Shipping the Cheddar

It's not just for Wisconsinites any more.


The nearly one thousand dollars that has been donated to the Fisher House is proof enough of that.


From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for your donations.  I know for a fact that there are folks that donated that have absolutely had their lunch handed to them by the economy, the weather, or both.  Despite that, wallets were opened and cash dispensed, to say nothing of the good will and encouragement that came right along with it.  That's courage.  It's also faith in a guy that has never run a marathon before and up until about nine months ago, kind of hated running.  Just a 'lil bit.


But let us not dwell on that particular insanity.  I still plan on beating Oprah.


Today I ran up to the office of one Mrs. Jackalope.  The plan was to do four miles entirely up hill and catch a ride back.  Hopefully the stink wouldn't relegate me to the back of the Hyundai where Jeff sits and occasionally barfs, among other things.   I kind of wanted to see what a mellow run uphill looked like.  Apparently it looks like this:  (Click on it for Hi-Res)

I kind of hit my stride there about 1.5 miles into it and felt really good.  Overall I'm pretty satisfied with chilling out and rolling up a hill at 8:30 per mile avg; especially given that  I started flying at a 7 min/mile pace there for a bit around mile two, and somehow kept my heart rate down in zone three.  Certainly not going to break any land speed records but I felt great, had more than a few gears left and haven't even started the speed work yet.  


So I got that going for me.  


On the other hand I'm already starting to dislike the hills around here.

By Marcus with 2 comments

Dogs and Cats, Living Together, Mass Hysteria, etc.

Those that know me, understand that I'm anything but religious; oftentimes to an annoying and pragmatic fault.  This in and of itself isn't particularly unusual save for the fact I have a fair amount of superstitious tendencies and after this week, a decided fear of Karmic retribution.

I'm running an enormous Karma deficit as it relates to family disasters.  I've been deployed for so many months (either combat or field time) that Mrs. Jackalope has had to deal with virtually every major family blowout and has made a number of major financial family transactions all by her lonesome.  There have been stitches placed in children's lips, parent teacher conferences, mortgages signed and major family illnesses all handled by my better half while I was off getting all expenses paid vacations to warm sandy places.  Dodging bullets is not exactly the best way to spend your time, but I'm here to tell you, over the long haul, the wives have the harder duty.  No question.

So when it came time for the missus to take a little trip out yonder (you should all visit out yonder someday, the hamburgers are delicious) and for me to take charge of the family, the visiting nephew, and all of the entertainment planning necessary to have a good time, I said:

The weekend didn't get off to a strong start with me completely muffing the punt and getting my love to the airport late and forcing her to miss her flight.  Well done me.  She was forced to charm her way into a flight change (luckily there is no shortage of charm to be had there) but still had to wait for a few hours at the airport.  I knew I would have plenty of time to feel shame for my transgressions during my run in the afternoon, having missed my window earlier in the day.  Eh, really just cared about getting wifey out to the aforementioned "yonder".


Eventually American Airlines made good on their promise to fly from here to there and all was well.  I was officially the Entertainment Director.


All was progressing normally with trips to the local pool, movies and even a trip to the National Mall to expose my nephew to the sights and sounds of our nation's capital.  It was hot but I was prepared, toting 8 bottles of water along.  All went as planned; Metro, dinner at the burger joint, baths, etc.  That was until the littlest Jackalope complained of a headache.  And by complained I mean, screamed at me with all the power her lungs could generate and created a deluge of tears simultaneously.  She was hurting.  So a few tylenol and a couple of head strokes later, she was resting peacefully.  Until . . .uh . . . she got a little sick.


Which is to say that she sat upright in bed, and went Linda Blair like it was her job.  Awesome.  As an aside, it apparently takes longer than three hours for a 7 year old to completely digest a hamburger.  That's totally not what they taught me in 9th grade Bio.


