell my little blonde daughter of an Ozling.)

But if the Ozlings’ peers offer them miles, my advice definitely is going to have to be of the do as I say, not as I do variety. Anybody offers me the chance to run a few extra miles, I obviously have no defenses.

I can’t explain it. This morning, I clearly gave in to peer pressure.

The all-important schedule for the race that has yet to be officially entered called for 12 or 14 miles this morning. I still am trying to be cautious and pretty much had decided I would put in a respectable 12 as I drove to the group run this morning.

Then as we all said our typical “Good Mornings” and exchanged our “How far are you goings?” a trio of the folks I typically run with all said 14. “I was thinking 12,” I said, “but what the heck? I’ll join you for 14.”

That’s how it starts, I guess.

My mother always wondered if all my friends jumped off a cliff into a lake, would I join them? Guess I proved this morning what kind of stuff I am made of. No making up my own mind and remaining true to my convictions for me. No siree. If my buddies ever went flying off a tall cliff, I clearly would find myself floating in air, screaming “Cowabunga!!!” before it dawned on me, “What did I just do?”

Guess I’ll need to be careful in the future if I ever see my pals going for a hike along a trail flanked by high cliffs and steep drop offs. And I’ll definitely need to make sure I stay away from the guys in the Saturday morning group who are training for an ultra marathon.

“How far are you going?” I might ask. “Oh, 24, 25,” they’ll reply. “Want to join us?”

Yikes.

Mid-Year Running Check-up

Time to go to work.

Now that we are a full six months into the year, thought I would check in to see how I am doing on the goal of 1,000 miles for the year.

Turns out I’m behind schedule. But not by too much.

Through Monday I’ve logged 499.6 miles so far in 2008.

I’ve got plans to get in the other 500.4 – and then some – as I am ramping up the weekly mileage. Just started a marathon training program.

Should keep me out of trouble this summer.

I don’t have a completed entry blank for a fall race where I can put all this training to use just yet.

In the meantime I’ll just strap on the hard hat, pack a lunch pail – and lace up the Mizunos – and go to work.

Overconfidence is bad, bad, bad...

We are big fans of the checklist here in the house of Oz. I used to scoff at such things, but I’ve definitely come around.

I’ve got the grocery checklist to guide the weekly purchase of peanut butter, Eggoes and other assorted staples.

We’ve got a checklist to make sure we bring all of the proper camping equipment so we have a tent, wine, cooking stuff and food. We definitely don’t want to be left foraging for nuts and berries when attempting to survive in the wilderness.

I don’t have a race-day checklist, but maybe that needs to change. If I had one before leaving the house for Saturday’s Hospital Hill Half Marathon it would have looked like the list above – and maybe it would have set off enough alarm bells that I actually would have remembered to bring a functioning brain. And, more importantly, leave the delusions at home.

Well, I didn’t. And as it turned out, Saturday was a bit of an adventure.

The running has been going so well this spring. Very well, if I do say so myself. The training has felt great. Each new race, it seemed, brought a new PR. What the heck, I thought. Let’s go for it at the Half Marathon.

The good men and women at Garmin were kind enough to help sponsor this race, which included fashioning teams of Garmin-equipped (an aside: the 405s are beyond cool….and way expensive) pace leaders.

I lined up at the start with the 1:50 pace group. At this point, if I had been in a scary horror movie, this is the part where people in the audience would start to scream: “He’s not really dead! Get out of the house while you still can! No, no, no, nooooo! Don’t open that door!”

Instead, it was a scary horror of a race reality show. Still, I could have used some audience members screaming at me. “It’s 80 degrees and what must be 200 percent humidity! What are you thinking?! This is the Hospital HILL run, remember? It has lots of HILLS! Get away from the 1:50 pace group while you still can!!!!!”

No such warning was shouted. So the horn went off. And we were on our way. At a freaking clip of about 8 minutes (the fastest) to 8:46 (the slowest) over the first 6 miles.

I chatted it up with the fellow members of the pace group. I felt superior and mighty as I heard fellow runners huffing and puffing severely. (That was some bad Karma that was going to come back and get me very soon). As we went up the first real hill. I wasn’t really out of breath. No pains. No problems. Or so I thought.

With the flick of a switch, my legs were gone. Turned to absolute jelly.

Uh oh.

