Running Times, Online

by Matt Taylor

Christmas is upon us. I know this not from my calendar - I don’t own a paper one and my computer clock tells me it’s Wednesday every day - but from the only window in my London flat. First there was the couple across the way, stringing Christmas lights along the top of their kitchen cabinets. They won the award for First to Decorate. It was November 7th. Second place went to the two girls who live in the second-to-the-top row of windows, third from the left, in the building two to the right of the Malaysian Embassy. A cardboard Santa Claus hangs perilously by one arm from their window. The race for bronze was on.

In an attempt to fend off any Ugly American tendencies and to assimilate into this foreign, albeit less foreign than many U.S. States, country, I joined the race. Heck, I had already traded in my baggy running pants and faded Wellfleet Road Race t-shirt for a pair of bright-colored PUMA spandex with matching top. That in itself made me half-European. Displaying the right decoration at the right time could seal the deal for my accession to the EU.

Although my computer clock said it was Wednesday, the free London Lite paper distributed at the corner of my street said Thursday, November 9th. Two weeks ‘til Thanksgiving. That day I shirked my duties and scoured every London street market until I found it – an inflatable Pilgrim holding a turkey in one hand and an ax in the other. I couldn’t believe it only cost one quid. I rode the Tube home and quickly fastened it to the outside of my window with a hand-written sign that read, “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Hey, screw you a**hole!” a pudgy man yelled from the window across the street. Then added with a smile, “Cheers.”

When my wife returned home that evening she explained to me that the British don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Who knew?

Without Thanksgiving, I quickly learned, Christmas was all they had. And they attack it with unbridled enthusiasm. As each overcast and rainy day passed by, the number of decorations increased exponentially. And with each increase in the number of decorations, especially the plastic reindeer and life-size dancing Santa’s that scare the hell out of me, the spirit of Christmas gripped me tighter and tighter. So it’s in the spirit of whatever Holiday you celebrate, that I present to you my Christmas Wish List.

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Dear Santa,

I’ve left you a plate of vegan, low-fat, choco-tofu cookies. I know they’re your favorite. I also made you a stocking using 23.7% recycled paper, which is hanging over there on the fireplace. Inside you’ll find an assortment of gels, bars, and powders. They taste awful, but they’ll keep you going on this night of endurance around the world. By the way, how do you do it in just one night? Did you know I logged 140 miles last week? Of course, you do more than that in one night. You must be the fastest man in the world! Even faster than Pre maybe. Well, maybe not. Pre was the bestest runner EVER! Even though some athletes have run faster than him, including many Americans, he is still the greatest of all time! In fact, I bet he could deliver your whole sack of gifts in less time. He once said, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gifts.” He would never sacrifice the gifts. And as a result, we should never let another up-and-coming American distance runner who has run faster take away his title as the bestest runner EVER! Long live Pre!

But back to the purpose of this letter…below is a list of gifts that I would like this Christmas season. I also left you a thread on LetsRun and Dyestat. Did you get those? I sure hope so. If not, here they are again:

All I want for Christmas is…

…USATF to move its headquarters to New York or Boston. The sport needs a spark. The sport needs more media attention. The sport needs the best talent (both employees and athletes). Until USATF moves it will always have to work harder than it should have to in order to maximize these opportunities.

…shoe companies to stop changing the shoes every damn year! Just when I find a shoe I like, they change it. Sure, it’s still called the Oswego, but it doesn’t feel the same. Quit tweaking it.

…an expedited return home for Dean Karnazes. Can’t you just swoop down today, pick him up in your sled, and take him back to San Francisco? Or are you jealous because he gets more press than you? [Ed. Note: This wish has been granted. Dean called it quits just west of St. Louis, MO and has returned home.]

