from Boston to Big Sur (to Baby)

The Short Version: Signed up for a spring double. Got hurt. Found out we're pregnant. Rehabbed. Got hurt again. Better for it (all).

The Long Version:

My last bit of writing came in the wake of the Boston Marathon experience. And while I don't attribute the events or its aftermath to my long hiatus from writing, I do think the onset of April 2014--and the recent arrival of life-altering news--warrants the written word.

In terms of running, 2014 was set to be an ambitious year. We wrapped up our Marine Corps Marathon adventure in October with a phenomenal vacation in Washington. Aside from the dining and doing, I put together another race in the realm of 2:50, a bit off the early goal but certainly pleasing. Unfortunately, Stephanie suffered a hip flexor strain in the fall and was forced to forego competition. Fortunately, however, she was able to use the trip to spend quality time with her lifelong friend, a woman who remains our real impetus for traveling across the country to jog around.

In training for MCM and considering my goals for the upcoming year, I landed on the Boston to Big Sur ("B2B") double marathon challenge, an ASICS-sponsored, non-BAA sanctioned event for runners competing in both races. The distinction, which has existed for 500 (or is it 250?) entrants for the past 5 years, is an ambitious offering to run east and west coasts in close proximity (the race is often 13 days and is only separated by six this year). Since I didn't technically "run" while in undergrad on the central coast, it seemed like an apt pilgrimage for me to pursue. And given the way Boston concluded in 2013--a PR topped by a terrorist attack--a reunion on Boylston Street has been in the books since last Patriot's Day. Even if only for the sake of the narrative, the B2B challenge spoke to me.

The double is, in part, in the act of deciding. From a racing standpoint, runners often pick a focus based on their training, their course preferences, and their experiences with each races or courses in past years. For others, the double is set enjoyable long runs. For me, it seemed Boston would be the best to race, and Big Sur could serve as a sort-of victory lap. Stephanie's decision(s) changed this strategy. Despite her BQ, the events of 2013 and updated calibration of entrants effectively un-qualified her from 2014's race. Big Sur, thus became her goal race, and she suggested I run along her. I found this idea extremely attractive. We are two very different animals, and the chance to join her on an entire marathon was previously unfathomable.

In November and December, even through a rushed return to the road and some detrimental tendinitis that developed in my Achilles, I held on to the idea that I'd be running on the craggy coast with my wife come spring.

But while making dinner the night after Christmas, Stephanie returned home to inform me that the racing would be on hold. She did not provide her rationale in the context of running, but in looking back, I can see how a focus on the Big Sur Marathon might take a backseat to nurturing a developing fetus. We (She) were officially expecting!

Obviously ecstatic, I shifted my embrace toward a Boston experience among friends rather than runners. But with the amending of the tendinitis issues, I started to ramp up mileage and training. Stephanie focused quality time on our Boston trip, newly directed at solidifying its "last hurrah as non-parents" feel. We'd enhance it as a bit of a vacation.

Then near the end of a long run in late February, I suffered a stress injury to my heal. I found I couldn't run the next day (yes, I tried) or the day after. I wedged myself into the calendar with a sports medicine doc, slid into an MRI tube, strapped up a walking boot, and hobbled off into what has become an altered state.

In terms of health, I don't know if I've ever been better. Ironically, not running has done wonders. It put me in the saddle of a stationary bicycle, on the peddles of an elliptical machine, atop the sliding seat of a stationary rower, and in the foam embrace of an aqua jogging belt. I've maintained fitness, improved strength, and kept the shape consistent. I still geek out about what I eat, but the prior compulsions of a run-first mentality haven't driven me mad. My approach to racing--to running in general--is changed. Newly formed habits--the gym routine, the dearth of spring race entry forms and associated fees, perhaps--have helped me develop a few important tenets I hope to remember.

1. I am unhappy when I can't run, so when I can, I will run to the extent that I'm happy. I will not run to follow a time or mileage or speed schedule unless it promotes or develops enjoyment.
2. While running plays a certain personal and social role in my life, it is not a job. When it becomes one (or surpasses one), I can reevaluate. Until then, its a hobby.
3. Running is primal and will exist regardless of course, time, device, or bib number. Thus, I have decided to do more of it outside of these imposed and generally accepted confines.
4. I need to succeed in the overall, not just in every day. As any marathoner should know, the best races reflect how a runner sustains over time, not how he starts the race.

