Falling - The Grand Island Trail Marathon

Photos from the Grand Island Marathon can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22577818@N00/sets/72157594219452099/

Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I wasn't prepared to fall so hard.

I'm not talking about the tumble I took down the trail in the Grand Island Marathon this past Saturday.

I'm talking about falling in love.

With Michigan.

With the trail.

With flying face first down through the air and rain and mud.

We arrived in Marquette, Michigan on Friday morning. I expected a northwoods retreat with burbling streams and the bulk of Lake Superior lording it ominously over a few fisherman. I did not expect the Caribbean. Or the Grand Canyon.

But that's what the north shore of the Upper Penninsula is. If you took all that makes you gasp about the American landscape and compressed it into a several hundred square mile area, you'd end up with the U.P.

The water of Lake Superior is as clear and aqua blue as the Caribbean, with the kind of crystalline quality that lures you cleanse yourself in its frigid embrace. You imagine you could walk right in and just just keep walking along the rock-strewn bottom in a beautiful blue purity.

The sandstone cliffs that line the shore have been wind and water sculpted to resemble the Grand Canyon in striations and formation. Graceful arches plunge into the water like fountains while grottoes at the water line invite exploration. The gold, greens, ochres, bricks, whites, and blues reflect the setting sun bouncing off the water and give the heavenly lake a golden halo.

Dark, brooding forests of hemlock, birch, and maple blanket the clifftops with cool and languid carpets straight off a Vermont mountaintop. The black-green cloak soothes the wind and waterbeaten landscape and provides refuge from the bright blue-gold of the exposed lake and cliffs.

Beaches that might be found in Maine are strewn with boulders and driftwood, but also offer a cushion of soft gold sand that swallows your feet in sunshine. Waves crash as if at the ocean, further breaking down the cliffs into more beaches. From the forest just above, falls cascade into the lake with a soft burble, completing this utopia of the senses with gentle audial meditations.

I have fallen hopelessly in love.

After picking up our race packets and checking into the hotel, DH and I venture to the lakefront park for a short lecture on the geology and biology of Grand Island. We learn a bit more about its history in the past century and a little less about its geology than I would like, but the park vistor's center has plenty of information on that. After wandering over to the "expo" (really just a tent in the park with a few pairs of shoes and some gels) we go down to the lakefront, where I dip my toes in. Standing on the sand is hurting my foot a bit, so I make my way over to some rocks and dangle my feet in the water. It's pretty chilly, but not icy, probably because we are in a protected bay. I expect it will be a different story on the north side of the island tomorrow which is exposed to the buffeting of Canadian winds.

With an hour to kill before the spaghetti dinner at a local restaurant, we take a drive up to a scenic overlook and snap a few pictures of the island. It looks like it's going to be a tough climb up to the center of the island, which rises about 900 feet above water level.

We sit down at the spaghetti dinner with a woman named Cathy who had been on our flight from Detroit this morning. She runs a marathon about every 2 to 3 weeks, around 20 per year, mostly on roads, but is planning on doing the Pikes Peak Marathon in a few weeks so she's getting in some trail training. She attempted the race last year and made the ascent but found herself too wiped out by the altitude to descend. I ask her how she's handling training for the altitude this year and she says she's just going to suck it up. Literally. She's a self-proclaimed slowpoke (differently-paced) so we make a wager on who will take last place. Then we head off to the hotel and call it an early night, with the sun just throwing up its last dying rays at 10 PM.

The alarm goes off at 4 AM and I down a bagel, then dress. DH, my faithful pit crew, is checking everything to be sure its runway ready - filling our fuel belts, packing up gels, pinning on race numbers. We head out to the shuttle to the ferry landing at 5 AM. We are pretty seamlessly transported there, and then ferried over to the start line where we await the 7 AM start. It's an amazingly well-organized effort. We watch the sunrise from the start and a few of us note with trepidation the officials with "Search and Rescue" plastered across the backs of their shirts (of course, it's an island - pretty hard to get lost if you just follow the perimeter back around to where you started). I see a woman with her left arm in a cast. I go up to her and say "Well my foot was hurting but I think I'm going to stop complaining!" Her name is Dorothy, and she tells me the break just happened two weeks ago, and she's planning on walking the marathon. I wish her luck.

Just before start, Cathy finds me and sticks a ladybug sticker on my race number for good luck. I'm feeling a little anxious about my foot, but so far with a mega dose of Advil, I'm not much noticing the pain. But I'm also anxious because I have no idea what to expect on this trail, and figure I'll just take it as it comes.

At 7 AM, the people in front of me start running. I follow. That's it. No booming cannon or loud music. It's the lowest key race I've ever been to. A perfect introduction into the quiet solitude of the brooding forest.

The day starts overcast, which makes the temperature just about perfect for running. It's in the 60s with a nice breeze in the exposed sections of the trail. We run about a mile through forest and right away I notice one problem with trail races - it's impossible to pass. I'll have to wait until the crowd thins out a bit, which luckily doesn't take too long. First mile split: 11:13. A nice warmup jog.

My foot does not hurt and the crowd has thinned out, so I decide I want to take the first 10 miles in about 10:30 average pace - right around my typical long run pace which is very easy. If I'm feeling good I'll pick it up later, but I really just want to finish feeling good and enjoy the experience. I have a disposable camera strapped into my fuel belt so I can stop and take some pictures. The first 5 miles are flat, followed by a 600 foot climb over 1 mile, then another flat 2 miles, and a 1 mile descent, then another climb, so I feel like 10:30 is doable.

The next few miles fly by, I stop to snap a few pictures. Waves crash off the west-facing shore of the island and I could swear I'm on Assateague Island. The breeze is picking up and thunder is starting to roll. But overall it's very pleasant to have the crunch of the dirt and soft spring of grass under my feet. I feel relaxed.

