The Year in Review, 2012

The past year was eventful, for sure. I turned fifty, ran a bunch, raced some, watched my children grow, loved my Gorgeous. Of course the passing of a parent makes for an eventful year, no matter what. So here are 12 things that helped make my year.

12. Team Fox

Running for Team Fox, whose proceeds benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, has given me a particular purpose in my running. I have always run for many reasons, chief among them my own mental health. Without running, I’m a pretty miserable wretch, grumpy, energy-less, depressed. 

At Jam In the Park

But this year, with my dedication to raising money to fund research for a cure for Parkinson’s has affected my motivation, my racing, and my mental approach. When I wear the jersey, I remember my father, and inevitably I meet people whose lives have been affected by Parkinson’s disease. I have met patients, family members, and friends whose loved ones suffer through the physical breakdown of a disease that gradually diminishes event he most basic functions. I remember how lucky I am (in so many ways), and how grateful I should be for being able to run ridiculously long distances with no other motivation than to do so.
The fund-raising aspect is simple: just click on the Team Fox logo on the right side of this page, and you’ll go directly to my donation page. All donations are tax-deductible, but more importantly, 88 cents of every dollar donated goes to research. Team Fox itself  raised over $6 million, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation has granted over $56 million dollars. I hope you will become part of that effort.

11. Supplements of the year

Performance enhancing drugs?

I’m not huge on supplements, in part because I know that I should be able to get what I need from a healthy diet, and in part because I forget to take them. But these two have been fairly constant in my life for a while. My chiropractor told me to take the iodine to help with Achilles and general muscle soreness. A few drops in a glass of water is all I’ve taken in a day, and to some extent, it seems to have worked. There may be a placebo effect here, but I’ll take it anyway.
The Feel Good pills are for my adrenal system, according to my chiropractor. I have a hard time getting past the bovine adrenal glands that lead the list of ingredients; that gives my family plenty to tease me about. I call them performance enhancing drugs.
      But they work. I feel better when I take them. I haven’t checked for any particular side effects. I don’t moo, and there appears to be no udder development. I am generally more able to recover from runs, and don’t feel like I’m dragging through runs. Said chiropractor told me my “adrenals were wrecked.” 

10. Race of the year

So I’ll name two: Terrapin Mountain 50K in March and the Last Chance 50K in December.
This year’s Terrapin Mountain 50K was the first time I’d run a 50K I’d run previously. Doing so gives me a sense of my training, it gives me a sense of time and pace. I worried this year about feeling too much pressure to hit my splits, and when I didn’t for the first 20 miles I kept telling myself that the 2011 race was perfect, in perfect conditions. This year, in the rain and cold, I told myself, I shouldn’t focus on time but on the experience. But I continued on, with focus and desire, and ended up running the last ten miles faster than I had the previous year. Chatting with ultra-legend David Horton afterwards, I was thrilled when he told me that my time--five minutes faster than the previous year and all made up in the last ten miles--showed that my training was going well. The affirmation was strengthening.
The Last Chance 50K was a different story. I knew the course was very flat, and I also knew I was not as far along in my training as I had been at Terrapin, for example. I started off slowly, and ended up running the same pace the entire race, with just a touch of slowing at the end. The experience was new to me at the distance, and one where I affirmed what I had heard about 100 mile races: you should get to mile 60 feeling like you’ve run too slowly. though my race wasn’t as long, the same pattern applies.

9.  Training lesson: running every day

Though I have surely run every day in my 29 years of running, I’ve never kept track of any streaks, and I never purposely set out to run a streak. After the Harbison 50K last January, I decided to give the streak a shot. After a coup;e of weeks of somewhat extra fatigue, I broke through some kind of barrier, and everyday running was easy, motivating, and remarkably physically energizing. I felt more loose, less tired, less achy. though I stopped the streak after 76 days, ending with the Terrapin race, I think the experience was telling. I’ll go on some streaks again this year, but as before, I won’t be silly about it. Injury, or what feels like excessive fatigue will no doubt lead to breaks. the consistency brought on by the attention to the streak is very valuable.

