A Warm, Sunny Day in January

After a harrowing ride the day before, resulting in a split top tube and a split... lip... I was not as fired up about my Sunday run as I wanted to be. A little after the fact, I figured out that I had hit six months sober without even realizing it, and since I had a big weekend on the calendar, I half thought about maybe doing it up big. Saturday was the 200K, and Sunday was a trail run where I was signed up for the 21K, but I had the option of upgrading to the 50. And as long as I was thinking about doing a 200K and a 50K, why not just do a long swim on Friday and round it out with greater than the distance of an ironman in all three sports all in one weekend. I did the swim (4400 yards) and the bike, but I'll spoil the surprise right now; I didn't do the full run.

The run was right in my own back yard, so I woke up late and took my time eating a big breakfast. Then I drove down to the Safeway (which has a Starbucks in it (Starbucks, please sponsor my blog) to pick up some last-minute essentials: coconut water, anti-chafe lube, and my coffee. I was cutting it a bit close on time, but I was only a few blocks from the start, right? What I hadn't thought about, however, was parking... and how I would have to park like everyone else. I suppose I could have parked at my house and walked down, but it was too late for that now and I didn't want to spill my coffee power walking down the hill. I found the registration table (as far from the start as you could get), and asked the guy what it would take to change distances. "I'm signed up for the 21K, but I'm still not sure which one I should do..." I told him.

"Aw, go for the 50K," he told me.

"Alright, let's do it!" I said. Then I thought better of it. "You know, I'm still not sure... what do I have to do to switch?"

"I have no idea, actually," he told me, even though he was working the table marked 'distance changes.' "Why don't you just run the 21K, and when you're done, you can decide if you want to keep going. If you do the 50, just tell them when you finish." Perfect!

I got my number on, the lube between my legs, and jogged to the start just in time to hear the starting siren and keep jogging. The trail went down to singletrack about 100 yards in and started climbing even before that. Because I was in the back, I (and everyone else) got stuck going the same pace as the slowest guy in the race. We hiked up the hill for about a mile, dashing around one person at a time whenever there was enough space on the trail. I knew that Sponsor was here, and I was hoping to catch up with her in order to have someone to keep me company and share the pretty views with. I was proud of how pretty Pacifica was, after all, and I never got a chance to share it with anybody.



Even at this slow pace, my legs were bursting with lactic acid, and I knew that I was fucked for the day. Right away I dropped the idea of doing the 50K, and just decided to enjoy the day and get through it however possible. It was the clearest sunny day I'd ever seen on these trails, and even though it was early in the morning, I was sweating in just a pair of spanky shorts and a tank top.

Up ahead, I had made my way up through the group to see that there was one guy who had let a giant gap open up in the trail in front of him. I was annoyed. Why didn't he get the fuck out of the way? Didn't he realize that there were people stuck behind him breathing down his neck? I got ruder and made my way up to him and finally around him. He looked like Gary Sinise on chemo. With Lieutenant Dan behind me, I now had to actually run up the hill. Ow, this hurt.


I came up on another barrel-chested guy who was running shirtless with compression socks and gaters on his legs. This guy's accessory distribution was all wrong. He didn't have so much as a visor or a watch anywhere above the waste, but he was wearing everything that he could cram on below the waist. He had the opposite distribution of body mass, with a giant, boxy torso and spindly chicken legs. It reminded me of something that one of the trainers at work had told me, "You can tell the gay guys who are sick (HIV+) because the steroids that they put them on to fight muscle wasting makes their abs stick out." He didn't look like a Castro muscle queen, but something about this guy's build gave me the heebie jeebies. Actually, I just kind of had the heebie jeebies. My mind was in that place: when you're running all out in the gym and then suddenly someone makes a loud sound with some weights and it explodes in your head so loud you think you're going to fall over.



Finally the singletrack trail opened up onto a wider (steeper) fire road. I was walk/running around people and they were walk/running around me. I came around a guy who had the gaunt body and moribund stride of an ultrarunner that didn't know when to take a rest day. It took me forever to get around him, and he was deep mouth breathing on my shoulder for what felt like an eternity. His mouth was agape and his big cheeks and sunken teeth reminded me of the pictures you see of mummies or mummified hikers that they find in the desert on CSI. I couldn't wait to get around him.

