Preparathon.

It's nearly the end of April, which means I'm slated to run another marathon.

Wait, what? 

I feel like the publication of my lead-up blogs to October's Marine Corps Marathon happened about a week ago.

The feeling seems plausible when I consider that some circumstances surrounding the context for the event don't seem to have changed--at least on the surface. Despite adjusting the clocks, I still, for example, rise at otherwise idiotic hours during the week in order to complete early morning training runs. I still struggle to maintain a high energy level at work, struggling most during the hours of 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. when, I assume, the decision-making portion of my body wanders aimlessly through my insides in search of a place to sleep.

At a closer look, there are some differences this time around. For one, I'm not inventing and coaching a cross country program while logging my miles. And, although it might sound foreign to the general readers, there's a huge benefit in the fact that I no longer struggle when my body naturally wakes around 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning. In that vein, this time around it all feels more natural--and by that, I (might) mean I feel more like a machine than a human.

I am also far more comfortable with my new schedule at work. Unlike years past, the first semester on our new bell schedule took an extraordinary toll on my professional patience. I struggled with the paper in-take, the curriculum design, three new classes to teach and prep for, and a clientele of surprisingly needy students at vastly different levels.

Credit for part of this efficiency can go to my coach and teammates. While the bulk of my marathon running colleagues set their sights on December's California International Marathon (CIM), I had recovered from D.C. and began addressing areas of improvement for April. CIM marks the unofficial end of our racing and training season as a team, so I found myself running and training in a status of limbo. I had ambition to build a foundation; everyone else needed the rest I'd just enjoyed.

So I decided--the week before Christmas, in fact--to establish the habit of running every day. It wasn't a belief that the schedule would increase my chances of success in Eugene, per se, but a challenge to myself that I could evolve (I was a naysayer on the practice as recently as spring 2011). And so I planned never to run fewer than 6 miles a day--pre-race 4-mile runs notwithstanding--and began building up the mental and physical fortitude I felt I needed to perform at a higher level.

Now, sitting here in the pre-dawn hours of my last Monday before Eugene, I'm forced to grapple with the monster my training has created. I want to run. Badly. Yet, my coach, the man to whom I attributed much of my earlier gratitude, has scheduled a day off.

Really? I had planned on time off, but only after the marathon. This level of consistency was supposed to represent one of the ways I would evolve as a runner. Running seven days a week became an integral factor in separating the next me from the former.

What to do...

Look, I'm no fool. Goals like these, when one pragmatically considers the reality of marathon-day performance, should fall by the wayside. Unlike October's peak mileage week (63), this time around I topped out at 75. Unlike my overall speed workouts and marathon mileage pace goal (6:45), my splits have shortened (6:20) and my endurance has increased. To think that I haven't already evolved would be to ignore reality. I've sent weekly emails to my coach for the past year and half, carefully detailing the seconds and splits of my workouts and races. He knows about my 7-days-a-week decision, and so he knows what my body needs heading into the race.

So as I wrap this up and look toward the teaching day, I will force myself to gracefully admit defeat because, as I noted, logic prescribed by professional training strategies should win battles against my kind of pride. Running every day solely for the sake of saying, "I run ever day," has no place on a regimented training calendar.

Whatever foolish desire I have to defy the calendar and sneak in a quick 2 or 4 mile jog can save itself for the final 2 miles on Sunday. More than the pride I'm struggling with now, I'll need that kind of recklessness to propel me through the tape on Hayward Field.

Compulsion and Confusion.

Compulsion
Traveling tends to bring out a compulsiveness that runners otherwise manage to keep confined to their own heads. Planning work or family leisure trips involves not only an understanding of treadmill policies at hotel gyms or knowledge of side streets, pedestrian and cycling lanes, and recreational trails; it also involves precise space dedication in a suitcase for shoes, shorts, fuel, and other accessories.

So long as I have an interest in running and training, I know the places I won't be visiting based solely on the lack of runner-related resources in the region.

Stephanie and I have enjoyed overlapping breaks for the first time since 2006. With her downtime between jobs coinciding with my district's spring break, we decided to spend a weekend on the central coast. Stephanie's only criteria for the trip was that the locale had to offer a place to run--we'd be hightailing it out of town at the peak of our training for the Eugene Marathon, after all. It had been over two years since my last pilgrimage back to my undergraduate stomping grounds, so the Monterey Peninsula seemed the most amenable place to find a respite.

And it didn't disappoint. In a departure from my own norms, we opted to stay in Pacific Grove, which proved a much smaller, quieter, and more affordable place to set up shop.

Our running schedule had us booked for 22 miles--6 of which had to be run at our prescribed marathon pace, an uninterrupted stretch of tempo running that trains the body for the grueling race ahead. For this reason alone, the Monterey Bay stands as a top-notch location to visit. We managed, with little difficulty, to run all 22 miles from our doorstep in Pacific Grove. We bounced from beautiful sea-front streets to sea-front bike trails--at times rolling along hills and by sand dunes--in the beautiful sun-drenched morning. The view remained consistently stunning, the wind mostly calm, and the environment tempered.