…peace in the middle…of the pack. Everyone needs to know the difference between competing and completing, between running as a sport and running as an activity, and between racing and participating. You don’t have to run a 15:00 5K to be considered a runner. But at the same time, if you run a marathon in 5 hours, take the time to learn about the guy who ran it in 2:10. There are big differences. Learn them and then learn to respect the people who don’t fall into your category.

…a better post-collegiate development system for distance runners. Ok, any post-collegiate development system for distance runners.

…for the World Marathon Majors to sign a major long-term sponsor and several secondary sponsors. The system is a step in the right direction, but it won’t make the sport significant to anyone outside of the sport until more money gets distributed to more people.

…for the other shoe companies to become more relevant in the sport. By being the main player in the game, Nike ends up dictating the message and direction of the entire sport.

But Santa, if you can only give me one gift this Christmas it would be this…

…for someone to let me direct a major road race. If I could, I’d take some chances - here’s what I’d do: I’ve have the race at night, under the lights. And I’d change the course to be a series of short loops that always come back to a central location. Like a cloverleaf. I would have a giant block party in that central location. Like a NASCAR race. There would be big jumbotron screens and good announcers always keeping people apprised of the action. Every once in a while the athletes would come storming through and the fans would go nuts. For those spectators who like to run around the course and see the action from as many points as possible, the cloverleaf setup would allow them to do that as well. I would also leverage technology to it’s fullest. For example, the race would be webcast for free over the internet and maybe even in Second Life. The sport will never attract a large fan base if we make them stand out in the freezing cold early on a Sunday morning only to see the runners whiz by for a split second. But at night on a fan-friendly course . . . now that’s a whole other type of event.

Thanks Santa. I hope to see you in the mall tomorrow. If not, I’ll definitely catch you at the Santa Scamper 5K. You’re going down this year.

Love,
Matt

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Matt Taylor is Time Magazine’s 2006 Person of the Year. He’s also a freelance entrepreneur, well-fed writer, and new media specialist. Christmas is his second favorite holiday, behind only My Birthday. He is the creator of chasingTRADITION.com and chasingKIMBIA.com. His writings have appeared in Peak Running Performance, High School Runner Magazine, and RunningTimes.com. Currently, he’s working on a project about 800-meter running with author Nicholas Sparks, as well as projects for KIMbia Athletics, PUMA, Runner’s World, USATF, and the HDO Group. You can reach him at matt@chasingkimbia.com.

by Scott Douglas

No work of art is perfect, but almost all has something in it that speaks to someone. As Gore Vidal likes to say, if you get nothing else out of “War and Peace,” there’s at least Tolstoy’s gourmet recipe for strawberry jam.

With that in mind, let’s consider Anthony Famiglietti’s new DVD, “Run Like Hell.” The Olympic steeplechaser has created something unique among running products—part biopic, part motivational vehicle, part instructional video, part fly-on-the-wall look at one world-class runner’s competitive year, with outtakes and a brief detour to pay tribute to a dead childhood friend thrown in. (Sorry, no gourmet recipes, which shouldn’t be surprising after watching the segment “Worst Diet Ever.”) How much any of that appeals to you says as much about the role of running in your life as it does about Famiglietti’s production skills, which are, like Famiglietti, solid, quirky and a little metaironic.

Take, for example, the many shots of Famiglietti working out on the track. It’s hard to imagine anyone who has toured the oval not getting fired up by these sequences. If I were 18 years old, I would have been out the door for a hard run immediately after watching these. Given that I’m 42, I instead made myself some green tea and reminisced about past glories, but I did make a mental note to watch the scenes again the next time I’m going to do something other than putz around the neighborhood.

The track scenes should also resonate with many viewers because Famiglietti, a resident of Manhattan, has little of the romantic isolation in his training that many of his peers do. Distance runs are done amid the hordes in Central Park, and track sessions mean running 60-second quarters around joggers, soccer players and others who care not a whit that he will soon be competing against some of the best runners in the world. The next time I get frustrated about seemingly deaf walkers in lane 1, I’ll remember Famiglietti reeling off a 2:57 1200-meter repeat in similar circumstances.

