On the Run

At it again in 2010

2010-01-22T06:51:00.000-08:00

It's been less than a week after running the Ghost Town 38.5 and I'm thinking of what challenges await in the coming year.

Of course, my legs are having none of it. They just feel out of gas. Maybe this will be a good year to keep it relatively light, at least compared with the past two years.

I was adding up what I ran in 2009, and I guess it may have been a bit much: 4 marathons, two 50-milers, one 100-miler. Oh, and I think I did a 5K or two.

But enough about me.

If you live in or near the West Texas town of El Paso, you'll have a lot of fun running in the coming year. And not just the El Paso Marathon on March 7, which is on pace to be the largest race yet in its four-year history.

Coming up on February 14 is the Jack Rabbit Classic, which this year is a 6-mile trail run (and 5K on the road) in Franklin Mountains State Park.

Of course there are other regional races going on, worth considering.

The Ghost Town 38.5 that I ran was in Hillsboro, New Mexico (not far from Truth or Consequences). The race itself was hard. The "event" was quite fun. Susan, the race organizer, put on a great pre-race dinner, complete with Greek dancers (in honor of the first marathon 2,500 years ago this year), Greek poetry, door prizes and excellent food.

I highly recommend the race. Only problem is it is 38.5 miles.

But there are other regional races that you might want to consider. Ruidoso, Alamogordo, Marfa, Las Cruces all are home to interesting races.

More to come.

Jim

Javelina recap

2009-12-29T14:10:00.000-08:00

I don’t know when it occurred to me, really, to run a 100-mile race. It just kind of happened. It seemed like a challenge, maybe even fun.

A friend, Carilyn Johnson, has run several 24-hour races and ran on the U.S. national team at least year's World Championship race in Italy. In those 24-hour races, the winner is the person who goes the most miles, typically many more than 100 miles.

Last summer, I ran a 50-mile race with Carilyn's husband. After that race, we were sitting around talking and she persuaded me to run a 24-hour race with her. But a couple of weeks later, she said she couldn’t do that one but, why not run the 100-miler near Phoenix on Halloween?

Sure, I said. And I started training through the summer, running in the mornings and evenings as I committed to being in shape for the race on Oct. 31. Only thing is, as we approached race day, Carilyn backed out. Still, she promised she’d help out by being my coach on the race day.

But as I lined up at the starting line before sunrise on a cool, Arizona morning on Halloween, none of that really mattered. What did matter was I was about to do a 100-mile race, and I had little idea what to expect in the next 24 hours.

The race was the Javelina Jundred, which follows a 15.5-mile looped trail in the McDowell Regional Park just north of Scottsdale, Arizona.

And when the clock started at 6 a.m. on Oct. 31, all I knew was I felt nauseous, kinda dehydrated, sleepy and apprehensive in the pre-dawn darkness.

I had spent the night sleeping in my car, making several visits to the campground bathroom because of an upset stomach I’d had for a few days.

But once I started running, I didn’t feel too bad.

The uphill of the first 7 miles, the rollers on the next 1.5, and the downhills on the next 7 seemed pretty easy. When I walked the uphills, it was only because I had been told to do so to conserve energy. After the first loop, I figured if the first 15% of the race was any indication, running a 100 miler was going to be a piece of cake.

Needless to say, it was no cake.

After the first loop, the sun rose and quickly heated up the Arizona desert.
I later heard various temperature estimates, the highest putting it in the low 90s out on the trail. It was hot. Dry. My nausea and dehydration caught up with me and my perky pace quickly … slowed … to… a … walk.

However, I soon realized there was no real problem here.

I simply would jog/walk/run-when-I-could and finish the second lap. After 31 miles (a pretty good distance, if you ask me) I would just call it a day, blame it on my blahs and go get a nice lunch.

Problem is, I wasn’t there alone.

Get back out there

Carilyn, my coach for the day, wasn’t going to have any of my “oh well” attitude when I hit the 31-mile aid station.

“I guess I’m not up for a 100-miler,” I told her.

“Just sit down, take a break,” she said, ignoring my words. Then she went to work, getting me Gatorade, electrolyte capsules, Boost energy drink, cookies and more.

And, gradually, I felt better. But I still didn’t see how I was going to finish 100 miles.

“That’s not your goal,” she said. “Your goal is to do one loop at a time.”

“One loop at a time,” I repeated, emphasizing the “one” part. Heck, I could do one more loop, I figured. So I set out on my next 15 miles.

“You’ll be OK,” she told me. “You look pretty good.”

I didn’t realize it at the time, but sometimes coach/crew/pacers say things to try to encourage runners, things like, “You look pretty good.”

Actually, I didn’t look pretty good. Carilyn must’ve thought I looked horrible, or at least much worse than good. Unbeknownst to me, when I set out for the next loop, Carilyn followed behind for a ways, in case I passed out.

Remember the mantra

Of course, I didn’t pass out. For a few miles, I felt good, muttering “one loop at a time, one loop at a time” and continuing my shuffle run to my new mantra.

Until I hit another wall at mile 40.

