Opening Their Eyes

Today is a difficult day for a lot of people due to the movie theater shooting last night.  This is obviously a very tough subject for anyone to discuss, but as adults, most of us can at least put it in perspective.  We understand to some degree what it does to families and friends.  It tends to make us reflect on our own lives.  But we also know that the chances of something like this happening are (thankfully) exceptionally remote.  For children, I imagine it can be a different story.  This is scary stuff, and not all of them realize that it is a rare occurrence.  There are probably many children (even some adults) who are now freaked out just to be in a theater now.

This got me thinking about how different people raise their kids considering all the "bad stuff" that is out there.  And by bad stuff, I'm not just talking mass shootings.  I'm talking touchy subjects of any degree, like sex, swearing, racism, death, etc.  For awhile, some of us try to shield our children from those things, but obviously they will eventually come in contact with all of it and need to learn how to deal with it responsibly.  My kids are at an age where we're moving (or moved in some cases) more from the protection phase to the understanding phase.  It will be a learning experience for all of us, and I'm sure we'll have some unexpected consequences and conversations.  Our goals now are teaching our kids not to avoid touchy subjects, but how to handle them as children, adolescents, and not terribly far down the road, young adults.

So there is the somber, serious back story.  That leads me to a few things that were said in the car this morning with talk radio playing in the background.  Becca asked me what the deal was with all the talk about shootings, so I explained to her what happened.  She responded "oh", so I don't think she is freaked out about it.  Then there was another story about a couple of guys that were stopped crossing the US border with Kinder Eggs.  That lead to a discussion about how the government sometimes has some really stupid rules and regulations that defy logic.  The radio host made a joke about how someone was able to board a plane with a bomb in his underwear, but thank God the TSA was keeping those Kinder Eggs safely secure. 

Wait, did someone on the radio say....underwear?  Uh oh.  So I explained to Becca, when she asked about it, that someone got on a plane awhile back with a bomb in his underwear.  Both kids thought this was an incredibly stupid idea, which was the correct assessment, and they are only 9 and 12 years old, so I was pleased about that.  Becca was still curious, though.  "Are all bombs those big round things with the rope coming out of them like in the cartoons?  I don't think one of those would fit in someone's pants would it?".  Begin discussion about explosives and putty and how the right materials very well could be put in one's underwear to make a bomb, but it is still a stupid idea that would not end well for the owner of the underwear (assuming they were his own of course). 

I think I dodged a bullet there with the underwear, however the next story took the proverbial gun back out of its holster, in a manner of speaking.  This story was about a man who was stopped by the TSA in San Francisco for having a "large bulge" in his pants.  This bulge was, in fact, not a Smith & Wesson, but the more traditional love gun carried legally and concealed (usually) by roughly half the world population.  I don't think my kids fully understood 99% of the penis jokes and innuendos that they heard for the next five minutes, but on a more primal level, just hearing someone on the radio say PENIS over and over again is all kinds of funny.

And then as we are driving, we just happen to drive by Hooters.  We were looking for lunch, and Becca was very thoughtful.  "We could go to Hooters, so that way I could get wings and you can all have shrimp".  I told her that Hooters didn't have very good wings.  She said "Then why do they call it Hooters?  Aren't "hooters" owls, and owls have wings, so they must have good wings?".  I considered briefly about explaining how Hooters is not so much famous for the quality of its food but for the lack of clothing that the waitresses wear, and that "hooters" didn't refer to owls in this case but rather was a somewhat derogatory reference to large breasts, but I chickened out and just said "no, I don't think they the wings are made of owl.  Ohhh, is that a MacDonalds over there?!!"  I probably missed a good opportunity for more education, but the young sponges seemed to be about saturated at this point, so I'd wait till they dried out before showing them first hand just how truly bad Hooters wings really are.

So today my kids' minds were, I don't know if "expanded" is the right word, but I'll go with it for now.  What they choose to do with this newly acquired information has yet to be seen, but if any of my kids' friends suddenly start talking about underwear bombs and large penises, I apologize in advance.  And that reminds me...I'll be traveling through San Francisco in the near future.  Thankfully Johnah Falcon has already gone through security to break them in, so hopefully I won't have any problems. 

Redline 13.1 Half Marathon, 2012

This week was an anniversary of sorts.  About a year ago, I ran my first half marathon, the Redline 13.1 in Longmont.  At that time, I had about 10 good miles before I hit a major wall and essentially hobbled through the last 3 miles to a finish of 2 hrs and 14 mins.  It was brutal.

Fast forward about a year.  We didn't have as many people from Fox Creek Fitness participating as we did last year (last year, at least a half dozen of us were doing our first halves), but the four of us plus Kathy still ran well and supported each other.  I had a couple goals for my race this year.  First, I wanted to break a 10 minute mile pace.  Now, in all of my training runs, this is never a problem.  In fact, I tend to be in the mid 8 minute range for runs under 5 miles.  But for last year's half, my average pace was about 10:15, so under 10 seemed like a good goal.   Second, I wanted to run the whole thing this year.  Last year, after hitting the wall, I had to walk the final .2 mile uphill climb to the finish.  I was determined not to have to do that this year.  Seemed simple enough.

One thing I tried to do better this year is to eat.  I stopped eating half way through the race last year, and I'm convinced that is why I died so badly at the end.  I researched a bit and came up with a plan:
1 - Drink more water the day before the race.
2 - Eat a decent amount of carbs the day before the race.  This is as opposed to stuffing myself full as I tend to do, particularly when the meal is good.
3 - 2 hours before the race, drink about 20 oz of water, then eat more low GI carbs.  I had a banana and some oatmeal, and was pretty full.
4 - GU chomps at 5 miles into the race and every couple of miles after that.
5 - Sports drink on odd miles when I didn't eat GU chomps.