“Oh yeah,” I thought. “This heat and sticky, sticky humidity is kind of ridiculous. In fact, this is really the first hot weather run of the year so my body isn’t exactly acclimatized to such conditions. I probably should have left some energy in reserve, going out slower then kicking it toward the end of the race. Whoops.”

It wasn’t just me. I noticed one of the two 1:50 pace group leaders at about the 8-mile mark. Someone saw the cute little Garmin-logoed “1:50” sign he was carrying and asked if he was still on pace.

“Not exactly,” he said. “I’m not having a very good day.”

Uh oh.

Mrs. Oz managed to catch a nasty cold. She didn’t look to be in any condition to leave the house when I walked out the door. So I was mighty surprised to see her whooping and hollering with the Ozlings just before the 9-mile mark.

I was feeling kind of low and spooked about whether I would have the energy to finish. A high-five from the littlest Ozling and a splash of ice-cold water from the bottle Mrs. Oz provided were amazing rejuvenators.

I gutted it out. My splits slowed quite a bit. It’s inevitable when you mix in some walking with the running.

The other runners on the course were awesome. With about a mile and a half to go, a runner came up behind me and shouted encouragement. “Let’s get it moving. We’re almost done.”

I jolted back into a trot. I pushed it for a while – the hill blessedly was pointing downward at the end of the race – but then began to slow just as the finish chute approached.

Another runner called out, “C’mon! Almost there. Don’t stop now!” I began to surge, noticing that my fellow runner then began to slow. “C’mon! We can both finish strong. Let’s go!,” I called out to him.

At this, we both kicked it. I had long ago given up any hope of a PR. Pretty much had given up on breaking 2 hours. Finish the race and avoid overheating so much I would get taken to the medical tent. That's not a terrible goal, right?

Then I looked up at the finish clock and saw that it said about 1:59:15.

I muttered an obscenity – can I blame it on my weakened condition and the nasty heat?—and then bolted for the finish line. I broke 2 hours with 32 seconds to spare.

So from now on I will rely on a race-day checklist. Or at least some common sense. Make sure my brain is functioning. And leave the delusions at home. Nasty hot days are not the times to pursue a PR.

Burns oil, but still running

Cosmic coincidence? Maybe.

I choose to consider it part of the Universe’s ongoing plot to mess with my head.

The same week I mark another year on the planet, my beloved car – Ok, so it’s a 1998 Saturn and not necessarily beloved – decides to flip its odometer to 100,000 miles.

As I tend to do in these situations, I internalized the car’s mileage and considered it some sort of reflection on the hard driving I have put my body through over the past four decades.

That brings us to today’s half marathon.

I was feeling a bit like the oil-burning clunker that I drive to work. And I wanted to prove that I have some tread left on the tires and some giddy-up remaining in the engine.

Didn’t set any speed records – or even a PR – at the Hospital Hill Half Marathon. But in the 80-plus-degree heat and high humidity, I didn’t break down and need a tow to the finish line, either.
Still working on a race report. I did finally get to meet Topher and his family. He not only writes an award-winning blog, but he’s a heck of a nice guy and a good runner.

Taper madness

Why is an idle runner's brain – OK, OK, this idle runner's brain – so
eager to hop on the crazy train at the first opportunity?

For weeks and weeks now I would look at the training schedule, see
that I was supposed to go 8 or 10 miles and think, "Oh, today's a
shorter day."

Then last night I was glancing at the course map for Saturday's half
marathon. "So there's the 1-mile marker, the 2, then the 3…..Yikes.
It's a long way until I even get to the half-way mark," I thought.

Guess my goofy psyche didn't want to wait until race day to let the
mind games begin.

I blame it on the tapering.

Running bunches and bunches of miles – or at least as close as this middle-of-the-packer gets with his training schedule – seems to be good for strengthening the heart, lungs and legs. It might not make my mind stronger, but it at least keeps the grey blob inside my head busy so it can’t make trouble.

I’m still debating whether to drive the course on Thursday or Friday before Saturday’s race. I did that last fall before running the Kansas City Half Marathon. Mostly it was helpful, but it did freak me out a little. Those hills were steep in the first few miles.

With a name like Hospital Hill Half Marathon, Saturday’s course, I realize, isn’t going to be as flat as a Kansas prairie filled with pretty sunflowers.

I am leaning toward a 13.1 mile drive so I can visualize my run and plan a little race-day strategy. Maybe something a little more sophisticated than go out too fast, burn lots of energy on the hills, bonk and then hang on until the finish.