That was at an aid station out on the trail, and I just stopped, sat down, and sipped water. For what seemed like hours (but was probably just five minutes). As I saw runners coming by, I announced, to none in particular, that I was through.

But once I had drunk and eaten enough to get going again, I had one goal in mind: get through just another loop. Or was it get done with this loop?

Oh no! I thought, I forgot the mantra.

“Just get done with one more loop?” I thought… that doesn’t sound right. “Run for 15 more miles?” That didn’t sound right either. Great, I thought, I forgot the mantra.

I looked around, saw all of these awesome trail ultrarunners passing by, and it hit me – I had no business being out here. I had to get out of this.

Then, the solution came to me. Just run 5 more miles, back to the starting area, and then offer to buy Carilyn a steak dinner! It was about 5 o’clock, and by the time I got back to the parking lot, cleaned up and changed, it would be suppertime!!

There’s no way Carilyn could resist a free steak dinner!

My plan was foolproof.

So about an hour later, I came strolling in to the race staging point, probably even looking a little proud now that I had discovered my way out.

I passed the time mat for the third time with a smile.

“I’m done!” I announced. “Let’s go get a steak!”

“Sit down,” Carilyn said. “Let’s see how you’re feeling. You’re still in this, you know. You’re not looking bad. And everyone else is coming unhinged.”

“I’m unhinged too!” I whined, sensing my way out slip beyond my grasp. “You don’t understand.”

She didn’t seem to hear me.

“The real race starts at midnight, when everyone is all wiped out,” she told me. “You just need to make it another couple of loops.”

“But … if the real race starts at midnight, why am I bothering with all this running now?”

Sunset and coyotes

My questions never seemed to get answers. Instead, they got me soup. And cookies, and Gatorade. Carilyn handed me some electrolyte pills, and before I knew it, I was pushed back to the trail.

I figured, OK, one loop. At a time. I was remembering the mantra again – one loop at a time. I started jogging, running a bit here and there. One loop at a time. I timed myself, trying to last 7 minutes before walking a minute. Then 8 minutes. Then 10 minutes.

Before long, I was at mile 50. I looked up, and the sun was low on the horizon. I didn’t feel overheated. I didn’t feel nauseous. In fact, I didn’t really feel tired. I had started to eat and drink on the hour, and was feeling OK.

So I picked up the pace. I ran faster because I felt better, though it didn’t hurt seeing a coyote a few feet away from me that I wanted to avoid.

Around mile 52, I caught up to a tall Californian who had picked up his pace. I asked him how he felt.

“Great,” he said.

“Me too,” I said. And as silly as it sounds, at that moment – with 48 miles to go – I knew I was going to finish. The pain, the nausea, the worry had left.

And I just ran.

That said, it might helped that Carilyn was allowed to pace me for some of the loops after mile 60.

As she ran with me, I just tried to hold the pace, running through the night, stopping at the aid stations, lingering a few minutes at the race headquarters (the 15 mile intervals) to refresh and then breaking for a few more minutes to visit with my brother who came by at midnight.

Then, with about 10 miles to go, I looked at my watch and saw it was nearly 4 in the morning. I knew I was within striking distance of breaking 24 hours and getting a “coveted” silver belt buckle.

That meant taking fewer breaks, only drinking some Gatorade and moving on. It meant putting up with some pain. Like at mile 98, when, in dark, I stumbled and kicked a rock that didn’t move.

I groaned -- a nearby runner asked, “Are you OK?”

“I can’t think about it,” I replied, though later I’d see that I’d lost my big toenail.

I just kept plodding, running with others at times, passing when I could, walking when I had to as the first rays of sunlight started to peek over the nearby desert mountain range.

Until the last half mile, and all of a sudden I felt good, striding harder and harder as I came up the sand to the parking lot to the finish line, watching as the seconds on the finish-line clock ticked … : “23:47:52.”

I threw my hands up, crossed the finish line … and headed to the showers and my sleeping my bag for a long-awaited nap.

Physical Suffering in Big Sur

2009-04-30T07:09:00.000-07:00

I ran the Big Sur marathon last weekend. Which, considering I like to run marathons and run many of them, wasn't really a big deal, except for one thing -- I learned something from it.

Well, I say I learned something. Actually I came to understand something, which perhaps is the same thing as learning, but in this case I think I came to understand what I really already knew. I just didn't have a way to put it into words.

See, for many years, I've struggled to come up with an answer to the question most serious runners get asked: Why do you run? Why do you do it?

I've struggled for an answer. Usually I say, "Because it's fun." And no one believes me.

One time not too long ago, I gave a talk to a group encouraging them to run. At the end, I took questions from audience, and one man asked me the "why?" question, to which I gave my "it's fun" answer.

The questioner responded, "I've seen those marathons, and when those runners come to the finish line, they don't look like they're having fun. They look dead tired and awful."

Needless to say, he didn't believe me about it being fun.

Hell, I didn't quite believe me, except I didn't have any other way to answer it.

Until now.

See, at the Big Sur Marathon expo the day before the race, a guy named Charlie Engle was one of the featured speakers. I attended his talk.

