lobster harmonica

Tiptoeing off to the triple

Days until the race: 2
Current state of mind: freaked, but excited

So I'm done with my Tahoe Triple training, which was lighter than it should have been especially at the end there thanks to some late-in-the-game tendon issues (the peroneal tendon in my left foot/ankle started singing during a particularly hilly 18 miler, and even Scott the muscle genius can't quite figure out what's up) and a poorly scheduled ping-pong week of multi-city travel. My tapering was so steep as to resemble a full stop, but the good news there is that I'm ridiculously well rested. I've gotten 30 hours of sleep in the last three days, which has left me with near manic levels of excess energy; within 10 minutes of waking up this morning, I had watered all my plants, listened to a brief debate about the merits/demerits of the new Supreme Court nominee, compiled and consumed a fruit salad, and made my bed (complete with throw pillows). I think I'm ready to run. Or to be committed. But in this case that's sort of the same thing, I guess.

I'm heading to Tahoe tonight. Tomorrow night I'll meet the other runners at the pre-race pasta dinner, and then Thursday morning the three-day race begins. I'm going to try to "report in" each day, but not sure what sort of Internet connection I'll have. I'm also in the dark about the elevation/hill profile of the course. For some reason I thought it would be better not to look. Kinda goes well with the undertraining, I figure. And I'll see for myself soon enough. Gaa!

TRIKS are for girls

I am not a big fan of shorts, particularly when it comes to running. Shorts that are tight inspire uninspiring honking, usually from trucks of guys sporting hardhats and emergency-orange vests. Shorts that have some give to them tend to bunch and gather smack in the crotch, exposing the least toned stretch of thigh* and creating such a jamb of fabric that you wonder for a confusing second whether you should be popping a beer and groping for the remote rather than running however many miles outside, ponytail swinging. They're "masculating," I suppose is one way to put it. Sports bras are bad enough. Sports bras + shorts? Shudder.

Usually I run in tights, which is a dumb term because it evokes visions either of pantyhose (another dumb term) or of Jazzercise wear circa 1985. The "second skin" approach to running wear is not one that I approve of. (I'm also not an endorser of running warm-up pants, which lost the memo about the tapered look going out of fashion, permanently, about 15 years ago). This leaves me with a limited field of fitted but not circulation-strangling tights and boot-cut yoga pants not fashioned from cotton.

But now: another option. I noticed a few women in the SF marathon running in...skirts. Mini-skirts, to be exact, designed specifically for distance runners. Intrigued, I tracked them to one of their sources: Skirt Sports, which launched its first clothing line, TRIKS (skirt spelled backwards), earlier this year. The mastermind behind the idea and the design is Nicole DeBoom, an Ironman triathlete who was sick of feeling like she looked like a boy when she worked out. So a few weeks ago, I ordered a TRIKS skirt called MarathonGirl, in brown/pink. After some initial disorientation (surprising breeziness, and some low-level paranoia about the skirt flipping up in back without me knowing it to reveal the hot-pink "spankies" underneath, which would be the athletic equivalent of walking out of the restroom and back into the party with your skirt hem tucked into your underwear) I've come to really dig it. Certainly you get some looks, but mostly it's from women runners suddenly feeling like shlubs in their shorts and wondering where you get a running skirt. Hey, I feel for them.

Thanks, Nicole!

* Inner-upper, of course. The muscles in the inner-upper thigh are called adductors, and they get toned mostly through lateral-motion exercise. Since running is a straight-ahead sport, you can have killer calves and great quads and stare at the top of your thighs wondering what they are doing there. Maddening, but true.

A hill specialist raises his eyebrows; a sprinter inspires

On Friday night I attended a dinner loosely attached to the SF Grand Prix, a 108-mile pro cycling race that took place on Sunday up and down and around the hills of San Francisco. The dinner was a benefit for the Davis Phinney Foundation. Phinney is still dubbed the "winningest" American cyclist. Probably the title belongs to him and not to Lance Armstrong because Phinney, in his day, was a sprinter - a breed of cyclists considered insane for the high-speed rough-housing they engage in while fighting to the line. Phinney is retired now but still fighting, only this time against Parkinson's disease.

