WELL DONE!

Let me start by congratulating Cory. He never felt good before or during the JFK 50, which probably wasn't helped by his 4 tumbles on the Appalachian Trail, but he looked the race dead straight in the eye and told it, "You ain't got enough hurt to make me quit." (When the going gets tough, Cory gets talking like a guy that grew up in Evansville.) It was really a remarkable performance. In his first 50 miler, in the largest and oldest 50 miler in America, he was 5th in his age group. As Albert Einstein said when he published the theory of relativity at age 26, "Well, it's a start."

I, on the other hand, was only too glad to say, "I've got an oowie; I've got to quit!" One stumble, one scratch on the noggin, and I'm heading for the beer tent. Well, actually, the Washington County Hospital, but, judging by the amount of attention being given to patients, it might as well have been a beer tent. Below, on left, how I pictured myself after the fall; on right, how I'm sure I actually looked.

Anyway, now Cory and I will find another race to run between now and the Boston Marathon (April 18, 2011). Due to chronic substance abuse in our younger years--i.e., up until yesterday--we only have short-term focus. So we need a race in the near future or we'll turn back into the bloated slugs that are our true natures. We'll let you know what we pick.

P.S. I owe an apology to all bloated slugs for that last comment. What I should have said was "grotesque, hideous, degenerate, obscene slime creatures." Yep, that's accurate.

Mixed Results

THAT was hard. I finished in 9:25 and some change and Jim fell on some rocks, got six stitches in his head
and finished in the Hagerstown Hospital. More to follow.

FINALLY

      At last.  Thirtysix hours until the gun.  Let's get the party started.  The weather is supposed to be great.  The two of us are healthy and, if we don't get some serious exercise soon, I'm going to jump out of my skin. Next stop: Boonsboro, Maryland and the JFK 50.

WAITING, WAITING,WAITING

     I agree with the essence of Jim's post, below.  You would think that finally beginning to taper off on training would be great but it kinda sucks. While my decrepit body is beginning to feel relatively normal, my mind, such as it is, has been freying at the edges.  I'm imagining all sorts of terrible possiblities including blizzards, broken bones, abject failure of will, or most likely, hours and hours of pure discomfort. The compulsion to squeeze in just few more long, hard runs is strong.

     In my rational mind I know that tapering is the right thing to do, as proven by generations of runners who have had their best races after periods of reduced training and sometimes, because of injury, illness, or lack of bail money, total inactivity.  All the science shows it's even more important to taper the older you get--which, in the case of Jim and I, means we should have started years ago. The problem is  that the neurotic side of most runners' subconcious nags and nags that taking a few days off or even just cutting back a little will cause you to get totally out of shape in just a few hours. Another problem is that while the amout of exercise you're getting goes way down, your appetite stays just about the same which, as we all know, leads to just one thing:

A Fine Mess . . .

Well, we are now a little more than 2 weeks away from the first checkpoint in our plan ("Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." -- John Lennon), the JFK 50 Miler. Sadly, life hasn't managed to happen in any way that would excuse us from this race. Despite my best efforts, neither Cory nor I have sustained any debilitating injury, been the subject of incarceration, or been committed to a mental institution so as to render us unavailable for the race. In light of the postings on this blog, I find the last fact to be particularly troubling. Doesn't anybody keep an eye on severely disturbed individuals?

With 16 days to go, the serious training (clearly insufficient) is over, and the time for easing up (and ballooning to the size of the "Ghostbusters" Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man) is upon us. Now is the time for reminding ourselves of all the things we should have done better in our training, and of all the well-deserved suffering that is waiting for us on race day because of our pathetic character flaws.

In short, now is when we finally understand the way our friends looked at us when we said we were going to run 50 miles--like we were either liars or idiots. Dang it, why did they have to be so right? And now that the race is almost upon us, we are forced to acknowledge that we would rather be idiots than liars. Curse you, Virtue!! Who could have foreseen that Cory or I would bow at your altar?!

The main solace I have is the knowledge that 10 or 11 hours after I start the race, it will be over. And though I must face the fact that I will spend most of the race creeping at a petty pace, rather like the whining schoolboy (who himself creeps like the snail) unwillingly to school, it is also true that this is enough, t'will do. And at the end, the finishers, one and all, can claim, like the dog that sings opera, "It really isn't important whether we did it well. The important thing is that we did it at all."

And, for me, that solace will be accompanied by the further thrill of having Cory announce upon finishing, "You know, Jim, don't you, that the Comrades Marathon will be a lot harder."