Charlie Engle is an ultra-marathoner. He is getting some attention these days for being the protagonist of a documentary film called Running the Sahara, which is narrated by Matt Damon.

Charlie, a (recovering) alcoholic who took up ultra-running several years ago, has come to see ultra-running as his way to understand life. And toward the end of his talk, he got the to-be-expected "why do you do it?" question.

In his case, the question was really why do you put yourself through all this pain and agony? Let's face it, he was telling us about running through the Sahara Desert, from Senegal to Cairo, for a total of 4,300+ miles over a bit over 100 days. That's more than 43 miles a day. Need I mention that he showered twice during that time period?

He answered, "I really believe that physical suffering brings emotional transformation."

That resonated with me. I can't say I've become "emotionally transformed" by running, but somehow, through the most difficult marathons or even in the 50-miler of done, I've learned that it does allow you to look at life differently.

That is, you look at life not as what it gives you, not how much stuff you have, not how comfortable you are, but at what life is -- breathing, moving, feeling.

And that really hit me during the marathon the next day, as I was running along the cliffs of Central California, heading from Big Sur to Carmel while climbing up to Hurricane Point, when it hit me -- physical suffering is good. The pain is good. The being-out-of breath is good.

And as I ran, uphill at a 15% grade into 30-mph winds, I understood why it was good -- because physical suffering lets us really feel what it is to be alive.

That, I believe, is what it's all about.

Get ready to run!

2009-03-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

Some big running events are on deck now that spring is here in the Southwest. As the El Paso grows as an outdoors destination, more high-quality races and walks are taking root in the area.

This Sunday, we have two of our biggest events in the area: The Bataan Memorial Death March, which consists of a 26.2-mile course (marathon) and a 15.2-mile course, takes place at White Sands Missile Range just north of El Paso County; and the Transmountain Challenge, a 12.2 mile race from Northeast El Paso over Transmountain Road to West El Paso.

Both Bataan and Transmountain are premier, regional events that draw out-of-towners. It's too bad they fell on the same day -- I'm sure I'm not the only person doing one of the events who would've done both had they been on separate dates.

The Bataan race commemorates the Bataan Death March in the Philippines during World War II, during which tens of thousands of American and Filipino soldiers were forced to march through the jungle for days after being taken prisoner by the Japanese. Many fell sick with malaria or from wounds -- thousands died.

Veterans from that march still show up at the race to thank the participants for honoring them. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees the irony in them thanking us...

Today is the last day to register, at www.active.com. But spectators can make the 45-minute drive to watch the races and enjoy the barbecue finish on post.

The Transmountain Challenge -- technically the 32nd Annual GECU TransMountain Challenge -- is an El Paso tradition.

It's had a few different encarnations over the years. Last year's course started on the Westside and finished on the Westside, so runners turned around at the top of the hill. In previous years, it started on the Westside and finished in the Northeast.

I imagine this year's Northeast-to-West course will be just as challenging. You can still register by going to www.active.com. Or stop by Up And Running on N. Mesa Street near UTEP to sign up in person.

Also on deck are some fun, shorter-distance, so mark your calendar:

The Get With Literacy 8K and 2 Mile Run/Walk is April 11. In its second year, this race starts and finishes at Western Playland in Sunland Park, N.M., just outside El Paso off Sunland Park Drive.

It's a fun course, a fun race that supports literacy programs and youth basketball. Unlike other races, runners get a Runner's Cap (instead of a shirt).

Also, the Braden Aboud Annual Memorial Run/Walk, a 5K/10K run with a 1 mile fun walk, will be May 17. This event has taken off, with thousands of participants and a competive field of runners.

Done in memory of Braden Aboud, who died three years ago while skiing in New Mexico, the event funds various charities having to do with youth athletics in the region. The community has embraced this event, largely from the connection to students and families in the Upper Valley who knew Braden and his giving spirit.

Of course, there are many more events coming up -- I encourage you to check out area websites, such as www.runelpaso.com, www.active.com and www.elpasotimes.com, to stay up to date.

Keep running!

Jim

It's marathon time!

2009-02-28T11:33:00.000-08:00

Judging by the steady crowd of runners to the Marathon Expo at Lynx Exhibits this morning, this year's Michelob Ultra El Paso Marathon and Half Marathon will be the biggest in the event's brief three years of existence.

Everything is lining up nicely for Sunday's races. The weather has cooled off from the 80-degree days we had earlier in the week, and it looks like the wind we're seeing today should die down a bit.

The forecast is calling for 38 degrees at the 7 a.m. start, warming up to 62 by noon. Not bad running weather -- if it weren't for the 7-10 mph winds, it would be perfect. But it's still not bad.

What can newcomers and visitors expect? A fun race, some spirited spectators (especially in the first 5-6 miles), some shad in the residential Upper Valley areas, some lonely stretches along the border (on Paisano), and in general a pleasant experience.

All races start in front of Lynx Exhibits at 300 San Antonio Street, next to the Convention Center. The first mile for the marathon and half marathon is Downtown. Then the course jaunts uphill toward UTEP and Kern Place.

