Flight of the Navigator

14:35 ... 13:25 ... 12:48 ...

The numbers tick down like an esoteric version of the space launch countdown. The trails become easier with each passing week. From month to month, as the mileage increases, those numbers keep falling.

A month ago on this same portion of the Buckeye Trail, my pace had taken a step back, but this time it was a full two minutes faster per mile, despite the return to late summer heat and tacking on 10 more minutes of running.

Yes, a funny thing happens when you run consistently. It's a lesson that you'd probably forget if your running resembled anything like mine over the past couple years, where my mileage topped out at 532 in 2011 and 376 last year. By contrast, my mileage in 2009 was more than those two years combined, by more than 60 miles.

Remembering the soaring feeling that running can evoke has led to a resurgence this month. My running clothes have been riding shotgun in my car almost everyday. It's much easier to go for a run after work when my gear is always right there. Just set a course and go.

Gentleman, Restart Your Engine

The pre-training plan was working like gangbusters until a dozen days ago. The schedule said run this far, so that was that. Three miles, done. Three miles again, done. Eight miles, done. Another three miles, done. Done, done, done and done.

We all know what happened then to this April fool. And if you don't, seriously, get with the program. I haven't shut up about it for the last week and a half. The persistence of nausea has kept me sidelined for all but one ill-advised run last week, which left me feeling as if I'd just run a half marathon rather than for a half-hour.

This week, I've finally started feeling better, which coincided with a cold snap and late season snow. Not my ideal weather for a return to running, and so I've remained sidelined despite the growing urge to get out there.

But all my intentions are defused with a lack of get-out-the-door motivation.

Today must be the day. Warmer temperatures and blue skies, how can I say no? Well, I'm sure I could find a few lame excuses if you give me a few moments. Inertia is a bad habit.

And so are garlic-flavored french fried onions, which I've devoured by the handful the last two days. They're meant as a salad topper, which I tried as such Tuesday after work, before gobbling a bunch more and then sprinkling them on my chicken and pasta dinner. The bag was empty after last night's munching. Had I just gone for a run, my snacking would have been averted.

Bad habits must be eradicated. Or at least curbed.

My running needs a good kickstart. Enter Chris McDougall. In response to the death of Micah True (aka Caballo Blanco, White Horse and apparently Michael Randall Hickman), he wrote a piece for BBC Magazine memorializing his running mentor. In it, he recalled one of his conversations with the mysterious Caballo, which also appears in his book Born to Run.

Learn the fine art of running, Caballo told me, and you can change your life. 
   "Don't fight the trail. Take what it gives you," he began. "Lesson two -- think easy, light, smooth and fast. You start with easy, because if that's all you get, that's not so bad. Then work on light. Make it effortless, like you don't [care] how high the hill is or how far you've got to go. 
   "When you've practised that so long that you forget you're practising, you work on making it smooooooth. You won't have to worry about the last one -- you get those three, and you'll be fast."

Easy is exactly what I need right now. Remembering these lessons from someone who clearly understood the true benefits of running, that is my mission this year.

My First Two-a-Day: Prelude to a Kick

Week 3 of marathon training is underway. You always hear about how the great marathoners run twice a day. Well, put me up on that pedestal, teammates, for today will be my first andprobablymylast two-a-day.

As I've been increasing my mileage in these early stages -- and to compensate for readjusting my marathon plan according to Mike's advice -- I've been running five days a week with a wimpy, but fast two-miler on Wednesdays.

Last night, though, it seems someone relocated Niagara Falls directly overhead Akron, and I deemed it appropriate to forsake my two-miler for a tumbler of Laphroaig and a trip to Dick's Sporting Goods for a new pair of flip-flops.

I did get in a wet wind-sprint as I fetched the car after leaving the store, but that didn't make it into my running log. But believe you me, it was fast.

Instead, I woke up early this morning to run, which you know is a rare bitch of a thing for me. Just what I don't want to do after a spine-elongating night's sleep: jostle the fuck out of my bones. But there I was.

And of course, the two-miler was not without incident.

I decided to slightly modify my course, turning up a street where I usually turn down and then around a different block than usual. I figured in my head I had it measured pretty well. Then I got to where I thought two miles was and my watch read something ludicrous, like 15:35 or so.

No way was I running a 7:48 mile pace right out of bed.

So I continued running and went around another corner of the block just for good measure and stopped my watch at 16:38. This morning I mapped the run at MapMyRun.com. The result: 2.14 miles.

Yes way was I running a 7:46 mile pace right out of bed.

And the two-mile mark? Exactly where I thought it was.

Tonight is my track night. Four 800-meter intervals. And let me dispense with the fancy numbers and pace range. I'm shooting for less than 3:20 per 800 meters. Period.

Queue the Rocky theme. I'm getting things accomplished!

Betterment for Viper

Every few years, it seems I get on this self-improvement kick. I'll outline a plan for what to do to improve my life. Sometimes these plans stick while other things fall by the wayside. Running was part of my last betterment plan.

Monday's post got me thinking in this vein again. Aside from all the health benefits that running has added to my life, it has also started to change my personality. During my first year, I had a chest-beating attitude about running, as if I were showing off every time I laced up. And that probably carried through most of last year.

However, I have felt a change over the past four months. Running has changed my outlook on life. It has given me clear indication that it is possible to improve myself. And it has taught me humility.

Improvement is quantifiable with running. I can see it in how my body looks. I can see it on the scale. I can chart my distance and my speed. Conversely, I can see what negatively impacts my running, and avoid those things. As I study my running, I can see areas that are lacking and formulate a plan to address those shortcomings.

Humility has been a tougher lesson. I think Americans have a serious problem with humility. We're a boastful, arrogant and self-righteous people. Forget the national scene, I see these qualities everyday in the people I know and love. I see them in myself. It sickens me.

Losing teaches you humility. Let's face it, if you're not breaking the tape, you're just one of the many losers in the race. This is by no means an effort to discount the races any of us have run. Racing is tough. I don't care what distance you're training for. But running has a tendency to show you how good you're not.

As a non-elite, there has to be something more to racing than pace and place. I think that something is in self-discovery.

Last year was a pretty ambitious year for me. I completed my first and second half marathons and my first full marathon. I was pretty ecstatic about my first half. The second was pretty much a repeated performance, but I was extremely disappointed in how I did. The marathon utterly smacked me in the mouth.

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No Matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
--Samuel Beckett

These disappointments and feeling of failure took some time to recover from. I'm a firm believer that you have to learn from failure. The lesson was humility. Now that I've tasted it, I want more. I think humility is the path to becoming a better human.

Humility. Humble. Human. All are rooted in similar Latin roots of "humilis," meaning lowly or meek; "humus," meaning ground; and "homo," meaning man. These words and their meaning are fundamentally linked.

Improvement and humility have helped shift my perspective. Having a visible indicator of self improvement gives me faith that I can enhance other aspects of my life as long as I try. Humility helps me be less of a jackass. And that's better for everyone.