8.  Training lesson: every 4^th week off

During that streak, I would run three hard weeks, and then rest the fourth. I’d read of such patterns in the past, but had never experienced the phenomenon. I had no choice the first month--I was dead-legged for a week. I ran every day, but cut back the mileage to give my body and mind some recovery time. It worked very well.

Partner of the Year, the B-Dog

7.  Training lesson: summer off

In the past, I have had down times every year. Often I would fret about it, feeling unmotivated and tired. these down-times generally came in the deep of winter, often when running was made more difficult by early darkness, cold and rainy or snowy weather, and more busy work times. I would spend my summers off from teaching like training camp. In 2011, though, I had a pretty rough summer, and realized something my brother had told me many years earlier: in the deep heat of southern summers, he would run when he felt like it, and do some long runs in the mountains on the weekends, but without focus. I made that part of my training, and in those 100 degree days of July, I was glad to be able to put my feet up and not feel like I was bagging my training.

6.  Racing lesson: say something funny at every aid station

I’m not sure where this one came from, but I started doing it with purpose in 2012. I have always been a pretty happy runner, and have gotten mad at myself when frustration or fatigue led me to be something of an asshole to the people around me. This year I established my forever goals: 1. love the trails, 2. don’t be miserable, and 3. say something funny at every aid station. Number three, I say, has a lot to do with number two. I have told folks that I paid money to run this race, so why should I take my misery out on others.

5.  Injury-free

At the risk of blowing my mojo, I have been basically injury free this entire year. I’ll attribute that to all of the above training lessons I’ve learned. I’ve had niggles, as they say--achy Achilles, sore hamstrings, tired lower back--but none have kept me from running for more than a day or two.

4.  Running with a Purpose

At the Terrapin 50K

Of course related to number 12, my blog’s tag line started as just something I’d say. But it has become such a great motivation and such a source of perspective that I hope to keep it up after May’s 50 mile race. Paying close attention to my father’s diminishing physical self, and reading more about Parkinson’s disease and its devastating effects, I am more grateful for what I can do, more in the moment with my running, and with less effort, if you will, than ever before. Running with the goal of raising money to help support the search for a cure for Parkinson’s makes the good, the bad and the ugly of my habit easier to take.

3.  Partner of the Year 

Easy: he always has time for me, carpools (though he never drives), doesn’t need to carry water or food, and is never earlier or later than I am. Bristol leads sometimes, follows some times, and gives me a great deal of pleasure.

2.  Family

I am lucky for so many reasons. This one should really be number one. I get such great pleasure watching my children grow up and develop lives of their own. They support my running with humor, and occasionally, when they forget themselves, will tell me, in the words of my 14-year-old son, that my running is “pretty bad-ass.” Little pleases me more.

Vacation lunch with my Gorgeous

What pleases me more is the love and support of my Gorgeous. Besides putting up with me going off to run all day sometimes, and getting home from work in time to go running, she has been able to go to some of my races, and her presence gives me immense pleasure. To finish a race knowing she will be there at the finish to kiss me, to bring me water or food, to take pictures, to generally give me a base that I need, is surely the joy of my existence. I am very lucky.

1. Life gives lessons for running

This year, more than any other, I find this reversal of what many runners talk about--how running teaches us about life--to be more true than I’ve ever thought. No matter the circumstances, losing a parent is difficult. We know EO is better off, we know my mother is well taken care of, we know that her life would have only gotten more difficult as his caretaker, we know that the parent dying is the right order of things. But that is my father, present my entire life, and now gone.
I remember that evening at dinner with him and my mother, the week C and I were heading to the mountains of West Virginia for me to run the Highlands Sky 40 mile race, him ordering a 19-ounce steak bloody rare, the way he liked it, and my mother reminding him to chew slowly and to cut his meat into smaller bites. But Parkinson’s makes such hand-eye coordination difficult. He choked on a piece of that meat, and despite my attempts to do the Heimlich maneuver, he could not clear his passageway, and he passed out in my arms. He never regained consciousness.
That memory will never leave me, and often wakes me up at night, as it does C. But I remember the conversation we were having. He and my mother had spent the past 15 or so years traveling extensively, four months a year, he would crow. But the Parkinson’s made travel first difficult as he fell in an alleyway in Turkey and had to cut a trip short, and finally made it impossible as getting through airports, to hotels, through tours became too tiring.
His answer runs with me daily: “We are satisfied with where we’ve been. We’ve travelled to 30 countries, and seen what we wanted to see.” That satisfaction with what he’d done, at the end of his life (and as it turned out, the very end), gives me inspiration for doing things, for enjoying what I have, for taking nothing for granted and living my life as hard as I can.
  As I’ve said before, running teaches me some things, like to carry water, and to double-knot my shoes. But life, and the living of it, gives me much more than just running. Running is part of my life, not my entire life. And the life-work balance, that's bullshit. There is life, and that’s it. Work is part of it, running is part of it, my beautiful children and the joy they give me, the amazing love of my Gorgeous--that’s all part of it. I could live without some, and could of course continue to live without running, but love--that’s it. 