Mile 2: 10:33
Mile 3: 10:53 (stopped for pictures)
Mile 4: 10:31
Mile 5: 11:00 (includes an aid station stop)

Now we start to climb. And the rain starts along with it. We're headed up a dirt fireroad to the center of the island, past an inland lake. The climb isn't too steep but it is relentless. Most people around me are walking, and I take a few walk breaks as well. There is a man of about 75 years passing me who is power-walking the slope, using his arms to drive himself forward while barely moving his feet off the ground. He is making excellent time, so I decide to imitate him.

I reach the top of the slope and realize it wasn't as hard as I'd been fearing. I know the rest of the climbs on the island aren't as long as this one, so I start to feel pretty confident. I push on to the end of the road, cheering on those in front of me who are returning back down the same road, when suddenly I see Dorothy (with the broken arm) run by me. She's quite a ways ahead of me. I am momentarily flabbergasted.

I reach the turnaround and by now the road is truning into a stream bed, but the footing is still solid. For the past two miles I have been leapfrogging a guy about my age with a Camelback. He's slightly in front of me at the turnaround and I creep up on him. When the downhill starts, I decide to book it and make up some time and pass the guy. He, I, and the 75-year-old man follow each other down the slope back to the aid station, where I stop to refill my bottles and am overtaken by the other two again.

Mile 6: 12:38 (climb)
Mile 7: 10:42
Mile 8: 10:33
Mile 9: 9:46 (downhill)

Just before the 10 mile mark the trail starts to climb again. I am not afraid of this climb any more, after having just tackled the last one in good shape, but I'm in for a rude awakening for the rest of the race. This portion of the trail is on some mildly rocky single-track and the rain has started to wash out the trail. I am following the 75-year-old up the trail, trying to stay with him and follow his path through the mud. The climb is much steeper than the last one but I still feel great. I pass the man and expect him to stay with me, but he drops back. Soon he is out of sight. I reach the top and there's a short descent followed by a few rolling hills. I stop for a picture at an overlook, and step back onto the trail. A shirtless middle-aged man passes me just as I drop my camera. We say a few hellos and shadow each other for a little while. Then the trail begins to descend steeply. I have planned on making up time on the descents, but it quickly becomes clear that's not going to happen unless I'm willing to roll down the hills ass-over-teakettle due to the rain-slicked mud and rocks. With every foot-plant I slide a few inches and with my inexperience its impossible to make a quick and safe descent.

At 13 miles I finally pass Dorothy of the broken arm. She is running when I spot her, but she stops to walk just as I reach her. I shout out "I saw you running!" and she calls back "You caught me!" I ask how she is feeling and she says fine, the swelling in her arm is not as bad as she thought, but she is going to walk a while. She tells me I look great and to keep it up.

I look great and feel great, but my time indicates I'm not doing so great. At halfway I'm just below 5 hour pace. The hills and mud have slowed me down much more than I ever thought possible and I can't make up any time on the descents as I had planned. Even relatively flat miles are slow going because of all the mud. But I make up my mind just to put out a hard effort and see what happens.

Mile 10: 11:26
Mile 11: 12:25
Mile 12/13: 24:19
Mile 14: 11:27
Mile 15: 11:44

The trail rolls for a few miles before beginning another steep ascent around 15 miles. I'm leapfrogging the shirtless man all this time. I've reached the most scenic portion of the run, with gorgeous views of cliffs shrouded in fog protruding from the north side of the island. I stop for pictures often.

At 16 miles after an aid station refill, the trail descends steeply from the clifftops and we are abruptly thrust out onto a mile-long stretch of beach bracketed by towering cliffs. I stop for a picture and run down to the wave-packed portion of sand, which is still pretty slow going. The waves lap at my tired feet and bathe them in ice. This is the Lake Superior I was looking for - white capped swells blown in from Canada, bringing up 40 degree water from its 1300 foot depths just north of this shore. I pick up a couple of pretty striated red and white rocks and stick them in my pocket.

I love this.

I head back inland and am faced with another tough climb. I head up the hill ahead of the shirtless man, and just as I reach the top, I trip on a root. I regain my balance, but as I am chastising myself for not picking up my feet, I hit another root and go down. This causes my calf to cramp up and I sit clutching it for a few seconds while the shirtless man passes me. He asks if I'm ok but doesn't stop. In a minute I get up and stretch my calf. As I am doing so another middle-aged man passes me and says "Plantar or Achilles?" I don't think he wants to hear about my extra foot bone so I just say "Achilles" and start running with him. He tells me about his plantar fasciitis and how his heel lifts have helped him, but I'm trying to push through the last few miles of this 10 mile section, and am gradually leaving him behind. He tells me I'm having a great race and good luck, I wish the same to him. Shortly thereafter, I have to stop for several minutes for a bathroom break, and he passes me. I keep him in sight until just before 20 miles but then lose him. I am running out of steam.

Still I keep pushing. I want to own this 10 miles, and then I will coast in the last 10K. I'm still slogging on pretty slowly, but I am definitely putting out an effort that would garner me below a 10:00/mile pace on the road, so I feel good about myself, and think to myself over and over that Marine Corps is going to seem like a cakewalk after this.

Near the crest of the hill at 20 miles there is another aid station. I am totally ignored as I pass through here, but its fine, as I have plenty of water to get through the remaining 6 miles. I do feel like I could use some solid food, however. I am actually hungry, which hasn't ever happened to me during a run before. I'm having hallucinations of ham sandwiches. They do not appear to have any, however. At 20 miles, I am at about 4:15 - about the time it would have taken me to run a road marathon.