On Friday last we learned we're having a boy. Stephanie came home with a shopping bag--a Friday "present" for me. It was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle onesie. I didn't have to read the subtext; he'd pee standing up.

The fable was right, but I just raced past the learned lesson. It's time to slow down and start acting more like the tortoise. He bests the harrier in the end of the fable, right?

What I Cannot Say.

I know this: I will no longer say that poor racing was the equivalent of "blowing up." I will not coach my cross country and track runners to "explode" as they approach the finish line. I know this because I know that language, like the reality it signifies, can maim and disfigure.

At least twice, as Monday's horrific afternoon stretched into evening, I thoughtlessly noted how my phone "blew up" as cell towers intermittently granted service to the thousands of concerned onlookers and their thousands of concerned family members and friends. To be so attuned to the informality of conversational speech--something otherwise innocuous and trivial--makes the crux of this reflection even harder to condone. But language can also heal. I love the language to the extent that I have made it my life's pursuit and my professional career, and yet I have no way to utilize it to succinctly describe the immensity that was so much more than the Boston Marathon. For once, no lexicon can account for the mass and scope needed to summarize so many competing emotions, overwhelming uncertainties, and lingering fears. But despite this feeling, I know I must grapple with the trauma in order to cobble together some kind of understanding.

So I write what I cannot say.

And unlike what I have written for past entries on this blog, I maintain that I'm writing this now for an audience of one. I selfishly sift through the matters of my mind for purely personal gain. My decision to put this reflective sifting online reflects the fact that so many in my supportive network have either asked about some aspect of the trip or have wondered why I haven't started writing. So I have resolved to write in hopes that I can arrive at something I cannot (simply) say.

The prologue of the experience is essentially a vacation wrapped in anticipation. After a 1:00 a.m. arrival, the morning brought with it a final interval workout on a hotel treadmill, a train to the Boston Commons, lunch with a former student, a trip to the fabulous race exposition, and delicious dinner with a few long-lost friends from my past. Later we enjoyed a brunch with Sacramentans, who were visiting to spectate, then a day game at Fenway where we caught ourselves a dandy of a ballgame that featured Buccholtz riding a no-no through eight. We were endlessly spoiled by a friend and former teammate, carted to and from the town of Hopkinton where we could eat, sleep, and essentially "live" a measly mile from the start line of the world's most prominent road race.

My race performance was mechanical. I ruled out a personal best, instead opting to begin easy and reassess after the hills at 20. Racers of all flavors passed me for the better part of 13, runners I eventually sacked as they struggled break through the "wall." I look at the numbers, and my splits ride an unwavering line. I never buckled, even through the changes in elevation. I was efficient. I was a machine.

To remind myself I was human, I smiled frequently, made an effort to high-five, and chatted with my fellow runners when appropriate. I followed a loose fuel plan, alternating between water and Gatorade at appropriate mile stops. I survived frat parties, Frogger wannabes, and strollers darting across the northeastern hamlet streets. I tumbled from the din of screaming coeds at Wellesley unfazed and unkissed. I passed the legendary runner Joan Benoit Samuelson, and all 55 of incredibly talented years while surging through the Newton hills, and thanked her for everything. I spied the Hopkinton crew near Heartbreak Hill and tossed them my arm warmers, then nonchalantly decided to pick up the pace through 23, which amounted to a long and tedious stint stretching along a flat avenue through Boston. The Sacramentans screamed somewhere near 24. By 25, I'd already realized a personal best was, despite my initial avoidance, a legit possibility. According to my GPS watch I closed the final 385 feet (the .2) at a 6:00 pace, and I crossed the finish line with a clear head and indescribable want to keep moving.

I stretched, made my way through the medals and mylar and water bottles, thanking the volunteers candidly. I spoke with a reporter from the Boston Herald, who marveled at how I acted and how I felt considering what I'd just done. His story, of course, was never penned.

I called my father to check on Stephanie's splits. I spoke with such zeal and energy. He couldn't comprehend my request for Stephanie's times, and he couldn't understand how I could run a marathon and then conduct a coherent, even vibrant conversation. I made my way to a room at the Copley Marriott for a post-race shower and a meal. Connected with an extended community of survivors glowing in the accomplishment and experience of so many successful journeys into Boston, we debriefed and awaited the arrival of the rest.

