"No one, I think, is in my tree

I mean, it must be high or low That is, you can't, you know, tune in, but it's alright That is, I think it's not too bad"

The above lyric is from Strawberry Fields Forever, and John Lennon explained in an interview before his death that "Well, I was too shy and self-doubting. Nobody seems to be as hip as me is what I was saying. Therefore, I must be crazy or a genius — “I mean it must be high or low,”
I quote it here because it's how I have been feeling about my training, with only 4 official weeks gone and 14 left to go before Boston, I am alternating too much between euphoria and disappointment about my workouts. My last big workout was a 15 miler on Saturday in 2:35, which left me very happy. It's probably just as well that I didn't blog after one of my less satisfactory runs. However, I am reminding myself that I need to look at the big picture of progress and not put too much stock on any one workout; one reason being that I don't need to be making those around me ride the roller coaster with me, and another that a positive attitude leads to positive results. I actually am rewriting this after blogspot ate the first draft, and in the writing and reviewing I became much more optimistic about how things are going. I don't think John Lennon was a genius or crazy, but pretty darn good, and overall, my training has not been the running equivalent of either genius or crazy, but overall, I am pretty darn happy (today) with where my training is at.

Today's completely random and unrelated to running thought. I am now 10 years older than John Lennon was when he died. Somehow it makes his murder even more wrong.

Back to running, and back to the last time I posted, I will summarize my life and my training, and I can't believe its been since December 18th when I last posted.

On December 19th, not yet officially winter, there was a big snowfall. I did my first ever foreclosure sale on Saturday, and between the weather and the economy, and the fact that the bank had let people know their faxed in bid was pretty high, not a single person showed up. It was fairly depressing to be in the empty house the Saturday before Christmas, wondering where the family now was. When I got home I did a 13 miler on the treadmill at home, and I don't remember a thing about it, except that I was grateful to have a home and to be running in it.

Monday December 22nd would be a euphoric treadmill workout. I did a "ladder" speed workout where, in between a 10 minute warmup and cool down jog, I ran 400 meters, then 600, 800 1200, then back down the ladder for 800, 600, and 400, with a 400 meter rest in between each set, at paces between 7:15 for the 400 and 7:30 for the 1200. When I run these on the treadmill, as opposed to the track, I measure the meters by time, so for 400 meters I run for 2 minutes, 600 for 3, 800 for 4 minutes etc, so I was probably exceeding the distances at the paces I was going. While I had no elevation on the treadmill, so I would be going at a slower pace if I were outside with wind resistance, I was thrilled that I did everything called for in the workout plan.

Tuesday afternoon, December 23rd, we left for Boston to attend my first Celtics game in Boston since 1986 (although we had seasons tickets to 4 Celtics games in Hartford through the early 90's, when they stopped coming). One of the radio announcers said it was the worst traffic in Boston he could ever remember, and Route 128 looked as it did during the blizzard of '78, sans the snow. The team bus for Philadelphia took 55 minutes to go from their hotel, the Four Seasons ,(the NBA is not a bad gig) to the Garden, a distance of 1 mile. And the Celtics center, Kendrick Perkins got to the game 15 minutes before it started. We missed just a few minutes of the first quarter. We took our niece Sarah and her husband Jonah, whose wedding we had attended in October. Jonah was born and bred in L.A. and is a Laker's fan, who took it very well when the lead in the 4th quarter was large enough so the "Beat LA" chant was started.

The next day during a nice visit with friends I had a talk with Jack Fultz, the Dana-Farber coach and the Boston Marathon winner in 1976. When I mentioned my training and my goals, he did mention that if one has trained well, it is possible to set a personal record despite the hills, since the course is a net downhill run.

On Christmas day I ran 13 miles in an unimpressive 2:22. I ran by myself as I got stood up by a priest, on Christmas. Actually, I was honored that Father Tom would want to run with me badly enough that he would ignore the likelihood that he might just be a bit too tired to run after midnight mass and early morning mass. We had intended to run together for a couple of years, at least since I had helped coach him for his first marathon but it had never happened. I am Jewish, and my wife is Catholic, so we are into interfaith understanding and celebrating diversity, and I did like the idea of running with a priest on Christmas, but instead waited two more days to run 6 miles in about an hour with Father Tom and my friend Tim, on Mason's Island, adjacent to Ender's Island where Father Tom lives and works. I have attached a couple of blurry pictures, the first I took with the new light camera, of that run.

Monday, Dec. 29th, was another treadmill speed workout, scheduled to be 6x 800 meters at 7:25 pace. This is where my lack of diligence in posting shows up, as I don't really remember what I did, I think I did 4 or them. I confess this so I will make more of an effort in posting more regularly.

