The good news, is that I no longer exist in the same pain I did last night at this hour. Nor am I frustrated, irritable, or just plain sick of living in pain.

I actually felt today that I need not train, need not run, need not cross train, but just live without endurance sport for a brief time.
This year has been filled with too much. XC Season, 4 Chronic Injuries, 2 Marathons, a senior thesis, applications to law school, financial aid forms for law school, and finding a job. And 'Oh yea, the end of college, thus, graduating"'

So effective this morning, April 30, 2007, I am officially proclaiming my off-season. I have no goals except to regain full strength, mental and physical, and then begin to run free again. This period will last at least one week, perhaps a month, or two months. In any event, I will not live under the torment and aggression and inner frustration I have endured this year.

I will continue to blog, and my goals are as follows:

Follow a stricter diet.
Not get too lazy.
Sleep More.
Be a better friend.
Maintain my weight, while focusing on core strength.
Practice my faith more completely.
Love my family more intensely.

And in the total of all these acts, I will once gain inhabit my body.

I have long maintained that consistency is the foundation of distance. It is second only to honesty.
The two elements, when forged together, form a unique bond, which ensure success and vitality.

Honesty in the distance, the condition you felt, and your overall satiation.

Consistency, in training regularly, ideally 5-7 days per week, somewhere between 5 and 10 miles, with a weekly long run, 10 miles or greater. Witness my formula for happiness.

Supplementing this regimen with multi-sport training, i.e. cycling, swimming, x-training, all ensures greater musco-skeletal stability, but doesn't ensure the health of my soul.

This formula has not been present for more than a single month in the last two semesters. So I've been racing, running XC, ran Disney and Boston, and now trying to heal once again. A month long battle with a strained tibialis anterior, 3 weeks of physical therapy, countless ultra-sounds and electrical stimulation, and a superflous quantity of rubber band rotations, has made me question the entire art of "physical therapy"

The road is my therapist. Not a clammy environment, where half the people therein, are stagnant, sedentary, and are more worried about who's bringing the tomato sauce to Sunday's "Big Game"

That being said, today was the muddiest and most jovial trail race I have ever run. The "Mud-Muck-Moose Trail Run" in Bartlett, New Hampshire is a formidable challenge, with muck that took off both my shoes, (twice!), and snow and ice that resulted in a faceplant, and six white-water rivers to be forged, via rope support.


All of us finished the 5.19 mile coursre, with much joy and smiling and laughter. It felt good to be running. Laughing. Simply moving through space. But I sit here now with a throbbing leg, not sure what to do tomorrow, and a follow up orthopedist appointment Wednesday.

At the end of this year, I simply want one thing: To Move Through Space and Inhabit My Body Once Again.

It’s settled down in the past few hours. The ripple effects from a rest day. For several hours ago, I was not that content, but I’ve overcome that obstacle.

I’ve been granted an entry form to a race on Sunday, to which I am running. It is a 5 mile trail race, which involves much mud and rock. I still am sidelined from running, as physical therapy is failing to expedite my healing process. Consequently, I have scheduled a follow up with my orthopedist, in hopes of receiving something more remedial.

So tonight I’m just resting up. Did my physical therapy exercises as recommended, and am hydrating and icing.

I will undoubtedly take many pictures at this event. See you soon!

Today it got hard.

The days when you're out there, running or riding, alone. No one comes outside to play. Its dark, lonely, rainy, and dreary. The kind of day, when the heavens open up for only enough rain to make the ground sticky. The kid that even the youngest and most imaginative children abhor.

I just rode the best I could, putting fourth whatever I knew was in me. The legs cramped, the rain poured, and the climbs were arduous. I exceeded by goal by 15 minutes ( 90 minutes instead of 75)

By the time I got back, I was truly famished. Those rare moments, wherein you feel completely empty, ready to take a bite out of your vehicle's tire. But it makes you remember how hard you work, and how far you've come.

Endure.

Granted I missed the window for the 70.3 in August, I decided to begin to form a training template for its sister race, the Mooseman.

http://timbermantri.com/moosemanindex.html

Given that I have never attempted the International Distance before, I endeavor to finish this race strong and injury free.

Below I have listed my training plan, which I have largely adopted from the "Triathlete's Guide To..." books. Very helpful.

Anyways, here it is. (PS: Let me know what you think!)

file:///Users/alow/Desktop/Mooseman.htm

Endurance sport by its nature is a reflective endeavor. The results and lessons, do not blossom immediately after an event or workout or method is tried and executed. It takes time, effort, and most notably patience, to reap the full harvest of your efforts in this sport.

