Now a Jogger

I'm sure everyone's experienced something like this. One night you get suckered into watching The Bachelorette, partially against your will. Maybe your girlfriend or wife talked you into it, or maybe you're just home alone on a Monday with half a bottle of wine and you figure, "why not?". You start off watching it sort of ironically, making fun of how ridiculous it is and how desperate and insane the cast members are. But then you end up watching it again the next week. And the week after that. Before you know it, it's the season finale and you're yelling at your TV, "I can't believe Emily chose Jef with one eff, that will never work!"

That's sort of how this year of running has worked out for me. In the beginning, I did it partially as a joke. I hated almost every mile of it but could at least laugh at myself and the fact that a little four miler felt like I was actually getting a workout in. But toward the end of the year things started to change a little bit. I wouldn't say I enjoyed running any more, just that I couldn't imagine not doing it. It wasn't an addiction the way it was when I was running 135 miles per week. But I liked the way it made me feel, I liked the fact that some of the muscles in my legs were finally visible after four years of hibernating beneath a layer of fat, and I liked that I actually had a butt again. I liked that on a week when I got way off pace I could bang out a 16 miler fairly easily. Sure, I was sore the next couple days, but doing something like that would've been next to impossible a year ago. Despite only running 25-30 miles per week, I was doing it consistently enough to kind of, sort of, maybe get in shape a little bit. It wasn't race shape or anything like that. But it was the kind of in shape that a healthy twenty-something should want to be.

It was a silly goal and I know there are hundreds of turkey trot champions out there who dwarfed my mileage this year. But when I ran my 1,380th mile on Saturday morning, I felt a genuine sense of accomplishment. Running 25-30 miles per week wasn't hard. I never thought it was going to be a very physically demanding goal, just that it would require consistency. Consistency in doing something that I didn't particularly want to do. In the entire year, I'd say there were only a handful of runs that I legitimately enjoyed and almost none that I looked forward to when I woke up in the morning. Running's just not my thing anymore. I know that some people love it, I know that I loved it at one point in my life, and there are even still things about it that I love. But one thing that never got much easier as the year went on was getting out (and staying out) the front door. And I think that's okay. Maybe even a good thing.

I think there's a benefit in sticking with something like this and forcing yourself to do it, day after day. The cliche that it "builds character" is true. One of the most important lessons to learn is life is about delayed gratification. In the era of iPhones, iPads, YouTube, and Hulu+. There's almost always something you'd rather be doing than what you should be doing. The motto of "do what you love and the money will come" is bullshit when what you love is watching TV, eating pizza, and drinking beer. No, I think it's much more important to do what you find rewarding and satisfying. And as crazy as it sounds, I found becoming an extremely mediocre recreational jogger to be wildly satisfying. And a lot of that had to do with forcing myself to get my little runs in every week. Even when I didn't want to, even when it was raining, even when I could think of a million things I'd rather be doing. There was a benefit to all of that, outside of becoming a so-so jogger, I think it made me a little bit of a better person. Obviously, I'm still the reacher and Jenny's still the settler in our relationship, but I closed the gap just a little bit. Umm, on second though, the gape probably widened. Jenny's becoming a doctor and working an ungodly number of hours, that's got to be way harder than jogging around the block a few times per week and patting yourself on the back like you're Flyod Landis George Hincapie Lance Armstrong Galen Rupp.  But still. (See what you've done Lance, I now have to reference Rupp as my go-to American athlete who did something really inspirational on a world stage).

Before we get to my New Year resolutions for 2013, let's go over some quick stats about this year:

Total mileage: 1,380.31 miles

Total runs: 260 (an average of 5.3 miles per run)

Longest run: 17.86 miles

Shortest run: 2 miles (I wouldn't count anything less than 2 miles as a real run)

So what's the plan of 2013?

Well, I decided to make this whole resolution/improving myself as a human being thing permanent. Each year, I will complete all previous resolutions and add a new one. So in 2013, I will run 1,380 miles again, but I will add a new goal: Read 26 books and write 26 blog posts. There's a little more wiggle room with this resolution because books can vary considerably in length, but I'll honor the spirit of the resolution without necessarily setting specific requirements about page length, quality of book, etc. I'm sure I'll read some short ones and some that are longer. The goal is basically to consistently be reading something the whole year. And the blog posts goal is a way to actually get me to update this thing. I really enjoyed writing about my jogging adventure at the start of the year but quickly lost steam when I ran out of ways to say "I used to be really good -- well kind of, and now I'm just a jogger and it's sort of silly but also fun in a weird way". So this year, I'm no longer going to pretend that this blog is about running or jogging or anything in particular. I'll talk about whatever I feel like. It's safe to say there will be ample supply of Denver Bronco and Seattle Sounder posts. Probably a couple stories from back when I was a real runner, and maybe even a post or two about whatever books I read.