The unforeseen epilogue is, for me, comprised of the same members of the Hopkinton family, but its wrapped in tumult--and now reflection. After the bombs, which were audible to members of our showering troupe, the room became our shell. I think now of the children, 4 and 3, and how they invented games and played hide-and-seek while we surveyed the news and our cell phones and a room service order that would never, ever be placed. I think about our collaborative decision to leave, the wary exodus from the hotel, the distant sound of the police detonating a third device nearby, and another collaborative decision that a parking garage and a shuttered city were not places we wanted to be. I reflect on how, long after we'd unknowingly stolen food from a charity function on the fifth floor, seven adults and two children eventually rode, in a car built for six, back to Hopkinton. I hold tight to the feel of the family matriarch who, after buying us pizza at 9:45 p.m., grabbed a stranger (me) and hugged him tightly. Parents had been called, teammates and friends and spouses had been found, and the group grappled with managing all the information that poured in long into the night.

In the beginning, I joked that I'd never repay, financially or otherwise, the hospitality, convenience and comfort extended to us by the family in Hopkinton. So many of our teammates struggled to pull themselves from the city to the start line while we overslept and twiddled our toes in pajamas until nearly race time. How could I ever, I wondered aloud, run a Boston Marathon that included a hotel, a bus ride, or any of the other arduous components of a point-to-point destination marathon?

And by the end, I wondered how it would be possible to return to California without maintaining intermittent contact with the house in Hopkinton. The range of emotion--from the celebration of completion through the fatigue of exertion, the insufficient nutritional recovery and the adrenaline churning as we faced concern and uncertainty and the emotional and psychological trauma--left us all frayed and lonely and in doubt. And together.

What followed is surreal, something that's just coming into focus as I compose. Sleeplessness, muscular fatigue, and cross-country travel have made reintegration with the normal world difficult. Add the fever dream sequence and immediate fallout of a terrorist attack, along with a silence carried by those connected to situation appears, and this want for clarity seems almost primal. By Wednesday, fear and sadness bubbled through the facade of ease I'd foolishly created. I drove to work cautiously, reacted irritably to curious students at certain times, and avoided any chance to interact and share my thoughts on the event.

What they wanted I could not say. I see this now, because I realize that what I wanted I could not say.

I am working to put things into perspective. I am contextualizing the outreach, processing the support, and working through the details that fused triumph and terror.

I am bound to Boston; that I can say.

Thanks.

Boston has happened, is happening, and hasn't happened yet.

It became certain in October of 2011 as I slogged through the final miles of the Marine Corps. Marathon. I needed to finish in under 3:05, and though I seemed to be finishing in cement shoes carved from the infamous "wall" I was hitting, I had blitzed through enough of the first 20 or so to secure the coveted BQ.

I knew registering for the Boston Marathon wasn't possible, however, until the September prior to the 2013 race. I had to make it through the following year, ultimately register, then train through the winter and early spring. This bloc comprised so much time that I actually recovered, trained, traveled, and raced in another marathon in Eugene, where I managed to shave an impressive chunk off the previous BQ and secure an earlier registration time in September.

The registration was easy. The hardest part, it seems (even still), was getting the qualifying time.

After a tough summer characterized by adductor, quad, and hamstring issues--each included a slew of professionals and a host of diagnoses and no real changes except the end of yoga and the beginning of aqua jogging--the real "healing" started when I simply found a way to get back on the roads.

I spent the fall racing season in what I affectionately consider my running wheelhouse: a ten-miler and my annual half marathon through the neighborhood  here. That half, which is now infamously known for a lead cyclist debacle in mile one, earned me a near New York qualification. With the smell of potential intoxicating, I jumped into another half, my toughest challenge of the year, in Clarksburg. I secured a legitimate PR, but it fell 11 seconds short of the NY time I said I didn't want by ostensibly sought.

By the time I agreed to run 20 or so miles with Stephanie through December's dreadful 2012 CIM downpour, I'd verbally exhausted myself, broadcasting to one and all my running mindset: "Give me more easy long runs, and you can feed those races to the birds!" My attitude coincided with a break from track and speed workouts as well, which helped me enjoy the life of, again, a runner rather than a racer. I hobbled into Christmas, trying podiatrist prescribed creams, new-fangled versions of Icy/Hot, and even taking a five-day running hiatus.

But my mind wasn't right.

By the racing team reassembled on the track, I had solidified my resistance to socializing and role playing. I built a cave for myself, and took a "go it alone" mentality to my still-forming Boston buildup.  I managed to dabble, eventually, in some much needed group workouts (those mile repeats are hard to get through without someone sharing the pace load), but for the most part, I isolated myself in a fog of "well maybe"s and "we'll see"s. I made commitments to fellow runners only to break them in a desire for selfish, self-inflicted solitude. And this went on for weeks.

