Bad Move With A Tool Box

I haven’t run more than five miles altogether since the NewJersey Marathon back in early May. The plan was to take three weeks off after the NJM, but a freak injury bollixed that. Here’s what happened:

Memorial Day weekend. We were up in Basking Ridge, NJ to help the in-laws move to South Carolina. Kim’s father, Sandy, has more tools than Home Depot. We were moving his double-stacked tool boxes onto our horse trailer. They weigh about three hundred pounds each and there were five or six of them.

The strategy was to take out the drawers, move the cabinet box onto the trailer then reload the drawers. It was a good strategy. We had two in place and I was working on the third. All the drawers were back in, and I needed to push the unit up against the wall of the trailer. The cabinet was stuck because one of the swivel wheels was in the wrong position.

So I got down on my right knee, stretched out with my left arm to twist the far wheel while at the same time lifting and pushing against the cabinet. Bad idea. Something popped in my lower back and I went over sideways like a plugged gopher.

I did not scream like a girl. I did lay there on the floor of the trailer for a second or three thinking, “Wow, that was really bad.” Not wanting to make a scene, I quietly hauled myself upright using some hooks on the trailer wall, stumbled down the ramp and off into the grass where I laid down flat on my back.

I laid there for a few minutes planning my next move when Sondra (Kim’s step-mother) came over to see why I was laying in the grass when I should be loading the trailer. I said I hurt my back and could I have some ice? She got it for me. I iced my back for a while, ate a bunch of Advil and got back to work. Carefully. Gingerly. Stiffly.

That was Monday. I got through the next few days with ice and Advil. The back seemed to be getting better but then the damndest thing happened. On Thursday, I sat in my desk chair pretty much all day. Then I went outside to watch Kim teach and I sat in one of those crummy plastic injection molded resin chairs for about a half an hour and that killed it.

By Thursday night, I was reduced to crawling around on hands and knees. I am not kidding, I couldn't stand at all. I told Kim don’t give me any more crap about giving birth there’s no way it’s more painful than this. I am not a whiner. Ask Kim, she’ll tell you. My back felt like Mark Texiera and A-Rod were taking turns wailing away at it with Louisville Sluggers. When they got tired, God put me in a gigantic vise and cranked it down hard.

I self-medicated with some pain pills from an old prescription that never got used and slept through the night. I've always avoided chiropractors because my father had a stroke after a neck adjustment and that seemed like a bad omen to me. Friday morning I called the Chiropractor up the road. They couldn’t see me until Monday. I try to think back on that weekend, but it’s just a blur of pain and drugs.

Make a long story short, I have a bulging disk in my lower back. The one between L4 and L5, they say. I started out going for adjustments three times a week. Now it’s down to once. Eric (the chiropractor) insists he can fix me and I’ll be able to run again, but it’s going to take a while.

It’s been over three months so far. I'm at about 90%, but when I try to run I get these weird electric sensations shooting from my lower back into my hips.  He says that’s the disk bulging and scraping on the nerve and we still haven’t got all the inflammation out. I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I'm following the rehab program like a new Pentecostal convert.

So that’s the story. I haven't been blogging because I was waiting to give you guys some good news... I don't have any, though. I'm not going to run the Marine Corps Marathon this year, but I did pay a $46 fee to roll my entry over to 2013.

Though I won't be running in the Richmond Marathon series of races either, I will help the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation raise money with TEAM TRF to feed their horses through the winter. You can help us with that, too. Email me or check back here for more details.

My next marathon goal will be either Charleston in January or Myrtle Beach in February. I’m leaning towards Myrtle Beach. Kim’s dad lives nearby and our old horse vet, Heather and her husband David have a running store down there called the Black Dog Running Company.

Kim and I still support the Semper Fi Fund for Injured Marines through a monthly donation, and we encourage you to join us. These people serve the Marines who served our Country and have been gravely injured. They deserve all the help we can give them so open up your wallet and don’t be cheap.  

NJ Marathon and Hot Dogs

I ran the New Jersey Marathon last week and discovered the world's best hot dogs.

When I learned that a 3:45 marathon before May 10th was critical for the best chance of getting into the JFK 50 Mile ultra, I zeroed in on the May 6^th New Jersey Marathon at The Shore. An original Jersey guy at heart, I’ll jump at any excuse to get back to the old stompin’ grounds.

If you’re not from Jersey or haven’t spent a lot of time there, you might have a hard time understanding the lure of The Shore. Everywhere else in the world, people go to the beach. In Jersey, you go “down the shore.” That Jersey Shore show on MTV is a twisted caricature, but if you look past the buffoonery, you can see glimpses of the real thing.