I'm in the Ice Age Trail 50

I registered for the Ice Age Trail 50, my goal race for Team Fox and my fund-raising efforts. The race sold out pretty quickly, so I am glad to have gotten in. In the past few years there have been some real studs (non-gender specific) there, which will add a neat attraction.

While there's certainly time before my race, I'm asking you to join my efforts to raise $5000 for Team Fox whose proceeds benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. Clicking on the logo to the right will get you directly to my personal page. All donations are tax deductible. 

Fifty Weeks to Fifty Miles at Fifty Years: the Logo

We have a logo, thanks to my Gorgeous, C Cruz.

EO Barrett March 16, 1931-June 15, 2012

It’s hard to know how to start.

EO died last week after choking on a piece of meat at a restaurant. C and I were with him and my mom, just visiting as we were heading to Highlands Sky and a weekend in the mountains. His airway was cut off long enough to cause severe brain damage, and he never woke up after losing consciousness in the restaurant while I and others tried to  clear his windpipe. He passed away peacefully on Friday, June 15, at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

Q and I visited in May; he was in good shape, I thought, as I thought this visit. He was moving reasonably well, he was lucid and funny. “I’m still here,” he’d say, with only a touch of sarcasm, or resignation. It  became his most recent and perhaps last EOism.

At dinner that night, we talked about the traveling my parents have done. They have visited 30 countries in the past 25 or so years, and to a whole pile of WVU and Marshall ball games. I asked if they missed it. “We have been everywhere we want to go,” EO said. “We’re content with the traveling we’ve done.” That contentment shined through all EO said that night. EO died doing what he loved: having dinner with his family. That the final meal was an 18-ounce steak cooked bloody rare was poetry. 

EO's death was at least partly brought on by one of the most insidious symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Dysphagia, a weakening of the swallowing muscles, comes toward the end of the lives of Parkinson’s patients. The difficulty swallowing is compounded by a weak epiglottis, my mother told me, which increases the possibility of just about anything swallowed going into the lungs. It also weakens the ability to cough.  Dysphagia is at the root of aspiration pneumonia, the number one cause of death among Parkinson’s patients. EO had double pneumonia after his heart attack this spring, and came through that episode pretty well. But we knew from the diagnosis that this was not a battle EO would win.

EO was a human being, but he was a damn good one. He tried hard at everything, and strove for what was right with unwavering integrity. He used most of what he spent to provide experiences for his children and grandchildren and allowing my mother to work with those who had no money, he might say. He loved knowing people, and worked a room like you wouldn’t believe. He wore a name tag, for Pete’s sake. He was funny, and bright, and shared what he knew with profligacy. He did everything he could to improve the lot of others--the athletes he promoted, the employees of the bottling plant he managed, his beloved teachers and their retirement savings, and most of all his children and grandchildren.

Someone asked me if I would continue my training now. Of course my quest continues--EO would want it that way. My efforts will help discover better treatments for symptoms like dysphagia, and to find a cure for Parkinson’s. Your donations to Team Fox, which benefits the Michael J. Fox Foundation, will help fund those quests. We knew the research being done now would not help EO; it helps the next EO, and the next.   

Read more about EO's life here, and here, and here.

