Miles From Nowhere

Road Rules

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy. Voltaire

I do love a good endurance tale.

Mostly this is because we endurance athletes/authors have to support each other whenever we can. (Though admittedly I haven’t seen much from Lance lately in the way of reciprocity.)  Of course, I do have another reason for frittering away my life reading besides these apparently futile efforts to generate karmic camaraderie. If I am very lucky I will find sometimes find within these overpanned creeks a small, sometimes vanishingly so, nugget of insight deeply embedded within an otherwise innocuous paragraph.  Something I can take with me through Mile 13, or out the door at 0500, or back to the fundraising for another day. I take great comfort in knowing that there exist in this world fellow prospectors who make me look sane.

I was therefore beside myself with excitement when a famous ultramarathoner finally came out with his long anticipated and much ballyhooed “The 10 Commandments of Endurance.” But I quickly discovered that the ballyhoo surrounding this entrance into the endurance literature was all uproar, with no substance. In the spirit of constructive criticism, I have decided to forego running for yet another day that I might provide a reasonable assessment of this work.  My assessment is based on a valid, and I think you will agree, inarguable analysis.  Let’s start with the title:

1) 10: Anytime I see a list of “10” things I am supposed to do, I right off the bat assume that at least 3 things on the list are totally fabricated so that the author of said list could make the list seem complete, which of course leads me to wonder which of these things I am supposed to ignore. This has certainly been true for the original commandments (I have spent my life pondering which 3 commandments are dispensable), and it appears to be the case here as well.

2) Commandments: Am I alone in believing that commandments should come from God, and not from a crazy ultramarathoner who had all of his toenails surgically removed?

3) Endurance:  Okay, he got that part right.

As far as the substance of the work, well, I can’t say much, as I never did get past the title.  Anyway, the substance is irrelevant.  To me, the real question has become this:  Why do I spend so much time panning for wisdom generated by biomechanically blessed physiological wunderkinds who have never, ever been vomited on by their 5-year old daughter at the finish line of a 20 mile race?

Right.  Time to write my own rules.

So it is that with great gusto and ballyhooness that I submit my own manifesto:  A short list of things I wish people had told me when I started this ridiculous avocation lo these many years ago.

Truism #1: There is no such thing as an injury free middle-aged marathon runner. The middle-aged runner’s connective tissue, which once had the consistency of warm peanut butter, now mostly resembles frozen peanut brittle. Additional insults that add to our injury lists are spinal columns that refuse to decompress, knees that are a wee bit light on cartilage, and calcium ions that flee our bones like rats from a sinking ship. There was a time when I bemoaned my injuries with all the drama one would conjure up for a Shakespearean soliloquy:  “Oh, to run.  Or not to run.  That is the question.” Please. At this point in my running “career” an injury barely elicits a raised eyebrow.  Stretch it, ice it, tape it, and get back on the road.

Truism #2:  Stress is additive. Man, did I ever screw this one up. I could have sworn that I read somewhere (was it on the internet?) that stress should be assessed using an inverse logarithmic function. To wit, the physical stress from increasing mileage by 10% a week is significant in the two months prior to a marathon, but it is a physical stress. Being called into school for your fifth parent teacher conference in a week is stressful, but it is a mental kind of stress and is therefore handled by a different mechanism that is only tangentially related to the mechanism that handles physical stress, right? Not so much. We really only get the one immune system. If you find yourself in a situation where your child has taken on the persona of a dog AND you have 5 grant proposals due by Friday AND your spouse is at a “conference” in the Bahamas AND your actual dog needs emergency surgery for a torn ligament this would NOT be a good week to up your mileage.  Repeat this truism 3 times every day upon waking.

Truism #3: People who begin running marathons in mid-life will never be fast. As my philosopher friend Dave sagely pointed out, I will probably never be tall either. Most people are aware that as we age our muscles lose mitochondria, the cellular organelles responsible for generating the energy tickets that make us run fast. Lesser known is the fact that we lose these mitochondria because the raw materials of which they are comprised are needed in the brain to help us remember where we left our reading glasses. Unfortunately, these raw materials usually get lost along the way and settle into our hips and stomach, resulting in the ultimate middle aged trifecta:  slow pace, abdominal fat, and an inability to find the reading glasses on the top of our heads. Once these mitochondria leave our muscles, there is no getting them back.  Speedwork is futile.

Truism #4:  Marathons are 50% mental and 50% physical. Don’t sweat this one too much. Once you hit 40 you are pretty much screwed either way.

Truism #5:  Save the adrenalin for endurance emergencies (i.e. Mile 24).  Adrenalin is like a very young racehorse: Expensive, powerful, easy to bolt, and next to impossible to corral once it gets it in its head to be somewhere else (Figure 1).

Those adrenalin pumping hoo-rah moments that are so much a part of popular team sports have absolutely no place in a marathon.  Every molecule counts, and adrenalin is the most precious elixir of all. While other athletes approach their competitions with all the decorum of frat brothers on speed wasting hard earned energy on pep rallies and press conferences, marathon runners must approach the start line with the attitude of Rodney Yee on Quaaludes. On a practical note, this means:  1) Any emo music should be shunted to the last hour of your 4 hour playlist, 2) caffeine supplements must only be taken when you have less than 6 miles to go, and 3) the absolute maximum number of people one should hi-five in any given race is 200.

Truism #6:  The run may be long but life is short. Enjoy the ride.

53 days…

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Quick reminder that my whole point in doing this each year is to raise money for a great cause.  Cancer is an evil plague, and it sure would be nice to  wipe it off the face of the planet for good. You can play a part in making this happen by donating to Dana-Farber in one of two ways.

1)  Register for the Quaker Hill 5K Challenge and Family Fun Run.

2) Donate directly to Dana-Farber via my DFMC fundraising page.

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