I still have not recollected nor formed my opinions on what happened Monday at Boston. It was largely one of the most enjoyable and recollected marathon in my career thus far. I stopped to take in everything I could. The fans, the smells, the hydration, all of it.

It made the race more creative to the open energies of interpretation than any other race I have done. I didn't follow an ideal nutrition plan, or hydration startegy. I also know that in various points of the race I could have picked up the pace dramtically, cruised past my fellow runners whom, I would have once considered obstacles to surpass.
On Monday I didn't do any of this. I relaxed, put up with an injured tibialis anterior, and accomplished my goal of finishing.

In the past three days, I have ridden 322 minutes, or a little less than 5.5 hours. Most of the rides have been in Zones 1 and 2a. But today I scheduled a 90 minute ride, 45 out and 45 back. The first 45 went smooth, but with about 2 minutes to the turn around point, I passed a fellow triathlete on the other side of the road. So I took my time getting to the turn around, then pulled a hairpin turn, in pursuit of my tri-buddy.

About 9 miles later, with the help of Rocket Fuel (see picture) I found him, and blew past him.
Funny thing, I'm never competetive when I run or when I swim, but on the bike, I love to attack.

Everything is aligned.

The city has a buzz in the air. It’s hard to describe, but it is everywhere. Runner’s of all distances are there, willing to share their “Boston story”. It is prestigious a road race as any in the world, and with today’s technology, it makes everyone know this.
After my at the expo Saturday, I returned back home, still inundated with my headache, so I decided to lie down, hoping in a few minutes it might weaken. I fell asleep for 2 hours.

It’s been a long time since I felt so content, so at peace, and so at rest, as when I finally woke up. I just felt like I could have stayed there forever, and that would have been alright. I felt utterly incapacitated, yet so free of life’s demands.

Right now, my world has been put into a degree of congruence, unprecedented in perfection, or ideology. It has granted upon me a state of ecstasy, stimulating emotional and physical exuberance.

Boston was run today. And I was victorious. After weeks of uncertainty, setback and fear, I ran the 111th running of the Boston Marathon. But this year it wasn’t about me…

It was about a group of friends, who ran the marathon, and who have run it in the past, who quite literally made me break down with contentment, both on and off the course. I have run with, trained with, and now run Boston with a group of people, who are beyond friends. And if there was something beyond family, they very likely could be classified as such.

Distance running, for all its set backs and struggles, when practiced collectively, forms a bond which I would argue transcends any other form of relationship. Whether it be in family, in relationships, or other familiar acquaintances. All of us have run the same course, the same day, and found a deeper part of ourselves.

What I learned from these people today, and when I recall it now, makes me want to break down with contentment. But I also know that what they learned about themselves today and in the past, will be radically transformed. None of us will forget this day, and surely we will not forget one another.

I could, for whatever its worth, blanket this post with training lessons, how I missed my recovery window, or how my nutrition was obtuse and my liver glycogen wasn’t satiated early on in the race. But that’s not what I’ll remember years from now. I’ll remember the glistening eyes, the agonizing limps, the chattering teeth and crumpled water bottles in the back of a restaurant. And how for that short, brief window of our short lives, we were one.

Today quite possibly could be the greatest day I’ve ever known.

So this is it.
The day before what is forecasted to be the worst storm to hit the New York area in 15 years.

Albeit, I am racing in Boston, and the metro-west suburbs, I intend on what my friend prognosticated to be the "hardest marathon I've ever run". He too, is a marathoner, but was reared on the fields of Cross Country.

I have no doubt that tomorrow will be challenging in ways unforseen today. It will be a firm and valiant battle, between the elements and my own physical limits. But I also know, it will be a memory which I will treasure for the rest of my years. Only the most daunting and dire circumstances, produce the most memorable results, and result in the most triumphant of victories.

The latest forecast is as follows:

"Rain in the morning...then rain likely in the afternoon. Windy with highs in the lower 40s. Southeast winds 20 to 30 mph. Gusts up to 45 mph in the morning. Chance of rain 90 percent."

I only expect challenge, agony, and endurance tomorrow. The rest is in God's hands.

See you soon.