Then, something happened. Somewhere, lost in the grappling and the moment by moment uncertainty I'd managed to brew, the numbers and the miles and the feedback from my coach showed a readiness. On paper my running read like a detail-oriented attack plan, reflecting the capability that turns 2013's Boston Marathon into something special.

And the taper period--with its internal lecturing, its caging of the finely tuned maniac, its heavy handed submission--is here.

Will Boston be a parade? No, probably not. I don't see myself liking a 26.2 "yog," even if it is along a  renowned course with elite athletes and throngs of supporters. That much time on your feet, for someone who's done the distance much faster, can't be good for you.

Will Boston continue the marathon PR streak? Again, probably not. I've readied myself as best my body will allow, but the goal pace reflects the condition of my body and mind over the last handful of months. And with all that downhill--the meat grinding again and again that eventually gives way to slope uphill at the worst possible time. The Boston course is far less forgiving than Eugene's course through the valley, and that can't be stated enough.

Will Boston be epic? Of course. It will mark a celebration, and wrap up a frustrating and ultimately rewarding training experience. In my disarray, I changed. I added regular massage therapy, increased my at-home attentiveness of repair and recovery, and built in a regimen of personal and professional assessment. I consulted a nutritionist, read a number of published studies and a few key texts, and sought the kinds of education that have not only fueled my running progress, but broadened my approach to personal and mental health and holistic running.

And through it all, I was guided by those from whom I strayed when I sought isolation. My wife reminds me, just in her smile (or frown) that accomplishments of any kind cannot be cast aside. My coach, who writes more emails than I can fathom, somehow manages to pick the words that resonate when he replies to my updates and queries. He got me to peak at 84 miles in the week prior to tapering, a mark that trailed back to back weeks at 82, and a 78 miler before that that included a half marathon and a first-overall age group award. Given that I ran my first marathon on 30-35 miles a week just three years ago, this guy deserve a statue in my yard.

So no victory lap. And probably no personal best. Then what will the 117th Boston Marathon be?

It won't be a finish line. The finish mats--both literally and figuratively--are always deflating because they solidify the end. They get me thinking: I haven't seen some of my fairly close childhood friends after leaving the parking lot of my high school graduation ceremony; I moved away from college before most of my roommates had stopped partying. So many runners stop the watch as they finish a huge race only to think, Now what?

So I answer the Boston question with one of my own. What hasn't Boston been? This time, it's really been about enjoying the run. It's the dark mornings, the wincing slide into every cold water bath, and the utterance of every when-will-it-end? complaint I served during a period of stress or perceived exhaustion. Each and every concern I volleyed was swatted back with an encouraging smile from a loved one, or a colleague, or, more often than ever before, by me.

Boston can't be about the finish line because it's been about every single step along the way. And that's what I'll remember the most.*

*I reserve the right to amend that last statement, even slightly, sometime after April 15, 2013.

Smiles for Miles.

It is the second week of December, and I have run approximately 2,433 miles thus far this year. My mileage tally had already rebounded by the time the calendar read, "January," when many others were closing out recuperation stints in the wake of CIM. My marathon in D.C. came at the end of October and I was gearing up for April and Eugene.

I was fully engaged in training, and my first true race of the year, a 10k in Sacramento, came on Super Bowl Sunday.

Gleefully PRing, giving the camera grins at 5:55 on the way to a 36:47.

 I recall feeling glad to have so much confidence in my running. In just a year, I transformed myself into a racer, and on this particular morning, I was eager to best my previous performance on the 10k course.

Evidence from the year's waning months, however, provide a stark contrast. My final race of 2012 came in the half marathon at the Clarksburg Country Run.

Angrily PRing, giving the camera nothing at 6:03, heading to a 1:19:11.

I'd already given up on racing to the finish, but after pushing through the ugly moments around mile 9, my pace bounced back to form. I resolved to give it what I could. It wasn't an enjoyable experience, as the image shows, but I'm happy to have the evidence, because there was a lot to learn in those 13.1.

And even though I didn't "race" in the California International Marathon as a relay participant and husband/coach, I do want to offer a final race image from my 22-mile run alongside Stephanie (just out of frame), who herself PR'd with a Boston Qualifying 3:33.

Running? Raining? Both!

It's been an incredible year--not necessarily one comprised of dramatic contrasts, but certainly one including its ups and downs. I can admit that, now that December's unfolding, the miles again include smiles. The easy ones, at least.