Now granted, this incident being considered "payback" is a bit like sending the US Treasury a buck to chip in towards the national debt, but this . . .this, was a solid buck.


Flash forward to today which began pretty well:

I tried to convince the youngest that the first attempt at a heart (essentially a misshapen standard pancake) was totally a heart, just anatomically correct, but she wasn't buying it.  While these seemed more like a mutated moth, they nonetheless passed the test.  Woot me.


The girls wanted to head to a water park today as a result of an impromptu, meeny-miny-moe session on the deck.  They told me that the water park won outright.  While I attempted to declare the decision-making engine null and void based on a lack of "pre-defining the meeny, the miny or the moe", I was overruled.  We sallied forth.

Ah yeah . . .plenty of lifeguards to watch the kids, a few clouds to temper the heat and plenty of time to read my Hal Higdon book.  Until . . . 

Doody.    Doody.    Doody.


*Scratchy teenaged announcer voice*  


"Er, uh, Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be closing the pool for an hour due to uh, er, Fecal Contamination."


Pardon the pun, but you've got to be shitting me.  But here we were, watching teenagers scrambling for buckets of bleach and brooms like some kind of lifeguard inspired chinese fire drill.


So yeah, poop in the pool.  And this was no Baby Ruth.


Plenty of silver lining to be had though.  For one, the refunds or free passes were being handed out with sheepish looks.  And for two, you can only imagine the type of high stakes rochambeau that was happening for the dude that needed to make the ultimate rescue.


Tomorrow we're considering the beach.  What could possibly go wrong?


And oh yeah, I ran today.  8 miles.  9:12 pace.  Felt strong, but whatever . . . the poop in the pool story was better.

By Marcus with 2 comments

S'gotta be the shoes! M'eh . . .

I'm not really sure that it is to be honest. 


Back in October when I saw Christopher McDougal interviewed on the Daily Show, the contrarian inside me (the devil that unfortunately guides much of my decision making) took over and I was compelled to get myself a pair of Vibrams.  The burgeoning research was what made me think that  there might be something to this barefoot running phenomena and I wondered if this just might be a  more entertaining way for me to run.


Now, I'm not so bull headed as to believe that this is the only way, or that there aren't inherent issues associated with it; I think there are based on my own personal experience.  For me, running minimal has really opened up the experience for me and has me running with more joy than I have ever had in the past (which wasn't a whole hell of a lot).  But I've also come to discover that running this way isn't particularly new either.


Most high level distance runners run with what is known as a fore-foot or mid-foot strike, (as opposed to bashing your foot into the ground heal first) and this is the benefit of something like running without shoes on.  You can't help but run correctly; the way your body was designed to.  It also reduces the impact, allowing you do go further and do less damage to your body.  But either way, you can learn to do this without going barefoot, it's just less intuitive unless you log a few miles and break yourself off a few times.


As for myself, I've decided to go with a combination of shoes during this process to just kind of find out what works for me.


What doesn't work for me is exactly what the shoe store recommended.  The most stabilizing of all of the Saucony models available.  They cost me 125 smackers and felt like a pair of low-quarters reinforced with concrete.  Absolutely awful.  After I had been running in the Vibrams for a month or so I could barely make it two miles for my Army Physical Fitness Test.  I should have just run the damn thing in the Fivefingers but was a little worried about regulation Nazi's busting my chops.  The Saucony's were recommended based on my "severe overpronation" despite my never having had a running injury in the past.  At the end of the day they just hurt, so I binned them.  I actually gave them to a worthy cause and now there is a very well stabilized member of the less fortunate.  Just hope he doesn't run much.


So I just kept running in the Vibrams but knew I needed to augment those with something that would allow me to fly under the radar during times of Army-ness.  And so I got a pair of these:

I also had the additional idea that I could pound the pavement a little harder even if my feet were a little sore from the day to day pounding they take without "shoes".  I mean let's face it, I needed to come to terms with the fact that I hadn't actually used my feet or legs, pretty much ever, and really wanted to make a smoother transition this time rather than over-zealously snapping my metatarsal again.