So what do you think? Are the possible benefits of a little pre-race planning worth the risk of triggering a raging storm of I-think-I-can’t mind games?

Mystery runner race report

She appeared out of nowhere and started asking me questions.

“How fast are you going to run it?”

I had been noodling over some possible times to shoot for, but I hadn’t dared write them down or even say them out loud. Then it would become an actual goal, a marker to measure my success – or failure.

“I want to come in under 40 minutes,” I replied, kind of taken aback about the forward question from someone I had never seen before but answering it anyway.

“A lot under 40?” she asked, but peppering me with “Are you going to go out too fast in the first mile?” before waiting for a response to the first query.

“Yeah, probably,” I said with a laugh. “I don’t mean to go out so fast, but a lot of times it happens that way.”

She had short gray hair. Seemed to be in her 50s. She talked some more, telling me she had run the Amy Thompson run on Memorial Day in Kansas City for years and years. We talked about how we probably shouldn’t start so far up in the pack, but it was a reasonable strategy or you just spend so much of the first mile or two using up energy, and taking time while weaving through folks who probably should have found a spot more suitable to their pace a little farther back.

I know I would just block the true rabbits in the race so I try to stay out of their way at the front.

Then, just before the gun went off, she walked away. Absorbed by the crowd so quickly that I almost wondered whether the woman actually had been by my side talking. Or if I had just imagined the entire conversation.

But the race was on. And, yes, I did say, “Holy Crap!” out loud when my Garmin beeped off the first-mile split. It was under 8. Shoot. It was under 7:30.

“Easy there, mister,” I admonished myself.

But I was doing OK. I kept checking my legs. They were pumping fairly well. A little tired from recent runs, but a decent level of energy.

I dialed it back a little. No need to flame out with a big surge too early.

Started feeling a little weary around mile 3. Not long after I saw some of the folks from my Saturday running group passing out water at an aid station. They shouted encouragement. They whooped. They hollered. One guy had on a grass hula skirt and a coconut bra.

I felt a surge of energy as I laughed my way down the road.

When I needed another boost I replayed my pre-run tunes inside my head. Liz Phair’s “Extraordinary” and “Stars and Planets” were blasting through my iPod in the car on the way to the race.

“the ones that shine the brightest aren’t stars at all, they’re the planets just like us….
And from big to small, we all shine, shine, shine…”

Checked out the Garmin. 4.3 miles. Come on. Push it. Push it. Just a little more.

As I looked up at the finishing clock, I pumped my fist. Came in under 40. I Blew that PR away. By nearly two minutes.

Before leaving the house, I had looked up my time in this race last year. And my all-time fastest 8K from Al’s Run in Milwaukee a few years back. I have been feeling strong and I was thinking about pursuit of a PR.

But I hadn’t really decided. In fact I was wavering. Then I committed by saying it out loud to an ethereal runner who was there one minute and then gone.

Who was that woman?

Laughing at the lightning

Not sure whether it was faith or fear of self loathing.

Thunder rocked the house – and me awake – in the wee hours this morning. Crap, I thought, that’s going to be a fun run this morning.

The rain pounded on the roof. A giant flash of lightning illuminated our room and more thunder crackled outside.

Lightning already kept me off the streets one day this week. Not today, I thought.

I dragged myself out of bed.

Maybe it was faith that the skies would clear by the time I drove out to meet the Saturday morning group for our long run.

Or maybe it was fear that I would stay in bed, listen to the rain and then by the time I woke up I would see nothing but sunshine and blue sky, hating myself and my laziness for the rest of the long weekend.

Either way, I got out there. The group was quite a bit smaller. Maybe a bunch were scared away by the weather. Or maybe a bunch were just out of town.

The course had some monster hills again. My legs started feeling heavy. Thinking of my 8K on Monday, I decided to take it easy and save a little for the race in a couple days.

I logged 10 and a half and called it a day.

Now I can fire up the grill tonight, sip a beer or maybe a glass of wine – or both – with a clear conscience. Once again, I realize, it’s great to be a runner.

Taunted by thunder, tempted by dumb decisions

Stay flexible and be prudent.

I’m trying, I guess. Even though that’s not usually how I roll.

Wednesday night as I dozed off I was doing a few calculations and realized I would be on track to put in 30+ miles this week. That was a satisfying thought.