I finally shook off the Cadaver, and a guy came down the hill in the other direction, finished with the "out" portion of the out-and-back and now onto the "back." This was a particularly steep part of the trail, making it hard for even the elite guys (which he must have been to be so far forward in the pack) to look coordinated as they scrambled down the 15-20% grade, but this guy looked even wilder than that. He was wearing a shirt that said "run happy," but something about his gait made him lurch like a toddler just learning to walk. Was I seeing things? A runner behind me encouraged him, "run happy, my brotha'," and Run Happy Guy's response came in and out of my hearing like a wave. "MMMmmmmhuMMMmhuhhhmmmmmMmM." At the time I thought that I was really falling to bits and the fatigue was starting to affect my senses, but it turned out that Run Happy Guy really did have some sort of neurological disorder, and he was still out there running happy and way, way faster than most people. Well how could I possibly feel sorry for myself now?



I got all the way to the top of the mountain without running into Sponsor, and figured that she hadn't come to the race after all, so I turned around and decided I'd take the rest of the course at whatever pace occurred to me. A few minutes down the hill I finally spotted her. "I was in the bathroom line at the beginning!" she yelled to me. "I got a late start."

"Well I'm running at a snail's pace, so you'll probably catch me in a few," I said. I relaxed my pace as much as I could, and even stopped to pee behind a bush, but she never did catch me. Now that I was going back downhill, life was good. I was glad I had legs again (rather than them just being a source of pain and misery), and I bombed down the trail with my arms outstretched like an airplane. Actually, it felt really good to stretch out like that, my chest and triceps were deeply sore I'm guessing from riding on a busted bike for 3 hours.

Unfortunately, the hill ended and it was time to climb up the second hill. This is the shortest hill on the course, made up of grades that I usually find run-able. Not today. I continued my walk-run which looked a bit like "run 5 steps, walk 3" until I reached the top. This downhill wasn't quite so full of life. I could feel the bruised area in my shorts complaining from all the movement going on, and I was also badly chafed between my thighs where the shorts didn't cover. I knew that I was wiped because I could feel my core muscles working on the descent.

By the time I hit the only flat-ish section of the course--a half-mile slight uphill jog on a gravel path to the last hill--even running on this road was tough. It was like I was stuck between miles 16 and 20 of a marathon for 21 kilometers. I wasn't seeing any more ghosts, and I was still passing people on the uphills, but I was falling apart quickly.

The final hill is an endless series of almost 30 switchbacks that climbs about 1000 feet over 1.5 miles. Even though I've run this trail several times, I still never know when I'm getting close to the top. There's tall brush to either side of the trail, and the trail makes its way up the spine of a ridge in such a way that it always looks like the mountain must end after this next bend. Above me, below me, behind me, and in front of me I could hear runners talking about how hilly this course was. Yep, and I run it all the time, suckas! I thought. When you finally reach the top, there's an anticlimactic sweeping turn and down you go.

Normally this is a fun and non-technical downhill that you can take at the speed of gravity, but my legs had had it. I plodded down the hill as fast as my wooden legs could take me. I was uncomfortable deep inside, almost like cramping or when you take a deep breath at the wrong moment and you get a sharp, stabbing cramp in your side. It reminded me of the scene in Running on the Sun when they say that one of the Badwater runners' internal organs have started to chafe from rubbing against each other. I wasn't marathon tired where you feel like you've been beat up from the ground up, I was tired on a far deeper level from the bones out. Maybe I would be back to the endurance level I used to be at someday, but I wasn't there yet.

Finally I hobbled down out of the trail and to the finish line. It was my slowest half marathon ever: about 2:30, with 3764' climbed over that distance. I figured Sponsor was right behind me, so I grabbed fistfuls of corn chips and sugar cookie pieces and settled in to wait. And wait. And wait. What I didn't know was that she was signed up for the 30K, and wouldn't finish for another hour and a half (I finally gave up and left after an hour and 15 minutes).

While I was waiting, I got to watch other people finish. The female winner of the 30K race came flying through the finish line a few minutes after me sporting a t-shirt from a 100-mile race. She was short and muscular, built like a shit brick house just like me with slightly less fat. She had a forward-thrusting energy down to her facial features, even when she was standing still. A couple of heavyset women walked through the finish line wearing cotton t-shirts, Target sneakers, and fashionable sunglasses chanting "slow and steady wins the (9K) race!" Then there was a young couple that I'd seen out on the trail who could have been American Eagle models. She was wearing lime green compression socks, and he was wearing no shirt and a Camelbak which they'd both stopped to take turns sucking on the trail. When they came around the bend to the finish line, they both burst into grins and started sprinting to the finish, elbowing each other and giggling. They were having so much fun, it made me want to be them. For a moment I was a little sad that my girlfriend's knees are too fucked up to ride and her feet are too fucked up to hike these days, but that's a story for another time.