The dinner was held at the SF Italian Athletic Club, in a square, high-ceilinged ballroom with long family-style tables and three big guys in thigh-length leather coats guarding the doors. There were about 275 people there, many of them retired cyclists out to show their support for Davis or current pros carbo-loading for Sunday's race. The tables were already filling when we got there, so we took seats where we could find them. Opposite from us were two guys, then four, then five, who were wearing identical shirts. We had landed across from one of the teams competing in Sunday's race, the Kodak Sierra Nevada team. Nice guys who probably thought I was a girly groupie until I started grilling them about Vinokourov and hill tactics and inquiring about races like the Tour of Georgia and Paris Roubaix (ok so I am a groupie of sorts, but an informed one). At the table to our right, a few chairs up, sat the Navigators Insurance USA team, wearing identical blue denim shirts buttoned all the way to their necks (Cesar Grajales, a Colombian climbing specialist, was shooting me some interesting looks, possibly on account of my bright orange pants). At the table to our left was the Gerolsteiner team, a rakish bunch of fashion-haired Europeans who, unlike the other teams, seemed pretty intent on getting sloshed; they stayed long after the other teams had left, the table in front of them filling with empty bottles.

Sitting closest to me at my table was Dominic Perras, who I later learned was the 2003 Canadian national road race champion and notoriously aggressive on hills. We chatted for about an hour, during which I let slip my Tahoe ultra intentions. He lifted his eyebrows. He knew the terrain. Here was a bona fide hill specialist, looking at me like I'm crazy. "That's nuts," he said. I gulped, and grabbed for my water.

The evening had numerous highlights, including the surprise appearance of Robin Williams, a rabid cycling fan. He swept in to auction off a bike and ended up launching into a 30-minute shtick. Also entertaining was Bob Roll, the bizarre ex-pro cyclist who helps commentate the Tour de France on OLN. It's hard to say which of the two was more manic.

The big inspirational highlight of the night, though, was hearing David Phinney tell the story of a particularly brutal day during his last Tour de France, in 1990. The tour had made it to the Alps, and as a sprinter he was naturally struggling in the mountains. He had slipped so far behind in overall time that he was teetering on the edge of being dropped. On this day, he was already 20 minutes behind, the last rider on the road. There were several punishing hills ahead of him, culminating in a final twisting climb up Alp d'Huez. He figured he was finished, sure to be dropped. But then he told himself, well, I'm here. Why not give it everything I have? And so he did. He went all out up each mountain. Fans who were clearing out turned with surprise when they heard him coming, dropping their coolers and car keys to clap for him. Finally, after several more endless painful climbs, he approached the finish line. Race organizers were already taking down the scaffolding, but his coach was still there. He crossed the line, and neither man said anything for several minutes. And then his coach said, "Two minutes..... You made it by two minutes." Davis explained how he is still, a a sense, living that day. He's still in a race to get to the finish before the time cutoff - only this time it's a race to find a cure for Parkinson's. As he told this story, his left arm shook uncontrollably, the disease having taken it over.

Sunday's race was beautiful to watch. Basso, Hincapie, Leipheimer - big tour guys giving away nothing on their faces as they pedaled up Fillmore, again and again. Dominic was in one of the early breakaways, and ended up finishing the race in tenth place. The winner was Fabian Wegmann - one of the Euro pack of Gerolsteiner guys getting ripped at Friday's dinner. A secret tactic, perhaps.