For other reasons, Monterey remains a great location for a quick weekend vacation. We explored some of the marathon course through Big Sur, meandering through parts of Garrapata and Molera and Yankee Point. We also enjoyed terrific food (try this in Monterey, and this in Pacific Grove) and plenty of relaxation.

Confusion
Runners follow the rules prescribed to pedestrians--mostly. On the streets, runners remain aware of the dangers of running with traffic, and therefore, when possible, run against traffic. This appeases not only the runner, but promotes eye contact with the motorist and keeps runners and cyclists on face-to-face terms.

When runners move to recreational trails, they continue to operate as pedestrians, while conceding the street role of automobile to the cyclist. Thus, the cyclist continues to operate in lanes as a driver would, while the runner continues to run against the grain of this flow, adhering to the same rules as those in the street. When sharing the trail with walkers, the walker and runner use the same direction, and the walker hugs the shoulder or, if possible, walks in the room just off the trail.

Somehow, these rules cease to exist in certain contexts. One of these contexts is the stretch of trail spanning the communities of Seaside, Monterey, and Pacific Grove. Contrary to logic, cyclists and runners are expected to ride with traffic on the street. It feels wrong in concept, obviously, but also remains a frightening mystery with every approaching vehicle's roar. Should your running habits reflect any other system, you will get yelled at.

On the recreational trails, cyclists are given their lanes, but runners and walkers in both directions are expected to share the dirt shoulder that only exists on one side of the trail. This makes for a massively confusing directional tango. Everyone dodges and ducks the walkers, some of them with their backs to approaching cyclists, some forced to watch the potential calamity while seeking a safe way to avert disaster.

It's not enough just to run the way you know is right (unless you're immune to angry feedback). My only suggestion for the avid strider is to rise early and do what you can.

The Sports Analogy.

While the equality argument seems a fundamental stance in American ethical debate, I can’t help but wonder on what level our public school system provides any cornerstone of equity or equilateral distribution of opportunity.

My concerns aren’t novel or rare by any means, so I won’t delve into the dramatic unpacking of the systematic failures in attempt to persuade. Instead, I think I’ll imagine what life would be like if a school worked like the National Basketball Association.

Stay with me. Or give me a chance at least.

I feel compelled to first examine the notion that the NBA is based on competition. I believe it’s certainly a component—it’s at the very core of sport, right? But the idea that professional sports represent regional competition—that it’s not an undeniable profit machine—is absurd. Salary caps, sports and media markets, labor union and players associations? A battle of strength and strategy they are not. So if we can at least agree that on some level this is about a model of performance, we might start building the comparison.

Put my administrator in the commissioner’s seat. She gets to negotiate when necessary, address the needs of a given classroom much like the NBA boss Mr. Stern addresses the needs of a given franchise. When someone struggles to perform, she enters the equation and works the numbers as needed.

As the comparison continues, teachers seem the most logical candidates for coaches. They’re drawing on whiteboards, designing templates to promote the success of students, or their players, if you will.  Someone’s struggling? Call a timeout and isolate the issue. Is it a coaching moment she needs? Does he need to sit the next one out? Who needs to see the trainer, head to the bench, or get in the game? Raise a classroom situation, be it a lesson plan or test or project, and the parallels seem plausible.

That said, I suppose one of the most implausible stretches in this comparison might be the parents-as-fans notion. But if you give it time, it’s not really all too illogical. Parents certainly fill the roll of invested audience members; they remain on the sidelines cheering and jeering. Their off court behavior focuses on the team and the way its run. Their interest peaks when their investments flourish, and fade when the grind wares on. Furthermore, on need look no further than the ubiquity of Twitter among athletes, and the proximity between fans and players effectively mirrors the current state of many a relationship between parent and child.

Unfortunately, the picture falls apart when performance starts to suffer. Rather than fire a coach, a decision the organization makes in the best interest of the team, the public school system keeps the bumbling fool in place because it is contractually obligated to do so. Can you imagine the caliber of coaches that would still exist in the league if the NBA didn’t allow turnover? It’d be a graveyard of franchises, festering corpses boating on false hope.

The parallel is again strained when you consider the element of trades and player development. Rather than press for the acquisition of the best talent for a given team or environment, teachers must continually work with the students counselors and computer queries give them. There is no opportunity to draft a prospect or nurture talent you’ve been scouting for years. Sure, students, like certain players, muster the gall to demand a trade, but not to the extent that one imagines. The bottom line seems to be that if teachers want to pick and choose it’s unfair or unethical. If students or parents want to opt for something different, it’s right and just.

And while this half-baked idea of teachers trading for talent served as the impetus for this written consideration, I’m finding myself unable to carry on with the exploration because of the exhausting realization that the system is, in so many ways, a failure. And even if I’m not ultimately advocating for a model of educating base on the something even slightly resembling a professional sports paradigm, I am certainly overwhelmed by the glairing need to change the rules of the game.