I’m not sure if this is normal, but I want this month to be over. I have had thrust upon me, so many demands and obligations, I want to run through it all.
Problem is, on Monday I will be doing A LOT of running. I was trying to assess my confidence index going into Boston this afternoon. If 100 degrees is as much confidence as one can have going into a marathon, I register at probably around a 75. Not as much as I want, but I know my training is done. My long runs are the cornerstone of my training, and I know they were honestly completed.
I need my body to heal a bit more before now and Boston. Which is why I’m being the laziest I have been in several years. I am walking, and doing core workouts, to maintain core and leg strength. But that is it. Nothing extravagant, nothing ambitious. I am preparing to suffer. There’s no denying that. But nor can I envision the scope to which I will be affected.

As of now, I’m planning on running with a running buddy, whom I trained with throughout all my long runs. And even when my leg pain was stronger, I maintained his pace. So I hope to replicate that on Monday.

Two more physical therapy sessions before race day. Hoping everything works out well.

I also intend on wearing my custom made orthotics, in the neutral shoes I have been training in - To improve my leg stability.

Right now, the local weather forecasters are calling for a high of 39, heavy rain and snow, winds reaching 20 mph out of the east in metro-west Boston.

By the end of this month, I will have trained for and arrived at Boston, prepared to run.
Defended my senior thesis.
Attended my senior formal.
Delivered the remainder of my term papers to my respective professors.
Heard from all the law schools to which I applied to.
Make a decision on housing for next fall.
Ideally find an employer to help subsidize my legal education.

Forget September, Wake me up when April ends.

It’s getting bad.
The taper is really starting to eat at me now. I’m beginning to feel stir-crazy. Largely because I’m home for Easter recess. It has been three days, and I really can’t take being here any more. I love my family and dog, but I just sit inside.

Tomorrow is my first run in a week, as I have been in the pool aqua running for some time now. Regardless, it isn’t running. There is something within the chlorinated water, that is driving me absolutely mad. It asks me to scratch my self to death, and then rip my hair out. No matter how many showers, or how much moisturizer, it won’t go away.

I need to run so bad. To blow off steam, yes. But also just to get away. Free my mind. I would do anything to just pound out a ten miler right now. And the world would begin anew. It would dramatically re-shape the way that I would go about this taper. But that is the madness of the taper.

For if the insanity which I am entering now, is the key to my success at Boston, it is a small price to pay. Lord I hope this is the bargain I am envisioning.

Coming To Fruition

The inherent questions of sanity, that compose a marathon taper, are beginning to blossom. Today was my second consecutive day of nothing, except some leisurely walking to maintain leg strength.

For those among us, who have monitored by condition these last several weeks, you are no doubt acutely aware, of the leg pain that has besieged me. Diagnosed as “Chronic inflammation”, I have been pounding ibuprofen for what seems like eternity, and receiving a daily Ultra-sound, which is a small slice of heaven.

I have yet to succumb to what was once a myth of magic, whereby certain, unorthodox treatments create a sense of strictly temporary relief. I’m relying on old fashioned NSAIDs, ultra-sound and faith.

Having a marathon two weeks out, is inevitably a reality check. I trust the endurance training I have done, three-20 milers, a selection of mid-distance runs, but my maintenance mileage has suffered greatly. So much so, that in the last 3 weeks, maintenance mileage has peaked at approximately 15 miles per week. I know that if I’m prudential in my remaining days, I have a good shot at getting a decent time, but nothing which my training has not presupposed.

For whatever it is worth, I will continue to collect and organize my thoughts here, and for this I hope that those among you who choose to read, will enjoy.

On Friday, I saw the Orthopedist downtown, to conduct X-rays for skeletal analysis of my fibula and tibia, as well as make any general prognoses.
The X-rays came back negative: No stress fracture, or bone damage. Very happy.
The muscle is in good shape, as are the tendons. It appears that one of the muscles in my leg is chronically inflamed, and needs to be iced and hammered with ibuprofen, (3 Advil, 4 times per day), and 2 Aleeve, 30 minutes prior to a run.

Note: Aleeve doesn’t do a damn thing. This I have learned.

I have also learned to feed off other fellows, who run beside me. My 12 mile taper run was this morning, but one of my marathon buddies, which we did together. The pain persisted throughout the run, but never intolerable, just making me wholly aware of the inflammation, despite the Aleeve and this obtuse compressing sleeve.

My Easter recess is this upcoming week. My plans while being home include sleeping, hydrating, laughing with family, and temporary employment between now and next fall. I may just leave my running shoes and bike up here.

Albeit, I felt relatively out of shape for the first 2 or 3 miles this morning, despite cycling hard and elliptical work which keep me humble.

Will post in the coming days, leading to Boston.