You'll be tempted to push the hills from Downtown to Mesa Street and Executive Center hard. Be careful, because in both races you still have many miles to go. On the other hand, since that part accounts for 4 miles of running, you don't want to take it too easy, either.

From there, the course heads down Executive Center Drive to Paisano, and up Doniphan into the Upper Valley. At this point, the half-marathoners turn back, and take the long straight-away of Paisano downhill to the finish.

The marathoners still have a lot of running to do in the Upper Valley, as the course stays on Doniphan to Frontera, twists along various residential streets until the Sunland Park Casino area, where it crosses the Rio Grande into New Mexico.

This part has been the toughest for me. I'm not sure why, but maybe because it's a long, flat part of the run at the time when I'm the most tired. Once you get back on Paisano, you still have 5-6 miles to go. But keep pacing, because it is relatively downhill.

At this point the wind could be a factor, as it channels along Paisano and the river. It looks like the winds will be coming out of the southeast, so the runners will hit a headwind. Perhaps it will stay calm.

I bumped into several people excited about the race, with their normal reserve of pre-marathon jitters. Many first-timers were there. That's good -- this race has a good level support but does not have the tens of thousands of participants at the mega-marathons such as the Rock N Roll series in Phoenix, San Diego, San Antonio and other cities.

The El Paso Marathon is small enough to make it feel homey, but big enough to give you what you need to enjoy it.

Come to think of it, that's true for El Paso as a city as well.

New Web Home

2009-02-07T14:41:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the new home of my blog, On the Run.

In it I discuss the El Paso running scene and just running in general. At times I talk about upcoming races or training runs. Other times I focus on training, strategies and my interest in running.

And at other times, I write about things that just occur to me that probably have nothing to with running. Though if I work at it a bit, I should be able to tie anything to long-distance running.

This blog began, and actually still exists, on the website of my hometown newspaper (and my employer), the El Paso Times. You can go to it at http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/ontherun/.

I'm planning on moving some of my previous posts to this blog area.

I guess I should probably address why I'm moving it, though I don't have a great answer, except the Times is looking for bloggers who can post more often than I do (i.e., nearly daily) and get broad appeal from the public. I'm somewhat limited to folks interested in the quirky insights of a so-so runner who occasionally does unusual races.

So, you know, I thought it best to move to a new part of the web where I don't have to worry about these issues. It's kind of like going freelance or independent, I guess.

So visit my blog from time to time. Ask questions, make comments, suggest ideas and I'll get back to you. Since I like to write and run, this should be fun. But it's always more fun if someone reads it and responds.

Jim

El Paso's elite ultramarathoner

2009-02-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

(First posted April 3, 2008.)

Mention El Paso elite runners these days, and most think of the UTEP men's cross-country team. As they should -- UTEP's team finished 10th at the NCAA Championships last November, and that was after a performance many considered sub-par.

I'm sure the football and basketball teams would love to be 10th in the nation. But for the runners, led by Kenyans Stephen Samoei and Patrick Mutai, coming in 10th was a consolation prize after being ranked in the top five most of the season.

But they aren't the only star runners in El Paso. The city is also home to Carilyn Johnson, who in the past year has become one of the top ultramarathon runners in the country. She's currently training to run with the U.S. National Team at the 24-Hour Run World Championship in South Korea in October.

That race will follow her being the third-place woman finisher in the Ultracentric 24 Hour National Championship in Grapevine, Texas, last November. She ran 126.75 miles in that race. She also was the third woman finisher at the Ulmstead 100 Mile Endurance Run in North Carolina, which she completed in 19 hours 44 minutes.

Yes, you read that right. Carilyn's races are typically 100 miles or more. It takes a, well, special kind of person to do what Carilyn does. Others might say you have to be nuts.

I don't know if Carilyn's nuts. I know she doesn't fit the stereotype, if there is one, of an ultramarathoner, someone I would imagine to be a loner and aloof. Carilyn isn't that at all -- she is dedicated, of course, and she enjoys running, but she's actually fun to be around and enjoys people.

So much so, she is starting to lure others into her sport (others say she's "brininging them to the dark side," but that's just semantics).

One of them is Salvador Almeida, a local marathoner, has run a 50-mile race with Carilyn. And his brother, Francisco Almeida, last month ran a three-day ultramarathon in the Sahara Desert. Another one of Carilyn's running buddies, Chris Rowley, owner of Up and Running, is training for the 100-mile Lean Horse Ultra-Marathon in August in South Dakota. And Luis Tueme, who recently moved to El Paso, is gearing up to run in July what is one of the two hardest ultramarathons in the country, the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run in the Sierra Nevada.

As for us mere mortals, we still think the marathon is hard enough. But El Paso's ultramarathoners have earned our admiration and respect.

By the way, if you'd like to keep up to date on Carilyn's training (and entertaining musings on life) as she prepares for the 24 Hour Run World Championship, check out her blog at http://www.runreadwrite.blogspot.com/.

Jim

Heading to Boston

2009-02-07T13:28:00.000-08:00

(First posted April 11, 2008.)

I have to confess that rarely a day goes by these days in which I don't check the weather in Boston. Specifically, I'm looking for forecasts for Boston on April 21.