Essentially they are a track flat, without much to it.  Exactly awesome.  These give me a chance to cut loose a little and not freak out about my form as much.

For those of you that saw the video I posted a few days ago, it's pretty clear that form is important.  The problem is, your form has a tendency to go to crap.  My goes out the window at around the six mile mark.  This means that unless I want to run under six miles in order to mitigate injury, I need to make sure I have something else in the tool kit.  So the final wrench in the bag is an old pair of New Balance shoes I bought a few years ago.  They're worn as hell but have plenty of life left in them.  I'm not slamming my foot in the ground anymore so they're working pretty well for me.  I wish they were lighter but I'm going to wait to replace them when the budget permits.

And no, I'm not really sure which of these I'm going to run the MCM in just yet.  Everything feels fine to be honest.  I'm also thinking about grabbing some of these Classics just to prove a point. But I'm not ready to get too cocky yet.

I suppose the moral here is that I've gotten to the point where WHAT is on my feet is not nearly as important as HOW I put those feet on the ground.  We'll see just how far that little philosophy can take me.

By Marcus with 5 comments

Runs and Kisses

As I've said before, up until about 9 months ago, I really didn't enjoy running.  I mean, not in the smile on my face sense anyway.  I enjoyed the fact that I could eat a little more than necessary, and drink a few more beers, but I truly considered running a necessary evil of being in the Army.  I also have a little bit of mild reactive airway disease which gets exponentially worse when I don't keep my lungs in shape.  The confluence of all that kept me going even when I didn't want to and it wasn't until I started running "minimally" that my interest really took off.  


For those that know me, you've probably heard me describe my love of certain sports or hobbies in terms of how they reflect life.  It's odd, yes, but this is seriously the crap I think about.  Hockey for instance, is a great analogy for life as it's quick, often exhausting and you make the best decision you can and deal with the results.  You take a lot of hits but the more you share, the easier it gets and an assist is a point, just as good as a goal.  You can take the analogy from there I think.  


Poker is a great one too.  It's a game of incomplete information and making decisions based on that.  Sometimes you are wrong but you know what, you made the best decision you could based on the available information.  And sometimes you get unlucky (obviously the converse is also true).


Running though, running is different.  The more I sit and think about it the less I know why I have been smitten.  And then again maybe that's it.  Maybe it's a really good representation of what it's like to fall in love.  There are highs, there are lows but at the end of the day, a sense of accomplishment that's hard to replicate.  


It truly does remind me of meeting my wife.  Most people find it pretty funny that she was the first girl I ever dated longer than three weeks.  So I had no idea what love was really.  But what I did know, was that she got inside my head and heart and wasn't going anywhere.  From that point forward I stopped trying to explain it or quantify it, and just decided to experience it and do my best not to eff it up.  


So maybe that's the best description I can come up with.  And maybe it doesn't need much more refinement than that.  But I know one thing, I got to run today and like the kiss I got from my wife this morning, my day is a whole lot better because of it.

By Marcus with 4 comments

Data Mining and the Best Barefoot Running Video I've seen yet

Not much time for the blogotubes today, but I wanted to throw some data up here and see if anyone had any input.  Sunday was my long slow run day with 7 miles on the schedule.  My friend, The Map Google, told me that my route would put me at around 6.4 miles or so.  Which would have been the case, had I not made a wrong turn on Staffordshire Rd mistaking it for Shenendoah Ln.  My brain said, it's a long "S-word" so turn here.  Awesome.  I suppose I needed the 1/4 hill repeat anyway.  (Special bonus points for those of you out there re-enacting the Sean Connery on Jeopardy, SNL skit.  Well done.)  So 6.8 miles it was, repeat included.