While I was sitting, one of the guys that I'd recognized as one of the front runners struck up a conversation with me. He was one of those hairless skinny straight white guys over 40 that looks like he's made of wax, but he sure was fast. "I saw you out on the course," I said. "I like your Hawaiian shorts!"

"Yeah, I try not to take myself too seriously..." he told me.

After we'd shot the shit for awhile and I was feeling more comfortable, I got up the nerve to ask him something that I'd always wondered. "So when guys like you run a course like this, do you run the whole thing? Like even the steep parts?" I asked.

"Yep, it's not a fast run, but it's a run."

Woooooow. There were quarter-mile sections of this courses that were over 15%. He looked at me, "You look like you could be built for something like this. You've got those short legs, so you can get a fast turnover." Yeah... well... no. "How do you like those compression socks?" he asked. I'd had to roll the compression socks down a couple of inches because they covered my short little legs up past the knees.

"I don't know, to tell the truth," I told him. "I'm wearing them today more to hold me together than out of faith that they actually work."

"Well do your calves knot up really bad after a long run? Do they prevent that?" he asked.

"What? Um, no, I guess I don't get that. I mean I get tired and stuff. Tight. But knots? No."

I went home and took an ice bath, then I took a hot epsom salt bath. With the chafe between my legs and my split... lip... it took a good several minutes to be able to submerge myself in the water and I yelped and whimpered like a hurt animal, but finally I was successful in submerging myself. That night I got a massage from our massage therapist at work. I asked her why my experience with foam rollers and massages hadn't been as painful as other people had described. But when she hit my IT band and I screamed, I felt what all those people were talking about. "I think it's because you never sit still. Your muscles never get a chance to knot up like other people's," she told me. Yeah, well I was a hurt unit. I crawled into bed after my massage and spent every free second I could find the next day asleep.

I think I deserve a recovery week.

Who's this Stu guy, I'm going to kick his ass!

Today in my endless parade of races, Stu's 30k came up. What... the... fuck?! I'd heard this course was hilly, but this, I was not expecting this. No wonder they put NO information on the web site about the course, elevation profile, or even how to get there. If they did, I'm quite sure no one would be stupid enough to show up. But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's rewind to the beginning, Saturday afternoon:

I was in a good mood. I'd managed to get out of the office after working only 5 hours and was excited about actually being able to get in a long ride, although it would not be as long as I had planned. I was in a good mood... that is, until I saw that I had a flat. Really, how does a tire go flat on a trainer? After a barrage of swearing, I took the whole damn thing apart, changed the tube, and spent another half an hour trying to get it seated right on the trainer again. Next time I buy something on ebay, I'm going for the second cheapest option.

My mood was only slightly dampened by my baffling technical difficulties. This was going to be a good ride. Not only was I fired up from Bob Almighty's Ironman finish in New Zealand (and inspired to work my booty off to achieve my goal of beating ONE of Bob's personal worsts someday), but my Netflix queue had finally hit Hell on Wheels. I rode like a demon, mixing variable gearing sets in with 30 and 60 minute time trials. Watching those Tour de France riders floating up hills like they were flat, and looking like they were born with bikes growing out of their butts gave me the strength of 10 men. When my energy was flagging, the sight of their astoundingly toned butts peeking through shredded shorts after a fall was enough to make me push even harder. I want a Tour de France butt! When I finally tore myself off the bike after 3 hours, I was feeling GREAT. I promised myself I would tape every stage of the Tour de France this summer and ride the whole thing in my living room. Now I see that that probably will not happen, but I raring to go then. And, and you know what else?! I was going to run like an animal tomorrow at Stu's 30k, too! This was the beginning of a new all ass kicking, all the time Claire, I could feel it! After writing in my journal for about an hour about how from now on until forever I was going to kick ass harder than ass has ever been kicked before, I went to bed to get ready for 30 kilometers of carnage. I was quite sure that carnage was going to be other people, not me.

The race start wasn't until 11:00, so I had time to do 30 minutes of yoga to get some of yesterday's muck out of my legs before a breakfast of champions. As I was picking up my number (and not so pretty t-shirt), Gadfly Thom spotted me and we shot the shit while waiting for the start... And then, my nemesis walked in. I had fought it out neck-in-neck for 9 miles in a trail race with this never-say-die adversary in November. I had finally passed him half a mile from the end only to get out-kicked 10 yards from the finish. It was, without a doubt, the hunch-backed septuagenarian himself, GRANDPA! Oh, it was on now. Grandpa was going to be the first victim of my new, bloodthirsty badass Claire persona.

