Glass

It's crowded behind the starting line

but the people around her take some of the chill off the morning air

She stands in shorts and a jog bra,

gloves and arm warmers,

a band around her head keeping her ears warm

minutes before the start

She goes into her routine

Kneels and checks the snugness of her shoes

Makes sure the laces are securely tied

At this point she always notices how

from knee high

The runners at a marathon are like a forest of legs

So many sinewy legs

So many miles

So many stories

She checks the fit of her shorts, her top

Then pulls the insulin pump from her waistband

She sees her blood sugar number on its touch screen

And a graph indicating whether it is rising or falling

She smiles at the technology helping her today

It hasn't always been this way

Her first syringe was made of glass.

She didn't like shots, but adjusted fast

A pediatric nurse told her Mom to be proud

then, very serious, but not very loud

"She's a brave little girl, but she may not last"

Fifty-five years on
she’s about to run

yet another marathon

comfortable in the crowd at the starting line

 

 

99 Marthons and Ultras

Craig Stubing and I talked this past weekend about when my 100th lifetime marathon/ultra would be, and I was vague as usual. After that I was looking at my records in the Marathon Maniacs database and noticed I hadn't entered the Skyline to the Sea Clambake 50K, so I put it in there and added to my personal spreadsheet.

So both of these lists have 99 entries on them now. If you go by that number, the Chino Hills 50K on November 9 will be number 100.

But 5 of those 99 maybe shouldn't count.

1. Skyline to the Sea was a fun run, no entry fee, no official place or time. They even made us chant "This is not a race" at the start of the run.

2. I ran the Big Sur Marathon as part of a relay team. Both my brother Chris and I started at the starting line and continued through the whole course. It was a good run, but officially we ran the relay, not the marathon.

3. I was a DNF at the Pikes Peak Marathon in 2018. I ran the full distance, but not fast enough to be an official finisher.

4 and 5. In 2014 I ran the Majestic Marathon and the Fathers Day Marathon in Long Beach. There's no reason these two shouldn't count except for arbitrary Marathon Maniacs rules requiring 15 entrants and 10 finishers.

So I have 94 official Marathon Maniacs finishes.

You could easily say it's really 96.

If you want to be really generous and loose it's 99.
Maybe I'll have 100 be the Chino Hills 50K, or maybe I'll have it land on the Salmon Falls 50K.

Approaching 100

Please comment below and suggest events for my 100th race of marathon length or longer.
My official Marathon Maniacs count is currently 89, 76 marathons and 13 ultras.
Thank you.

I have a lot of events I should write something about, but I've been lacking inspiration.
These are the long races I've done since the last one I wrote about on this blog, Dances With Dirt, July 8, 2017:

2/3/2019     Surf City Marathon
1/12/2019    Avalon 50 Mile
12/1/2018    Death Valley Trail Marathon
10/27/2018   Lake Hodges 50K
10/7/2018    Long Beach Marathon
9/15/2018    Flagstaff Marathon
8/19/2018    Pikes Peak Marathon*
7/28/2018    Harding Hustle 50K
6/16/2018    Holcomb Valley Trail Run 33 mile
6/9/2018     Shadow of the Giants 50K
3/18/2018    LA Marathon
3/10/2018    Catalina Island Marathon
12/3/2017    California International Marathon
11/5/2017    Santa Clarita Marathon
10/7/2017    St. George Marathon
7/22/2017    Harding Hustle 50K

I had a DNF/unofficial finish at Pikes Peak, where I ran the distance but came in too late to count. That race is not counted in the 89 I mentioned above.

I have 5 more long races I am registered for this year. I expect to add more, and I expect to hit 100 sometime in 2020.

A Haiku

New post dedicated to Type One Run. A Haiku.

on the longest run,
no end in sight, remember
leave no ones behind


OK, one more.

we're incurable
we run with diabetes
not away from it


Credit to Craig Stubing for the "Leave No Ones Behind" motto and James Mansfield for teaching me to count syllables.