So that's that. Thank you to everyone who took an interest in my mini-comeback this year. I enjoyed hearing from you, it was nice to know that there are some people who would actually hold me accountably if I slacked off and didn't reach the coveted 1380 mark!

The adventure begins again on Tuesday!

Happy Holidays.

The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows

Last night ranks number two in my sports-heartbreak hall of fame. Right behind the 1996 Denver Broncos. You'd think that being 27 years old instead of 11, and having a little more perspective on things and the relative importance of sports -- or lack thereof -- would make it hurt a little less. But it doesn't. Perspective doesn't help with these kinds of things. Not really anyway. I didn't cry like I did in '96, but I wanted to. All the emotions were there. The feeling that this wasn't supposed to happen. Questioning why things ended the way that they did. The feelings might be illogical, but they're completely authentic. If you're a sports fan, you get it.

What made last night especially gut-wrenching was that we really, truly could have won. And that's the worst way to lose. After the first leg a week ago, we had a mountain to climb, a three goal deficit to overcome. But we could have done it. From the kickoff, you could tell that the team was playing with a fire and an intensity that LA simply couldn't match. We wanted it and we wanted it badly. When Eddie scored early (and then scored again since the first one didn't count), the feeling started to spread throughout the stadium that maybe, just maybe there was hope. You could see it with the players too. Zakuani played the best game of his career -- broken leg be damned -- blazing down the wings, beating defenders one-on-one and creating opportunity after opportunity. Ozzy proved that, contrary to popular belief, honey badgers can freaking fly. He dominated the entire midfield, trouncing Keane and Beckham countless times and sending them crying to the referee. We played with heart, and desire, and determination. Surely it would pay off. It had to.

When Zach Scott scored off a spectacular diving header in the 57th minute, the stadium went ballistic. No longer was the comeback just a pipe dream, it was destiny. Everywhere you looked, you could sense it. Something special was happening. This would be one of those games that they talk about years from now. Whenever a team needs a miracle comeback, they'll mention the 2012 Seattle Sounders and say "anything is possible". I remember running through the narrative in my head. Revenge Tour 2012. Real Salt Lake -- defeated. Los Angeles Galaxy -- defeated. Houston Dynamo -- defeated. All our playoff demons exorcised. I contemplated where this game would rank in my all time sports moments. It wasn't a championship, so it couldn't beat out the 1997 Broncos. But it would be every bit as memorable. I would never forget this game, where I was or how I felt. And then, everything was ripped away.

In the 68th minute, Robbie Keane had some space down the left hand side and Johansson ran him down to defend. Keane tried to cross it but Johansson sent it out for a corner. Except instead of taking the ball to the corner, everyone headed to the edge of the box. It was a penalty. A soul-crushing, earth-shattering penalty kick. From where we were sitting, there was no way to see whether the ball bounced of Johansson's face, his hand, or whether it even hit him at all. I've been told it could have gone either way. Not un-callable, but not blatant either. Personally, I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the replay. What's the point? Maybe if that call and the incorrect off-sides call on Eddie go the other way, we end up winning the series -- probably we end up winning the series. But they didn't go our way, and that's sports. That's life, really. If you don't win in a knock-out and you leave it up to the judges, there are no guarantees. It sucks and it hurts and it's unfair, but it's over. No, that doesn't mean we have to get over it right now, or tomorrow, or next week. But it means we can't change the outcome and eventually we'll need to move on.

Before the game, the Sounders front office played a montage of inspirational sports movie speeches. Something to get people motivated and hopeful for the game. They ended with a great quote from the last Rocky movie: 

The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. 

But it ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. It’s how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done. 

Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not point fingers and blame other people. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that.

Classic corny movie cliche to the letter, but no less true. I've been a sports fan for as long as I can remember. And in all my seasons of watching, caring, crying, and cheering, I've had two seasons not end with some kind of disappointment. But honestly, I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. Heartbreak and all. A sports cynic might say it's silly to care so much about sports, but I'd hate to know what it's like to not care.

Eternal Blue Forever Green.

Mile High Manning Miracle

You know how in college, when you’re forced to drink cheap crappy beer, you find a way to talk yourself into it. “Busch Light’s not so bad -- it gets the job done and comes in packs of 30, what more do you need?” You put blinders on, play some beer pong, and ignore the fact that what you’re drinking tastes like dog urine. It’s a survival technique. It hurts too much to admit that there are people out there sipping on delicious Sierra Nevada while you’re shot-gunning PBR to wash down a shot of Jose Cuervo.