But don’t count your miles before you run them. As I woke the next morning, lightning bolts flashed and thunder laughed at me.

Rain drops won’t make me melt, I figured. But a lightning strike would leave me a little crispy. I certainly don’t have the speed to evade lightning bolts.

I dragged myself out of bed, but I didn’t run. So much for those 7 miles. So this is what it feels like to make a prudent decision, I thought.

Today I rose to a beautiful sunshiny morning. Should I get in the 7 I missed yesterday?

Well, tomorrow I am supposed to do 12. Then I have an 8K race on Monday. And the Half is coming up the following week.

A full 7? Not a good idea.

But I did get out. Ran 4. See? I’m being flexible and making good decisions.

Feels kind of strange. Maybe if I can keep it up eventually I’ll get used to how it feels.

Fill 'er up

I’ve been sputtering on fumes.

A couple 19-hour days at the office last week. A business trip to the East Coast. A continuing intensive soul-sucking project at work. Back-to-back Cub Scout camping weekends. Our usual hectic pace of family life.

My tank has been about empty lately.

Funny, though, I have been filling it back up not with rest, but by going on long runs. Treated myself to a 12 miler a couple Sundays ago and did 14 over a course with mondo hills last Saturday. Took the day off from work on Monday and went out for 7 miles.

While running, usually I try to work through some problem in my life. Or maybe mentally compose a draft on a writing project.

But I have been so bedraggled lately that running has been a Zen-like experience. My mind has cleared and I have focused mostly on the rhythm of my breathing or the pattern of my footfalls. Truly just absorbing the moment.

My running has become a rock for me to grip while turbulence swirls in much of the rest of my life.

I am getting more than a little excited about the upcoming Hospital Hill Half Marathon. Topher’s recent monumental decision also sent the gears in my head whirring madly.

In the meantime, guess I’ll just keep running and hope everything else moves back into balance sooner rather than later.

Back to work

“Get up. It’s time to run.”

What are you talking about? I am still basking in the glow of accomplishing a PR in the race on Sunday.

“That was two days ago. What are you going to do for me today?”

Who are you anyway?

“I am the training schedule and I must be obeyed.”

OK. So what did you have in mind this morning? A 3-mile leg stretcher? Maybe 4.

“8”

You have to be joking. 8 miles?

“I am the training schedule. And I don’t joke.”

Dude, you need to lighten up.

“Mr. Dude, you need to get out of bed and run. 8 miles. Now get going.”

OK, OK, I’m going already.

“You will thank me on that hot day in June when you are going up and down hills for 13.1 miles.”

Don’t push it, buddy.

Racing against thousands of runners -- and my own self doubt

I’m a huge fan of Margaritas, really I am.

The blender had barely stopped whirring last night when Mrs. Oz filled a glass with the delicious, frosty concoction and then looked askance when I said, “No thank you” to a glass of my own.

Not my typical response.

It’s not that I am some sort of world-class athlete with iron will for discipline or anything. But I did have a race this morning and yes, I am trying to set myself up to succeed.

So last night I did abstain. I even went to bed early. We had rented a couple of DVDs. By the time I got done watching one with the youngest Ozling, it was quarter to 9. So instead of staying up late to watch the second movie with Mrs. Oz, I read for a little bit and then turned out the light.

Yesterday I did run long, but I took it easy for a little over 9 miles. The Half Marathon in June is my true focus for this part of the running season so I needed some mileage, but I also wanted to rev up the engine today at the Trolley Run 4-miler. So I tried to leave some gas in the tank.

And rev I did this morning. Vroom, vroom.

The leader of my weekly running group encouraged everyone doing today’s race to take it easy on the first part of the course. It can be a bit congested with thousands of runners and walkers. And the early going is flat to slightly uphill.

I thought I was taking it easy. Sort of. When my little Garmin buddy beeped a first-mile split, though, it informed me I had gone a little over 7.

Then we hit the downhill portion of the course. Downhill is fun. The rest of my splits…..went negative.

I often have negative splits in my races. But it doesn't usually involve faster miles toward the end. They reflect negative thoughts of self doubt that fill my head late in a race. When I hit the mind games part of the race, they did in fact arrive. “You are going too fast. You know you are going to get tired. What if you bonk? “

“Shut up. I have been training. I’m doing OK,” I replied to the negative thoughts.

“Don’t you think if you keep going this fast you are going to bonk?” they counter.