It’s likely that a lot of runners will find something to draw sustenance from in “Run Like Hell.” I can think of far worse ways to spend $25 than on something that will repeatedly make a tough running day a little better. To view trailers of “Run Like Hell” or to order a copy, visit www.runfam.com.

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Scott Douglas is a former editor of Running Times and co-author of four books, including Advanced Marathoning. Visit him online at www.scottdouglas.biz.

by Martin Vaughan

It is 2:40 am on race day, and I am sitting upright in a hotel bed with the fluorescent light from outside seeping in through the cracks in the blinds. Four and a half hours before the shuttle bus departs for our trail half-marathon in central Oregon’s high desert, and only a couple of hours before the marathoners will start to stir. A baby dozes fitfully on my chest, turning her head a couple of times a minute to wipe snot into my t-shirt and emit this hacking, bone-shaking cough.

My wife Jonette is slumbering beside me with her Brooks Addictions on the floor beside the bed and her race bib on the bedside table. Alice, our three-year-old, is slumbering in a bunk across the room, after finally passing out around 11pm, the pre-race excitement too much for her. The main thing right now between me and a few minutes of stolen sleep is a massive bronze wall ornament suspended inexplicably above the bed, which rattles every time I try to rest my head on the wall.

We have been through the drill of running a race together with two pre-school aged children before, so it’s not as if we had not thought things through. We found a hotel suite with separate sleeping spaces for our family and the baby-sitter. We made sure to arrive plenty early the day before so that we could have a good meal and get the kids off to bed at a regular hour.

But as any parent knows, you can’t ever count on kids to follow the plan, no matter how carefully prepared.

We were a relaxed group as we pulled into Bend, Oregon mid-afternoon the day before the race. We picked up our race packets and, wary of approaching bedtimes, grabbed some take-out and headed to the hotel.

Was it the laziness of being on an extended vacation or the meager oxygen at 3600 feet that caused us to skip the normal bedtime routine and bundle Alice into the car for a drive through the pitch-dark desert? It had worked a couple nights before where she had just fallen asleep in the car and transferred straight to bed without a peep. Plus, it couldn’t hurt to drive over to the race start just so there are no questions about how to get there in the morning.

After an hour and fifteen minutes in the car, there was finally silence from the backseat and Jonette and I looked at each other hopefully. But then the voice of a bored toddler nowhere near sleep came from the back: “Mom, when are we going back to the hotel?” We groaned in unison.

We pulled into the hotel parking lot sullen and defeated. It had been a bad plan. Now a 30-minute bedtime routine awaited us in the room involving books, tooth-brushing, prayers and more storytelling in bed. At 10:45 I crawled into bed with Alice and went to sleep beside her.

I awoke with a faint awareness of a strange wheezing sound and the feeling of only having been asleep for a few minutes, despite the yellowish light coming into the room which made me wonder if dawn was at hand. The room came into focus and I heard the hack, hack, hack of a baby with a chest cough – there had been no sign of it the day before. “I haven’t slept a wink,” Jonette said as she handed Greta to me. It was 2 am.

An excess of adrenaline always makes it hard to sleep the night before a race. The longer you are awake, the more acutely you are aware of the need to sleep, and the more you worry, and the harder it is to sleep.

To compound that, try sleeping with a sick, fitful baby on top of you. I licked my lips and swigged the water bottle at the side of the bed. I cracked my neck and leaned my head against the wall. The darned bronze thing! I envisioned ripping it off the wall and smashing it against the plate glass window. What if there was no more sleep for me tonight? Could I run a half-marathon on three hours of sleep? Would my limbs feel heavy, would I struggle?

In a flash of inspiration, I gave Greta to a sleepy Jonette and walked out into the parking lot. I pulled Greta’s car seat out of the car, aware that it would cost us five or ten minutes in the morning to re-install it. But Greta was able to sleep upright in it, and that bought me two beautiful hours of sleep.