I pointed Grandpa out to Thom. "That guy's going down!" I said. "You see him over there? The old guy with the hump standing by the pillar? His ass is grass!" I then told Thom about our epic battle, how I'd been hanging on behind him for miles before he tripped and fell head over heels, which is when I made my first attack, then how he passed me on an uphill and how I was chasing him down for miles and miles. Then I told Thom about the heartbreaking end where I finally passed him, only to lose ground again on an itty, bitty little incline leading back to the finish.
"Oh, that guy's an avid trail runner," Thom said. Thom's done like every race in New England about 20 times each. "You'll get to see him again at Eastern States and a couple of other races this summer." Game on, tampon! So this race now had a purpose: me against Grandpa, and I was out for some 70-year-old blood.

The start was uneventful. We lined up, there were no announcements, no national anthem, just a whistle and everyone started running. I caught up to Thom again for a second and made sure to say loud enough for anyone who was interested to hear me, "I did a 3 hour hard ride yesterday. I'm just getting that excuse out now, just in case I need it later." I wouldn't need it later, I thought, I was made of 130 lb of nothing but lean, mean, running machine.

Right after setting up my excuse, I let Thom go, and a guy named Tim asked me what I was training for. For the next 5 miles or so I ran with Tim chatting about triathlons and moving into topics that became more and more personal: relationships, how badly we wanted Tour de France butts, what the texture of goos reminded us of... At the first mile Tim looked down at his Garmin, "Right about 9 minutes," he said. Oops, that was a little bit fast for an 18.64 mile course, but hey, I had company. "Or do you not want me to tell you?" Tim asked.
"Actually, I prefer to not know," I said. I wanted to surprise myself with the lightning-fast miles the new badass me was going to pull out. We continued to chat up a pretty steep hill. I tried to ignore it and continue to keep Tim talking to get my mind off of it.
"Well, we're climbing now, so I understand if you don't want to talk," Tim said. Damn, there went my distraction. This was some hill. Was it ever going to end? Over every ridge and around every turn, it became very clear that no, it was not ever going to end.

When I finally let Tim go I latched on to another woman who had mentioned she'd done two ironmans. I listened to her banal advice on ironman ("don't have a time goal", well yeah, I'd heard that before, thanks), and then triathon in general, and then marathons and played stupid to keep her talking and keep my mind off these god damned hills. What the hell WAS this?! For every 10 minutes we climbed, we got about 1 minute of gradual descent before we had to grind up another hill. No, really, I'm not kidding, these grades went over 20% in places and hovered in the 10+ region for extended periods of time. Well, that is, if the Garmin profile can be trusted. Oh my god, please keep talking, lady! I thought. "So, was Florida... hot?" I asked.

Finally the Veteran dropped back around mile 8 and I was left to brave it on my own. I was already feeling decidedly less bloodthirsty, and my legs were telling me that what I was trying to make them do was seriously fucked up. But let's take a break from my suffering for a moment to discuss the course. The snow from earlier in the weekend had passed, and it was a bright, sunshiny day. The course was one giant loop around the Wachusett Reservoir, and the scenery was absolutely beautiful. It was that rural New England kind of beautiful where there were great expanses of white snow everywhere that would blind you if you'd forgotten your sunglasses, a sprinkling of quaint-looking farm houses, and really great lake views all the way around. The temperatures were actually pretty warm, somewhere in the high 30's, which is perfect running weather when you've gotten used to some of the shit we've had to put up with this winter. Oh, and there were 20 mph winds. There was that too. At one point we crossed a land bridge across the lake and I thought that if I spread my arms too wide, I would get picked up and swept away.

So, like I said, I was hurting. I berated myself for doing a race tired... again. I always get through it, so I always forget how much it hurts. But it sucks, now I remembered. I was already into survival mode running, and it was only mile 10. I caught myself, just for a moment, getting ready to feel sorry for myself, but then I thought of a phrase that just recently re-entered my vocabulary when I heard it for the first time in a long time the other day (not aimed directly at me). "Harden the fuck up, Claire," I told myself. Savage competitors do not feel sorry for themselves.