Dancing with Dirt at Devil's Lake

Somehow I got registered for the Dances With Dirt Devil's Lake 50K. Well, I guess I know how it happened. My youngest brother Chris, who had done the marathon at Devil's Lake twice, and who lives in Wisconsin, asked me if I'd like to come out and run it with him. We've met up to do races before, some of them described elsewhere in this blog.
Chris has done at least a dozen marathons, but no ultra marathons. He was considering the 50K, I think, and I had always said that a 50K is really in the same category as a marathon, like a ten mile race is in the same category as a half marathon.
But then, as I said in an earlier post in this blog, I ran the Relay Del Sol with a team of diabetic runners, and got inspired.
One of the things I got inspired to do was to quick sign up for the 50K at Devil's Lake and call Chris. "Hey, Chris, I registered for the 50K. You better sign up before it fills up!"

So Chris and I did the 50K last weekend. No big deal.

Even death?

 We were only concerned about finishing. We were both under-trained. Chris continually said he was doing less than I was, but that's what he always does. Then usually he runs my butt off on race day.
Thankfully, that didn't happen this time. Chris really was as out of shape as I was.
We had to beat the cutoff by reaching the 25 mile point before 1 PM, 7:30 after the 5:30 AM start. We did it with minutes to spare, then walked it in.

We went all over the country you see in the background.

Overall, a nice trek through beautiful country with good company. We ran a lot at first, but walked the steep hills from the beginning, then every hill, then after the cutoff, we just walked.

Dirt dancing legs.

My blood sugar behaved. It was a little high through the early miles, but came down to normal and never got low.

I am now inspired to harden myself up at the Harding Hustle next week.

Hello, Is this thing on?

First post on this blog in almost 5 years. I'm not sure who will notice this. The main reason I'm posting here is I'd like to write a little about an upcoming event, the St. George Marathon, and leave it here and link to it from Twitter and Facebook.

Type One Run has a few members going to the 2017 St. George Marathon, October 7, and is asking other interested runners with type 1 diabetes to register and run it with us.

If you buy a nice Type One Run running shirt, it will help us all make a good showing and represent people with diabetes. You can only get in on this order of shirts until 4/28/2017.

In the time since I last posted here, four and a half years, I ran 16 more marathons. Sadly, they were all terribly slow, mostly because I haven't trained properly.

Here are the details:

-->

6:37:19	15:10	2/7/2016	126	CA	Surf City Marathon
5:22:53	12:20	10/4/2015	154	MN	Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon
5:21:36	12:17	5/3/2015	64	CA	OC Marathon
6:29:49	12:35	2/28/2015	27	CA	Orange Curtain 50K
5:06:01	11:41	2/1/2015	85	CA	Surf City Marathon
7:46:08	17:47	11/8/2014	27	CA	Catalina Island Eco Marathon
5:26:18	12:27	10/12/2014	35	CA	Long Beach Marathon
5:49:38	13:21	9/7/2014	84	CA	Ventura Marathon
5:51:10	13:25	6/15/2014	42	CA	Fathers Day Marathon*
5:30:51	12:38	5/4/2014	44	CA	OC Marathon
9:01:21	20:39	3/23/2014	35	NM	Bataan Death March Marathon
5:27:15	12:30	2/16/2014	28	CA	Majestic Marathon*
5:37:11	12:52	1/19/2014	133	CA	Carlsbad Marathon
5:35:07	12:47	9/8/2013	224	CA	Ventura Marathon
5:55:57	13:35	1/27/2013	77	CA	Carlsbad Marathon
6:06:03	13:59	11/11/2012	294	CA	Malibu Marathon

That number between the date and the state in my spreadsheet is "days between", as in days between marathons. Since as you can see, the last marathon was February of 2016, and I'm not registered for another until July, the next "days between" number will be the highest ever. I've gone more than a year without running a marathon.