Why that day? Because that's the day of the Boston Marathon. I'm one of a handful of fortunate El Pasoans (and one Santa Teresan that I know of) who will get the opportunity to run in what is considered to be, rightly or wrongly, the crème de la crème of marathons.

Why's Boston such a big deal? Perhaps because it's the oldest marathon in the United States. Or perhaps because it has the biggest payouts for the winners. (I'm not sure if those two statements are true, but they probably are.) Or perhaps because it, for the most part, only takes people who have run a qualifying time.

Also, it generally has the highest caliber of elite marathon runners every year. Of course, I'm not ever going to be in that category, because I'm an amateur who would be incredibly happy running an hour slower than the top runners.

But there is something magical about running in the same marathon as the top marathoners in the world. I guess it would be like getting an at-bat in the World Series, or playing in the same tournament as Tiger Woods. The odds are impossible-to-none that you would beat him, but in theory -- very much only in theory -- you could somehow pull it off.

Last year I ran Boston for the first time. After failing three times, I finally ran a qualifying time to get into Boston at the Arizona Rock N Roll Marathon in Phoenix in January 2007. I was so excited to have finally qualified that I couldn't put off running Boston, so I immediately made plans for the 2007 Boston Marathon after qualifying.

It turned out to be an odd year to run Boston. The weather took a chilly, windy, rainy turn as a Nor'easter blew into town. At one point, the organizers even considered canceling the race for the first time in its 111 years. The forecast suggested snow, sleet and icy conditions, and the honchos feared having runners slipping on the ice or freezing from the cold.

As it turned out, the weather was bad, but not horrible. The winds were strong, but not unbearable. And the rain was steady, but not overwhelming. I'm told it wasn't a typical Boston Marathon. The weather, of course, was atypical. Also, the crowds of spectators, which seemed enormous to me, were supposedly about one-third of normal -- the weather kept them away.

I like to think I could've run the race faster under better conditions. I hope to find out this year if I can.

This year, something else might help besides the weather. I've been training with three others who are also going to Boston. One of the three, Kevin Evans of Santa Teresa, came across a training program that focuses on heavy increases in mileage. My mileage topped out at 80 miles a week, but I think Kevin (and Angie Song and Larisa Pitchkolan, who also gave the program a try) did more.

It was rough. But fun. The best part of running a marathon, I believe, is training for it. The long runs, the speed workouts, the easy days -- it all is enjoyable if you like running outdoors. And I like running outdoors.

This may sound odd, but I think humans were born to run, or at least to walk and move long distances. There wouldn't be people living throughout the world, or in our case in El Paso, if we humans hadn't had a desire to move.

But I digress. The Boston Marathon is just over a week away. Kevin, Angie, Larisa and I aren't the only ones from the area running in it. From what I see on the Boston Marathon website, other El Pasoans planning to make the trek are Robin Langford, David Leary, Belinda May and Gretchen McElroy (who, by the way, is an outstanding triathlete).

Except for Gretchen, I don't know them, but I did hear that one or two of them might not make it to Boston, or they may defer their entries to next year.

If that's the case, I hope they do manage to run the Boston Marathon some time, if only to enjoy the magic. And maybe, just maybe, if only theoretically, they'll manage to win the most prestigious marathon in the world.

Back from Boston

2009-02-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

(First posted April 26, 2008.)

A few days back from the Boston Marathon, I'm still licking my wounds and stretching my muscles. At least I'm over having to walk downstairs backwards.

It was definitely an eventful weekend of running.

A few observations:

The Boston Marathon is highly unpredictable. Last year's weather was cold, windy, rainy. The streets were wet, and some folks worried about slipping on ice. Officials considered canceling the race. But this year's weather couldn't have been better -- temperatures topping out in the 50s, with a cool breeze to keep runners from overheating.

The better conditions must've helped. Robert Cheruiyot, who won last year's race in 2:14:13, cut nearly 7 minutes from his time to win this year's race in 2:07:46.

The better conditions didn't help everyone. Lance Armstrong had announced that he was hoping to come in at 2:40:00 in his third marathon (and first Boston Marathon) after running the ING New York City Marathon in 2:46:43 last November. At Boston, he finished in 2:50:58. That would be a great time for a mere mortal, but Lance is no mere mortal. I think he forgot that Boston is considered a harder course than New York.

Speaking of Lance ... my wife, Carmen got to enjoy the race as a spectator. After the race, I asked her whom she saw -- the winners, any celebrities, etc. After telling me about an amazing finish to the women's race, she mentioned she saw Armstrong. "Well, I didn't actually see him. I saw his group, his entourage, the people cameras and others surrounding him. I didn't know who it was, but one of the people near me said it was Lance. So I guess in a way I saw him."

The women's finish was awesome. Ethiopian Dire Tune (pronounced Too-Nay) and Russian Alevtina Biktimirova (pronounced somehow) ran toe-to-toe the last five miles, switching leads as each tried to pull away and failed. Tune ended up winning by 2 seconds, but only after a great battle. You can find the finish here on youtube.com at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyYJiKxHZz0 -- definitely worth checking out.