Luckily, half way through mile 12 the hills laid off a bit. Which is not to say that they went away, they just flattened out a bit. After mile 14 the miles actually started going by pretty quickly, but not in that "oh my! we've gone 8 miles already" kind of way, it was more like the "I don't remember a single thing from the last 10k of that marathon" kind of way. For about half a mile I could hear breathing and footfalls right over my shoulder. It was extremely disorienting and distracting, having someone else's rhythm in my head like that. Come around, idiot, come around, I thought. Finally, after I thought that for sure listening to her footsteps was going to make me lose my balance and fall over, she came up next to me. "I hope I'm not driving you nuts," she said, "it's just that you're going the perfect pace."
"You kind of are," I admitted. "But that's okay," I added quickly. I could smell a distraction, and didn't want to scare her off. Alas, she pulled on ahead of me, faster than I could force my legs to go.
I caught her again later and forced her into conversation with me for over a mile (and over an enormous hill) at mile 16, which probably saved my life. "My butt and hamstrings are so sore, I'd like to have them amputated," I admitted to her. We'd started lurching over hills again, and I was having none of it. Iron Matron had tried to warn me, but had I listened? Nooooooooooooooo! " Are you doing Stu's? If you do I can't WAIT to hear your report of that one. It's a tad hilly--.:)" she'd said. In case you haven't figured it out, that smiley face at the end means "it's more than just a tad hilly". And here I was, 18 miles into this fucking thing, and still struggling over hills that felt like they were vertical. My Garmin beeped a couple of times while I was still running. It's only set to pause when I've gone under a 17-minute mile. That steep. A couple of times I had to walk. Only for a few seconds, but there was just no way.

At the bottom of the last hill there were volunteers letting us know that there would be no more climbing today. I thought for sure that it would just be a block or two, then we'd make a turnoff and that would be the end. "How much longer?" I asked one of the volunteers after I'd gotten over the top and caught my breath.
"About a mile," he said. WHAT?!?!?! I repeat: What... the... fuck?!

You would think it couldn't get any worse, but you'd be wrong. As I ran the last 400 yards to the finish line the biggest gust of wind I'd felt since the causeway blew in, head on, and fought with me every inch of that last quarter mile. I'd hoped to break 3 hours, but stumbled in in 3:04:03. Any attempts I had to sprint in and break 3:04 were foiled by the damn acceleration-sucking wind.

I promise you, I didn't even walk more than a few seconds. All that suckage is hills.

18.7 Garmin miles, and 2,550 feet of total ascent behind me, and I was beat. I hobbled into the school where people seemed intent on blocking my path. Does that happen to you? Where you're concentrating so hard on staying upright that walking around someone who's standing still in your path seems impossible? Then I got stuck behind some kids in the food line and they had to pick up and inspect every single bag of Fritos and every package of Hostess Snowballs before moving on. Then they had to ask the lesbian lunch lady with 13 hoops in each ear how many times her ears were pierced. I was tired, but not so tired I couldn't muster up the strength to throw a 7-year-old into a vat of boiling clam chowder.

As I tried to swallow giant hunks of bagel and a bag of oyster crackers I chatted with Thom about his race. He'd finished eons earlier, and had still been beaten by a 65-year-old guy. His friend, who was even faster, had been beaten by a 75-year-old woman. "Sucks, doesn't it?" I said. I could see Granpa milling around the cafeteria, snacking and hob-nobbing. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to know if I gave him the ass whooping that was 4 months overdue. I was too tired to go get up in his face to scream, "3:04:03, what do you have to say to THAT, you hunched-over motherfucker?!" And anyway, if I had to run away he'd come after me, I wasn't so sure I could out-kick him this time.

When I started shivering so badly I was burning my hand with my sloshing hot cocoa, it was time to go home. It was almost 4:00 anyway, and I needed a shower and some real food. But I didn't have return directions printed up, and I seemed to make the wrong decision at every unmarked fork (of which there were many) between the lake and my house. I didn't really have any huge adventures while I was lost, but do you know how much that sucks when you're hungry and tired and just want a shower? It sucks.

~Epilogue~

I checked the results on Coolrunning.com. There I am, in 268th place in 3:04:03.77. Then scroll down. Scroll waaaaaaay down. Scroll down 33 places and sixteen minutes and thirteen point fifty-four seconds later (16:13.54), there's Grandpa in 301st place with a time of 3:17:17.31. Grandpa is TOAST!

Long-ish Run with Angry

Months and months ago Angry lent me a running pouch to use in my "marathon on a whim and a prayer". The pouch was very useful since it held all my nutrition and my camera, but it resulted in major bruising on my low back and wore a hole in the skin of my hip that you can still see the remnants of today. But this post is not about how easily I chafe (someday I will write that post, and there will be pictures of my boobs). Angry is running his very own undertrained (according to him) marathon next week in Disney World, so he came up to get the pouch back, get some priceless advice from yours truly (read: bullshit I make up to sound smarter), and get in one last decent run before the big day.

Angry is scared shitless about this marathon, so Friday night was about calming his fears of land sharks, alligator attacks, and sub-standard performances. "I'm so scared. I'm afraid that when the gun goes off I'll forget how to run and just fall over right there on the street, and all the fat women at the back will trample me. Or I'll forget how to run in a straight line and just run into a swamp right into an alligator's mouth." (The previous quote has been added for dramatic effect. Angry's being a wimp, but not that wimpy. Those were my fears before my first marathon).