Below is the data from my Garmin.  The terrain is ridiculously undulating so the blips in the HR you see have everything to do with me gassing it over some hills.  I guess I need to get smart on HR training as reading this makes about as much sense as a polygraph printout to me.  I do know that I should see a progressive drop in that HR plateau over time, but that's about it.  Not sure if I have the right mix at this point.



Click here for the Venti size to take a better look.

I also found this little gem on the inter-web today.  This is easily the most concise and illustrative way of describing why anyone would want to run barefoot or minimal.  I'm going to follow up with another post on this topic from my own personal perspective, but this is an absolutely awesome once over the world regarding BF or minimal running.



Learning the Skill of Barefoot Running from Terra Plana on Vimeo.

As always, thank you for your support and donations!

By Marcus with 1 comment

Today's Run and a few new toys

First things first, I want to say thank you for all of you that have supported the cause thus far.  I am nearly at my fundraising goal and frankly, may have to adjust that upward if things keep going the way they have been.  This is simply amazing and I'm growing more motivated by the day.

To that end, I've been tinkering with the best ways to get the most out of my workouts.  Fairly soon, I'm going to be spending a significant amount of time learning Urdu, and I want to make sure that I have at least a broad stroke game plan with a few audibles to call.  So I ended up ordering one of these babies:


Runmeter has been great, but it's terrible for easy reference while I'm running.  I really wanted something to help me track my pace because if I don't, I'll easily slip into my "drink a latte while I run" pace and go into zombie mode.  That usually comes out to a 10 min mile and while I can do that nearly all day long, it's not going to help me beat Oprah.

I also became a huge fan of heart rate monitoring last fall while I was trying to drop some love handles.  Making sure your heart is in the right place is not only good for your marriage, it's awesome for targeting fat/endurance/speed.  I'm so clever.

Bad puns aside, the Garmin Forerunner 305 is a nifty little device that does both.  I was pleased to discover that it found satellites faster than my kids find ice cream trucks in the neighborhood and was equally stoked to find out that my resting heart rate is somewhere in the vicinity of 52-56, which I guess qualifies me as nearly athletic.  Yay me.

One disadvantage: the information isn't easily imported into Google Maps.  Runmeter is much easier.  Which is fine I suppose, given that I won't be taking the iphone on each and every run; but it's information was quite bloggable, and I like that.  It was also easy to track on the calendar but I plan on doing that manually as well, so at the end of the day it's a fairly minor quibble.

I fully intend on posting some of the results here, and I would hope that some of the know-more-than-me's out there would chime in and give me their two cents.

Speaking of chiming in, I've finally put the finishing touches on the game plan :

Click here to check it out.

Here's my logic.  The first two weeks you see are essentially what I run anyway, and have been doing that, albeit slowly, for quite some time.  The real issue I have is speed.  The issue being, I don't have any.  I can tippity tap for miles in my Vibrams but when it comes to hitting top gear, I never even go near it.  When I do, I can keep up with it longer than I would have thought, but it's a mental challenge to get myself there.  As such, I'm really going to try and throw my heart into these speed workouts.  We'll see how long I can sustain it.

As for today's run, I was attempting to hit about a 6/10 on the exertion scale for about 4 miles.  I think that's about what it ended up being as I really felt like I had a whole bunch left in the tank.  I think it's also fair to not that the first two miles are almost entirely uphill, so I'm pleased with the result.  Although how Runmeter figures that I burned 0 calories remains a mystery. :/


View Larger Map

Started: Jun 19, 2010 7:27:56 AM
Run Time: 37:55
Stopped Time: 0:00
Distance: 4.44 miles
Average: 8:33 /mile
Fastest Pace: 5:53 /mile
Climb: 630 feet
Calories: 0

By Marcus with 2 comments

Getting My Plan On

A few weeks ago, we decided that as a family, we should take some time to reflect and spend some time at the library.  They have a fantastic little program where the girls can read to service dogs.  This is one of the most ridiculously cute things I have ever seen and has the added benefit of allowing us to take advantage of this whole, book borrowing craze.  It's phenomenal.  Instead of purchasing the book, or downloading it to my kindle, I can simply ask to "check out" books.  And the price for this amazing service?  Get this.  Free.  My mind was blown.