But just in time I've gotten inspired by this great group, Type One Run. I was incredibly fortunate to meet Craig Stubing, founder of Type One Run, at a JDRF Summit in Pasadena. We spoke briefly about running and the fact that Type One Run had a team in the Ragnar SoCal Relay.
Then a week later, I got an email saying that one of their runners had dropped out, and asking if I would like to join. Of course I would!

I've had this experience of being on an overnight relay with a team of diabetics four times now, and I would recommend it to anyone dealing with this disease.
My experience with Type One Run was relentlessly positive and inspiring. And it reminded me of a lot of things I've been missing in my life recently.

OK. A couple of things to explain in that list of marathons:
The Catalina Eco Marathon is just really, really tough, especially for a fat old, out of shape diabetic.

I did the Bataan Death March Marathon for my second time in 2014, but this time my youngest brother Chris did it with me, and we did it in the "Heavy" category, meaning we wore 35 pound backpacks. That is also a tough marathon, even without a pack, but not quite like Catalina Eco.

Diabetic Running Gear

Hey, reader,
I've been doing a bit of running lately, but not enough. When I get out there, I'm having fun, so I'm confident that I'll be able to build up some more mileage before meeting up with the Insulindependence crowd at the Carlsbad Marathon, which is the next event in which I'm sure I'll participate.
But today I'm just going to share a report on the diabetes gear I take with me on runs.

Glucose tablets, or some source of quick carbohydrates:

These are the store brand glucose tablets. Glucolift makes a tastier, all-natural alternative, but this is what I have right now.

 Some ID, indicating that you are diabetic:

This is my MedicAlert ID. I started with the MedicAlert Foundation in 1974, so I'm not going to change now.

A meter:

OneTouch Ultra Mini meter, lancet device, a few strips in an old Listerine Strips container, a piece of tech fiber cloth (like ShamWow) and plastic bag to hold it all.

A meter is so much smaller than so many less important things people run with, there's really no excuse for not carrying one except if you're not going far. The little piece of cloth is for those few times when it might be necessary to dry your fingers to get a test.

An infusion site:

What a fat model I had pose for these pictures, huh?

An insulin pump:

My Animas Ping.

My DexCom sensor and transmitter:

That's the back of my arm near my shoulder.

My DexCom receiver:

It's in an iPhone arm band wrapped around my forearm. I can see my blood sugar trend as easily as the time on my watch.

Then of course there are all of the ordinary runner things, a watch, maybe some Gu, some water...
It does take some organization sometimes to get out the door.

.

Chumash Trail

OK. Forget that last post. Let's talk about running.
Saturday I ran up the Chumash Trail to Rocky Peak Road and back from my house. It was pretty awesome. Here's the view back toward Simi Valley from the trail:

So I looked at this run on Google maps before. I tried to get up to Rocky Peak Road a couple of weeks ago, but I had wasted too much energy and time running around on trails which turned out not to be going in the right direction, and it was hot, and I ran out of water. So I turned around without reaching my objective. Twice. On two different days.
But on Saturday I went back up there with a Camelbak and a water bottle, and of course my meter, glucose tablets, insulin pump, Gu, all the trappings of a diabetic runner.
But I kept going, up and up and up, until I finally had to ask myself, "Is Rocky Peak a dirt road?" Of course it is. As I determined later, Rocky Peak Road is a dirt road only a little bit more substantial than the Chumash Trail, and I ran about a mile on it before I headed back for home.

The postscript today is that everyone should really check out 1run.org. Type 1 diabetic runner Dave Masiuk is running across the USA.
It's pretty clear to me that he and I have different perspectives, but he's doing something fantastic, and I'm very impressed.


.

Once a Runner

If you read this blog at all you know I haven't been running much lately. You may wonder what gives me the right to call myself "The Incurable Runner."
Well, I'll admit I'm not "The Incurable Runner." I'm just "An Incurable Runner," one of many.