We all have our regular towns down the shore. Kim’s family is from Belmar and Manasquan, so that’s where she went to hang out. My friend’s families had houses in Lavallette, so we went there and to the neighboring town of Seaside Heights for the nightlife. Long Beach Island (LBI) is a bit snootier, and my father rented us a house in Beach Haven a few times. I’d sneak out and hitchhike back up to Seaside though ‘cause that’s where the action was.

A different Bruce at The Stone Pony

As we got older and more into the club scene, we’d go to The Stone Pony in Asbury Park. That was such a wreck of a town back in the 80’s that after the bar closed, we’d gravitate back to Lavallette and crash at Rocque’s or Vinnie’s. If there was no one home and the doors were locked, we’d just sleep in the car in the driveway. Plenty of people too drunk to drive slept under that Asbury Park boardwalk.

All those fine visceral memories and perfect timing pointed at that NJ Marathon. The race started at Monmouth Park Racetrack, and coupling two of my favorite things, running and horse racing, added to the good vibe. I had ups and downs in my training. An ankle injury compressed the training schedule. Hydration issues and bad planning resulted in some poor long run performances.

As mid-April loomed, I talked with an expert I stumbled upon at a running shop in DC. She recommended using a rolling pin as a massage aid and introduced me to Hammer Gel and Perpetuem Solids for fueling the body. I bought a bunch of the stuff and liked the results.  

I had never run with tunes before this year, so I got rid of the earbuds in hopes of finding my body’s own rhythms as an easier route into The Zone and it worked. Everything seemed to be coming together and I did my last long run of 21 miles at a 9 minute pace. I finished strong with a decent kick. I felt ready.

I'll Have Another Wins The Derby

The Marathon Expo at Monmouth Park fell on Kentucky Derby day. We picked up my race packet and a few odds and ends at the expo. Then we wandered over to the simulcast area to meet some friends.  The Derby had a surprise finish, when Bodemeister, who led almost from the start was beat in the final furlong by 15:1 I’ll Have Another.

Seven of us went out for a steak dinner at Brennan’s in Neptune after the Derby. I’m not a fan of carbo-loading or overeating, so we both took half our steaks back to the hotel. Mine was a strip, Kim’s a ribeye. Kim lost her sunglass clips somewhere that evening and we looked and looked but never found them.

Race day weather was perfect. Temp in the 50’s and no sun. Some might call that gloomy; I call it cozy. There were only a few thousand runners, so the starting area was intimate. Kim got to hang right alongside the gate so I was able to keep my jacket on ‘til the last second.

The race organizers provided pacers. These people are invaluable for those of us trying to hit a time goal. Pacers are runners who are designated to run at a specific pace. They are equipped with GPS watches, so they always know their projected finishing time and can adjust their running speed accordingly. 

I scoped out the guy with the 3:45 shirt and decided he would become my new best friend. He had dark red hair and about a million freckles. By mile fifteen I had memorized all the freckles on the back of his neck -- even named a few.

For a while it was easy, but my own timing showed we were running an 8 minute pace rather than 8:35. I figured it was a part of the pacer’s race strategy to start out a little quicker in anticipation of slowing down in the later miles. No one I know actually runs negative splits in a marathon, though I’m sure it’s done.

The first ten miles we ran a weird loopy course through the towns of Oceanport, Monmouth Beach and into North Long Branch. I was in good shape. The course was pretty much dead flat and the only hill was a little bridge over an inlet.

I started looking for Kim and her mother as I hit mile eleven and found them cheering me on as I neared mile twelve. Before we got to thirteen, we were running parallel to the beach. The houses along this part of the shore are enormous. Palatial. Stunning.

The road was wide and smooth and as we approached mile fifteen, we saw the lead dog in this race coming back up the other side at his mile twenty-three. He was all alone, and I mean ALL alone. The number two was at least a minute and a half behind him.

Around mile sixteen, I saw Marine Captain Mosi Smith, the guy who hooked me up with the Semper Fi Fund. He was moving fast and heading back up towards the finish. His final time was 3:02. He’s only 29 years old, but a beast of a runner and a fine citizen.

This is about the time I started running into trouble. I had been playing like a shadow to my pacer. We had a group of about twenty runners all huddled together, but after the sixteen mile mark, I started to slip a little bit off the back of the pack. Not far, maybe ten or fifteen yards. I knew that I could sprint a few feet and catch back up, but I was beginning to tire.  

Something happened around mile seventeen. We passed the mile marker and turned right to head for the bridge over Deal Lake. I did not feel like I slowed, but suddenly I had lost contact with my group. They were about fifty yards ahead of me as they crossed the bridge and seemed to be flying. It was time for me to eat another energy gel, and as I fished it out of my pouch (still running along), they passed the eighteen mile marker, turned right onto the Asbury Park boardwalk and I lost them.

