Runner Profile: Fauja Singh

Fauja Singh, whom I wrote about earlier this month, was recently profiled on ESPN's Outside the Lines.  Every time I read about him, I am so amazed and humbled.

Was it pain he felt as he approached the end, just footsteps away from redefining the limits of human endurance? No, this wasn't pain. Fauja knew pain. Pain was death -- you see plenty of that when you live 100 years. Pain was bloody limbs and overtaxed joints -- you get too much of that when you insist on completing every race you ever start. This wasn't pain but exhaustion. And Fauja could handle exhaustion, because exhaustion foreshadowed euphoria. When Fauja got tired, it often meant a record would soon fall.

He'd already broken a few. Fastest to run a marathon (male, over age 90), fastest to run 5,000 meters (male, over age 100), fastest to run 3,000 meters (male, over age 100), and on and on they went. But those records didn't roll off the tongue the way this one would. Oldest person to complete a marathon (male): Fauja Singh. The other feats had earned him recognition from the Masters Federation websites. This one would put him in the Guinness World Records. An official with the company had contacted Fauja's coach, Harmander Singh (no relation) several weeks earlier. Harmander told Fauja that Guinness would send representatives to watch Fauja run in the Toronto Waterfront Marathon, and as soon as he finished, they would award him the recognition he deserved.

- From "The Runner" by Jordan Conn

 

Marathoning VPs

From Gawker:

It was bad enough that Paul Ryan compulsively lied about his marathon time, but now comes word that, among recent vice-presidential candidates who ran marathons, Ryan is only the third fastest. John Edwards posted the fastest time at three hours and thirty minutes. Impressive, if not super surprising; you don't get to be as monstrously vain and awful as him without a masochistic workout regimen. The real surprise here, though – and the one sure to sting the most to Ryan – is the report that former Alaska Governor and current reality TV matriarch Sarah Palin ran a marathon in three hours and fifty-nine minutes, a full two minutes faster than Ryan's time.

One of my goals is to be faster than Sarah Palin and Oprah (at the 1994 Marine Corps Marathon, Oprah ran a 4:29:20 race).

If I manage to beat Palin's, Oprah's, and Ryan's time during my next marathon, I will be one happy marathoner.

Tuesday Inspiration: Become Legendary

iPod Shuffle has played tracks from the Space Jam soundtrack more than once this week, which has lead to something of a Michael Jordan kick.  This week's Tuesday Inspiration is from his 2008 "Become Legendary" campaign.

"It's not about my shoes.  It's about knowing where you are going, and not forgetting where you have started.  It's about having the courage to fail, not breaking when you're broken,  taking everything you have been given and making something better.  It's about work before glory, and what's inside of you.  It's doing what they say you can't. It's not about the shoes; it's about what you do in them.  It's about being what you are born to be."

-- Michael Jordan

Tuesday Inspiration: Inspiring Photos

Via -- The Ragnar Relay Series (Facebook)

Tuesday Inspiration: Larry Macon

Larry Macon turned 67 on New Year's Eve.  He also ran his 113th marathon of the year on that day.

From My San Antonio:  

 "Heading into Saturday's race, Macon...had amassed almost 3,000 miles running in 2011, gone through a dozen pairs of shoes and logged roughly 200,000 miles in flying. He now has run 823 marathons during his lifetime."

Once I got over trying to figure out how this could be possible, I was awed and impressed by Macon's achievement.  Then, still curious (read: extremely baffled), I started to think about the logistics and the physical toll such a feat is likely to take.  

Thank goodness for the Internet and this profile of Macon featured in Runner's World in 2009. 

From the article:  

"Just consider this back-to-back performance: In August, he finished the Frank Maier Marathon in Juneau, Alaska, at 12:30 p.m.; drove to the airport for a 2 p.m. flight; landed in San Francisco at midnight; then started that city's marathon at 5:30 a.m. Or there's the time he drove from the finish of the Cow Town Marathon in Fort Worth, Texas, to New Orleans (which took him 12 hours), arriving five minutes before the start of the Mardi Gras Marathon. And thanks to holidays like Memorial Day and races with Saturday night starts, he squeezed three marathons into one weekend five times in 2008." 

The mere fact that he's able to get to one marathon to the next in such a short time frame is impressing.  Paired with his ability to run up to three marathons in one weekend, and you could probably convince me that Macon is superhuman.

Adorable Item of the Day

For about a year and a half – just about around the time I stopped watching Angel reruns on TNT before work because I realized that I had the dialogue for multiple seasons memorized – I’ve started my mornings with Morning Joe. I love its coverage and analysis of current events, and I especially love watching Mika Brzezinski go head-to-head with her co-host and the other commentators. She’s put the guys in their place more than once on the show. I may have developed a little bit of a girl crush on her.