Obviously there are a lot of runners out there who are more "hooked" on it than I am, more consistently putting in more miles.
But here I am, sometimes going a week without running, yet I know I'm a runner.
Every time I see a hill or a mountain, I wonder how it would be to run up. I mean every time.
I'm not saying that I would be able to run up every mountain I see, I'm just saying that's what comes to my mind.
When I see someone else out jogging or running, I think, that's what I should be doing, every time.

So I'm not worried that I might not be an incurable runner. I may get tired or lack motivation once in a while, but I know I'll put my shoes on and go for another run eventually. So I'm still incurable.

I have a theory about this. It's actually not my theory. Others with deeper knowledge of the subject will agree with me.
We don't really get hooked on running or hooked on physical activities, it just seems that way when we start getting close to the amount of exercise our bodies require.
It's sitting on our butts working at a desk or watching TV that we get hooked on.
Running dozens of miles at a time is what we evolved to do. It's not an addiction, it is our natural state.
So of course I'm an incurable runner. We all are.

.

A Shrine to Me

OK, bear with me. I'm a little embarrased about this, but not so embarrassed that I'm not publishing it to the World Wide Web.
I'm moving, so that means packing stuff up, taking stock of what I need and what I don't need, what's clutter, and what's important.
One of the things that hit me during this process is that I have a buttload of medals, trophies, t-shirts, and other assorted race junk. I know there are charities that will take your old medals and give them to someone else who deserves and will appreciate them. Well, that's fine if that's what you want to do, but it doesn't feel right for me.
Maybe I'm too much of a packrat. Anyway, the medals and trophies mean something to me. If someone else has earned a medal, I'd rather buy them one than give them one of mine.
I've given away only one medal, and that was one that had a special meaning to me. I gave it to someone for whom I think it will have a special meaning.
But that's just what makes sense to me, not something I'm trying to convince anyone else of.
What this means is that I have a bunch of race junk. Which gets us to the embarrassing part. In one of our spare bedrooms, I had built up what kind of seemed like a shrine to me when I started packing it up.
Here are 5 medals from the Silicon Valley Marathon.

Next to that I had decorated a steer skull with 5 medals from the Tucson Marathon and a bunch of leather-strapped ceramic medals from the Big Sur Marathon and Marathon Relay.

When you walk around race expos, you see companies selling various methods for displaying your medals. These are often something a little like a small set of coathooks, six to twelve hooks or pegs to hang your medals on. That works fine if you only run a few races.
I would need about a dozen of those.
I got this great idea to use a four-by-six-foot sheet of pegboard and a box of pegs like you might use in a workshop.

I'm not going to get into the other stuff here, trophies, cups, plaques, etc. The medals filled a small box, a about the size of a four-slice toaster, that I put into a large plastic tote, which I then filled with the other stuff, using race shirts to protect the fragile stuff.
Yeah, I'm going to have to think about what it says about me before I open that tote and rebuild the shrine.

.

Bad-Assedness

I wrote this a few days ago in the "Diabetics Who Run Marathons" group on TuDiabetes. It occurs to me that it might be OK for a blog post, and I'm not writing much else. So here it is.

So... I've been thinking about the headline "Stunts to Impress" in Higdon's advice on multiple marathons, and the much appreciated comments on me being "BADASS" and "amazing."
Of course I'm often looking for opportunities in the conversation here to brag about things I've done. I like to be called bad-ass. And I don't see anything wrong with that. Some of the greatest achievements of mankind have been done so someone could say the equivalent of "Look, Ma! No hands!"
A good part of people doing this is that it expands the realm of possibilities for others.
In that spirit I feel like I should point out that I know a type 1 diabetic who's run about twice as many marathons as I have, and run them faster.
I've met two diabetics who have gotten the silver buckle at the Western States 100 mile endurance run, and I'm aware of at least one other whom I haven't met. You get the silver buckle for finishing in less than 24 hours. There are probably others I'm not aware of.
There is a type 1 diabetic world class marathon and ultra marathon runner.
I could go on. I guess the point is that while I like being called "BADASS" and that's at least part of why I do some of the things I do, I'm aware that there are others more bad-ass than I am.
And 14 years ago I was a diabetic runner afraid to try a marathon. I was inspired and comforted by reading about or meeting other diabetic athletes, and not just the fantastic athletic ones, but the ordinary folks like me.
Wherever you're at with diabetes and exercise, there are people ahead of you and behind you on the bad-ass scale. Well, since everyone is different, and every life situation is different, there really isn't a scale we can all be measured against.
We are all inspiring each other.
Reading back over this, I kind of rambled. I hope I had something to say.
"Stunts to Impress" aren't necessarily a bad thing.