As for us El Pasoans, I can't say enough good things about my partners Angie Song-Rooney, Larisa Pitchkolan and Kevin Evans, who are great running partners and great friends. Their dedication to training helped me improve my time over last year by 11 minutes. Angie's run at Boston was especially amazing, as she finished in 3:08:22, which was good for 26th in her age/gender division of 40-49 year old women. To better understand her achievement, Angie took 26th out of 2,980 finishers in her division. Incredible!

Larisa and Kevin also had very strong showings. Larisa came in at 3:13:54, good for 190th place among the 4,908 finishers in her "open" 18-39 year old women division. Kevin finished in 3:09:14, an excellent time (like Angie's, his best time ever) that put him in 1,476th among 4,684 finishers in his age/gender division.

As for me, I came in at 3:09:58, which was just under my goal of breaking 3:10:00. That was good for 610th place among the 4,644 finishers in my age/gender division of 40-49 year old men.

I also want to mention a couple El Pasoans whom I don't know. They obviously trained hard and ran well at Boston. Belinda May ran a very respectable 3:49:33, good for 2,483rd place among the 4,908 finishers in her open women division in what I believe was her first Boston. And David Leary came in a strong 4:27:38 for 4,108th place among the 4,684 finishers in the open men's division (which is the hardest division to compete in).

But let's face it, none of us really goes to Boston to compete. Running Boston is a kind of reward for all the hours and miles that we ran to get there. Sure, we want to improve our times, and some of us push hard to hit a new personal best. But we have no illusions about winning.

Putting this in perspective for me was when I was near the top of Heartbreak Hill near mile 20. Just up ahead of me was Dick and Rick Hoyt. Dick, who is 65, has pushed his son Rick, who is 45, through some 66 marathons, including 26 Boston Marathons. Rick is a quadriplegic who works at Boston College's computer laboratory.

Theirs is a long story, of how running marathons and triathlons allowed father and son to share in a common effort and gave both a better understanding and feeling for life (check out their website for more information: www.teamhoyt.com).

Seeing them, and realizing in those seconds what the race meant to them, gave me a moment to be thankful just for having the sun shine on my back and the breeze blow in my face. And that's really what it's all about.

Jim

Running through the pain

2009-02-07T13:21:00.000-08:00

(This was first posted May 21, 2008)

It was at mile 35 of the 50-mile Jemez Mountains Trail Race in northern New Mexico, as I headed down what looked like a vertical drop but was actually a diamond-level ski run, when I figured out how to stop the pain in my two big toes as I ran.

I had already fallen early on rocks of a trail, and later stubbed the toes hard on other rocks as I came down from 10,200-foot Cerro Grande. Other toes had blistered, but my left big toe was the worst, throbbing throbbing throbbing with each step. And the more I thought about it, the more it hurt.

So I stopped thinking about it. Instead, I thought about what was fine. "My ear feels good, my pinky is fine and my left elbow feels good too," I thought. And that became my mantra. "My ear feels good, my pinky is fine and my left elbow feels good too."

The race was my first ultra-marathon. I was lured into it by a friend and fellow runner, Luis Tueme, who is training for the Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile race in the Sierra Nevada. Luis chose the Jemez Mountains Trail Run because it would give him the kind of elevation gain he'll get in the California race, but without the full distance.

"It'll be fun," he told me. And, without giving it much thought, I agreed. Plus, a few other friends, EriKa Prieto and Joaquin Santillan, and Luis' brother, Mario, would be running the Jemez Mountains Half Marathon, and Erika's boyfriend Oscar was coming for the adventure. So it just seemed like a fun group trip for a weekend.

But now, as I made my way down the ski run, my feet wobbling as I tried to keep from just tumbling on the rocks, "fun" was the last word that came to mind. Exhausting, draining, strenuous better described the race. Not fun.

Still, whatever it is in us runners that makes us run, kept me going. So I made my way down the hill, came to a footpath in the next part of the race, then ran down to the ski lodge that was the mile 36 aid station for the race. There, Joaquin, Erika and Oscar were waiting to check up on me.

"You look better," Erika said. "You looked horrible back at mile 28."

That was because I had become seriously dehydrated by mile 28. There's a stretch of the race, roughly from mile 20 to mile 28, where there is no aid station. This stretch includes a climb of some 3,000 feet, in which I rock-hopped and plodded through snow to the summit of Cerro Grande. And it was after reaching the summit, and after I stubbed my toes, hard, on the rocks on the downhill, that I ran out of water 4 miles into that stretch.

It was my own fault -- I hadn't loaded up on water at mile 20.

But now, at mile 36, and after having re-hydrated and eaten pretzels and cranberries and salty peanuts and all sorts of other goodies, that I had regained a bit of energy.

"What if we run with you for the next 12 miles?" Joaquin offered. I tried to give a neutral reply, simply because I didn't want to put anyone else through what I was going through. I wanted the company, and I wanted to finish, but how could I force anyone to enter into this madness?