I kept them under control. Mostly. I kept running steady and hard, but then a dude in an orange shirt came up beside me. He pushed ahead. I followed and pushed ahead of him.

We traded position about four times in the last ¾ of a mile. Then he made a final surge with what turned out to be a little more than ¼ of a mile to go.

I kept running hard, but gave in to the mind games and conceded that my legs did feel a little heavy. I gave in a bit to the fear of bonking – even as it was irrational with so little distance yet to go. I let Orange man go without a final fight and he crossed the line at least a couple hundred yards ahead of me.

Still, though, I kept the negative thoughts at bay more effectively than I ever have before. When I crossed the line, it was a PR -- with the fastest average time per mile of any race I have ever run.

I will learn from today and be stronger next time. And I will celebrate today's accomplishment.

Tonight, should Mrs. Oz pour a glass of the Syrah resting in our wine rack at the moment for herself and one for me, I certainly won’t say, “No thank you.”

Ragged

Get out of here, he said.

Guess I was looking a little ragged around the office. The past few weeks have been more of an adventure than usual at work. A bunch of extra late and early hours, a grueling trip and an intensive new project.

Don’t know whether my boss was just recognizing my extra effort or fearing I was about to goof something up or even about to drop. Either way, I accepted his offer and took the day off Friday.

So how did I spend my time? I went for a long run, of course.

A glorious, no rushing through it, enjoy a run in the sunshine kind of long, long run. It was fantastic.

Parked the car near a local trail that runs parallel with a creek. Tightened my laces, pressed the start button on my little Garmin buddy and then headed off. Turned around at about 3.5 miles and made my way back to the car.

A few gulps of Gatorade later I headed for 3.5 miles in the other direction. I was aiming for a moderately paced training run. Really I was.

But as I pondered things going on at work and in the rest of my life lately, the adrenaline coursed through my veins, the tension rose and my pace inexplicably quickened. As I neared 13 miles after the second turnaround, I was only a minute or so off my half marathon PR time.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I did manage to slow it down for a final mile or so of cool down at least.

It felt good to get a good run in. We had friends visiting from out of town and a weekend packed with activities so I wasn’t able to get out on Saturday. It also helped dump some of the tension I have been carrying around inside lately.

I paid the price for an overly ambitious pace, though. My legs were sore for most of the weekend. Only this morning on a brief 3-mile leg stretcher did they start better after I had the chance to work some of the kinks out.

Got a race coming up this Sunday. A four miler that ends on the Country Club Plaza. Then of course we’ve got Nancy’s 10 on the 10th coming up. I’ve also been getting excited about the Hospital Hill Half Marathon in June. Still trying to figure out what I might want to do in the fall.

A little racing and a lot of running should bring my fall plans into greater focus.

Travel marathon

It took 12 miles, but I got out all the crankiness. Almost.

Was a bit of a grouchy bear when I woke up this morning. Mostly it was the after effects of this week’s trip, I think. Running was the tonic that I prescribed. It seemed to work.

I now am feeling refreshed and much more content, thank you very much.

Only ran one other time this week, but walked what seemed like a million miles around Vegas and the sprawling convention center. My calves were tighter than if I had just raced in a half marathon.

Had a joyous – and at least in my traveling past, unique – experience in the Phoenix airport thanks to U.S. Airways on my flight home Wednesday. It was a tight connection, but we actually landed on time. I could have made it.

Then we sat. And sat.

“Well, sorry about the wait, but we are looking for someone to push the jetway over to the plane so we can open the door,” the pilot said.

A few more minutes go by.

“We found someone to move the jetway, but it looks like he doesn’t know how to operate it,” the pilot informed us. “They are going to find someone else.”

More minutes tick off the clock.

“Um, I guess we have a power failure in that jetway. Now we need to get pushed back from this gate and we will drive over to another gate with a working jetway.”

About 10 minutes more go by. We pull up to a new gate. They do in fact open the door. I get off.

My Kansas City-bound flight is gone. They book me on a new flight – scheduled to leave in four hours.

That flight ends up being delayed for yet another hour and 15 minutes. Spent more than five hours just hanging in Phoenix. At the airport. My, what fun.

By the time I landed and headed home, it was about 1:30 a.m. I found the boy Ozling sleeping in my place in the bed. He looked so peaceful. I didn’t want to disturb him. I went and slept on the couch.

Welcome home.