Mile 16/17: 28:47 (contained the beach-slog and the fall)
Mile 18: 13:19 (bathroom break)
Mile 19: 12:02
Mile 20/21: 32:16 (bathroom break #2 and climb)

Just after 22 miles the trail begins to descend. Since I have brought the course map along with me, I know I am on the last descent back down to the flat area nearing the beginning of the loop. I am extremely tired but still putting out a good effort. However, I am really beginning to get mentally fatigued from slogging through the mud. I'm starting to think I will have run a 50K by the time I'm done with all of the sliding. This section of the trail is also not very picturesque - running inland through the woods. I am getting passed by more experienced trail runners who are hopping through the mud like its a walk in the park. An older man passing me at mile 23 shouts with glee "MILE 23!" and I manage a halfhearted cheer.

But just after he passes, I am faced with an ankle-breaking descent punctuated with water bars which seem to have been placed across the trail specifically to trip me. I stop. I want to cry. I just cannot handle any more mud. I'm a wuss. It was fun for the first 20 miles, but now I just want to go home. Unfortunately the only way home is through the mud so I walk down the slope and start back up with a jog again near the bottom. At the bottom of the slope is an unexpected aid station with many smiling faces, who see me coming from several hundred yards away and begin cheering wildly. They run up to me with water and gels, but I'm pretty well stocked, so I just take their good cheer and soldier on. I feel a little bit refreshed, and look at my watch. I'm just under 5 hours, but if I can push the last 5K I'll feel respectable. Fortunately from here on out it appears the trail will return to gravel fire road, and the going will be much easier.

I do feel a little defeated. I've been on my feet far longer than ever before, and over much tougher terrain than ever before. My quads feel like jello and I understand why trail runners have told me strength training is really important. But I take a perverse kind of pride in having run for this long. I've toughed it out much more than ever before. I may have been totally unprepared, but for almost 20 miles, I was having the time of my life. It has been a great performance, all things considered.

I come up on a man walking. I've seen him walking for a very long time now. I'm not sure how long, as the seconds are passing like hours at this point, buts its been much longer than a typical walk-break, I'm sure. I pass him and ask if he's ok and he says sure. I stop to take a walk break, and he quickly overtakes me. He's moving at least. He may have simply decided that walking at this point will be faster than running. The same is probably true for me but I have the stupid pride of a road runner.

I jog on, and begin to see people trickling back up the trail, telling me I'm almost there. At about 25 miles, the walking man passes me at a run. "I see you've got your mojo back" I say, and he says "Well, I figure it can't possibly hurt much more at this point."

He runs on just ahead of me for the remainder of the race. At 26 miles, I decide I've had enough of shuffling and try to pick it up for the last quarter mile. Suddenly, to my left amidst the clapping spectators, I see a bear coming out of the woods!

Wait! The bear is waving at me! It's a man in a bear suit!

I break out laughing but am too addled to take a picture.

I sprint up to the finish line and pull out my camera to snap a picture on the move. A man calls to me and offers to take my picture running across. I toss it to him and he brings it back to me.

I look at my watch. 5:27:26. Not too bad I suppose. In spite of just wanting to relax and finish, I secretly had a goal of 5 hours in mind for this first trail race (and an even more secret goal of 4:30 if it turned out the trail was not much of barrier) but given the muck, 5:28 seems pretty respectable. I'm not last, but I'm not so far behind the pack either. I end up 69th out of 94, and at least half the times are over 5 hours.

Mile 22: 13:22 (last major ascent)
Mile 23: 13:06
Mile 24: 15:19 (stopped to whine about mud)
Mile 25: 13:58
Mile 26.2: 15:55

DH runs up to me and hugs me. "Guess what? I ran the 10K in an hour!" This is a PR for him and I'm quite impressed as they had a pretty major ascent and descended the muddy portion of the trail that caused me to stop and cry. I tell him I'm proud of him, then hobble over to the lake, discard my shoes, and, as he shouts "What are you doing? Do you want some water? Are you ok?" I walk in fully clothed.

I am falling through the chasm of air and water that is the stillness of my land of beyond. And I've lost that sense of vertigo, the will to fight the fall. I have bathed myself in mud and icy water, I am baptised in the trail. And I have scaled to new heights.

Developmental Disabilities - 2 days till Grand Island

The history of our development as a species and of our development as individuals is written on our feet.

As humans went from the trees to the savannah, our feet changed shape from the prehensile hand-like appendages of apes to the platforms made for stability, balance, and propulsion of bipedal walking. And running.

But we retain vestiges of that old appendage. The first metatarsal (the bone connecting the big toe to the rest of the foot) shows ancient and currently useless features which suggest the toe was originally prehensile.

While we've lost most of this grasping ability (not all of us have - my husband can move his big toe independently of the rest of his foot and regularly uses it for picking up around the house) we retain the ability to flex and point our toes - an ability crucial to propelling us off the ground in our running stride.

The rubber-band like tissue partly responsible for this is the posterior tibial tendon, which runs down the inside back of the leg and attaches to the foot just under the arch. This is the tendon that has been giving me trouble.

Today I went to a podiatrist I was referred to by the American College of Podiatric Sports Medicine. I explained the pain I was having and my running history. He asked me to invert my foot (point the toes inwards - the action the PTT is responsible for) and felt along the tendon, asking if I felt any pain. I did not until he came down to my arch where the tendon inserts.

Given that the whole length of the tendon wasn't in pain, he doubted a diagnosis of tendonitis, and decided to take x-rays to see what was going on.

When he brought the x-rays into the exam room and clipped them to the light box, he studied them for several long minutes in silence, with an occasional "Hm."

I doubted he was seeing stress fractures because I figured that would probably have elicited a different reaction, but I couldn't quite tell what was so interesting.

He flipped the xrays around several times, comparing my left and right feet, looking into every step I had taken from 12 months old written on my bones.

Then he turned to me and began: "Sometimes in human development you see these unusual occurences... These things are just leftovers from human evolution."