Luckily, Joaquin wasn't really asking, and Erika -- who had in the morning took second in women's half marathon -- was up for the run. So they came along with me, helping me keep my mind off pain and exhaustion by talking about all sorts of inanities.

"We've been eating like birds all day," Erika mentioned. "I'm hungry."

"That doesn't make sense," Joaquin replied. "Birds eat a lot. They eat their body weight in a day. There's no way we've eaten our body weight."

"It's a saying," she said. "We've been stopping, eating, running, stopping, eating, like birds."

"It doesn't make sense," Joaquin continued, explaining in detail how much birds eat on average, and what that would translate to in human weight. All the while, we continued running up and down the trails, occasionally stopping and walking because my legs just wouldn't run.

Then I'd pick it up again, trying to get the legs moving one more time, and they'd follow.

We were in a rhythm, and they were still talking, now going on about animal mating calls and how we humans have them ("hey baby, can I buy you a drink?") and how in Mexico the pirropos are more romantic versions of the same. And then I accidentally kicked a rock as we started to wind downhill, at around mile 40.

"My ear feels good, my pinky is fine and my left elbow feels good too," I announced to no one in particular.

"Huh?" Erika asked. "What are you talking about?"

"I just hit a rock with my toe. Excruciating pain is shooting up my foot and up my leg right now. But I can't think about what's wrong."

"Ah," she said. "So what's right is your ear, pinky and elbow."

"The left one," I added. "The left elbow feels pretty good."

And on we went, sometimes running, sometimes jogging, sometimes walking. A few of the other racers passed us -- by this time, I didn't really care about my time or place in the race, I just wanted to finish. At mile 43, a woman who seemed to be doing a very fast walk passed us.

"How far do you think we got to go?" I asked her. "We must be getting close."

"We're not close at all," she said, almost angrily.

"Ah, give me something, some hope, to keep going."

"No, I'm not going to lie to you," she replied sternly.

I muttered under my breath: "Be that way."

And we kept moving, just running slowly, me with all the strength I had to muster a 13 minutes a mile pace.

But then, something almost magical happened. I don't understand it, but all of a sudden I got a burst of energy. I could run again. And I picked up the pace, ran harder, faster. I heard Erika's GPS watch beep, and asked her the pace.

"We're now down to 9:30 mile pace," she said.

I picked up the pace more. And more. And then, I passed the angry honest lady. And then the guy from Arizona who had passed me a half hour earlier. And then a friend from Alamogordo, Louie, who is a tremendous ultramarathoner in his own right (but who's piled on the miles lately... another story). And when I asked the pace, Erika said we were now running at 8-minute miles.

I didn't get it; I just knew I had to keep going. One thing pushed me on -- the finish line. I knew I was getting close, knew we were near the 48-mile mark, where Erika and Joaquin would leave me, and I got giddy. The pain started to go away, and I was able to run harder, to the last aid station, where I got some Gatorade and water, and just kept striding.

It was as if I were afraid to slow down, for fear of jinxing my new burst of energy. So I held the pace, walking only for the uphills, pushing on, actually looking at the pine trees and views and the creek, until the final hill where I came upon a couple of women who were walking.

"We're pacers for one of the racers, but we did a bad job," one said. "Our runner passed us a long time ago," the other laughed.

I pushed up a hill, walking through some boulders up to a road, where several people were shouting and cheering. And there I saw Joaquin and Erika and the others.

I knew, then, that I was 100 meters from the finish line. The pain no longer really mattered, because I got to run the last few feet to the finish line where the clock was ticking my final time: 13 hours, 37 minutes, 5 seconds.

It was over, I was alive, and everything seemed OK.

Now, a few days later, I'm glad I did the race. It was an amazing experience, and I might do another someday.

But there is something, a truth, that I can't forget: I don't really care about my ear, my pinky or my left elbow. Because my big toe is still hurting really bad.

What we talk about when we talk about running

2009-02-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

(This was first posted July 29, 2008.)

For some time, I've had this idea of a blog in my head with the above title. I knew there were two ways to go on this -- what we actually talk about when we're running, and the more Raymondcarver-esque what we really mean when we talk about running.

The idea was, on the latter, I would have to figure out what we really mean as runners when we get so into running that we have to accomplish our goal of running a marathon under X hours, how we cannot suffer the humiliation of a DNF (did not finish) and how, what matters to us most, is finishing a race, even at the risk of causing permanent injuries.

But that might send things into too much of a Freud direction.

So instead, I chose the former, so I could just tell about some of the odd conversations I've been in while running with others. This usually involves risque, or sometimes just bad, jokes, or politics or weather or last night's baseball game. But just as often it can involve esoteric items like TV sitcom theme songs from the 1980s or changes in the Zodiac in the past 2,000 years.

I asked a few of my running buddies for help on this blog, because frankly my mind goes blank when I try to remember what we've talked about.

Luis Z. pointed out that we frequently talk about our aches and pains. But it's not just the pain -- the group becomes a kind of mobile M.D., offering homegrown remedies for everything from plantar fascitis to post nasal drip.

For the record, Luis added, "I don't believe we discuss or talk about sex." Of course.