I became slightly dismayed here, but only slightly. I always hit my “wall” at about mile seventeen or eighteen, so I figured if I kept struggling along I would get through it. I wondered if running on the boardwalk would be easier than the road. It wasn’t. In fact, it sucked. The boards there were all lumpy and uneven.  One section of planks ran parallel to the beach, and the footing there was more consistent.

We ran right through this building

I pushed to pick up my pace, and must have been successful because I never saw my pacer again. There was a little loop at the turn around in Ocean Grove, and he must have been just enough ahead of me that we never passed each other. At mile twenty we actually ran through a building on the Asbury Park boardwalk. It was kind of cool and that picked up my spirits a bit.

We came off the boardwalk about a half mile later. This was mentally my lowest point. I was confronting the fact that I would not make 3:45 and felt my chances of getting into the JFK were screwed. As the boardwalk ramped back down to the street, I stumbled on an uneven plank and almost fell on my face. The quit devil started whispering in my ear.

Miles twenty-one through twenty-three were purgatory. My left sock had bunched up under my foot. I did not want to stop because at that level of fatigue, re-starting might be an insurmountable obstacle. I wiggled my foot around in my shoe as I ran in an effort to get the bunched up part out from under a bone. It worked and that small success was good.

My cardio was fine. It always is, but the hamstrings and calves were cranking down really tight. It was painful. The quit devil kept whispering to me in this place, but he never got any real influence because of my shirt. I was wearing my Team Semper-Fi Fund shirt and there was no way in hell I was going to disgrace that shirt by quitting.

As I passed the marker for mile twenty-three, I noticed the elapsed time on the clock was 3:32 and it dawned on me that I was still within striking distance of a sub-four hour finishing time. My last marathon time, NYC 2004, was 4:01 and I promised myself then that I would run another marathon someday because it was a shame to end on such a disappointing time. This was my chance for redemption.

With a new achievable goal, I relaxed and moved along a bit more comfortably but I did get passed by a guy running barefoot. They were some ugly feet that guy had. He had a pair of minimalist sandals tied to his waist.

Halfway through mile twenty-four we turned off the road and up onto the Long Branch boardwalk. That’s where one of the toenails on my right foot let go. It had been black for a few weeks. I felt it pop and there was this short burst of pain. I said to myself, “Damn, I was afraid that was going to happen.” It hurt for a minute, but no one ever died from losing a toenail, so you just ignore it and it goes away. The pain, that is. The nail stays in the sock.

I was very happy to see the flags that marked the finish, and happier yet to see the clock that said 3:58. I knew the official clock was two minutes faster than my actual time, and I was elated to see that the finishing time was easily under four hours. I had very little kick, though.

New Jersey National Guardsmen handed out bottles of water after we crossed the finsh, and a nice lady hung a medal around my neck. Kimberly was waiting for me along the fence on the left and my first words to her were, “I beat four hours, Honey. If I never run another one of these f-ing things, it will be ok.”

The grass along the Long Branch Boardwalk

Kim’s mother Lynn and her friend Bill were also there and we walked to a grassy area near a bandshell. As I stepped up onto the grass, both calf muscles cramped in unison and with such ferocity that I was involuntarily forced right up onto tip-toe.  Gasping weird guttural grunts, I bent to massage them but instead fell over sideways.

Lynn ran over and grabbed the right one while I worked the left. Then the golf ball sized muscles on the front of my hips joined the party. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or just yell. Thrashing around going, “Oh! Oh! Oh!,” I got myself back on my feet and commenced to walking in circles ‘til everything quieted back down. That’s when I saw the sign for the Hot Dogs. "Hot Dogs $5," it said.

When the cramping stopped I laid down in the grass. I miss laying in the grass. Here in Virginia, you can’t lay in the grass because there’s these really nasty little bugs called chiggers that creep under the waistband of your underwear and then burrow into your flesh where they hang out and drive you crazy with itching until you smother them with nail polish.

So I was laying in the grass and Kim asked if I wanted something to eat and I said I would like a hot dog but five bucks seemed like an awful lot for a hot dog. Kim said you just ran twenty-six miles if you want a five dollar hot dog you can have a five dollar hot dog. So I said ok.

She came back in a few of minutes with a gigantic hot dog. It stuck out a couple of inches from either end of the bun. It had sauerkraut, chopped onions and brown mustard on it. The skin popped as I bit it. Juice ran down my chin and the flavor was indescribable. Perfect. So good in fact that I had a second.

They’re called WindMill Hot Dogs and can only be found in a few locations at the Jersey Shore and one place in Westfield. There’s also a horse farm just west of Richmond, VA where about five pounds of them are currently stored. But those will be gone before too long.

You can buy them online for something ridiculous like $4 each for a package of twenty-four. We paid a fraction of that in the store in Ocean Grove. Oh well, I guess we need to go back down the shore to get another package of dogs. Can I get you some bagels while we’re at it?