It was blown even further by the fact that there isn't just one book on a certain topic, but many.  Like shelves of them.  It's like an internet but slower and pulpier.

Flashback to a few weeks ago when I saw this guy on 20/20, touted as being a superhuman endurance athlete:

Aside from what are clearly superhuman abs, Dean Karnazes essentially makes a living by running ungodly distances that go beyond even ultra-marathons.

Just so happened that our little quaint little old library had both of his books:

The first is basically a confessional in which he describes his near lunatic obsession with running that began on his 30th birthday.

The second details his quest to run 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states.

I learned two things.  First, this guy has to be one of the toughest bastards on the planet and two, I have no idea what I'm really doing and that might just be okay.  I don't say that as a point of arrogance, but I started this little journey without a watch and goofy gloves on my feet.  I have just enjoyed running with my heart and gut and that is where the fun has come from.  I have to dance with the girl that brought me and not live and die by the gazillion downloadable marathon plans.

And so I'm thinking . . . I know the training plan is important but I don't want to be wedded to some kind of dogmatic plan for the beginner, or the intermediate marathoner.  I've got a few principles in mind that I'm going to stick to but I'm not going to sweat the small stuff.

One of the first rules of running your first marathon is almost universally, don't set a time goal.  Just finish.

And to that I say . . .uh no.

Because I have one.

4:29:15.

I will do everything I possible can to beat four hours, twenty nine minutes and fifteen seconds.

Because I will be damned, seriously damned, if I can't beat Oprah Winfrey's time at the Marine Corps Marathon.

Finishing will be great, but if the worst happens and I'm outside of that time, it will be because of some kind of freakish accident that will alter the course of human history along with my marathon time and not because I couldn't get enough long runs in on the weekends.

As such the plan I'm going with will be Mr. Karnazes, which is loosely outlined at the end of 50 50.  It's fairly generic and that's what I like.  It also has a fair amount of tempo running which is what I know I need.  Endurance hasn't been an issue but I very seldom go into the top gears.

Once I get my google excel populated with the plan I will post it here.  I also got a couple of new toys which I will discuss tomorrow when I cover the various devices I have strapped to my body and appendages.  Pg-13 thoughts everyone.  Please.

By Marcus with 1 comment

An Awesome Wednesday

 When I first started this post this morning I entitled it "A Weak Wednesday".  Mostly as a result of the extraordinarily lazy trail run I put in.

I'm not taking all of the blame though, my dog Jeff is turning out to be a not-very-helpful partner.  He can't really help it.  The woods are super awesome.  They're full of squirrels, bugs, mother geese and their goslings, and teenagers smoking weed.  You know, standard distractions.  All of this needed some sniffing and he took the time to make sure the rounds were made.  I think the kids nearly died trying to find a place to hide their stash as I rolled by, Jeff coming to a screeching halt and giving me the "is it 4:20 already?" puppy dog head tilt.  About as much socially conscious public parenting as I was able to muster was asking "Got to school much?", as it's still in session here in Virginia (thanks to the snowpocalypse).   It was enough though, at least to make them fake caring about my opinion and leave.

After that though, the day improved substantially.  First, I recovered perhaps quicker than I ever have.  Probably had something to do with the cool shower and downing one of these babies.

.

Gotta be honest here; they really don't taste too bad once they are cooled.  Most of the time I'm just slamming them at work after it's hung out in my bag all day.  Clearly not the preferred method.

Secondly, I surprised Mrs. Jackalope at her office with some sandwiches.  There was no way she was making it to lunch so it was a feel good moment all the way around.  We high-fived each other for being so awesome. 