I promise!

How to End a Summer Vacation.

My summer began the way all things begin: from the end of something else.

Ironically, it did not start on the close of the school year, the evaporation of spring, or the heretofore description of my deteriorating health as it related to running. No, my summer commenced only after I abandoned a fruitless and impulsive meandering through non-teaching careers.

Downtime, as I learned last winter, doesn't always suit me well. Time to think begets time to entertain, which spawns the kind of frivolity that leads to trouble. So, conversations had, letters submitted, and resume polished, I did what any other clueless and ambitious job seeker does, and cast a wide net.

Learning, though, is a difficult concept to pinpoint. The results of my halfhearted seeking merely revealed my own lack of exposure, lack of qualification, and lack of knowledge. In terms of exposure, my offerings reflected the world of 2006 or 2007, a drastically different landscape than we now find ourselves traversing.  Qualifications, it seems mean everything, and the bullsh*t I've been guilty of imparting to prospective high school graduates for the last three years (your resumes are a place to spin the diction of "babysitting" into "child care professional") has no practical application. Turns out, no one wants to help a teacher build a bridge from one profession to another. This absence of measurable transition ostensibly rules out anything beyond dog-eat-dog cutthroatism. And while knowledge could very well exist in extension of qualifications, in my summer jaunt it seems more associated with naivete. Just surveying companies and organizations in fields where I professed some interest illuminated how incredibly ill-equipped I am at navigating in alternative employment universes. I was like a widower looking for a date, and feel as though life had somehow passed me by.

Awareness of my temporary malaise finally culminated in the realization of my own privilege. My job allots time off, which produces within me an inclination for reflection, which affords me the opportunity to make a whole lot of something out nothing. Once I again became comfortable with the fact that my rushed attempt to seek greener pastures was in fact a byproduct of the fact that I inhabit a greener pasture, I started to enjoy the benefits of my life.

I read. I ran. I harvested vegetables from the garden. I prepared adventurous meals--failing at a few--and baked a variety of kitchen staples. I wrote, both creatively, analytically, and educationally. I explored new activities. I reintegrated the bicycle, spent time in a pool, and allowed myself to let go of many a neuroses I'd built up over long periods of time.

I returned to coaching, which reminded me how much I enjoy being around (though not necessarily grading, raising, or befriending) teenagers. I planned for the school year, smiling at ideas and leisurely paces and opportunities to work both alone and in collaboration.

And yesterday, I spent my final day of summer vacation on my own terms. I took ownership of a situation and reveled in the idea that I had shown my own good fortune its proper respect. I arose early for fourteen miles around Folsom's Lake Natoma. I enjoyed fresh fruit, piping local coffee, and a house made honey bran muffin at Karen's Bakery. I was able to visit with my mother, meander through the grocery aisles, soak in a tub, complete a crossword puzzle, and construct a raw lunch.

I reorganized a curriculum for the upcoming school year while eating frozen yogurt.

I gave a friend a ride home from the airport, prepared dinner for my wife and me, and edited a newsletter for the racing team. I read a portion of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, and drifted to sleep just after dark.

Summer was not about giving up on ambition or relenting on the pursuit of a dream. It was about realizing that I live an enviable life that is the result of many wise choices I've made through the years. It was about finding ambition and exploiting the dream.

Physics [a love poem]

Taut hands extend slowly
finding you smooth, slightly oiled, and receptive

We conform softly,
sharing shapes
spread together

I am a sensuous force
the response is beautifully, thinly, outward

My direction fades
and the dance ends quickly

You are overpowering me.

We disintegrate in the heat
no longer a contrast

In no time, I succumb to frustration
my patience mixed in granules coating my fingers
now dry and crumbly, raw and yet burnt

I howl in my furious belligerence: Again!
My wife chides me for this:
I try pasta or pastry or pie
and am perpetually bested

Olympic Spirit

They only come 'round every four years, but at the first hint of their arrival you start to catch familiar scents. It's the aroma of grit, the wafting fumes of narrative, and the pungent blast of underdog. The games are as much individual tenacity as they are sport, equal parts regimen and recklessness. The heat of the summer and the sizzle of the global spirit are infectious. In response, the garden is flexing its muscles.

From left to right: The green bean stalks are kicking it in down the stretch, while the cucumbers are giving a steady performance; the tomatoes are just warming up, and the red lettuce has concluded its run in prolific style.

We'll keep you posted as the events unfold.