Car doors slamming outside — from marathoners headed off to the starting line – awakened me a little after five. Not long afterwards, Greta was awake for good. I wrapped a blanket around her and stepped out into the cool pink morning air. I was tired but determined to let Jonette rack up at least five hours of sleep. We would have seven miles and 1300 feet to climb before the six-mile descent to the finish line. Anyway the dusty landscape was beautiful and the stillness, with Greta wide-eyed and gripping my shoulder, was nice.

At the starting line three hours later, I felt none of the stiff ache in my joints I feared would be the result of the rough night’s sleep. We filled our water bottles, ate oranges and surveyed the fit bodies milling and stretching around us. The field was young and athletic-looking, with plenty of gracefully-tattooed shoulders and calves. The kids were with Grandma and for the next two hours plus, it was me, Jonette, the trail and two hundred others with a passion for the muddy footprint and the dirt-streaked sweatband.

We followed a service road into the trees, one bobbing herd at first that rapidly lengthened and dispersed as the leaders began their pursuit. After a mile we cut back sharply along a trail that meandered along the banks of a creek. Then we crossed the creek and began to climb the ridge on the other side.

For miles it seemed there was nothing but the sun, the rocks, the sagebrush and juniper to witness our ascent. We were around other runners but they were as lost as we in the embrace of rock and sunlight. What freedom in the communion with this bare place, and all awareness of diapers and play-do, of Sudafed and sippy cups was as from a distant past.

Then we crested and curved back through brush thickets and sandy soil underfoot as we began to lose altitude. We cruised back down the slope for a long stretch and then clambered down into the ravine where the shade again enveloped us. Our stride began to lengthen and relax with the flat terrain.

The flags of the finish line came into view – and the smiles and waves, two little blond heads. Later, sprawled out on the grass, I looked at Alice with a race medal around her neck munching trail mix from a Dixie cup. These scenes of quiet exhilaration, of training and accomplishment, a fellowship of strivers – these will form part of the tapestry of her youth and carry with her into adulthood. Or so we hope.

Some tips for getting through race day with the little ones:

Take turns. If your partner is racing, your best bet is to be there at the finish line with the jog stroller. It’s fun to do a race together occasionally, but for us it is more the exception than the rule. Yes, you can make it through the training and the long runs by hiring baby-sitters and cashing in your chits with neighbors and friends, but the race itself requires more mental and physical preparation. Parenting is a full-time job for at least one person, and your volunteering to be that person will free your partner to focus in the crucial twenty-four hours before the race.

Arrive early. Like a runner from the flatlands getting ready to race at high altitude, kids need time to acclimate. We found that getting there the afternoon before the morning of the race may not cut it. If you’re traveling, you should try to arrive a full twenty-four hours before the race, and if possible, give the kids two nights before the race to adjust.

Stick to the routine. It is an article of faith for many parents, and it’s no less applicable the day before the race. When it comes to meals, playtime and bedtime, it is important to provide as much that is familiar as you can.

Prepare yourself for the likelihood that someone will throw up. There will be a surprise at some point along the line. See previous tip about “taking turns” – one partner can deal with the wild cards while the partner who is racing sleeps, stretches, or rests.

Enjoy the kids and let them be a part of it. Taking them (on wheels) on shorter training runs and talking up the race in the last few weeks will give you a motivational kick while giving them something to look forward to. Skip the pre-race expo, which won’t have much to interest them, but pasta dinners are a hit as a general rule. Your finish line and post-race experience will be greatly enhanced by the presence of your little dears, if it is feasible for them to be present. Review thoroughly the logistics of the race beforehand – spectator access to the finish line, parking, etc. Smaller races often are easier for families to navigate, but not always.

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Martin Vaughan can be found pushing a jog-stroller in the parks and on the trails around Kensington, MD. He writes about economic issues and Congress for the National Journal.