In other news, along with a contingent of runners from Glucomotive, I ran the Denver Rock 'N' Roll Marathon last Sunday.

Wearing the D Gear

What seems like many years ago I read about Bill King running marathons with a glucose meter strapped on his wrist. I tried a few ways to do that myself, but it seemed like more hassle than it was worth. It's really not easy to insert a strip, get a drop of blood, and touch it to the strip, all pretty much using one hand. It's more convenient to carry the meter elsewhere, like a SPIbelt, and take it out when you need it.
But at Ironman Arizona in 2009, I saw Bill Carlson with a Dexcom receiver in a plastic bag duct-taped to his forearm. That looked convenient, but painful to remove. Bill had his current blood sugar trend at the touch of a button, right there like a wrist watch.
So I've given some thought, and done some experiments, in that direction.
My first thoughts went toward sleeve-like things, cheap garments from a thrift store, cut-off tube socks or sleeves with some modification to hold the Dexcom.
I had this idea that all I really needed to do was to wrap the Dexcom in plastic wrap. Then I thought, well, just wrap it all the way around my arm. It's actually difficult to wrap my arm and the Dexcom together that way, though, and it would become a sweaty mess very quickly.
I had used stretch bandage that comes in rolls, one brand is called Co-Band, to attach some things to my bike before. It's the stuff they wrap your elbow in when you give blood. It seemed like this might work for this purpose also.
So here's something that seemed to work, the Dexcom receiver wrapped in plastic wrap with lots of plastic hanging off the ends, then the ends wrapped onto my arm using stretch bandage material.

This seems to hang on well enough while biking. I haven't tried it on a run yet. I'll probably go back to the sleeve idea, since it would save a lot of time in the swim to bike transition to have something I could just pull on, instead of wrapping my arm. I can't see fitting my wetsuit over this, even if I wanted to.

.

Things I should have posted about

As a race, the Carlsbad Marathon on January 23rd went as well as I could expect. That means awful. But it was still a great experience. It was a huge Glucomotive event, and my brother Jon was also there to enjoy the festivities and support the race.
I had close to zero training, so I figured I had to be conservative. I thought 4:30 would be a remotely possible time goal, so I aimed for 10 minute miles.
I saw Gary Schmidt and Emily Iannello at the start and ran with them for a bit. I also met Ed Ettinghausen, who is going for the world record for marathons in one year.
He isn't keeping his stats up to date, but you can get an idea of what Ed's doing by looking at his stats on the Marathon Maniacs site.
Anyway, I ran OK to about 17 miles. It was clear well before that that I wasn't going to last, but at a big steep hill along the beach, at the last turnaround, I really came apart.
I slowed way down for about a mile. Realizing I was just trudging along, I started walking. Several times I tried to start running again, and it just seemed too hard. Then at about 20 miles, right before the marathon course hooked back up with the half course, I started running again and felt fine. At least fine enough to just jog through it.
I ran for a couple of miles, then came across some Glucomotive folks doing the half, Jim Collins and Ashley Ernst, who was one of the "Heroes of the Marathon", and Ashley's friend. I have to apologize for not remembering her name.
Jim was having cramp problems, so they were all helping each other along, walking and jogging as possible.
With a little over 3 miles to go, we got to the Glucomotive group of volunteers, where my brother Jon was with his girlfriend, Gina.
I asked them if they wanted to walk to the finish with me, and they did.
So I walked it off.
I had about a 20 mile run, and a lot of walking on the day. It was not a good race, but as I said, it was a great day.