Huh? Did I have ape-feet?

He pointed out two bright white circles on the end of my first metatarsal. "These are sesamoids. They are small extra bones embedded in the soft tissue that aid the mobility of the joint. Like your kneecap. Sometimes, people have more of these. You have one here by your navicular bone embedded in your tendon. That extra bone is moving around and irritating the tendon."

I have an extra bone in my foot? COOL!!!

Even more interesting though, is that while the bone is irritating the tendon, it is not causing tendonitis. I have pain, but I am in no danger of damaging my tendon further by running. The doctor says "If you're not into pain, you shouldn't run, but if you can run through it, that's fine."

I tell him if I wasn't into pain I wouldn't be marathoning in the first place.

So my instructions are to Advil-load before the race and grit it out for as long as I want to. I should expect to be limping for a while afterwards, but it will clear up with rest after the race. In August, I will go in to be fitted for a better pair of orthotics with cushioning for this little extra bone. Eventually, I will need to have surgery to remove it, but that may effectively be the end of my running career, so we'll put that off as long as possible.

So there it is, in my foot - the history of a species that used to use its feet to grasp tree-trunks. I'm a practical evolutionary relic. I should donate my skeleton to the Smithsonian.

Also in my feet is my personal history - the bunion that is starting to develop tells the doctor of my penchant for couture shoes, the recurring case of athlete's foot that won't heal prompts him to ask if I have a family history of diabetes and to tell me to watch my blood sugar as I get older.

The feet bear the weight of every step we take, every decision we make, and even of the decisions and fates of those before us who handed down our unique make-up that enables us to leap into the air and run, or keeps us earthbound.

So, I and my ape-foot will be running the Grand Island Marathon on Sunday. I'll keep running for as long as I can, during the marathon and beyond. And when the time comes to excise my posterior tibial tendon and rebuild my foot, hopefully it will be an achievement of the most human of human evolutions, the brain, and my foot will be better than before, a testament to forward progress and the evolutionary step that allowed us to go from vegetarianism to brain-building protein brought down by running hunters.

But if not, and I have to give up running, maybe I'll move into competitive tree-climbing.

Subduing the tendons - 6 days till Grand Island

The mutinous mobs are gaining strength. My foot is markedly worse today even without running.

The pain did not go away after getting up and walking around a bit. It got steadily worse all day.

In addition to the pain I have in the arch, I have developed pain in my inner ankle and calf. Meaning this is not plantar fasciitis.

My best guess is that it's posterior tibial tendonitis, based upon the fact that I cannot stand on the ball of my foot and my lower calf hurts when pointing my toes. From my reading I understand that this injury and plantar fasciitis often go hand-in-hand.

So I've had to call in the reserves. I'll be seeing a podiatrist on Thursday morning. I am hopeful that the pain will be mostly gone by then with a strict regimen of tape, ice, rest, stretching, and ibuprofen (which I am not supposed to take due to some stomach bleeding caused by chronic use of naproxen several years ago, but this is an emergency).

Then, in a last stand using all the firepower I can muster, I hope to convince the doctor to shoot me full of cortisone.

Why is this marathon so important to me that I am willing to risk stomach bleeding and a ruptured tendon to complete it? I'm not sure. I know I hate the idea of going all the way out to Michigan without actually at least starting the race. I hate the idea that all of my training will be wasted.

But I think the most important thing is to live for today. I am signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon at the end of October and could easily tell myself to save my feet for another day, but who knows where I'll be then? This tendonitis thing could still be plaguing me. I could have a different injury. Any number of things could happen. It's a lesson driven deep into me from my time spent waiting for the Iraq war to start, not knowing when DH would come home.

So yes, I may do serious damage to my tendon and force myself out of MCM in October and who knows how many races hence. But at least I'll have this: My first trail marathon, on an island in Lake Superior, feeling the clean lake breezes and pine needle bed underfoot, splashing through streams. If I only get a few miles of that, I think I would be fine with it. But at least I will have a few memories - better than none at all.

And if nothing else, Lake Superior will make a good ice bath.

Mutiny aboard the HMS Bon

My body is in revolt. It clearly does not want me to run this marathon.

My joints, tendons, respiratory system, and immune system are all conspiring to take over the ship of my body and steer me away from Grand Island. And I have to compromise, string them along, pretend to meet their demands, until the 11th hour when I will pull my bargain off the table and my guts and heart will retake control of the ship.

After last week's 20-miler, I awoke the next morning feeling like I'd spent the night in a bar. My throat was raw and felt rumblings deep in my chest. The cold I've been working on since my first 20 miler 4 weeks ago keeps resurfacing with every hard workout.

So I made it my priority just to spend the next 2 weeks to rest and get better before the race. I began my taper with a short speed workout - 3 mile-repeats on the treadmill, out of the heat and smoggy thick air.

I felt great. Full of energy. Ready to run 26 more. I felt like I could have run repeats forever. But my right leg from my ankle to my hip felt a little out of whack. But it stopped just as I got off the treadmill, with only a nagging dull ache in the arch of my right foot. It was gone by the afternoon. Just a typical ache that I expect after last week's high mileage.

Wednesday I rode the bike and continued to feel great. Thursday, my plan had been to do 10 miles with 6 at marathon pace. But after a tough day at work, I felt tired, and fell asleep on the train on the way home, another indication of my ongoing cold. Groggily trudging up the steps to my house with a headache, I decided to postpone my run until Friday to get more rest.

Friday afternoon I hit the treadmill at work for 6 miles at marathon pace. As soon as I laced up my shoes I knew something was wrong. My right foot felt sore. I started to run and noticed my stride was off. I was also having to stop to shake loose muck from deep in my lungs, a whole-body cough which sapped my energy.