The flip side of flip-flops; some needed kneading

Days until the race: 38
Miles logged today: 3 (hills)
Number of times I listened to "Zombie" by the Cranberries on my iPod, pretending I was the lead singer, during those miles: 3

So until a few days ago I was wondering whether I could realistically go from marathon to Tahoe Triple training with almost no down time in between. And I was wondering this because ever since the SF marathon (read the blistering reviews, including mine on page 14) I'd been dragging. My stride had turned into a shuffle. My legs felt tugged downward by imaginary 10-pound weights. My pace was glacial going on sedentary.

Mostly this was my fault, not my thighs' fault. Probably it wasn't wise, a few days after the marathon, to spend a week dog-sitting a pouty golden retriever in Marin who capitalized on my guilt for leaving him alone during the day by taking me for punishing walks up and down brutal hills twice a day. Probably it was even less wise for me to agree to these death marches while wearing platform flip-flops.

I figured some of this was fixable. So I closeted the flip-flops, put new insoles in my running shoes, and encouraged the dog to explore the yard. That helped. I said 'no' a few times at work, which also helped because I'd been logging insane hours on projects that were, in the mental sense, marching me up and down some epic hills of their own. But I was still dragging. So I started thinking I needed some help, and beyond that some information. I started thinking: "sports massage." My friend Chris recommended I go to Psoas Massage & Bodywork. I got an appointment.

The guy who did my massage, Scott Schwartz, considers himself a "muscle detective" of sorts. I for one am ready to hand him a badge. Or a Nobel prize. Or maybe just a really nice fruit basket. With elbows and hands and some seriously skilled pressure, he turns up hidden things that I thought no one would ever know about my body but me, and a ton that I'd never know unless he told me. And he's a New Yorker, so he gives it to you real straight. The good news for me was that I'm much better off than I feared. Despite the fact that I do nothing to encourage my own flexibility or build anything resembling upper body strength, I've got more of both than I thought. That was a pleasant surprise. It also turns out that my leg muscles had not petrified as I'd suspected; they're more or less perfectly healthy, and, like the golden retriever, were pretty much just pouting (and I don't blame them). The less good news is that one of the muscles in the V of right calf is weaker than it should be, and might become the scene of some heretofore unfelt cramping, and that the real danger for me isn't overtraining but sitting too long at my desk; my neck and shoulders are a complete mess.

Massages that go this deep, turns out, are not without their painful moments. Scott did everything short of stun-gun my hip muscles to get them to relax; if my calves could express themselves, they would have been spitting with outrage. But I left Psoas feeling as if a giant reset button had been hit, erasing weeks of strain and sending me back to feeling like I did before the SF marathon. Onward it is....

Running into reenactors; a PSA re: my motivation

Days until the race:39
Current state of mind: Slightly unnerved by the number 39
Miles logged today: 16

So I ran by a renaissance faire this morning in Golden Gate Park. They'd built this huge encampment filled with pointy tents with medieval flags flapping from their peaks and towers and turrets and some sort of ye ole town square. Everywhere, blacksmiths, royalty, and bar wenches were getting out of their cars and streaming toward the encampment. As I passing by, a town crier, I suppose, looking very serious in thigh-high leather boots, velvet pantaloons, a puffy shirt, and a beard that I suspect he grew just for this occasion, climbed up onto a castle walkway and earnestly decreed something to the people, sparking off rounds of "here here!"s and "God save the queen!"s. It was a weird moment.

But I happen to have a soft spot for reenactors. These are people who have found a strange but interesting way to express themselves. And on days like this they are ecstatic, because they're surrounded by people who share a passion that most people don't understand. Mind you, I think it's pretty weird to don a period costume and drink mead and sword fight to defend your family's honor and whatnot, then afterwards drive off in your '98 Honda. It's kind of nuts, actually. But I get it. I get it because that belonging feeling that the blacksmiths and royalty and wenches were all high on together is the very same one I'm going to feel when I get to the Tahoe Triple pre-race dinner and meet the other runners. These will be people that I don't need to explain myself to, people who get why I'm there without even knowing me.