The plan for Saturday's run was to keep the distance down to 8 miles or less and take a tour around Boston. I was responsible for rout planning, which is never a good idea because I always get lost and made the rout longer than it should have been. I came up with a rout along the Charles river that would take us past several colleges.
We ate a hearty breakfast at the hotel restaurant, took an hour to digest, and decked ourselves out in Under Armour cold weather gear. We compared butts in our tight pants (I would dare to say that mine was sexier), then we fired up the Garmins and dashed out the door. We had barely run a fraction of a mile over the Salt and Pepper (Longfellow) bridge before Angry had to stop to re-tie his shoe. Angry would have to stop many times over the course of the morning. I only requested one stop.

We ran into the city and around the Boston Common (where we saw our first college, Emmerson), and Angry whined like a scared puppy every time we had to cross the street, even if there was a walk light and no cars coming. Then we made our way back to the water to run along the Boston side of the Charles for awhile (where we passed BU). We were running pretty hard, but Angry kept holding us back. Every time we passed another runner he would size them up. If it was a chick, he would keep watching her over his shoulder until I was afraid he would trip over something or his neck would snap, then he'd catch up and say, "I should have come to school in Boston. I could really see myself living here." If the runner was a guy, though, he would give him a quick once-over and then scoff, "That guy thought he was such hot shit" and do an exaggerated imitation of good running form.

We were going along pretty quickly, holding something around 9:15 min/miles, and then Angry had to stop to check out a rusted-out bridge when we ran under it, so we stopped... and then we walked awhile. A few minutes up the road we had to stop and check out some toxic waste clean-up in the water. Then, crossing back over the river into Harvard, Angry had to stop again. "I just want to look at stuff," he said. So we looked. Angry could lean easily on the side of the bridge, but I had to tilt my head back to even be able to get my chin over the ledge. "Are we going too slow for you?" I asked.
"No, I don't think I could go any faster," whined Angry. "I think I had too much for breakfast and I have to pee." So we ran into Harvard Square to find a place to pee. When the public bathrooms were closed in the mall, Angry just wanted to look at the stores. It was pretty obvious he was just stalling, since the stores were closed. At some point in the mall Angry looked over at me, "Oh my GOD, you're soaked!" he exclaimed. Indubitably. I would say that I sweat like a man, but Angry wasn't sweating nearly as much as me, so I guess you could say that I sweat like a rain cloud. Or that Angry sweats like a little girl. "Why don't you take your hat off?"
Take off my Sox cap?! No way! Anyway, I'd have horrible hat hair under there. "I have nowhere to put it, and I don't want to. There's a running store just a few blocks away, they might let you use the bathroom," I suggested, trying to change the subject. Really I just wanted an excuse to go in and buy a 26.2 bumper sticker for my new car.
"Good, then maybe I can buy you a headband so you can take that hat off." I don't think they sell Red Sox stuff at Marathon Sports. So made our way up Mass Ave to the world's greatest running store with the world's worst parking. On the way Angry started moaning like a bitch about his foot. "Oooooow! It huuuuuurts." I tried to walk to give him a break, but since I was drenched it was really cold. Angry was going to have to suck it up. I started running.

Luckily there were no headbands, and I got away with keeping my Sox cap. Angry got his reward for the half-mile detour to the running store, too. One of the guys that worked there came up to him, "Why are you wearing Underarmour? Is it any good?" Asking Angry if Underarmour is any good is like asking the Pope if the Bible is a good book. After talking to Angry, Marathon Sports is now thinking of carrying Underarmour brand clothing.

I managed to lose the river for a bit as we ran back towards MIT where the hotel was, but I don't think that Angry noticed the ugly industrial part of town we were running through as he alternated between telling me the history of the Under Armour corporation and bitching about his foot. As we ran the final few hundred meters to the hotel we joked about jumping in the frozen river. "Wanna go ice skating?" I asked.
"Sure."
"Okay, give me my camera, you go first." (Caption to imaginary photo) "Angry, up to his neck in the Charles," I said.
(Caption to imaginary photo) "Shortly after this Angry was rushed to the hospital. He is expected to recover fully," said Angry.
By the time we got back to the hotel, 10.2 miles and 1:37 (running) minutes later we were both in high spirits. I pulled off my cap for the first time since we'd left. "It looks like someone dumped a bucket of water on your head!" Angry cried. "We've gotta get you a headband!"
"I LIKE my Sox hat!!!" I insisted.