Terrapin Mountain 50K Report

C and I drove north to Central Virginia for the Terrapin Mountain 50K under sunny blue skies, but the forecast called for rain all day Saturday. We arrived at the Sedalia School, the start and finish of the race, with plenty of time to check in, and set up the tent. We hung out in the pavilion, eating pizza and chatting with race director Clark Zealand, and ultra-patriarch David Horton.

Chatting with David Horton after the race. 

It’s always a treat to get to talk to Clark Zealand and David Horton, two people I respect very much for what they do for running. Horton’s accomplishments are vast, with long-trail records on the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails, and a whole pile of wins in 160 ultras. Clark is the next generation of ultra-runners; he too has a mess of wins and course records, and directs tough and very popular races, as does Horton.   

It rained all night long, and was still raining steadily when the gong sounded to start the race (I love the gong). I concentrated on staying slow and easy. I hoped to hit the aid station under last year’s time of 50 minutes. By my watch, we hit it at 51:30. Not to worry, I thought. I felt good, maybe last year’s race was just perfect, the rain will slow us down. 

I thought maybe I’d make the time up on the long road down to the next aid station at 9 1/2 miles or so. Last year I averaged under 7 minute pace; surely I was more fit this year. I hit the next aid station in 1:31, 4 minutes off last year’s time. As we started the climb back up I felt a little heavy-legged. It's okay to be slower, I told myself.

At the spot where the course turns onto tough single track to cross back over towards Terrapin Mountain, I got a little burst of energy. The trail passes through a couple of draws as it climbs and drops and traverses the ridgelines. Everything was wet, and green, and sloppy. I was having a blast. 

With Rick Gray at the finish.
Reason #2 to run ultras: great people.

We passed through the aid station where the trail hits the road again, and we started the long climb back up to Camping Gap. Last year, Rick Gray led a group of four or five of us up that climb, calling out spots to run to. This year I felt compelled to do the same for the group I was in. We’d run to the next ribbon, or the big tree, or the corner. Often we’d go beyond, but the exercise kept us moving reasonably quickly up the hill while still saving energy for the rest of the run. As luck would have it, we came across Rick Gray taking a, well, pit stop on the side of the road. He joined us, and by the time we got to the top, everyone in the group had made the call where to run at least once. I decided that my goal was to decide when to run and when to walk all day rather than succumbing to fatigue and being forced to walk.

I was starting to feel better, and was only a minute down from last year’s time at the Camping Gap aid station at about 17 miles. I started off on the White Oak Ridge loop. The climb I thought would be hard passed without notice, and I found myself back at Camping Gap, now right on my last year’s time. I ate several cantaloupe chunks that went down well, chatted with the guy in the skirt again (the third time through Camping Gap), and set off with a guy from Pennsylvania up Terrapin Mountain.

This climb is tough, winding steeply through rhododendron and rock, and the black soil was muddy and soft. Again, I loved it. I had been looking forward to it since the descent from White Oak Ridge was long and fast. I yearned to walk up steep climbs for a break. At the top you turn right to Terrapin lookout and the second punch. The views into the valley were non-existent, though, and I settled for the cool cloud we were out in. We turned around and headed back toward Fat Man’s Misery, another feature I had looked forward to.

This was Terrapin Mountain 
from the start/finish area.

The guy from Pennsylvania and I were running well together, making our way down through similar terrain as the climb up, though not as steep. Fat Man’s Misery passed with much whooping on my part. I’m guessing it’s the very claustrophobia that woke me up last year in a sweat that makes it so thrilling. I came out, punched my number (even though they never check...) and started into what I remembered as the steep and rocky downhill.

It was, and again I felt pretty nimble for having run over 23 miles by that point. At the last aid station at Terrapin Mountain Lane, I was 5 minutes up on last year’s time. According to the splits, I ran that section 6 minutes faster than last year. 

The last section went off mostly like last year, too, where I passed three people. This year there were more folks in front of me, and I was a little more deliberate about trying to pass them. I hit the last creek crossing, the deepest one, at 5:31 with a guy who introduced himself as the Angry Leprechaun and his friend Richard, who we passed just before the creek. I said we had 19 minutes to run the last 1 1/2 miles to be under my last year’s time. 