And this will be a relief, because the real reason that I'm blogging about this upcoming race is that I can't really talk about it with anyone. I tried that, and it turns out to be a bad idea. Tell people that you're running a marathon, and they say things like "Wow!" and "I've always thought about doing that" and "I ran one a few years ago, killed the knees but glad I did it." Tell them that you're running three marathons three days in a row and you get a much different response. A few people, usually athletes or athletic risk-takers of some sort, say, "Hey, great. How's the training? Let me know how it goes." This is a beautiful reaction. This is the reaction you want. But most people I've told, even some of my closest friends, have greeted the news with a long pause. Then they ask, in utter seriousness, if I'm insane. Or they ask "Why?" in a way that implies that they're exasperated. Or they get worried, wringing their hands and urging you to be careful. One person, somehow offended by the news, told me they "wouldn't allow it."

This is why I've stopped mentioning it. This is why I'll throw it all in here instead.

Here's the truth. The real deal. Telling people about a race like this isn't about hunting for approval, or trying to impress. Reactions like that are vaguely embarrassing; they make me feel uncomfortable. And it's certainly not about opening myself to judgment, or some sort of whacko cry for help. For me at least distance running isn't remotely about praise or approval or anything external. It's about a girl who was never an athlete getting to be an athlete. It's about reminding myself how unnervingly doable it is to accomplish a big goal if I actually throw in the effort. Effort pays off. Cause and effect. Running is a way for me to inspire me, to remind myself of my possibilities. So talking about a nutso race isn't a maneuver to turn the spotlight on myself; that would be a complete nightmare. It's much more innocent than that. It's about messaging my excitement, sharing a big crazy dream, and hoping for the kind of dismissive yet interested support that will make such a weird endeavor feel a little less lonely.

Countdown to ultra

On the last day in July I ran the San Francisco Marathon. It was my sixth marathon, and my least favorite course. Somewhere along the route, probably during one of the endless loops they sent us on to gain incremental mileage, I found myself thinking of what else I might do to appease the gods of endurance, who beckon to me regularly for reasons that are either inspiring or crazy: I have a soft spot for endurance. I have nothing but perfect respect for people who push themselves beyond the expected. Not in ways that are irresponsible and bizarre and fueled by adrenaline; I'm no yahoo. More like in ways that push the limits of what you can expect your body to do in one day, efforts that are fueled by  training and practice and a desire to just keep going.

At the race expo the day before, I'd picked up my race packet, which included the usual assortment of coupons for sports drinks and Jelly Belly samplers and brochures for upcoming marathons, triathlons, and such. One brochure caught my eye: an advertisement for something called the Tahoe Triple. Three days. Three marathons. A circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe, all on foot.

Well, that's nuts. Technically, that's "ultra," which is how running events that are longer than a marathon, even if the distance is gained over days, are categorized. Given the timing - the event takes place on October 6-8, which is awfully soon after my SF marathon run - it's probably not the best idea. The fact that I've never run an event anything like this makes it an even shakier idea. And yet...the gods of endurance poked down at me, knowingly, when I read about the race. Somewhere during the boring miles of the SF marathon, the idea lodged, and stuck. Two weeks later, I signed up. I'm now "in training" for the event, even though I have a knee-bucklingly minimal sense of what I'm doing.

And so begins the countdown to the Big Day(s), and my training journal. Three marathons. Three days. Holy crap. I can't help but think I'm sunk. But I can't help but be curious how I'm going to manage this one. Stay tuned.

Windy Hill

Yesterday I went on a trail run best filed under 'humbling.' Possibly also 'insane.'

I'd been thinking about joining a trail running group, and a quick Google search had served me up this one: Bay Trail Runners. Innocuous name, but joining it comes with a catch. Before you can officially become a member of the group, you have to go on a run with the guy who founded it. Prove yourself something other than a sporadic weekend warrior, I suppose. Most of the group's website is behind a wall, and much of its trail information (including precise mileage, calculated by the group on foot with GPS) is accessible only to members (who are collectively known as 'the Battery').