That’s what it was like being a Bronco fan this past year. We were drunk on our Natty Ice, refusing to admit that even though it got the job done, our mouths tasted like piss and our quarterback was a hideous passer whose team hit a hot streak during the weakest part of their schedule, then beat a crippled Steelers team to make what should have been a disappointing season into a memorable bright spot in an otherwise depressing decade of football. But still, it was one hell of a season. I had a great time watching Tebow flail around for three quarters and then somehow force Marion Barber to fumble and empower Matt Prater to hit two 50 yard field goals to complete improbable comeback after improbable comeback. It was entertaining, exciting, but ultimately unsustainable.

When it looked like we’d be stuck with Tebow for the foreseeable future, I tried to talk myself into it: “If he can just learn how to throw, he’ll be like a 280 pound Michael Vick who thumps bibles instead of kills dogs.” It was hopeful thinking, but it’s what you do when you have no other option. You ignore the fact that quarterbacks are supposed to learn how to throw when they’re 12 years old playing Pop-Warner football, not when they’re a professional athlete making millions of dollars. Throwing is a fundamental skill, not a neat perk you hope they’ll pick up as they get more NFL experience.

But now the 30 bomb of Busch Light has been replaced by an ice cold sixer of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. And I’ll gladly take six good beers over 30 shitty beers any day. It’s amazing how fast I was able to sober up. Last week when the Manning-Bronco rumors started leaking out, I was scared to get my hopes up. But as soon as the news broke this morning, I was instantly on board, rationalizing how a 36 year old quarterback who’s had at least four neck surgeries over the last year will lead us to a Super Bowl. Remember, Elway was older and had been sacked eleventy-million more times than Manning the last time the Broncos won a Super Bowl.

It’s true, there’s no guarantee that Manning will even be able to finish a full season. His neck might flare up again and we could be starting Adam Weber by week six (who the hell is Adam Weber?). But there was never a guarantee that Tebow would complete more than four passes in a game. Plus, Manning’s upside is miles higher than Tebow’s. Would it be that unreasonable for him to come back at 90% of his 2010 self? Maybe his completion rate drops a couple points, and he throws an extra interception or two over the course of the season. But he’s still going to have his unparalleled ability to read defenses, change plays at the line of scrimmage, and his nearly flawless decision making. If there’s one quarterback who brings the most to the table outside of pure physical ability, it’s Peyton Manning. So much of what makes him one of the greatest of all time goes on in his head, and a handful of neck surgeries won’t change that.

But really, stats and hypotheticals aside, I know this is a big day as a Bronco fan because of the number of people who came up to congratulate me at work. Typically, you congratulate coworkers for getting engaged, having a kid, or winning the office March Madness pool. Apparently, you can add “having your favorite team sign one of the best quarterbacks of all time” to that list. Awesome.

I know it sort of sounds like I'm bashing Tebow a little too much for someone who previously hosted a Tim Tebow fansite that he was trying to pass off as running blog. I don't mean for it to come off that way. Tebow will always have a place in my heart. Like I said, he gave me my favorite football season since the Elway era, and I won't soon forget that. But objectively, he's bad quarterback. His intangible inspiring irrationality was probably what the Broncos needed last season when things seems particularly hopeless but there’s a reason that despite their record, the Broncos were dismal in every other statistical category. They weren’t a good team and bad teams can fake it for a while. However, it’s unlikely that they could have faked it for an entire season in 2012. So I’m happy to hang up my Tebow jersey. It was a great run, but it’s time try to actually win a Super Bowl. On the running front, let’s update things after two weeks of uneventfulness:

Sunday (3/4): 3.43
Monday (3/5): 4.1
Tuesday (3/6): 2
Wednesday (3/7): 4.1
Thursday (3/8): 4.1
Friday (3/9): 4.1
Saturday (3/10): 8.2
Total: 30.03
Sunday (3/11): 4.71
Monday (3/12): 4.1
Tuesday (3/13): 2
Wednesday (3/14): 4.22
Thursday (3/15): 4.27
Friday (3/16): 4.1
Saturday (3/17): 8.2
Total: 31.6

I really want to up the mileage to like 35ish by getting in another 8+ day during the week and maybe going 10 on Saturday. But daylight savings has destroyed any chance of me getting up even earlier to run in the morning. It was finally light outside for the majority of my run, and besides the fact that running sucks and I hate it, my morning runs weren’t too bad. Now it sucks, I hate it, and I can’t see anything. Bummer. At least we got Peyton Manning.