In general, my new Animas Ping insulin pump is working great. I swim with it frequently. I just stick it in the side of my suit with the clip sticking out and the pump against my skin.
There are some little annoyances, but the same could be said for Medtronic pump I was using before. I wish I could take the good points from each and put them together. It all seems like common sense to me, the things I don't like, but I'm sure there are some patents that are keeping it from being as good as it could be.
For example, the Animas pump will calculate the bolus for me, then just display it. It's then up to me to enter how much I want to bolus. There's no way to just say, "Give me what you just calculated that I need, you stupid machine."
Then entering an amount to bolus is ridiculous. You can click up or down 0.05 units per button press, or you can hold down the button and it will start to roll by increasing amounts. You know how this goes. It's a similar to the Medtronic pumps. It's actually a pretty common interface, for setting digital clocks, thermostats, etc.
With Medtronic, it's easier to get used to. Animas is fricking crazy. It seems to go 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.50, 1,5, 3.5, 5, 8, ... not moving at all, then moving way way too fast. And the kicker is it doesn't stop when you take your finger off the button, so if you take your finger off at 5, it will probably stop at 6.5. Entering carbs is about the same.
So you either click up one step at a time or go way over then back down too far, then over, then under, getting closer and closer to what you want to enter. It's terrible. And I can't believe they could have failed to see this in usability testing.
Maybe I'll get used to it, but if I do, it will take a while, and I will be getting used to something that's more difficult than it has to be.
Changing the reservoir is harder on the Animas, but inserting an infusion site is easier. The Animas pump times out frequently, rapidly, while changing the reservoir. And when it times out, it goes back to the Home screen, so you have to click back into the Prime/Rewind screen. Crazy and annoying.
The woman who trained me on the Animas said that I'll eventually be able to change the reservoir and an infusion site without it timing out. After changing everything out several times, I doubt it. It would take the kind of skill required of Marines who can disassemble and reassemble an M16 blindfolded in 60 seconds.
The only way I've been able to get close, and still not avoid a time out, is to put in the new site and fill up a new reservoir, having everything ready before rewinding. It's not user friendly. It's unfriendly.
Still, I'm getting comfortable with the new pump, and as I said, it's great for swimming.

The Dexcom CGM is just incredible. I know my A1c is going to be down at my next checkup. I can't help it. Being able to see what is going on with my blood sugar all the time means I am fixing problems I wasn't even aware of before.


.

Hurt

"I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel"
 - Trent Reznor, "Hurt"

Ouch.
Yesterday my legs felt baseball-bat-beaten. They're a little better today.
I ran the Arizona Road Racers Desert Classic 30K on Sunday, which should have been a fun, unique distance. It should be too short to "hit the Wall." But the sad fact is I was in no shape to do this race, and it's been a long time since I've been in shape to do any race.

I have some amazing friends, and some of them also ran this 30K.

The indomitable Melissa Williams was first in her age group, with Lara Pockros just behind her in second and type 1 diabetic Ironman Kevin Burgess following her.

Mel and Lara

I had kept right with them through the first half of the race, on an out and back course along the Arizona Canal. But I was hurting. Both legs were sore, but at the twelve mile marker, I thought to myself, "It's only a little over a 10K to go. Pick it up!"
As soon as I accelerated a little, my left calf started to cramp. It never knotted up, but it threatened me.
And after about 14 miles, I had no more energy to even think about accelerating.
People started passing me from behind. They weren't speeding up, most of them. It was just that I was slowing down.
I had dropped into that death march that should only happen in a marathon you're under-trained for, and this was just a 30K.

OK. Lesson learned. Again.
I have the Carlsbad Marathon on January 23rd, and plenty of time to train for it. I got one good, long run in on Sunday. I put in a lot of miles at marathon pace. I can be ready to race without hurting myself too bad by January 23rd, right?

.