Below is a picture of how I spent New Year's Day, in 2004. It was far too cold and windy to consider that this year, and in addition we had snow on New Year's Eve. So instead I headed to the gym to run 13 miles on the treadmill. My receptionist/legal secretary Nikki is running her first half marathon in Phoenix on January 18th, the same race as Kristina is doing the full marathon in, and I have been having fun giving her advice and talking running. Nikki ran on the treadmill next to mine, which made it more bearable, especially because someone had cranked the heat up way to high in our gym. I even went outside in my shorts to cool off after 6 miles. So I was very pleased to run my 13 at mostly 9:30 pace, for a mile with the proper elevation of 1%, and a couple of the miles at 10 minute pace. I was amazed that despite the miserable cold, Tim and 200 other runners still did the New Year's Day race and went in the water. It leaves from Boston marathon winner John Kelley's house in Mystic, and goes 5 miles to Groton Long Point and the beach, and then some hardcores run back to Johnny's house. The editor of Runner's World, Amby Burfoot, always shows up to run despite having run in Central Park at midnight on the night before.

Saturday, January 3, (finally my blog is in the right month and year), I did the first slug run in New London. Slug runs are another indication of how wonderful our region is for running. They were started by some of our elites training for Boston, I think about 20 years ago. It is so hard to train in the winter, they started to do their long runs together, and it has evolved into quite a large group, there are hundreds on the email list, and as you can see from the traditional before the run photo below, turnout is usually over 40 people. At one of the first runs in the beginning, if not the first one, someone fell and injured themselves, making their shirt a bloody, dirty mess, yet the person kept running. The shirt has never been washed and every year is presented to the person who, during that year's slug runs, does the dumbest thing as voted by his or her peers.

Yet the slug run has evolved into a run for all abilities. Each week a host puts out courses of at least 3 different mileages, people bring food and drink, and after the run everyone socializes. This happens every Saturday from the first Saturday in January until the first in April. The one on January 3rd happened in New London, after still another snowfall. The six mile course I ran went by the house I grew up in. And some things haven't changed a lot since I grew up, New London is still the leader around here when it comes to poorly clearing snow from the roads. I was supposed to do 6 miles, with 2 easy, 3 at 8:15 pace, and 1 easy. I never came close to 8:15 pace, but finished in an hour.

I am up front in the olive. Nikki is in here and so is Helen, my friend and one of my blog followers.

Monday the 5th was 15 weeks before Boston, and I did not have a good speed workout. That night, I started a Monday and Wednesday night swim program for triathletes at the Mystic YMCA that continues through February, figuring that I need to get better at swimming for tri season, and that the swimming would do my body and my running some good. Tuesday night I met up with Coach Al again, who is giving free lectures for the month on the three elements of triathlons, plus nutrition. I don't want to take the time here to describe my history with swimming, but can say I learned more in 1 hour about swimming than I learned in many years previously.


Wed. Jan 7, I was supposed to do 7 miles at 8:45 pace, and was happy that I did 5 of them.

Sat. January 10. I already told you I ran 15 miles in 2:34. I did it without ever leaving my street, which is just under 3.8 miles long, or 7.5 roundtrip, of which I did two. I was throwing in a 9 minute mile as late as mile 9, and didn't really tire until mile 12. I was supposed to do this long run in Boston on Sunday with my Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge teammates, but the run was cancelled due to the snow forecast. We still went to Boston after the run, to have dinner with Stephanie, the doctor from the Around the World trip described in my other blog, and her significant other, a land use professor at Harvard. He was quite interested in my take on Kelo v. New London, with my having grown up in the City and knowing so many of the players.

Monday, Jan. 12. I don't think I fully recovered from my speed work, and managed only 3 miles of so-called speed on the treadmill.

Wednesday, the 14th, I took a bike class at the Y instead of swimming. This was taught by Coach Al, and many of the best area bikers and triathletes showed up, and me. It was incredibly hard, but one of the nicest and best athletes in our area, T.J. told me his running never really took off until he started to bike. So I am debating trading the Wednesday swim for this class, but I don't think my hamstrings have fully recovered yet.

Thursday, the 15th, I did a tempo run, 5 miles at 8:45 on the treadmill. I would have gone 7 if I had more time.

So I am pretty much caught up at last. It is so cold out that I am going to do 17 miles on the treadmill. I have run a bunch of 20 milers on the treadmill, so I know I can do it, a lot of runners refuse to go that long on one, but it still won't be as much fun as going outside. I have run in 5 degree temperature before, and I only lasted a mile. This a.m it was minus 6 at my house. It probably can't happen, but if it is minus 6 on April 20th, I am not running Boston.

Next post will be much quicker, I promise.