Girl crush: feelings of admiration and adoration which a girl has for another girl, without wanting to shag said girl; a nonsexual attraction, usually based on veneration at some level – Urban Dictionary

But, then I read an interview she did for Runner’s World last year:

RW: Is it true that your first date with your husband was a run?

MB: Yes, we went around the reservoir in West Hartford, Connecticut. There was a little mountain near it, and I made him run all the way to the top. I kicked his butt. At one point, he rolled his eyes like he was going to die. Something about that look was adorable, and I loved that he made me laugh even while we were working hard.

Awesome, right!? (And, super adorable!) Girl crush: confirmed.

By the way, my potential suitors should take note -- invest in a good pair of running shoes.

Tuesday Inspiration: Shedding the Past

Running has transformed me, inside and out. It's as much a part of my identity as being a writer, or a mother, or a wife—maybe even more, because I truly don't know if I'd be any of those things if I hadn't toughed out that first mile. I still experience those rock-star moments, every time I make it through a 5 a. m. six-miler when I'd rather be in bed, or finish a hard set of intervals on the treadmill at the Y. There may be no cheering crowds, no medals, no booming baritone announcement. But the finish-line feeling lives on, in my head and in my heart.

---From “Shedding the Past” by Lisa Delaney

I came across this article early on when I started training for my first marathon, and it still resonates. Weight loss and running will probably always be linked in my mind because it was through running – and learning to make healthier decisions about food along the way – that I was able to drop the weight that I put on in college.  I love what running has done for me -- not only has it helped me shed the extra weight and become more comfortable in my body, but it has also allowed me to see just what I'm capable of if I'm willing to push myself.

Tuesday Inspiration: A Full Windsor

Of all of the days of the week, I find Tuesday to be the least exciting.

Tuesday is to Monday and Wednesday – when I meet a group of absolutely fantastic people for pub quiz and Hump Day, respectively -- as Jan Brady is to Marsha and Cindy.

Tuesday is no Thursday, which is usually the night when a group of lovely ladies hosts a rotating dinner party. (In fact, it was after one such dinner party that I decided that running a marathon would be an excellent idea.)

In a battle for most awesome day of the week, Tuesday is no match against TGI Carb Night -- mostly because I love carbs almost as much as I love puppies, Christmas, and goat cheese.

Plus, Saturdays and Sundays are just the bees knees.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything personal against Tuesday. Back at Yale, when friends would gather at Hot T’s – which, apparently, closed its doors -- for the $5 beer and burger special, I loved Tuesdays. (And, studying after happy hour was much more fun.)

But, now, Tuesdays are kind of just…

Meh.

I think Tuesday needs something special. So, I'm going to introduce a new series of posts. Each Tuesday, I'll share something inspiring. It could be anything -- a quote, a story, an image -- as long as it sparks a feeling try something new, finally start that project you've been putting off, take on a challenge, or simply try to be a better person. The post will likely be related to running, but it won't always be. The point is to give myself -- and maybe even some of you -- that little push needed to take on life's challenges.

So, here we go:

“We can do many of the things we think we aren't cut out for. We can teach a class, run a long run, complete a hard workout, seize an opportunity or moment, accept a challenge, rise above the fray, raise our kids, be a good husband or good wife. And even if we don't do them perfectly, our willingness to try and learn and reach trumps perfection every time."
--- from “Double Windsor” on Mile Markers by Kristin Armstrong

Going for Speed: Weekly Round-Up (4)

"Running is a big question mark that's there each and every day. It asks you, 'Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?'"--Peter Maher

Me? I'm going to be strong.

It's the end of week four, and I feel fantastic about the progress that I've made this month. After yesterday's long run (which I totally owned on the treadmill with the help of The Terminator and a sweet playlist) and this afternoon's run (fueled almost entirely by teen angst), I'm starting to see the results of my training. I'm faster. I'm lighter. I'm stronger.

And, I feel like I can win the future.

Week 5:

Monday: Cycling and Strength Training
Tuesday: 3 miles
Wednesday: Tempo Run - 35 minutes
Thursday: 3 miles and Strength training
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 6 miles
Sunday: 3 miles

Also....

I've been using a nifty tool from Daily Mile to track my milage. (You may have noticed the bright orange counter on the bottom right of the webpage.) As of today, I've logged 78 miles for 2011.

So, I'm setting an additional goal for 2011: Break 1000 miles by December 31st. Totally doable.