I finished the run and felt all right energy wise, but disturbed. Still, I reckoned that if I rested until Sunday before running again, I would be fine.

Saturday morning, I got up and went to a staff off-site meeting for work. As I slipped on my kittn-heeled mules I had very sharp pains in the arch of my right foot. Now I was upset. I limped into the Mandarin Oriental conference room and sat until 4 PM with our Board of Directors, stretching my foot under the table. By the evening it felt better. This morning soreness is a sure sign that I have developed plantar fasciitis.

Sunday morning, DH and I got up to take a short 10-mile run around Burke Lake. Again, as I laced up my shoes I noticed a dull ache in my arch. I set out around the lake and the dull pain continued like the nagging feeling that you've forgotten something. Always in the back of my mind but nothing that would cause any grief until it turns out I needed whatever I forgot and the situation turns dire.

We headed around the lake at an easy but relatively fast pace, maybe just a hair slower than marathon pace. Things are going ok until a little over halfway around, or 30 minutes into the run, when the pain becomes a lot more noticeable, and I'm forced to alter my stride and drop back. The pain is worse as my foot pronates on each step, another sign of plantar fasciitis, and I awkwardly try to keep my weight over the outside of my foot.

I give it 10 more minutes, about 3/4 of a mile from the parking lot and the end of our first loop. DH has pulled far ahead of me and I can't see him anymore. And I know that I'm only making things worse with each step. I do what I've never done before. I give up.

My body has mutinied. My feet are throwing me overboard. Enough. No more abuse.

But giving in to my body's demands isn't turning over control to the mavericks just yet. I'm simply negotiating and meeting their demands. So we won't do 10 miles today. That's fine. I didn't need this run anyway. At 6 days from my race, a 10 mile run isn't doing much but keeping my legs fresh, and breaking myself down to improve performance isn't part of the agenda right now.

So I go home, and put on a comfortable pair of flat shoes, and go out to the local Metro Run and Walk. I walk in, tell them I'm less than a week away from a marathon, I'm feeling the beginnings of plantar fasciitis, show them my shoes and orthotics, and ask what I can do to further support the arch.

They don't recommend I change shoes a week before the race, but after the race, I'm going to need to probably replace my orthotics and get a gait analysis to determine if the shoes are exactly right. The Asics Gel Kayanos I've been wearing have been a great blend of cushioning and support and have worked well with my orthotics, but I may need slightly more stability for my right foot.

For now, the clerk steers me away from the arch supports designed for plantar fasciitis and says, from experience, that taping will be easier and cheaper. He gives me a short description of how to do the taping job, and tells me where to find instructions on the internet.

I walk out of the store without buying anything. But they know I'll be back for shoe advice.

At home in the afternoon I ice my foot for several hours off and on. Then I shower and get ready to tape up. The instructions I found make it look like the taping will do a fine job of giving my tendons a rest, and DH very capably tapes me up.

The foot feels much better as of this moment, but we'll see in the morning. For now, the plan is to rest. I have just a couple of easy miles with strides scheduled for Tuesday. Depending on how that goes, I may just ride the bike for the rest of the week. I will be keeping the foot taped up and icing it, in an effort to assuage its demands without damaging my race performance.

And when it comes down to it, I'll gut it out through the race on Saturday. I am stronger than my mutinous tendons and bronchial passages. I may pay for it later, but I can only live for today. I don't know if I will get to run another marathon. This race is here and now, I am prepared for it, I have plane tickets and hotel reservations. I may not perform at my best, but I will not let my body steal this experience from me. I am the captain of this ship, and if I never sail again, I will return home victorious.

I'll deal with the unruly crew of this ship when I return to shore.

12 Steps

Running is a delicate balance.

The act itself is a balance. Delicately striking the ground with one foot, pushing off on a toe while moving the other leg forward. Hanging suspended in fluid air weightless for one moment before succumbing to gravity, shifting your weight over the other foot, then pushing off to fly again. It requires strength to take off, and economy to execute the movement again and again. You need both components to be your best.

Training is also a balance. Train too hard continuously, and you will burn out or injure yourself. Just as the space between days, the act of sleeping, is necessary to recharge, space between hard workouts is necessary.

And finally, there is a great macro-balance to running and life. While running is a moving meditation, ultimately requiring individual focus, commitment, and soul-searching, the trail is not a monastery. While some are called to run for a higher purpose, most of us will spend our running lives in a private devotion to a personal cause which is often not related to running at all - spiritual enlightenment, personal achievement, a breath of fresh air, a break in the day, and friendships.

And as such it deserves an integration into our lives, rather than an absorption of our lives. Run for alone time, soul-searching, and personal challenge, but also run for fellowship and the rejuvenation that comes from sharing those challenges.

Perhaps this is why 12-step groups are so successful in accomplishing their goals. They have realized that soul searching cannot be done in a vacuum, that personal insight often comes from outside ourselves, and that our fellow competitors in life can buoy us to accomplishments we could not have reached through the power of faith alone, especially when that faith is tested. Just as Dick Beardsley used Alberto Salzar to reach his apex as a marathoner, achieving a feat no one thought possible of him based solely on his training alone, growth in any endeavor requires a balance of dedication to introspection and extroversion - a willingness to call up the unknown quantity from deep within yourself that you would not have seen if it wasn't for the mirror others have held up.

Sunday I met a group of friends for my final 20-mile run before my marathon. As a final confidence booster, I wanted this run to go well, and knew that the exhileration of running with a group would provide me a boost. And soften the blow if it didn't go so well.

I started at 6 AM from my house. When I woke up I could see the air lying in a down blanket over the ground. As I stepped out onto the trail, clouds lingered like a snowfall suspended over the glassy lake. A great blue heron appeared out of the gray. A ghostly figure approached me from the other end of the lake, a man walking his dog. Otherwise, I am alone.