After researching, I came to the conclusion that everyone has a different strategy, and what works for one person may not for another.  My plan seemed logical and not too radical, though, so that was what I would do.

The conditions at the start could not have been better.  Probably upper 50s, overcast, even some light misting.  My stomach felt fine, as did the rest of my internal functions, and it was time to roll.  The beginning was pretty narrow, so I was happy to just hang out with the pack and get carried along.  The first half mile was well over a 10 minute pace, but I figured it would open up soon enough and I'd make that up.  It did, and I was very comfortably running around 9:30s for the first few miles.  Stomach, legs, knees, lungs...everything felt fine.  Saw my friend Julie at one of the crossovers ringing her cow bell and shouting words of encouragement, exactly where she was last year.  Her laugh is a hell of a motivator.

Around 5 miles I had my first GU chomps and chased it with a cup of water.  Still no problems at all, and splits were still far enough under 10 to keep me feeling comfortable.  As I turned onto the bike path that would wind its way through Longmont to the finish, there was Julie again.  She told me "no wall this time", and I would find myself repeating those words toward the end of the race when the wall was in sight.

At mile 8, I was still feeling pretty good and had been running near a small group for several miles.  One mentioned that she liked hearing the frequent stats from my RunKeeper (it WAS nice to have that, and I really think I would struggle to run without that information).  This is also where several friends had made a water station next to the Alpha Martial Arts studio.  Seeing and hearing them cheer me on definitely gave me a kick, and Ashley ran about a quarter mile with me as well to see how things were going.  I was still feeling pretty good, but my legs were getting more tired, as I expected.

I continued my eating plan.  I remembered how at mile 10, three weeks ago in a training run, I had to pull off to take care of some urgent business and never really recovered the rest of my run.  This time, though, there was no such problem, and I kept chugging along.  I also remembered that at mile 12 of that same recent training run, I had to stop running, as I just had nothing left.  And I remembered that last year at the 10ish mile mark, I hit the wall and completely fell apart on my pace.  Here I was back at those same points, and although my legs were feeling rubbery, I did not donk like I did last year.  One of the people I had been running with the entire race started talking to me a 10 miles.  It wasn't an annoying "how can you still be talking" chat, more like "only 3 to go, right?  we can do this, right?"  Her pace was perfect, and I think we both helped pull each other through the last 3 miles at a consistent pace.  About half a mile from the end, Ashley met up with me again, and shortly after that, Kathy was there as well after finishing under two hours.  Felt pretty awesome to have a posse pulling me in at the end of the race, that's for sure.

Finally, I hit the 13 mile mark, and the biggest test of my "no walk" goal was about to start.  There is a very nasty hill at the very end of this race, and it did me in last year.  This year, I set out to run this hill 100 times before the race, so that when I raced it, it would be no problem.  I managed to run it about 10 times, the last being a couple months ago.  Oops.  When I hit the hill, I slowed considerably and just tried to stretch out my stride, as Ashley (who was running right next to me) was recommending.  One stride at a time, and I would get up the hill.  Or so I thought.  Halfway up, I thought I'd had it again, but the thought of that pissed me off just enough to keep pushing.  Although I only ran this hill 10 times to train, those times helped, and I was able to get to the top without breaking stride.  I crossed the finished line in 2 hours 8 minutes 1 sec (a 9:50 pace).  Both of my goals had been accomplished.

As usual, the support from the Fox Creek crew was exceptional.  Erika ran her second half marathon and cut 10 minutes off of her best time.  Jenny ran her first and hung with Erika to push her along.  Leah, after suffering from an incredibly busy summer watching lots of spare kids and having very little time to actually run, still completed her second half marathon.  They were all there when I finished my face and cheered me over the hill to the finish line.

Ashley was the perfect support crew for us, and she resupplied everyone at the Alpha watering station.  Her running with me and encouragement at the 8 and 12.5 mile marks were extremely helpful in keeping my mental state good throughout the tough parts of the race.  And the crew at Alpha giving out water (John, Carey, Sid, Jacob, Lucas and Debbie) were cheering us on as well and helped take my mind off my rubbery legs, if only for a minute.

My time was exactly where I hoped it would be this year.  Sure, I'd love to get under two hours, but I know from my training runs and exertion levels that this goal was not going to happen this year.  But that was fine with me, and I'm not sure if the level of effort it would take to even get close to that time would be worth it to me.  I've said it before, I'm a sprinter and that is just how my muscles work.  While I love the camaraderie of the longer races like the half, I really hate running this distance, and for my age and gender, I'm truly not that great at it.  Would I like to do a marathon?  No, I really have no desire to ever do one.  Will I do this half again next year?  Oh, probably, but I'll fight myself when the time is getting closer.  I don't have anything more to prove, and the chances of conditions ever being as good as they were today will be slim.  But I suspect I'd go in again, especially if there is a group around for support. 

Thanks to everyone who supported me today, both by being there or through their encouraging words.  And special thanks to my wife, who is a truly amazing and understated athlete.  Watching her train and perform so consistently while she deals with everything life has thrown at her is truly inspiring and pushed me often while I was training, particularly on those days I didn't want to get out of bed and do my run.  I'm lucky to be in the company of such amazing people.