Thirdly, I got my first substantial donation from Ms. SpecialK.  I'm sure there's a fantastic reason for the handle, but for now we'll leave it at "more mystery, less history".  At the end of the day, it matters not as she made herself the first major contributor to the Marathon Fisher House effort by donating $100 and giving us reason enough to label her special. 

So this day is fantasic, and it's not even half-way over yet.

Not even the hormone infused teenage angst that just walked in can wreck it.

So anyway.

If you follow my Twitter feed @NVjackalope, you might have noticed the runmeter posts.  I've been using this program to track my runs.  Specifically, the iphone app.  My Suunto was perhaps the least helpful GPS device in history and as such I dumped it, in favor of the $4.99 app.  I was a little reticent about bringing my phone along with me for runs until I got this doo-hicky:

I figured for $16.95 it was worth the experiment.  So I Craigslisted the Suunto and strapped on the tune belt.  It's pretty nifty.  Got a little key pouch in the back too.  I have a Garmin Forerunner 305 on order (with the Suunto proceeds) but I reckon I will still want to take the phone with me on long runs.

The combination of @runmeter and the tune belt is pretty trick.  The result is a quickie map and some pace information and a great way to keep a log of my runs.  I'm keeping it unless the Garmin has the exact same capabilities with the same level of user-friendliness.

So here you go, behold, my ridiculously slow trail run around Lake Royal.  Next time I'll make sure to waypoint the ganja smoking teenagers.



View Larger Map

Started: Jun 16, 2010 9:45:38 AM
Run Time: 43:35
Stopped Time: 2:20
Distance: 4.20 miles
Average: 10:23 /mile
Fastest Pace: 8:08 /mile
Climb: 331 feet
Calories: 0
Official Route: No

By Marcus with 2 comments

And so it begins . . .

I'm not really sure how it happened to be honest. As of last October, I really hated to run.

Just wasn't interested.

And then I saw this guy, doing, well, THAT . . . .


I mean really?!  Was that dude running barefoot? I was a bit stunned to say the least. Turns out he wrote a book.

Christopher McDougal wanted to know why, after spending so much money trying to fix his feet, arches, achilles, and knees, nothing worked. Especially given the fact that the Tarahumara Natives of Mexico have been running with these:



And believe it or not, they're doing it for mile after mile after mile; with no more arch support than their God gave them. Pretty awesome.

It's badass.

So Chris wrote Born to Run.





And I think, perhaps changed my perspective on things permanently and hopefully, for the better.

And so, I bought these:



The trusty Vibram FiveFingers. Just like a bare foot without all the glassy, rocky badness the road has to offer. And then I ran. I'm not sure what got into me really, or what needed to get out, but this running thing sure hit the spot, and I never felt better.

I ran and ran and ran and ran. Going from a modest 15 miles a week to 35 in the span of a month. And then I broke. My foot damn near snapped in two after a 6 mile run in December, at least, it felt like it. I managed to give myself a particularly nasty stress fracture that resulted in a particularly painful healing process that pitted my growing bone calcification against my overworked tendons and nerves. Good times.

And so I sat. I sat and I sat and I sat. I managed to keep my spirits up by hitting the gym during lunch. The rowing machine and I became good friends.

Spring hit and I have been running ever since. Nothing hard. Nothing fancy. Just running. For the absolute hell of it.

And now, I want to turn that hell of it into one big perfect storm of awesome.

I registered to run the Marine Corps Marathon on my birthday. October 31st, 2010. I decided to put my legs to good use and run for the Fisher House, a charity created to provide lodging to the families of wounded warriors during their stay at a military treatment facility.

I'm truly thrilled to have an opportunity to do something for my soul and members of my military family all at the same time.

As for this blog, it'll be a way for everyone to follow my progress, poke fun, laugh at, provide advice and generally whatever. Hopefully by the time October rolls around I'll figure out how to make this blog sit somewhere between semi-professional and not completely ugly.

By Marcus with No comments