I took the first 5 miles to the park alone, easing into my run, feeling the curtain of mist parting around me. I ran out on the road for a mile, then dropped into a trail running along a secret creek on the side of the road. The foliage was as thick as the air, and though I was only steps from a major road I was in another world. This was my alone time. I was centering myself for the remaining 15 miles.

I took a turn onto the road leading into the park where I would meet my friends. I ran a half mile down the road to the trail and picked it up heading towards the parking lot. In another quarter mile, my husband and friend came running toward me and we all lit up.

I turned and headed with them for a few minutes. They were running just a hair faster than I wanted to, so I stayed with them for 10 minutes and took a minute-long drink-break. When I started up again, they were still in sight, so I picked it up to catch them, splashing through the puddles as I came up on them. Running with friends reminded me how playful it could be.

On my next break, however, I dropped back, not willing to sacrifice an appropriate pace and damage my workout to stay with them. I knew I would probably catch my husband later on, so I anticipated running another few miles on my own. But within a few hundred yards, a man passed me and commented on how well stocked I was (this was not a lewd comment - just a reference to the four gels and 6 water bottles strapped around my waist). Several years ago I might have just laughed and let him go on his way. But I've realized what a resource other runners are on the trail, and when I spotted the VHTRC logo on the back of his shirt, I told him I was in the club as well.

He dropped back and ran with me the rest of the way around the lake, about 3.5 miles. I told him about my run with Vicki last week, and he told me about his upcoming ultra, the Catoctin 50K. I asked him if it was true that running a 50K was easier than running a marathon. We talked about our mutual experiences in the Marine Corps Marathon. We found a lot to talk about, and rather than feeling uncomfortable, as I might have in the past, it made the miles fly by.

On the next loop of the park my husband and friend came back to pick me up. DH was feeling a little like quitting, but realized we'd both tackle him if he did that, and decided to stick it out for one more loop, 5 miles, to bring his total run up to 10 miles, the longest run he's done since March.

This time, when I stopped for a drink break, DH hung back with me. The pace on the first loop with our friend had been too much for him and he was hurting now. We slogged it out through 4 more miles together. I was doing most of the supporting, encouraging him to ditch his hand-carried water-bottle for the sake of efficiency and sharing mine with him instead, counting out the minutes to our next break, strategizing about his upcoming 10K race.

When he felt he could go no further we made it a goal to go another half mile to the dam at the end of the lake, a mile from the parking lot. He made it, and as I trotted off away from him, he asked if he did good. I turned around and told him I was proud of him and I loved him. With encouragement he had pushed himself to accomplish something he didn't feel himself capable of, and ended feeling well prepared for his race and proud of himself.

As I reached the parking lot, our friend was waiting. I had one more lap to reach 20 miles, and I asked him if he was up for it. He said not a whole lap, but he'd run out 10 minutes with me then turn around and head back to the lot. We went a bit faster, and talked about his goals for his upcoming half-iron tri. I felt great at 15 miles - much better than I had at 15 miles on my previous 20 miler and 18 miler. I wasn't tracking my pace exactly as there aren't any mile markers on this course, but I had a split for each lap and if I was doing the math right, was holding a good 10:30 pace.

At 10 minutes, with 4 miles left to go on my run, my friend turned around and wished me well, leaving me to finish the run the way I'd started, and the way we ultimately all have to make it through life - alone. In another mile bad cramps came up on my and I pulled off into the woods for a bathroom break. But otherwise my legs were feeling good. After relieving myself I felt fresh and continued trotting down the trail. I was starting to feel the miles a bit, but enouraged myself to keep going. I made the dam a mile from the end, and started pushing myself through to the end. I exploded into the parking lot on a finishing kick and finished the lap only a minute slower than the previous lap, even with the bathroom break.

To my surprise, DH and our friend were sitting in camp chairs reclining with drinks and a couple of other women who had stopped me on the trail to ask about my Fuel Belt. We were making all kinds of new running friends out here today.

I settled back into the chair, downed some jelly beans and water and basked in the accomplishment of my run and of my friends. And I realized how much better shape I am in now than I was 4 years ago, when my husband left for the middle east. Not only can I finish 20 miles feeling strong and prepared for the marathon, I have a group of friends I can count on to get me through it, a position I was not in during those dark days in 2002.

Running has taken me to many places, allowing me to collect many souveniers along the way, but the journey I am most satisfied with is the journey on which I collected the friends who can help me see what I am really made of - the ones who pick me up and get me through that long long run, and give me the strength to keep going on my own.

Running With Scissors

"Remember what your mother told you about not running with scissors? Forget all that," Jeff tells me as he hands me a giant pair of pruning shears.

I'm out with the Virginia Happy Trails Running Club on the south end of Massanutten Mountain near Catherine's Furnace. This is a trail maintenance trip for the upcoming Catherine's Fat Ass 50K and training run for those who want to see the course. I decided to come out to get in a training run on some rough terrain before I run my first trail marathon on July 29 - the Grand Island Trail Marathon. I've heard the people in VHTRC are pretty fast, so I'm hoping that the trail work will slow the pace enough for me to keep up on what will be my first trail run ever. I'm supposed to get 20 miles in today. I don't know if that will happen but I'm prepared to either run more at home in the afternoon or push the 20-miler back to next week which will still give me plenty of time to taper before July 29.

Unfortunately, because this is a trail maintenance trip, that means I have to carry tools while running, yet another new experience.

We met at the Centerville Park and Ride at 7 AM. There are 5 of us. We head out to Catherine's Furnace where we split into two groups to cover two different sections of the trail. I'm paired up with Vicky, who I am told has just completed races of 50 miles, 100K, and 70 miles in 3 consecutive weeks.