Monica says the group run's conversation has a certain rhythm: "...Basically we start with current events, move on to maybe our kids, our spouses and/or relationships, maybe throw in something about our work ... maybe a little gossip about someone we know or don't know, somewhere in there something about sex comes up [my note: evidently except when Luis is present] ... and usually by or near the end of the run the topic moves on to food."

Food ... everyone who gave me feedback said the conversation turns to food. I guess because all that running makes us hungry.

Delilah said this: "... talk about how we're insanely obessed with running that while we're running all we talk about is running or anything that has to do with running like garmin glitches, pace, mileage, diet and of course running skirts!!"

She's right. If you want to get any advice on running, run with a group and you'll find a dozen theories on how to train, what to eat, and what apparel to wear.

Angie said something similar, but added that we also seem to end up talking about our next race.

And finally, Carilyn just didn't seem to like this topic, I think because she considers it to be against the Vegas rule of running: Have you never heard the phrase, "What is said on the run, stays on the run?"

So, that will have to be the end of this. Otherwise no one will talk to me out on the run.

Will run ... for 29 cents

2009-02-07T12:57:00.000-08:00

(This was first posted Aug. 21, 2008.)

Some of our local runners do amazing things, including running duathlons, triathlons, treacherous trail races and 100-mile ultra-marathon races.

One of our El Paso runners, Chris Rowley (who is also owner of Up and Running), headed this morning to Leanhorse, South Dakota, where he will run in the Leanhorse Ultra-Marathon hundred mile race this weekend. Having Chris attempt this run, and considering the 1,000-plus miles he put in as preparation for this race, really speaks highly of Chris and his dedication to running as a sport.

It also speaks well of our El Paso running community. That's because Chris needed, and got, a lot of support from others on those preparation runs. Our local runners did some of the 20-, 30- and 35-mile preparation runs with Chris to help him get in the distance he needed to be in shape for Leanwood.

I can totally see the value of Chris doing Leanwood. For me, that value this morning was 29 cents.

29 cents?

Let me explain...

Chris has an interesting habit of turning our runs into something of a scavenger hunt for change left on the streets. He'll run through the drive-thru area of Burger King, jog past the pickup window at Walgreen's or dart in front of an oncoming Hummer, all just to grab a dime on the pavement.

A few weeks ago, Chris accidentally got me interested in his hobby-within-a-hobby. I say accidentally because, frankly, Chris doesn't really want any competition for the dimes and quarters he finds randomly on streets. Whoa to any soul who dares to run in front of him when he eyes a penny in a gutter.

I used to just see it as one of Chris' eccentricities, the same kind of likeable nuttiness that, well, led him to run the Leanhorse Ultra-Marathon.

But while running with Chris and watching him pick up a few coins here and there, I saw something sparkle in the street -- a beautiful, glistening quarter on the side of the road as we headed down Yandell. It was a quarter that seemed to call my name with its sweet, soft voice, whispering, "Jim, get me quick, before Chris does...."

My precious

It was my precious first quarter. Oh, how proud I felt, with that shiny quarter representing the fruits of my labor. It was a beacon in a dark world, which warmed my heart and gave me a newfound joy in living.

And now, because of this quarter in my hand, what I once intuitively understood had now become clear. Running wasn't just for exercise, any more than as our prehistoric ancestors ran just for fun. For them, running was all for the ultimate goal of following a beast and capturing their treasured meal for the next days and weeks.

Now, in this urban jungle that is our home, I realized that quarter had become my running treasure.

But I digress...
This morning, with Chris out of town during our Thursday run, I was able to hunt down 29 cents which I got to keep all to myself. My heart soared as I counted up my just rewards, achieved after my feet had pounded the road while I searched far and wide for those few precious coins.

Thank you, Chris.

Oh ... and good luck at Leanhorse.

Too busy to run?

2009-02-07T12:54:00.000-08:00

(This was first posted Oct 2, 2008.)

The answer to that question is, temptation and life demands aside, we must never allow ourselves to be too busy to run.

I've definitely been tempted lately not to run. Like when the alarm ran this morning at 3:55 a.m., and the pillow was nice and warm, and the fall chill told blew through the crack in my window and told me to get back under my covers.

But I still arose, strapped on my Asics, put on my cap and headed to the Starbucks by UTEP. And then, as I headed down Oregon Street and saw the glimmering lights of Downtown El Paso and Juarez, it all seemed worth it. I had the city to myself for a few minutes, before most sane people had awoken, and I ruled the streets.

I often hear from people who tell me they don't have time to run. I'm sympathetic, but I don't agree. You always have time to run.

It's a just a matter of making it a priority. In the long run, you'll be glad you did.

... As an aside, if you haven't done any races lately, October is made for you. This Saturday is the Physical Therapy 5K. And in a week is the World's Fastest 10K, to be followed by the Halloween 5K on Oct. 26. Somewhere in there is the Wildcat Mile, and next month will be the Baylor Pass Trail Run up in Las Cruces. Find out more by going to www.runelpaso.com.

Pick a race and train for it. These are great runs, and they're sure to give you motivation as you train.

Jim