Message from Semper Fi Fund

Corey Petersen, the Community Outreach Coordinator for The Semper Fi Fund asked me to share this message with my supporters so you can all know the real good that your contributions have made.

“A young Marine Corporal is in the burn unit ICU. He was injured in January in Kajaki Dist, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, from an IED attack while conducting a dismounted security patrol. He has burns over 70% of his body, he’s a double amputee, and has trauma to head and upper torso.  He is still in critical condition.

Please keep this Corporal and his family in your prayers. Mom and Dad have not left his bedside. The Dad sleeps in the ICU waiting room each night because he will not leave the hospital. He is covered with our SFF blanket.

Our Case Manager has also covered them with her love and strength. She has become close to the family and has provided much more than our financial support. Mom is an accountant and lost her job due to time at the bedside, Dad is also without pay right now. Because of our precious donors (YOU) we are able to be there for them.”

I want all of America to know about these brave guys and the invaluable work that Semper Fi Fund does to help them and their families. That’s why I’ve dedicated my racing this year to raising awareness and money for Semper Fi Fund.

I’m going out for a twelve mile training run right now. Won’t you surprise me with a new donation when I get back? You're the greatest. Here’s a link to my contribution page…

It Ain't All That Bad

That last post was kind of sour, wasn’t it? I think I was overtraining, so I dialed it back a little bit. I got too serious when I discovered it was going to take a 3:45 in the NJ Marathon to get the best chance at an entry for the JFK 50 Mile. 

I haven’t covered more than twelve miles at a pop since that twenty mile debacle a couple of weeks ago. But I have enjoyed some really fine running.

Photo by Lance Reed

When I go out the front door at 5:30 on an overcast morning it’s very dark. But when the sky’s clear, it’s all I can do to keep my eyes on the road. There hasn’t been any moon that time of the morning for the last couple of weeks. Just stars. Zillions and zillions of stars.

I run down the middle of the road following its gray outline. There’s almost no traffic on most of the roads around here before 6 AM. I’m not using any tunes lately, so I get to hear little creatures skittering round in the dry leaves and underbrush.

The first mile or so of the twelve mile route is pretty open. After that there’s a lot of heavily treed subdivisions and golf courses, so it can be hard to see the sky. Around mile five it opens up again into farms and the stars come back.

The road is mainly rolling hills, but I haven’t been pushing too hard lately so they’re easy. The toughest part of the whole route is the mile or so along the river between Hermitage Road and Miller’s Lane. The hills are bigger and there’s traffic here. It rips along fast. The drivers don’t seem to see my reflective vest, so I run on the grassy shoulder. It’s smooth and wide but the grass is deep and the work harder. I pray there’s no chuck holes and my luck holds.

We know some predators are around here, but not the kind that bother running fools. I pass a farm where two miniature donkeys were killed a few weeks ago. Coyotes they think. I neither see them nor hear them. Probably they sit patiently in the brush and watch as I bop along making what to them is a god-awful racket.  

The first quarter mile on Miller’s from the river is a tough hill climb in dark shady woods. I used to walk the steepest part, but now I run it. Not fast, but steady.

Photo by TheRealThalion

At the top of the hill thick woods dwindle to a thin stuttery tree line. Fields and pastures of big horse estates sprawl out from the road. I spook a few horses already on night turn-out. Off in the eastern sky a hint of dawn starts killing off stars.

Light comes on fast and before another two miles go by I top the last little rise before the road drops a hundred sudden feet to the bridge on Dover Creek. A thick white roll of viscous fog fills the bottom half of the little valley. I can see over it, but not through it.

My friend John used to say, “Gravity’s free. And it works.” I embrace it and sprint the hill, pushing control to the ragged edge. An errant step and a trip will end in a bloody mess. The temperature drops ten degrees as fog droplets wet my face and I’m almost home. 

Don't forget the Semper-Fi Fund. These guys deserve our support.

The Good and the Ugly

The Redbuds and Dogwoods are bursting with color here in Richmond, but there weren’t any in the woods of Prince William Forest Park on Saturday. The only foliage we saw were the dead remnants of last year’s beech leaves clinging desperately to dry branches until this spring's new growth finally drives them off. 

I ran with a bunch of Marines on Saturday. The Irish Sprint 10K is organized by the US Marine Corps and finishing gets you a guaranteed entry into October’s Marine Corps Marathon. Judging from quantity of high and tight coifs, plenty of Marines participated too.

The course was about 50-50 roads and trails. The first half was heavily rolling terrain with a fundamental uphill trend. The second half was mainly flat and downhill, but the diabolical race director set the final 300 meters on a steady incline. On that last stretch, I passed one guy chugging along rhythmically muttering, “Dig deep, dig deep, dig deep.” And he did.  