After lunch we went back into the city to do a little shopping. Ironically, I wound up with a headband, and Angry wound up with a boatload of Red Sox stuff. Hopefully this one last run wasn't too hard on Princess Angry and his delicate feet only a week out from the marathon. Be sure to watch his page next week to find out how it went.

It's getting cold in here, so take off all your clothes

If you caught my rant on Friday, you'll know that I am not happy about the severe winter weather that's come early to Boston this year. This was not in the contract! When I moved back from sub-tropical climates after 6 winters, it was under the assumption that global warming would prevent bullshit like this. But I digress. The point is, I complain a lot, but that's only because I'm getting out there anyway.

Knee deep in snow after shoveling

With another 6-8" of snow forecasted for Sunday (this on top of Friday's 8-12"), the only time I would have to do my long run was on Saturday morning. On Saturday morning it was about 17* outside. A previous Claire would have said, "Fuck that", gotten drunk on Friday night and slept it off on Saturday morning, because it's impossible to run in that shit. But the new Claire is tougher than that and doesn't care if running in 3 layers under a big cotton sweatshirt makes her look fat.

I tried my best to run on the sidewalks, I really did. Where there were sidewalks, anyway. They might be clear for half a block, and then there would be all these dozens of footprints in 2" deep muck that was frozen stiff that made it hard to keep your balance or push off, or move forward in any way. Then, at the end of each block, right after the curb there was about a meter of hard, brown, dirty snow, about 6 inches deep that the street plows left for the sidewalk plows, and the sidewalk plows left for the street plows. Six inches, boo hoo, right? Well that stuff was hard to pick through, and fair weather princesses like me don't like to get snow in their shoes. And that was where it was easy! Sometimes I would get to the end of the block to find that there was snow piled up 4 feet at the end of the carved-out sidewalk and I would have to turn around and run back a block to get out to the street. There were several sections where I would get trapped on a really badly-cleared sidewalk for 1/4 of a mile where there were no crossroads, and the waist-high snow between me and the road was too high for a lilliputian like me to climb over. There was nothing to do but keep picking through the uneven hard snow. I tried to give myself permission not to care about pace.

I paid attention in 1st grade, and I know it's not safe to run in the road, but with the sidewalks the way they were (when there were sidewalks at all) I had to run in the road more and more. But there's a lot less road now, since the snow covers the shoulder, and with everyone riding SUVs these days... I was forced to run through the spill-over from the snow banks at the side of the road so the street surfaces weren't much better than the sidewalk. I took comfort in the fact that if I had to dive head-first into a snowbank to avoid a car, it wouldn't hurt too much.

When I came down from a 6.5-mile loop through the hills I set out for another 5 miles around the lakes. Yikes! If I thought it was cold inland, you should have felt it around the lakes! I took my glove off to eat some Shot Blocks, pulled the ziplock out of my pocket, and the zip ripped off. Plop! The bag fell ripped-edge-down onto the road. Damn. Half my blocks had little flecks of road smooshed into their sticky, squishy surface. Then, when I tried to pull my glove back on, I couldn't get my hand in. In the few minutes it had been off, it had frozen into shape and I had to beat it up quite a bit to get it flexible enough to pull it back on my hand. I couldn't feel the skin on my face and the cold was biting through my 4 layers of clothing.

On the way back home I got to run in the middle of a back road for a glorious 2 blocks without stumbling through any hardened snow. It was wonderful. Despite the 13 miles in my legs, I felt fresh and new, like I could run another several miles without crashing. I almost felt springy! Despite the fact that every muscle in my body was aching from running on slippery, crumbling and uneven surfaces, I realized that I will rarely have to run on anything so difficult again. When we finally get to see the trails and sidewalks again (hopefully sooner rather than later), I'll be a machine. The treadmill would never get me in this kind of shape.Snow up to my knees. (Side note: I would just like to point out that I just looked out the window and saw a father walk by pulling his 3-year-old kid behind him in a sled. They were IN the street, sledding. No kidding.)

When I came in the door the tips of my hair that had been sticking out from under the hat were frozen. I coughed. Then I hiccuped. Coughhiccup. My mom asked me something and I couldn't answer. Every breath made me cough, which made me hiccup, which made me cough and hiccup again. I sounded pretty silly.

After workouts like this it makes me that mean kind of proud of myself. It makes me want to
gloat and call other people pussies. It makes me want to push Mother Nature's face into a snowbank and ask how she likes it. It makes me want to make a muscle in front of overweight people. It makes me feel good about myself.