Glucomotive 2010 Ragnar Great River Relay

Yes, this relay was run in August, the 20th and 21st. Yes, it is October. That's how slow I am.

Andrew, the driver for van 1, the van I was in, had just injured his ankle on a bike ride. It was so swollen and ugly that we wondered if he could reliably work the accelerator and brakes as he drove us up the Mississippi.

Andrew's ankle later that day, as we waited for van 2 to come into the second van exchange. In the small version of this picture, it looks OK because the swelling has gone down, but if you zoom in, you can see the tiger-striping from the bruise being wrapped with an Ace bandage. But Andrew did fine driving. He kept us guessing about whether he was about to run into things, but he must have known what he was doing.
You get a good look at some of our Costco supplies in this picture, too.

Dave and Daniel relaxing at the first van exchange, I think, before Saci (below) hands off to Pratt from van 2.

Saci in Triabetes gear smiling through his first leg, which was rated "Very Hard."

Daniel, Saci, Jennifer, and Igor after a dip in the Mississippi at the second van exchange.

Daniel by our van in the early morning of the second day, at the fourth van exchange.

The runners from both vans get a rare chance to spend some time together at the fifth van exchange, waiting for Saci to come in. This is counter-clockwise from Daniel, shirtless, Gary in the "Diabetes. Run with it." shirt, Emily in her "Running on Insulin" shirt, Dave, Jennifer, Andrew, and Corinne.

Pratt hauling up a monstrous hill on his last leg.

Dave, Daniel, Igor, Anne, Saci, and Jennifer at the finish, ready for our anchor runner, Corinne, to come in.

Corinne tearing down the pavement toward the finish.

Post-race joy.

Gary, Emily, Mike, Corinne, Pratt, Anne, Igor, Jennifer, Saci, Dave, me, and Daniel.
Not pictured, the awesome drivers, Andrew and John.
Here's a great video Peter put together from stuff we shot during the race.




(Teammates, I left out last names because I wasn't sure if anyone would mind. Am I being silly?)

.

Hearts Go Out

More running poetry.

hearts go out
Written 9/26/01
by Jerry "Geronimo" Nairn

I'm like everyone else, but
I'm told my
heart
beats
slow
because I run.
I go out to run before dawn
just to feel my blood flowing
my legs flowing
my body
the sweat
and the beneficial side effects like a
slow
strong
heart
beat
and seeing the sun rise through the mist of a grey September morning
before I wash the sweat from my body in the shower
before I step out and my wife tells me
in very plain, simple words
that something that could
not
happen
has happened.
"...and now both towers have crumbled to the ground."
I run
for the beneficial side effects
like seeing the sun rise through the mist of a grey September morning
before I know thousands of beating hearts were suddenly
crushed into stillness
before, like millions of others
my heart stops
my heart breaks
my heart goes out

The Zone

Some running poetry. Something I wrote a couple of years ago.


The Zone
by Jerry "Geronimo" Nairn

It could be anywhere.
Any piece of pavement
running in the midst of normal people passing
oblivious in cars
Any remote trail
dirt collecting in the sweaty creases of my skin
Any night in a park
dodging through tree trunks, ducking branches, dimly remembering
things ancient ancestors did
I've never done.

I can only ever get there after several stubborn miles
miles going nowhere
until something brings me out
Maybe someone passes
or I glance at my watch
or I'm struck by a desire
to just finish this run

A step quicker
suddenly I'm there

The legs move without effort
My friend momentum follows
flows
one footstep to the next
until footsteps blur
striding so easy there are no strides
only moving
only flowing
I am running but it's not running
which now moves me
my feet play on the ground
as the earth passes under me
effortless
breath flows in and out
on its own
it isn't running now that moves me
like swimming downstream
in a deep, fast river
and becoming water
it isn't running now that moves me
It's the world I set in motion
running miles ago
days ago
years ago
and all the rushing air, all the rolling earth,
all the flowing body
asks in return
to run like this forever
is to never stop





Photos by Steve Craft

Relay Haiku

I may not be much of a poet, but I enjoy writing, so this blog will occasionally contain verse, as well as prose.
Here are a couple of Haiku inspired by the Relay Del Sol.


desert run at night
point headlamp upward to see
a sky full of stars


running beside you
I hear your feet, your breathing
and your damn ipod


Hope you enjoyed it.