Because my run is my drug...

The 12 Steps of Runners Anonymous
by John Farrow

1. We admit that we are powerless over our character flaw and that our lives seem to others to have become unmanageable, but we sort of like it that way.

2. We have come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity, and that power’s name is Runner’s High.

3. We have made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the pursuit of the perfect Runner’s High and to travel near and far in our quest for the perfect race and a new PR.

4. We have made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves, and find that we need to increase the mileage on our long runs, intersperse our training with fartleks and tempo runs, do a track workout now and then to increase our speed, add cross-training to our weekly routine and always get enough carbs in our diet.

5. We have admitted to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our
shortcomings that we have occasionally taken a day off from training, indulged in fried foods, failed to consume at least eight servings of pasta per day, failed to use the most up-to-date heart rate monitor and that our fridge contains nothing but
beer and running shoes.

6. We are not entirely ready to have all of these character flaws removed until we qualify for Boston one more time.

7. We humbly ask others to lighten up and get off our case with respect to our character flaws so that we can go out for another run.

8. We have made a list of all persons we have harmed and are willing to make amends to them when and if they find the time to accompany us during our weekly 20-mile run.

9. We have made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when doing so would interfere with our training.

10. We have continued to take personal inventory of all miles run on a daily, weekly, bi-weekly and monthly basis according to each shoe worn, as well as to constantly monitor our heart rate, respiration, fluid consumption and leg turn-over rate during our runs and when we were wrong have promptly taken the necessary steps to get
back on track.

11. We have sought through visualization to improve our running technique and ask only for strength and endurance when next we hit the wall.

12. We have had an awakening as a result of these steps and have redoubled our training as we have tried to carry this message to non-runners everywhere and to practice these principles throughout our training.

ARR News, May 2002
Albuquerque Road Runners Club

More Motivation

Courtesy of Jane (who always wins at finding awesome things on the internet). This is amazing!

From These Go to 11:

After several woman collapsed upon completing the 800 meter dash at the 1928 Olympics, the powers that be in the world of running decided that women lack the constitution to run long distances. Running was thought to be not only unladylike, but dangerous for frail, frail ladies. Some hypothesized that running long distances could cause a woman’s uterus to fall out of her body, and we all know that the worst thing that could possibly happen to a woman is NOT HAVING BABIES. Women were barred from racing distances of more than 200 meters.

In 1967, Kathrine Switzer, a 20 year old college student, registered to run the Boston Marathon under the name “K. V. Switzer.” When race officials discovered that K. V. was a woman, the race had already started. This picture shows perfectly-named Boston Marathon official Jock Semple attempting to physically remove Switzer from the event, reportedly shouting, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!” Switzer’s college athlete boyfriend bodychecked the race official and the pair continued running.

She successfully completed the race in 4 hours and 20 minutes, and seven years later won the New York City Marathon with a time of under 3:08.

A Thought

I saw this reblogged on Date by Numbers and thought it was worth sharing:

Get dirty. Get fucking filthy. Get poor. Get off your ass. Get desperate. Get dangerous. Get vilified. Get vile. Get romantic. Get fucked. Get fucked up. Get moving. Get productive. Get pro-active. Get your own life. Get doing anything. Get it before you’re 40, with kids, a mortgage, and every other responsibility that relegates fun to an afterthought. Get going before cancer, before 50-hour work weeks, before body pains, before school loans, before your sense of humor goes. Get fighting. Get fighting, fucking, running and smiling. Get smiling because the older you become, the less you’ll smile at silly shit. Get started. Go.

Word.

No Pain, No Glory

Somewhere around Friday afternoon at 3 – at about just the time when I felt my eyes bleeding from staring at an Access database – I took a break to browse the interwebs. I ended up at Runner’s World again and started to poke through a few articles. I found this especially appropriate:

“An hour into my Montana long run, the sun crept over the mountains and a creek snaked out of the woods, its gurgle glorious. I settled into that state, the so-called "runner's high," though that name fails to capture its beauty. What happens to body and mind when you go long is, like all of life's most rewarding treasures, a mystery, and its value is commensurate with its mysteriousness. If I knew exactly why and how a 20-miler worked its magic, I might not treasure it as dearly.” ---From Michcael Parker in “A Long-Distance Running Love-Affair”

Today, I completed my first 10-mile run and understood the concept of "runner's high" more than I did sitting in my office on a Friday afternoon (or ever, for that matter).