Meanwhile, while I was gloating and wrapping presents for charity in a toasty mall in Cambridge, just over the river in Boston some fools were doing the Santa Speedo run. 1.25 miles through downtown Boston in December dressed like this:
Really! Just when you think you can be proud of yourself, just when you think you're the craziest kid on the block, something like this comes along to one-up you... Anyone down for next year's edition?

Stood Up!

Today I drove up to Derry, NH (40 minutes north) to do a long run with a guy I met at the Busa Bushwhack, a 9 mile trail race I did in November. I spoke to "New Friend" Thom for awhile both before and after the race and he couldn't stop talking about the Boston Prep 16 Miler in Derry, NH in January. Somehow he'd come to the conclusion that I was not only going to do this race, but train for it with him. "New Friend" Thom lived on the course, and he continued to pester me over email to come up and run the course with him. For about 20 emails I waffled and made excuses until I suggested that Angry come up with me. I figured I could kill 3 birds with 1 stone: keep my promise of running the Derry course with "New Friend" Thom, spend some time with Angry, and have Angry protect me from sketchy guys who invite you to another state to run alone in isolated areas in the dead of winter. (Let's be fair, nothing about Thom was sketchy, but the situation put me a bit on edge). I said something in the email about wondering how we would all keep together given our different paces. Thom seemed to be offended that I suggested I bring Angry along and wrote, "I'm not worried about pace, I'm not going to ditch you. Listen, if you don't want to come, just say so". Well, if there's any way of convincing me of doing something, then call me out on my lies. I'll do anything not to be called a liar when I'm lying. "I'll be in Derry on Saturday morning at 7:50," I promised.

I was feeling imposed on by "New Friend" Thom for his friendliness, and when I realized that the office Christmas party was the night before our run I got even more miffed (because clearly, this was his fault). When they didn't have any acceptable vegetarian options at the Christmas party and all I had for dinner was asparagus, again this was Thom's fault. What an imposition! And when I missed the 9:40 train and had to wait another hour I began thinking, How dare he! And when my mom woke me up by calling me from within the house at midnight to see if I was home, this was clearly all Thom's fault.

But, stubborn as hell and true to my word, I got up at 6:00 anyway and drove up to Derry. Thom hadn't mentioned a meeting place, so I'd written 2 days before and said I'd just show up wherever the race's directions led to unless he told me otherwise. "New Friend" Thom did not write back to tell me anything different, so I pulled into a vacant elementary school parking lot at a few minutes before the meeting time. And in that parking lot I stayed, all by myself, for another 20 minutes. I'd been stood up! Now I've been ditched before when I can't keep up, but STOOD UP?! And by someone that I'd exchanged no fewer than TWENTY emails with! After everything he'd put me through yesterday with the trains and the asparagus?! This was too much! What the fuck?!

I wished I were a guy so I could pee FUCK YOU in the snow, maybe that would make me feel better. Furious and with a bladder that was already about to burst I turned around and went back home. The roads were nearly deserted (it was still a god-awful early hour of the morning) and I zoned out, wallowing in my frustration and trying to dream up a long run rout in the snow for when I got home. I was in the left lane, and just happened to look to my right and THERE WAS A NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE TROOPER GLARING AT ME! Not only that, the cop was yelling something and making exaggerated hand gestures, but his flashers weren't on so I'm not sure what he was doing. I looked quickly at my speedometer, but I was going under the speed limit. I looked around, and there were no places to get into the next lane, so I couldn't imagine that he was angry because I was traveling in the passing lane. I was wearing headphones, but he didn't know they were on and I had my lie all set for if he asked me. (No way, officer, I just forgot to pull them out of my ears before I started driving. I've been listening to the radio, sir). I was even wearing my seatbelt, but he was still over there making gestures and yelling something through his closed window. I gave him a whaaat? face, slowed down and moved over a lane. Then he passed me, pulled onto the median strip, and crossed to the other side. And then 2 seconds later I was back in Massachusetts. I was actually disappointed he didn't pull me over, 1) because I was curious about what the hell he was yelling at me for, and 2) because I was already feeling righteous and looking for a fight.


I got home without incident, and went out for a long-ish run (13.3 miles). The run itself was rather uneventful. I was only attacked by 1 dog. I didn't slip on any ice or get threatened by any more cops. I had no Shot Blocks or Sport Beans, but I used the poor man's alternative, orange slices, which seemed to do a pretty good job at offsetting my skimpy dinner the night before. I ran low on Gatorade, but bought more. My iPod batteries held out. I got home and my butt was killing me, but I had no other real aches and pains. And the best part: I maintained a pace of UNDER 9:30 per mile, THROUGH SNOW (some of which was deeper than in the picture)! That's good for me since my fair weather long run pace tends to hover closer to 10:00/mile. So I feel better now.