The Angry Leprechaun and I set off down the road at a pretty good clip. He looked at his wrist and said we were running 7:07 pace, so he figured I was in pretty good shape.

Seriously, I’m running 7:07 pace 30 miles into this beast of a race? I felt pretty whooped, but continued to roll to the finish, the pace no doubt slowing some as the road flattened. I still felt like I was running as fast as I could.

Nothing pleased me more the whole day than having C at the finish to watch. I had thought all day of seeing her, thinking she might surprise me at any of the aid stations. The thought kept me moving to the next one, and the next possibility of seeing her. At the finish she ran with me the last hundred yards or so. I’m the winner.

Nap time!

I crossed the line in 5:45:06, five minutes faster than last year, and my fastest 50K time on any course. lark announced my name (like he did everyone else’s) as I crossed the line. I shook hands with him and with Horton, chatted a few minutes, ate a little, drank a little. Then I went back to the tent and took a nap, again, just like last year. 

Christy and I had plans to stay Saturday night in Roanoke, which turned out to be just what I needed. I napped a little more in the room, and we walked downtown to eat dinner. I was asleep by 9. 

Chatting with my old friend 
Sean Andrish before the race started.

Red Number 11! For those of you who are squirming,
it didn't hurt at all until I got in the shower.

The Hotel Roanoke was a welcome sight.

Even in the pouring rain on a Sunday 
morning, Roanoke has a cool downtown.

An entrance to the City Market. There are
different mosaics at each entrance.

Christy took almost all of the pictures.

"Pick up your feet"

So I mentioned that my dad remembers “tripping on the last step” as the first symptom he noticed of Parkinson’s Disease. He told his doctor, who said, “Pick up your feet.” He’s still mad about that.

I tripped on the steps the other night. Sunday around 8 o’clock, after running eleven miles on tired legs,  I just caught the toe of my sandal on the tread. I’ve probably done it before, right? I’d mentioned to my doctor that I’ve had some dizziness when I turn suddenly (again, usually after running far or hard). He told me that’s part of getting old, which sounded vaguely like, “Pick up your feet.”

From what I’ve read, PD is genetic, but there seems to be an uncertain hereditary factor. It appears in direct families, like father-son. According to my mother, late-onset Parkinson’s is not generally hereditary, something that makes them feel better, she told me. My parents worry a great deal about the ways their genes may be harming us, from my brother’s collapsed lungs to my sister’s Celiac disease.

Last Saturday I ran seventeen miles on obscure and rough trails, and I don’t recall losing my balance or tripping at all. I never felt very comfortable, but just kept adding more miles with right or left turns. But everything after the first fifty minutes came at roughly the same level of “uncomfortable.” I stopped on the drive home at a football field to run 10 x 120 yard barefoot striders.  

I know that my legs are tired, that my feet ache a little, and that tripping on a stair is related to fatigue more than anything else. Right?

If it’s true that my father’s grandfather may have had Parkinson’s, that his father may have had Parkinson’s, that his sister had a form of Parkinson’s, well, I don’t know. 

As long as I can remember, I’ve thought that an hour or two or six in the woods was a great way to spend an afternoon no matter how uncomfortable or even bad the run felt. Today was another good example, and I kept running with the discomfort, and finished feeling like I could run another ten or fifteen miles at the same deliberate pace, which I’ll do on January 7th at Harbison.  

During those hours running, I didn’t think about having tripped on the steps, being too busy figuring out why I felt like crap and whether to turn left or right. But I’m thinking about it now, and feeling especially glad to be able to run like that. I’m thinking about the fifty-minute warm-up. I decided whether to turn right or left based on adding miles or not, and chose more miles each time.

I’ve felt a lot more emotional about turning 50 than any other birthday. I feel a little like I’m running out of time to have adventures the way I like, and no matter how fast or far I run, I’ll never outrun that one. I feel the kind of urgency that I felt when I was 21, only older. All that’s not unrelated to my running new distances--new PRs, new limits. I can’t run as fast as I did in my 20s, so I might as well run a long way, something the 20s me would never have conceived of. 