Jeff, the Catherine's race director, tells me to treat the first portion of our trail as "glaze ice" and I quickly discover why. The trail follows the rock path of a stream bed and is littered with mossy rocks. It's not runnable - very steep and slick, and there are about 10 crossings of an icy stream which is running high and fast due to all the rain we've had. I get stymied trying to hop from rock to rock on the first stream crossing and Vicky has to put out her hand to help me across. She knows its my first trail run and she's told me it will be difficult. She seems nice and willing to help me out, but I still feel like a neophyte and worry that I'm going to be dragging her down.

Up the mountain we go, and Vicky isn't running, but she's speeding over the rocks like a marmot and I have to run wherever possible to keep up. She bounds through the stream crossings - practically walking on the thigh high water ferociously rushing over hidden moss-covered rocks strewn like mines. I pick my way gingerly across each one, hanging on to whatever I can for dear life, trying not to fall on the pruning shears gripped in my other hand.

The trail straightens out and moves away from the stream and the rocks, but conditions don't get any better. Now its covered in several inches of sucking mud. I almost lose my shoes more than once. But I am making better time keeping up with Vicky now, able to run and not having to pick over the rocks. On this section her advantage of experience isn't quite as great.

We drop our tools at the head of a side trail up to an overlook. Vicky wants to show me why running the trails is so worthwhile out here. She also wants to find a bear and thinks this will be the most likely spot. We head up a quarter mile and are treated to a view of the patchwork quilt of the Shennandoah Valley, the hazy Blue Ridge in the distance, and the ridges of Massanutten taunting us from both sides. Vicky points out the location of an aid station for the race on the next peak over. No bears though. I am secretly thankful for that.

From here it's downhill back to the road, and while I think it's going to be no problem keeping up with Vicky on this section, she once again shows me the value of experience. The descent is steep and straight and the rains have littered the trail with fist-sized loose rocks. A thin layer of silt and running water covers it all. I get going too fast for my comfort level, burning my quads as a tough ski-run would do. Before I know what's happening I stumble on a rock and go down. I have the prescence of mind to flip myself over on my back (pruning shears up) before I land and I'm not hurt. It was actually a little fun, and I feel more like a genuine trail runner now - covered in mud, scraped up, legs feeling like jello.

I meet Vicky at the bottom of the road where she's got her shoes off, rinsing them out in the stream. I proudly tell her about my fall and she congratulates me. She points out a natural spring from which I can fill my water bottles. The water is icy and completely tasteless. It's the perfect refreshment after an hour and a half of hard running.

Here we have a choice to make. The other group is shuttling between two ends of of another trail which starts and ends on this road. We can head up a couple of miles or down a mile to either end. Vicky leaves the choice up to me. I came out here to get some climbing in, so I decide we should head up. Footing's not an issue on this gravel road, but Vicky's legs are used to the beating we just took on the trail, and mine are not, so I fall behind once again. She gradually works her way out of sight and I start to feel a little defeated. I have no idea what my pace is but its not fast. I take a litte restroom break (the nice part about being away from civilization is not having to worry about finding bathrooms) and start jogging again. Shortly after I see Vicky heading back toward me. "I thought you got kidnapped!" I think, no I'm just slow, but tell her I had to stop to use the facilities.

She doesn't get out of my sight again, and soon I see her standing at the top of a hill waving to me. I can't hear what she's yelling so I trudge up the hill. Looks like we're at the trailhead where the other group's car is parked. We take a break and sit in the shade, but after 10 minutes of swatting away flies determine we should head back down the road to the other end of the trail and hopefully catch the other group on the way back up the road to the car.

We start down and Vicky sticks with me, asking about the marathon. After taking 2 hours to run maybe 8 miles I tell her I've decided all notions of a time goal have just gone out the window, and she reassures me that I should be able to do the marathon in 5 hours if the trail isn't as technical. She recommends I do another run on a more rolling trail to practice footing and work the hill muscles without the demanding climbs and offers to set up a group training run for next week. These trail people are much less competitive than road racers it seems.

As we descend on the road we pass roaring waterfalls. Vicky stops to admire them and tells me this scenery is why she loves these trails. It is quiet and beautiful and spiritual in a way running down the crowded Mt. Vernon trail never is. Rather than listening to my feet and counting steps till mile markers, I'm looking at the scenery, stopping to admire a bird or a waterfall, not even concentrating on how many miles I've been.

We get down to the bottom of the road and the other trailhead where we are expecting to see the group. But they aren't there. We stop for a bit and wash ourselves off in the stream, but the flies are at it again, and even though my quads are telling me I can't run another step after several miles of downhill, and I want to throw the pruning shears into the woods, Vicky wants to start heading up the trail to intercept the other group.

I'm starting to get worried we'll never see them and I'll be forced to keep running uphill like Sisyphus for all eternity, but we see them in several hundred feet. We turn around and head back. Vicky wants to get in a few more miles snd starts heading up the road. We'll pick her up on the way to get the other car. She asks if I'm coming. I know I haven't run anywhere near my 20 miles for the day (Jeff tells me I might have done 10 in the three hours we were out), but I also know my legs will give out if I run one more step. They feel weak and jellyfish-like. Its a feeling I haven't experienced in a while. Plus I'm starving for some real food and all I have is gel. Clearly there's a reason most trail races stock "real" food at their aid stations in addition to gel and gatorade.

Rebecca, one of the runners in the other group, offers me a sandwich from her bag while Jeff brings out a cooler of beer. No food ever tasted so good as this does after being out in the mountains with some new friends.

Today I'm more sore than I have been in years after a run. I don't think I've felt like this since my first marathon. I didn't run as fast or as far as I have run before, but there are other challenges, such as tackling a relentless climb, scrambling over rocks, mastering the art of a controlled slide downhill. And other rewards. I've never run up a hill looking for bears. I've never just stopped on a run to admire the natural beauty with no regard to time. I've never filled my water bottle from a natural spring. I've never joked around with sandwiches and beer and a group of runners as fanatical as myself (even moreso) after a run. I've never run for the sheer joy of it.