I think all the top finishers were active or retired Marines. Even the first place masters winner was a 45 year old retired Lt. Colonel who finished in 38:56 which works out to less than six and a half minutes per mile.  The first masters woman was a retired marine also and member of the Marine Corps Marathon Hall of Fame. These are serious people.

Yes, the morning beer was green

Third place overall went to a high school freshman at 38:24. Yikes. I haven’t timed any of my training runs yet, so I had no idea what to expect. I finished in 50:55 and that works out to about 8:13 per mile. Given the tough course, I’m plenty happy with that.

My number one fan, inimitable support crew and all around favorite person, Kimberly Anderson, was waiting for me at the finish and got this shot of me enjoying a green beer with St. Patrick and a fine bagpiper.

The organizers arranged for music at three places along the course. But I have to tell you, the music at the start line was like none I had ever heard before. The DJ played some violent metal-head, warrior-like Marine Corps songs with eerie  rumbling beats and lyrics that would curl your hair – lines about marching on into the fire…. Then he mixed in some IRA drinking songs with lyrics about avenging the deaths of your Irish brothers and stuff like that. Chilling, but fun.

So Saturday was a good day. Finished a tough 10K number 9 of 111 in my age group and in the top 12% of nearly 1,700 finishers overall. Sunday was not so good. Sunday I made a big training blunder. Here’s what happened.

I scheduled a 20 mile run for Sunday. We usually like to do long runs point to point. Kim typically meets me at the halfway split with food and fluids, then she picks me up at the finish and we go have lunch. This week she had a handful of students collecting ribbons at a horse show so I was on my own.

I planned poorly. I laid out a loop course, but didn’t stage any food or fluids. I figured I could stop at a convenience store along the way if I needed to reload. I also planned to run my marathon pace as far as possible – I need to beat nine minute miles in order to easily qualify for JFK 50 Miler. The temperature was a lot hotter than I thought.

The first ten miles I was right on. Even with a stop at mile six to try to fix my broken glasses and mess with my tunes. I stuck to sidewalks on the big rolling hills along Broad Street and Lauderdale Road. A quarter mile up and a quarter mile down (I’m guessing). I started bonking during the eleventh mile as Lauderdale goes up and then down into Patterson. I was running out of fluids and had no food. But I made eleven miles in 99 minutes – right on schedule.

There’s a Dairy Queen at the corner, and I bought a coke. Drank half of it and dumped the other half into my CamelBak. That was a big help. For about fifteen minutes. Never entered my mind to get something to eat. What a dope.

This pic was taken at roughly mile fifteen

Patterson has big long rolling hills, just like the ones on Broad Street in the first half of the course. It's like running along an interstate that has an intermittent shoulder. There was no shade and the temp was getting up towards 80. I hate heat. I am very much a cold weather guy. By mile fifteen I was out of fluids again and there were no more convenience stores or fast food joints.

My legs had long since ceased to act like legs and had become more like jointed lead logs that I had to keep throwing forward from the hip. When I finally got to Manakin Road and knew that I was only four miles from home, I got an unexpected attitude adjustment and kicked up the tempo, but it only lasted 150 yards. Before I got to Hermitage Road, I was so dehydrated my hamstrings and glutes had seized up and I knew it was all over except the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I got back home under my own power so it didn’t qualify as a DNF. But I walked the last three miles. Ignominious? Yep. But I learned a good lesson. The eighteen miler I did the week before went so well that I didn’t treat the twenty with the respect it deserved.

I’m going to do twenty-one this weekend, but I have some energy gels and food bars to take along. I’ll also have a better plan and execution. Thanks for reading. Don’t forget our wounded warriors and the Semper-Fi Fund. Small donations all add up. $10 or $20 is fine and a big help. Click on the link and help me get to $10,000 by November.

Time to Shift Gears

I had to shift this training program into a higher gear last week. Learned the JFK 50 Mile Ultra has entry qualifications. I was not aware of this until they posted registration on their website. I can do it, but it’s going to be tough. The cleanest way is to run a sub 3:45 marathon before the first tier registration period ends on May 10^th. The cheesiest is to get a charity entry. There are options in between.

I hurled off this bridge in the '04 NYC Marathon

The training has been progressing well, but I haven’t been focused at all on speed -- just getting in the miles. My personal record for 26.2 is 3:42, but that happened in 2002. Yikes, ten years ago. Last time I ran that distance was 2004 and my time was 4:01 – but I got sick and hurled off the Willis Avenue Bridge going into The Bronx and that slowed me down.

All along, I've been pointed towards the New Jersey Marathon in Long Branch on May 6^th, which means the schedule needn’t change. I’ll just have to run at close to a personal record time. I'm pretty confident I can do this, but it ain't going to be easy. My charity, The Semper Fi Fund is not one of the “official” charities of the JFK, so in order to get a charity entry, I’ll have to do some weaseling around, and that doesn't thrill me.