EO focuses on walking now, and gets around well with a walker. He and my mom went to Carlos Agudelo’s dance class for Parkinson’s patients and caregivers. They enjoyed it, enjoyed Carlos who also teaches Quinn ballet, and stayed for the discussion afterwards. I still chuckle about dropping my parents off at dance class.

I try to celebrate all my victories no matter how small--like when there is enough cheese for the mac-n-cheese recipe I like, or when the light stays green as I coast down the long hill to the coffee shop, or I run seventeen miles in the woods.

Focus, Un-Focusing, and Running Far with a Purpose

I’ve started in on the serious training for the long races I have planned for the first six months of 2012. Yesterday I headed to Croft State Park for an 18 or so mile run, my first over 15 since last summer. Through this focusing time I’ll push my long runs up to 25-30 miles in preparation for the Highlands Sky 40 miler in June; every other week or so I’ll do that mileage in back-to-back runs on the weekends. 

Part of these runs is of course to build fitness, but much of the focus will be on building mojo, the mental toughness to spend hours on the trails putting one foot in front of the other. I’ll remind myself of what Christy has said on long trips: we’re getting closer.

As usual in our southeastern hardwood forests, late autumn brings deep leaves covering everything. I ran some lightly used trails, ones that have no blazes and only an occasional ribbon marking something of the way. Usually the tread is obvious, but now the thick covering of leaves makes the trail nearly invisible. I go by memory, and I go by acting like the trail, I say, heading where the trail ought to be. Yesterday I stopped a few times to scan the woods. 

Bristol the Enduro-Dog was with me, and he did a lot of leading. I remain amazed by his trail-finding abilities as I pick my way over the covered roots and rocks. He seems to understand when I am “lost,” and pulls to the front to take over.

Bristol the Enduro-Dog loves trails.

Those rough trails slow me down when the obstacles are hidden by leaves, or snow (yes, occasionally the snow is deep enough to hide the trails even here in sunny South Carolina). I tighten my vision to what’s just ahead, and the focus sometimes keeps me from seeing my path. I thought yesterday that in order to follow these trails when they are this obscure, I need to un-focus my eyes, to pull back so I can feel the trail better. These are times when I am really locked in, though, on the moment, feeling my legs and feet, gliding through the woods even on days like yesterday when I still felt heavy-legged from last weekend’s race. I remember that I can push myself into this zone, and hone my training to know the feeling. It’s mental “muscle memory,” I reckon, pretty useful in the bad times of any run. 

Another piece of my focus came into place this week. My fund-raising efforts will benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. I’ll be running as a member of Team Fox, whose members run in races and triathlons all over the world. They have set up a terrific support system; among other things, they give me my own donation page, which you can access by clicking on the Team Fox logo on the right side of this page. I have set a goal of raising $10,000 dollars, and I’ll need your help to do so. 

Over five million people worldwide are living with Parkinson's disease -- a chronic degenerative neurological disorder whose symptoms typically progress from mild tremors to complete physical incapacitation. In the United States, 60,000 new cases of PD will be diagnosed this year alone. There is no known cure today. Your donation will help to find that cure, and also find new ways to treat the symptoms of the disease to improve the quality of life of those living with it.

My dad’s hands shake. He has a hard time walking, and shuffles his feet, making steps, curbs, even the transition from wood floor to carpet difficult. Yesterday, I ran seventeen miles over rough trails hidden under leaves. My father’s efforts were much more difficult, and exhibit true “ultra” form of putting one foot in front of the other. He’ll tell you he’s soldiering on.

He has other symptoms, some of which I’ll talk about in future posts, and some of which he’ll write about here, too. When I finish my race, and he congratulates me at the line, he’ll still have much more to go. It’s the least I can do to run far with this purpose.

Week ending November 20: 

Tuesday, November 15:  7 miles at Croft

Wednesday, November 16:  4 1/2 miles on Cottonwood: dead-legged and tired

Friday, November 18: 10 miles lunchtime bike ride

Saturday, November 19:  5 1/2 miles, including 10x120 yard barefoot striders on practice football field at the high school. I reminded myself how much I love running barefoot on grass.

Sunday, november 20: 17 miles at Croft

Total: 34 miles