Like running with scissors, doing something you're not "supposed" to do and that others will warn you away from (such as running up a mountain) can have risks. You can fall and scrape yourself on a rock. You can break bones. You can get swept away in a rushing river. You can land on a pair of pruning shears. But it can be beautiful too.

So go ahead. Run with scissors. Do something you've never done before. Do something others think is crazy. And have fun.

It is not possible to run too slow

Much of training is counter-intuitive. To be able to run 26 miles at a given pace, you would think you'd have to run your training runs all at that pace or faster, right? You'd have to make sure you could do at least 20-24 miles at that pace, right?

But if you do that, you're racing yourself every day and breaking yourself down. Oddly, aerobic capacity increases best by running at a slower pace than you plan to race at. So most training plans tell you to run 10% slower than your goal marathon pace, or 60-90 second slower, or thereabouts. Sure, you throw in lactate threshhold workouts to lower the speed at which your legs become rubber, and throw in some track work to get your muscles drinking in more oxygen with each heart beat, but that's just spitting in the ocean. The bulk of any training program is comprised of slow, easy miles.

Guru Hal Higdon even says "It is not possible to run too slow during the long run."

I'm keeping that in mind this morning as I set out for an easy 13 miles.

This is a rest week, and rest I have. I've been trying to shake that cold and haven't laced up the shoes all week. I hit the bike a few times, and went to Pilates class, but mostly I've been sitting on my butt.

I'm still horking up some gunk and have a runny nose. I stuffed a few tissues in my pocket but since it's 90 degrees outside and the air feels like dog's breath, I'm pouring water over my head within 10 minutes, turning the tissues to pulp. So it's time to perfect the fine art of the farmer-blow. Some people like to lean over to the side and blow away from themselves, but, not wanting to lose any efficiency in stride or hit an unsuspecting biker coming up fast behind me, I prefer just to let it run down my face. Wipe it with the back of your hand and wipe your hand on your shorts. Anything remaining on your face will be sweated off.

So far in the short life of this blog I've relieved my digestive distress in the trees and blown virus-laden mucous all over myself. What's left to cover? Blood, pus, bile, and urine - a veritable cornucopia of the physical. We'll see if we can get to those in future entries. Running is not a sport for the faint of heart.

I run the first two miles at typical long-run pace of about 10:30 but the air is heavier than liquid lead and thicker than what's coming out of my nose so I give up fighting. Looking at the muddy Potomac tributaries on the stream crossings doesn't refresh me as it usually does, it looks like beef stew.

The typical recommendation for pacing on a hot day is to slow by up to a minute. I run a few miles even slower than that, at 12:00 to 12:30 pace but by the time I turn around I'm feeling a little perkier. I drenched my shirt in a water fountain and I am soaking wet from head to toe by the end. Even though I'm not working too hard today, I'm getting some comments about being tough. I must look like I crawled out of the Potomac. I keep passing two bikers who stop every 200 yards to rest in the shade. The overall pace ended up being about 11:30 for the whole run.

Sometimes on runs like this I take my watch off. I'll let it run to get an overall pace at the end, but I won't check splits every mile. In spite of knowing the value of the survival shuffle, the part of me that couldn't keep up with the cross-country team thinks its not good enough, and I tend to be disgusted at myself if I'm not running at or faster than the prescribed pace for my workout.

I know better, but I can't accept that very deep within me.

My husband started today's run with me. He loathes running but has signed up for a 10K run simultaneously with my goal marathon so that he'll have something to do. He also recognizes he needs to exercise and finds running to be the least of all evils. I wish he could find something to excite his passion the way running does for me. Something that would get him up excited on a weekend morning. But he trudges along running with an empty soul.

DH will try to go 8-10 miles today. Its the longest run he's done since the Cherry Blossom 10-miler. In fact he's done hardly anything since then. But if he's going to run a 10K in four weeks he has to start.

My hope is to catch him on the way back, but shortly into my run I realize that's not going to happen, and try to let it go. My evil competitive twin loves leaving him the dust, but he makes it almost no fun.

Because he's satisfied with whatever he does, no matter what the pace or the workout. He ended up running 6 miles because of the heat, but felt like it was good enough. I came back to find him contentedly sitting in his camp chair reading a magazine. I've run for about 2 hours, he just over 1. He's not terribly impressed with himself but not with me either. He feels no need to keep up with me. He doesn't keep score when we play golf even, picking up on half the holes, just out for a nice walk and a beer at the turn. What abscence of passion divorces him from performance?

And more importantly, how can he teach me to do that? For at every mile marker today I've beat back a small measure of disappointment and self-loathing when I looked at my split.

I have always battled the Martha Stewart of my self, the perfectly coiffed goddess who throws a fit if the Merlot is not the right vintage, if the cover shot of the magazine isn't a picture of perfection, if my stock takes a tumble. I berate myself with each failure to measure up to an impossible standard.

I have a feeling when I learn to stop doing that, I'll start training smarter and get faster. But will I enjoy running more or less? If part of what I love is the challenge of pushing myself harder and further, will running more miles without the pressure of the watch make me lonely and empty? Or will it leave more room for birds, and streams, and "good mornings" and sunrises?

Just as I have a fear when I step to the starting line of the marathon, that my 20-mile run substantially slower than my goal race pace will not be enough to get me through, I fear that those niceties of running will not fill me up the way the watch can. It's a dysfunctional, addictive relationship, and I have to break myself of it.

Until I learn to let go of the watch, I'm going to have to keep dragging my husband with me. For his apathy dulls my competitive edge and keeps it from slitting my throat.