Saturday I ran 18 miles and Kim and I had another Village Café lunch. The big accomplishment was hitting a wall at about mile 16 and defeating it. The course ended a few blocks past the hill on Monument Avenue in front of Bon Secours Hospital. I hit the wall before the hospital, and busted through it as I came up on the hill. The last mile was like a dance. Duane Allman’s guitar on Soul Serenade was the soundtrack.  

Today I flipped the training schedule from afternoon/evening to morning. I went out the front door somewhere between 5:15 and 5:30. It was still dark. Saw zero cars on Manakin Road until the subdivisions starting disgorging the first leavers just before 6.

Running before dawn is like running in the night, and you know how I like running in the night. But running before dawn is safer because there’s fewer cars. When you run before dawn, you feel like you really own the road. You can run right down the middle. Right on that yellow line. It feels odd running in the center of the road in the daylight. Even if there’s no traffic. But in the dark it feels close and intimate. Perfectly natural.

Switched the diet as well as the schedule. I’ve been reading that fat burns more efficiently than carbohydrates. Supposedly, if you can train the body to burn more fat it can lead to higher endurance because the body has a far larger supply of fat than could possibly be burned in a 50 mile run. So we’re trying to reduce the carbo intake and increase proteins and fats. We’re a house full of carb junkies here, so it’s not the easiest thing in the world, but lots of beans, eggs, dairy and chicken lead the way.

I also discovered a supplement called Vespa – which means wasp, not motor scooter. This is supposedly a synthesized amino acid substance derived from the Asian Mandarin Wasp which has the highest endurance of any living thing on earth. I don’t know if it really works, but I seem to perform better and recover faster and easier from long runs when I’ve taken it than when I haven’t. I’ll report back after I’ve used it longer.

Saturday is the Irish Sprint 10K in Quantico. It’s about half and half roads and trails. Finishing will get me a guaranteed entry to the Marine Corps Marathon in October. Since I haven’t timed any of my training, I have no idea what finishing time to expect. Stay tuned for results. Sunday. I’m going to go twenty miles from home down to Shockoe Bottom – the old historic district in Richmond.

While I’m doing all this running, your job is to make a donation to the Semper-Fi Fund for Injured Marines. These injured heroes deserve your support. You can make a small donation, a large donation or a regular donation – seriously, you can set it up to hit your debit card for ten bucks (or more) each month. You won’t even notice it. Thanks a lot. See you next week.

Running for a Sailor Sandwich

I was supposed to run the Richmond downtown trails system Saturday with the Richmond Road Runners Club. It rained like hell Friday and the forecast called for it to keep coming down through Saturday morning, but the guy who organizes these monthly trail runs said it was going off rain or shine. Feeling macho, I told him I would be there.

I only ran those trails once -- the James River Scramble a few years ago, and there were so many others running that I didn’t have to know where I was going. People say the trails can get confusing, so it’s best to have someone show you around if you want to make a habit of it. I wanted to learn my way around, yet the more I thought about running on wet rocks and mud the less appealing it seemed. That damaged ankle is still only about 85% and I can’t afford another two week layoff.

I chickened out at about 3AM. They have one of these trail runs every month, and maybe April will be dryer. Certainly the ankle will be stronger. I felt like a wuss for bailing on the trail run, so I decided a nice sixteen mile road run would be sufficiently grueling but less likely to screw up the ankle again.

Last week I ran fifteen miles west to Goochland Courthouse and got some killer Pizza at Rocco’s. I decided to go east this time -- down into Richmond. Kim offered to drive out after an hour with some refreshments and fluids. I said, “After you pick me up at the end, we can go find lunch.”

She said, “We can go to the Village Café and get some onion rings.”

I’m sensing a theme here.

The route isn’t difficult to follow. Walk out the front door, cross the field, run south on Manakin Road. At the end of Manakin Road, turn left onto Route 6. Run twelve more miles and stop. I laid it out on MapMyRun.com and the overall elevation trend is flat and downhill for the first nine miles to Lauderdale Rd and then a steady uphill for three solid miles to Parham Road. After that it’s basically flat to the end.

If you’ve actually driven it or run it, you know it ain’t that easy. I don’t care what MapMyRun says the “trend” is, that road has lots of rolling hills all along the way. They’re right about the three solid miles of uphill from Lauderdale to Parham, though.

What a difference a week makes. The hills on that route did not seem as tough as the ones heading west. I took a four minute break when Kim came by with water and a banana. I even walked a couple of times on those long excruciating hills, but I felt pretty darn good at the end. Last week I could hardly stand at the end, this time I stretched a little and walked up and down the sidewalk waiting for my bride.

Village Café is a five minute drive from where the run finished. It’s on Grace Street a block off Broad in the VCU neighborhood. I changed in the truck while Kim drove. The streets are narrow and there’s always a lot of activity on that corner, but we found a parking spot on the street right in front of the place.