Getting tested on my trail running by some sort of stealth and covert running group was much more intriguing than showing up for a group run with a club not cloaked in mystery. So I registered. Within seconds, I got back an email that disclosed the exact location of our meeting place. I found my own directions, and on Saturday morning headed to Portola Valley, to a trail called Windy Hill.

The head of the group is the only one at the trailhead. His name is Rob. His trail running shoes are caked in dried mud. He's intense but friendly. He doesn't run on roads, he tells me, just trails. Last year he placed sixth in the Big Sur Trail Marathon, a punishing race with a cumulative elevation gain of 6600 feet. Suddenly I'm thinking that I should have asked about our route and our distance before I came. So I ask now, and Rob tells me nine miles. He mentions there are some big uphills. And that I should be on the lookout for rattlesnakes. And for poison oak. He'd somehow gotten some on the bottom of his foot the other week, during a run, and said it was hellish. I was just starting to wonder how hard a person has to run for poison oak to somehow cram its way down to the arch of your foot when Rob takes off.

Gulp.

The good thing about trails is that you can't run them as fast as you can on the road, and Rob's pace was actually reasonable. Problem was, he had no trouble maintaining that pace on the uphills, which on the trail he'd chosen included a 2300-foot elevation gain up a switchbacked trail in the space of just two miles. If you've ever wondered what it feels like to have the lactic acid lock up your quadriceps to the point of 'bonk,' I can pass on that information. Once we got to the top, things got easier, thankfully. Rolling flats and then a downhill. The scenery up there was beyond beautiful, and so was the view. I could see Mt. Diablo and Mt. Tam, plus a vague outline of San Francisco. I understand why Rob has given up roads, given that the entire midpeninsula open space is his backyard.

So I'm in! Turns out you pretty much just have to show up to be in, but it felt good to 'pass' just the same. My quadriceps think differently, but they'll get over it.

Modesto

Last Sunday I drove out to Modesto to watch a minor league baseball game between the Modesto Nuts and the Stockton Ports. The idea of spending a sunny California day plunked down in farm country watching baseball somehow appealed to me. Plus, I know one of the Nuts’ mascots. There are two mascots, actually. A walnut and an almond. I know the walnut.

The drive to Modesto surprised me. It was beautiful. Bald green hills, the valleys between them stuffed with trees. Lines of silver and white windmills stretched across hilltops, blades slowly churning (clean energy!). Endless fields of strawberries and asparagus and walnut and almond trees, all perfectly aligned in their rows, flickering by as I drove. Also flickering were thousands of butterflies - 'painted ladies' making their yearly migration north in big numbers (I looked it up). Unfortunately a good two dozen of them were unaware of what flying in front of my car would mean for their travel plans. Windshield smack. Yellow splatter. Wince.

The sensory overload didn’t end there. The game was about as 'all American Sunday afternoon in farm country' as it gets. Crisp, simple baseball – the crack of the bat, the yell of the ump, the smell of burgers grilling, people licking ice cream cones and yelling 'Way to go, Nuts!' I was a little taken aback by how peaceful it all made me feel. It was as if someone had just stuck a giant American pacifier in my mouth, and I wasn’t resisting. Wait, shouldn’t I put down the soft pretzel and do something really urban, really blue state, like bash Bush to that guy in the 'GO NUTS' shirt, or talk to the little girl sitting next to me about the dark power of evangelicals? Right, well, actually, this is a really good pretzel. And the Nuts are playing so well here in the fifth. And I should probably check my program to see how I'm doing in Nuts Bingo....

Turns out I didn’t get to see the walnut, though. An independent troop of big furry mascots (Krazy Kreatures, they called themselves; giant primary-colored Elmo types) had descended on Modesto for the weekend - a special stadium promotion that precluded the need for the walnut but did, I think, cause some measure of brand confusion. The almond did make a brief appearance in the first inning, while I was still parking my car. Next time.