Lost Weekend

OK, So I did that. The Pemberton Trail 50K on Saturday and the Lost Dutchman Marathon on Sunday.
And I wasn't alone. At least four of my fellow Marathon Maniacs did both events, and my friend, Melissa, who was not even registered for Lost Dutchman until the afternoon after running Pemberton, ran the whole race with me Sunday.
Melissa has now proudly joined the ranks of the Marathon Maniacs, and she does it at the exalted Iridium level, a level it took me two and a half years to achieve. Awesome.

Pemberton Trail 50K

Believe it or not, the hardest of the two days for me was Saturday. I started out thinking that two weeks off from marathons was enough recovery time for me to run well for the 50K. After all, it isn't a tough course for a trail run, and the trail should have been easier on these old joints.
As it turns out, I'm not as tough as I thought I was. I wasn't fully recovered from three marathons in the previous four weeks. I felt pretty tired after the first few miles.
I hit the wall hard after 17 or 18 miles.
Pemberton is a two lap course, and there's a rough, rocky section about two miles out from the start. The first time through was a breeze, actually kind of fun. The second time through I was just trying to keep my feet under me and not fall down.
There were less than 150 of us running this race, so I spent a lot of time running alone through the desert. This Haiku came to me as I covered the desolate miles on my aching legs:

when the race day comes
it doesn't help to regret
the workouts you missed

Something to remember every day during training. Sitting here now typing this up, I'm thinking along these lines:

easy to register
for unknown levels of pain
far in the future

With about 10 miles to go, I started walking every significant uphill. I was thinking ahead to Lost Dutchman, and I was unsure about being able to run it at all if I didn't try to conserve energy.


Lost Dutchman Marathon

Lost Dutchman is a fun race with lots of little things to make it interesting. That's why Runners World named it one of the Best Little Marathons, or something like that.
We got bussed out into the desert, under the weird rock formations at the base of the Superstition Mountains, where we warmed ourselves sitting around presto logs, waiting for the start.
The main difference between this start and Pemberton was that I had dreams of running well on Saturday. Sunday morning, those illusions were gone. I knew I just had to keep making forward progress, so that was my only goal.
And that turned out to be remarkably easy, if painful.
I wore my Marathon Maniacs shirt, which I hardly ever do, simply because I have so many other commitments and affiliations. But it's always good to get cheers from fellow Maniacs and comments from other marathoners when I do wear the yellow singlet. It was a good choice for a race that was going to take a long time and require a lot of encouragement.
Of course, as is usually the case, we saw a lot of the same people over and over again all day, and we made some new friends. Melissa was happy to tell anyone who would listen that we had run 50K the day before, and many people became fans.

There were no blood sugar issues either day. I checked three times during the 50K, and I was always above 120 and below 170. I went totally by feel through the marathon (by feel and experience) and was at 91 after the finish.

2009 Myomed Ragnar Relay Del Sol

Insulindependence is organizing an all type 1 diabetic team to run in the MyoMed Ragnar Relay Del Sol, February 27th and 28th, 2009, a relay of over 180 miles, from Wickenburg to Mesa, AZ.

From the relay web site:

"Running three legs during a 24-hour relay race is much easier than you think. Each team member runs three legs, ranging between 3 and 8 miles. This relay race is physically demanding, but legs vary in difficulty, and participants can choose which legs they run. This unique relay format makes the Del Sol an accessible race for beginners yet challenging enough for the most competitive."

That web site is:

http://www.ragnarrelay.com/delsol/index.php

Take a look, and if you're interested, sign up at:

http://www.insulindependence.org/ragnar_2009.asp

Incidentally, I get to be team captain!