It was damn hot in DC again (surprise, surprise), but 10 miles on a treadmill was not happening. After breakfast, I let my often passive-aggressive Wii Fit guide me in a few yoga stretches, and I filled myself with water. By 10 AM, I was out of my apartment. (For the record, I’m kind of impressed that I was able to get out of my apartment at 10. I crawled into bed around 2 AM last night after seeing the last screening of Inception in my neighborhood – SO INCREDIBLE --but I digress…)

Despite the temperature and dripping with sweat before the end of the first mile, I felt great. I wasn’t tired, and I was hydrating whenever I could (I filled a water bottle and carried it with me – the smartest idea I had this morning). I hit a little bit of a wall near mile five, which I suspect happened because that was the point in my run during which I was directly in the sun and/or was in desperate need of a bathroom break. But once I ducked into one of the restrooms on the Mall and splashed water in my face, I was good to go until I hit mile nine.

Put simply, I ached. I was hot. I was tired. My motivating songs played long before I needed them. With every step forward, I was pretty sure that I was just going to give up and stop this silly marathon training altogether.

In the midst of all tat, something else was going on -- something that kept me going. That magical something that "happens when you go long."

A high: A high that made me forget the cramp, the feeling of exhaustion, and the urge to quit. A high that made everything else not related to running irrelevant. A high that made finishing and proving to myself that I could run 10 miles the only two things that mattered in that final push.

And, with that, I finished my run with an average of 10 minutes per mile.

My cool-down walk (the last two blocks to my apartment) took what felt like an eternity. But, I was so proud of myself that I didn’t care. I opened the door, chugged a powerade, and soaked in a tub filled with warm water and bath salts (the second smartest idea that I had this morning). There was celebratory towel time, movie-watching, and the best nap I've had in my life.

- - -

With this run, folks, we’re coming to the end of Week 3. I have three miles to run tomorrow, but after today I imagine such a distance will go very smoothly – unless my body decides that training tomorrow is simply out of the question.

We’ll see, though.

If I have any say in the matter, we’re going running. And, it’s going to be awesome.

(Your love is like a) Heat Wave

Math is hard, and I’m apparently bad at counting.

I went over my training schedule last night to figure out what my running requirements were for the week of August 14, which happens to be the date when yet another standardized test will decide my academic fate....

Ah yes, the (wonderful) GRE.

I was very relieved to see that my long run for that week isn’t terrible and can easily be done before or after the test. But, I did notice that something was a little off when I started filling in the dates in my Excel sheet.

Basically, I can't count. When I made the schedule I thought I had 18 weeks plus one "base week" to ease into running. Not so much. As it turns out, I have 18 weeks including the base week, but I imagine that there are worse things that could happen.

Aaaaaaanyway, since my long runs increase every two weeks (last week was eight, this week I’m back to six, and next week I’ll do ten, for example), it just means that I’ll skip one of the weeks when I reduce the distance. (Friends who run: That's not a huge deal, right?) I’ll most likely fudge with the weeks after my test date. Even though I know that it would be tons of fun, I really would prefer not to take a four-hour exam and run more than eight miles in a single day.

In other news ---

I signed up for Shape.com's virtual trainer the other day. The site allows you to track calories (consumed and burned), provides recipes, and has plenty of hot tips to get the summer bod you've always dreamed of. (Honestly, the last piece is not my style. But, I am very excited about the recipes and calorie journal.) It's been very useful so far and has forced me to think about getting healthy amounts of calories and eating the right foods for proper nutrition. The American flag cake (thanks to 17 and Baking) that I baked for the fourth is excellent for calories but not so great for everything else. Except a sugar high. A reaaaaaally big sugar high.

If you haven’t heard, it’s bloody hot in DC. Yesterday’s high temperature rose somewhere around 103 degrees. (Yesterday was one of the many times it’s appropriate to quote Ron Burgundy: “It's so damn hot! Milk was a bad choice.") I saw a few brave souls running outside yesterday evening, but I'm not that crazy and decided to move training indoors. Four miles on the treadmill sounds boring at first, but sensory overload definitely helps pass the time. I had music and watched most of an episode of Bones until some annoying person changed the channel to watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Thank goodness I was at the end of mile four when that happened. I was very comfortable at a 10:00 minute pace, but I increased the speed during my last mile just for fun. Surprisingly, it went well. After my run, I went back up to my apartment for electrolyte replacement, post-run stretching, a warm shower, towel time (my favorite time), and GRE time (not my favorite time, but I don't feel nearly as stupid as I did when I first started this process).

Hm...there are quite a few links in this post. Oh well, here's one more for you -- one woman's tale of running and reinvention. Inspiring? You bet it is!