I’ve said before that barbecue is an art form here in the south. Well, they really know how to fry stuff, too. Village Café is superior at deep frying stuff. If you have a cholesterol issue, you don’t want to go within ten feet of the place, it’ll probably clog up your arteries just walking past the door. Every now and then, though, you’ve got to go for the grease.

That's the booth, don't know the girl

The woodwork on the booths in this joint is all authentic arts and craft style hand carved and inlaid designs. The place has a really funky vibe. On the weekend it’s mostly students. Weekdays you can add a good ration of business types and there’s always a sprinkling of street people. The tables were all filled when we got there, so we found two spots at the bar.

They have about a dozen tap beers and plenty of bottles. I’m an IPA fan and Kim had a Bock. I didn’t even need to look at the menu. Hell, I just ran sixteen miles, I’m having a sailor sandwich and onion rings. Kim got a sausage sandwich and some of my onion rings.

The onion rings have beer in the batter. They’re almost the size of a saucer and one person can’t eat a whole order. Except maybe as a main course. Guy Fieri from Food Network’s Diners, Drive Ins and Dives was there a few years ago and filmed them making the onion rings. But he said the best thing on the menu was the Stromboli. He’s a dope; it’s the Sailor Sandwich. 

Sailor Sandwich  (Not usually open-faced)

You know what a Sailor Sandwich is? A Richmond original invented during WWII, it’s corned beef, knockwurst cut lengthwise and melted Swiss on greasy grilled rye bread. I can’t believe I ate that whole thing. Kim only ate half her sausage sandwich. I had three beers and Kim drove home.

It’s two weeks ‘til the Irish Sprint 10K at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virgina and I’d like to go there as one of the top fundraisers so far this year. Won’t you take a minute and make a small donation to the Semper Fi Fund for Injured Marines? It’s secure and easy do – just click on this link. $10, $20 – whatever you can spare for this important organization. Thanks.  
  
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As a Rule, Central Virginia Doesn't Get Pizza

As a rule, Central Virginia doesn’t get pizza. That isn’t a value judgment or a mean criticism – just an observation. Pizza isn’t indigenous to Virginia, barbecue is. Pizza is indigenous to New York and by extension, New Jersey. Chicago thinks pizza’s indigenous there, too, but it’s not. That stuff in the pan may be good to eat, but it ain’t pizza.

They have a “pizza” place here in downtown Richmond that everyone raves about. I won’t name it because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. People use superlatives when they talk about it. They say it’s The Best. Let me tell you, from someone who knows pizza: It sucks.

Doughy, chronically undercooked, overpriced and soggy. They heap too much cheese and too many veggies on it. Then they don’t cook it hot enough or long enough, so all the wet percolates down into the crust. Blech. I can get a 99 cent slice from a window on the corner of 9^th Ave and 41^st Street by the Lincoln Tunnel that puts that stuff to shame.

So why does everyone around here think it’s great pizza? Simple. For the most part, it’s all they know. If you're brought up on Dominos and Papa Johns, I guess it seems ok. It’s like you think that barbecue joint in Manville, NJ is great barbecue, but people around here would probably find it repulsive and inedible.  Barbecue's an art form in Virginia, and that's a story for another day.

Anyway, to all my moaning and griping about no decent pizza, my neighbor, Adair, tells me there’s not one, but two good pizza joints in Goochland Courthouse. Now, you have to picture this town. It’s the county seat of a quaint little rural Virginia county where there are seven horses for each human. They do have a Ford dealership, a supermarket and a feed store. Their claim to fame is Cy Young winner Jason Verlander. Hard to believe they would have good pizza there.

When I started planning my ultra-marathon training, I wanted to get in some point to point runs. You can only run in so many circles before you start to crave something more interesting. Since Adair told me about those pizza joints, I figured Farm to Goochland would make a good long run with a pizza reward at the end. I laid it out on MapMyRun.com and turns out it’s exactly fifteen miles. Perfect.

The first five miles were along Miller’s Lane which you know is one of my favorite running roads. But once I hit River Road, it was virgin foot territory. Oh, I have driven it plenty of times, but seeing the terrain from behind the wheel of a Teutonic tarmac hound and from the shoe-leather express are two very different perspectives. There are a lot more hills along that stretch of road than I remembered. I admit I walked on some of them.

Kim met me around mile seven to reload the fluids. I had come around a bend and looked up at a sudden and steep hill that was preceded by a narrowing of the road with guardrails on either side. I looked back to see if I was going to get squeezed by traffic and there she was in the dually. A perfect excuse to stop and rest before taking on the climb. She agreed she’d come back out in an hour and meet me in town. I don’t think she saw me walk on that hill, but I did.

By the time I reached the Route 522 intersection, my quads and glutes were twitching and my legs really did not want to work. I never got winded, not once. Cardio has always been a strength. Six weeks from now my resting heart rate will be about 48 and blood pressure 90/55. I’m sure we’re not much above that now. Anyway this was the farthest I have run since 2004, and I was not ready for it. But then again, you never are ready for the first time – you just make it happen.

I got up the hill past the bridge that cuts across the James River to Powhatan County and was excited to see the speed limit drop to 35. The end was near. There’s two parts to Goochland Courthouse. The old part and the new part. The old part comes first, and one of those pizza joints is in the old part. As I ran past, it looked deserted. I was really disappointed and worried that I shouldn’t have done this on a Sunday.

Much of running is mental, and I was in the mental stage. The stage where your body says, “I wanna quit,” and your mind has to refuse. So I really wasn’t worrying too much about pizza I was just trying to keep going. I saw a sidewalk on the other side, so I crossed the road by Wells Fargo. The County Administration Building was straight ahead. Fifteen miles was just past it on the right, and I could see my stopping point so I just kept going.

I beared (bore?) to the right at the fork in the road past the Admin building, went a few yards and quit. It really felt wonderful to stop. My legs were very weak and did not want to hold me up. I thought about sitting down, but when I looked over my left shoulder, there was Kim. Perfect timing as usual. We’re good like that. I actually had to pull myself into the truck.  

I have news for you: Adair's right. Rocco’s Pizza in Goochland is not just the best pizza I’ve had in nine years of Virginia, It’s damn good pizza for anywhere. Remember those bar pies we used to get at Bucky’s in Finderne or Chitch’s in Bound Brook? It’s like that. Thin crispy crust. About 14 inches across. Cooked in a really hot oven, so you can put a lot of cheese or veggies on it and it stays crunchy on the bottom.

We had really cold draft Buds, too. Kim had a cheese steak she said was fine. She said the real test for her is the eggplant parmesan. Maybe I’ll go out there Wednesday night and get her an eggplant parmesan and me another Hand Tossed Rocco’s Special for take out. I’ll drive this time, though.  

OK, I’m Back

After laying off with this bum ankle for 10 days, I’m back.

We had a little snow on Monday, so I tried out the cross country skis. I have a long standing rule: I don’t buy cheap sh*t. But about 20 years ago – I was still in Jersey -- we had a good snowstorm and I wanted to try cross country skis. There was no place to rent them, so I put my rule on hold and bought a cheap set-up from Kenny Hollingsworth at Pelican Ski Shop in Whitehouse. Hagan skis and Salomon boots. Some no name poles. Got the whole outfit for $119. I still have them and they still work fine. Go figure.

So I dug the skis and stuff out of the boiler room in the basement, laced ‘em up and headed down the lane and up towards the Deep Run show grounds. There was only about four inches of snow, and that was just perfect. Making a track in deep snow is a pain in the butt and I just wanted to have little fun.

Drivers on Manakin Road did plenty of rubber-necking as I glided up along the fence in front of Bantry Hill’s cow pastures. They aren’t too used to seeing cross country skiers around here. I was being cool and just ignored them. Figured let ‘em gape. I did ok, too. Got the step-glide step-glide knack back pretty quickly. And boy it sure was exciting to be back on skis (any skis) again.

I was only out there for about forty minutes. Once around the show grounds, past the schooling rings, slid through the barn areas and down to Virginia Equine and the Clubhouse. Then I kicked off the skis, jumped a fence and came back through the woods. Skiing through the woods is fun because as long as the snow is fresh, you can go right up over logs and brush piles. And I did. When I got back to the house the ankle was fine. Still felt fine Tuesday, so I ran four miles with no problem.

I went out this morning to try the seven mile loop that I wrecked my ankle on a week and a half ago. It was a bright shiny morning with temps in the forties and no breeze. One of those perfect joyful mornings that make you glad to be on the sunny side of the sod.

Here's my rocky ditch

It was a delightful seven miles. No one came near to running me off the road. Maybe the neon orange vest had something to do with it. Nice rolling terrain had me grunting a bit on the up-hills and got to stretch the legs out good on the downs and flats. Got a good close-up of the rocks I was rolling around in the other night, too.

Saw Dave Hudnell in his truck when I got to the Hermitage/Manakin intersection. He once told me he almost hit me one night when I was running on Manakin Road in the dark. In the broad daylight, he just waved and cruised by.

I’m going to jump right back into the training schedule at the point I should be if I had no lay-off. That means I’ll do fifteen miles Sunday. I have been looking forward to this run since I first set up the schedule. I laid out a few point to point routes in the program, and this will be the first. I’m going to run from the farm out west to the town of Goochland. I keep hearing about a really good pizza joint out there that I'm dying to try and Kim’s going to meet me for lunch.

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