Blah Blah Blog

Quick update because I didn't post a self-indulgent memoir from the glory days last week.

Sunday: 5.29
Monday: 4.1
Tuesday: 0
Wednesday: 4.1
Thursday: 4.1
Friday: 4.22
Saturday: 8.2
Total: 30.01

I'd like to bump up the mileage over the next couple weeks, mostly because I want to get back on schedule. I'm now 42.25 miles off pace and that gap will evaporate quickly if I can bang out a few 35-40 mile weeks. I'm thinking about not taking a day off anymore and going for an easy two or three miles instead. If I'm lazy or tired, I'll still let myself sleep in, but there's really no reason to take a day off just for the sake of taking a day off. We'll see. Better blog post coming this week, I was out of town last weekend

That time I raced some candy-ass bikers

Each summer when I was in college, I’d spend a couple months at home in Bellingham running in the hills, building strength and preparing for the upcoming cross-country season. Galbraith Mountain was my favorite old stomping ground. There were countless miles of “mountain bike” trails and logging roads, giving you the option to hammer up some brutal climbs or just take it easy weaving through single-track dirt trails. I really doubt there’s a better place to run in the entire country.

I ran on Galbraith at least three or four days a week and saw mountain bikers on the trails probably half the time. Mountain bikers are funny because they seem to be much more interested in walking their bikes than actually riding them. Whenever there was anything even remotely resembling an incline, 90% of the bikers I saw would be sucking wind and slowly pushing their bike up the hill. Or they’d be pulled over on the side of the trail smoking pot. Now that a think about it, the two activities probably had something to do with each other. Occasionally I’d blow past a biker who was actually riding his bike, but they were few and far between, rarely did they even attempt to keep up.

Now I know running up hill is way easier than riding a bike up hill. It’s not even close. And while it’s easy for me to poke fun at the candy-ass stoner bikers, they were probably laughing at me too, “What the hell is that idiot trying so hard for? Does he think we give a shit if some scrawny weirdo in short shorts can get to the top of a hill before us?” Maybe they had a point, it does seem sort of ridiculous to care about beating someone when they’re not even aware that they’re in a race. It was more of a way to pass the time than anything else I guess. I never really considered myself to actually be in a race with any of these tool-bags. Until one Sunday...

This is the story of my battle with the mountain bikers.

The story takes place on some random Sunday in August 2006. I was 90 minutes or so into my long run and had just turned up one toward one of my favorite climbs on Galbraith. It was maybe a half-mile stretch of dirt road that get progressively steeper before finally leveling out. If I was feeling good, I’d like to push the pace a little on the climb and then relax and recover at the top before the final ascent to one of the best views on the mountain. This particular day was beautiful. The sun was shining and dozens of runners, bikers, and hikers were out on the trails. Right as I turned and began climbing, I passed a group of three bikers. At first I didn’t think anything of it, I passed packs of struggling mountain bikers daily when the weather was nice (they tended to stay in doors when it rained). But something was a little different about these guys. They looked like there were actually in decent shape and didn’t reek of marijuana. While I was still in ear-shot I heard them talking to each other and realized one of them was getting ready to throw down. It was all I could do to keep from laughing at the thought of a biker trying to beat me up a climb. Then, with a speed unheard of among two-wheeling wusses, one of the bikers shot out from the other two and closed the gap on me in seconds. As he passed me, he threw down the challenge, “Sorry, I can’t some runner beat me.”

Are you serious? This candy-ass mountain biker wants to throw down? And not only that, he’s cocky enough to apologize for winning before the race has even really started?

With that, it was on like Donkey Kong at Comic-Con. Before my brain had even fully processed the fact that I mountain biker had passed me, taunted me, and took off ahead of me, I was in a dead sprint. I tucked in on his wheel like I was Lance Armstrong covering a move in a the Tour de France and kept hammering. When you’re sprinting all out up a mountain, a few seconds feels like an eternity. And after an eternity or two, when it was still all I could do just to stay on the wheel this uppity biker who was almost certainly a ringer flown in from a recent training session at Alp d’Huez, I started to panic. What if I lost to a mountain biker? Even if this dude is a legitimate athlete, an uphill sprint on loose dirt and rocky terrain clearly favors a runner. This can’t happen. It just can’t.

We went around a small bend and the road got just a little bit steeper. I knew that if I was going to beat this guy, and not just sit on his ass and out kick him in the final few meters, but legitimately prove my dominance I had to go now. I took the turn wide and swung up next to him, putting everything I had into a surge that I hoped would break him.

It’s funny how important stupid little competitions like this can seem. When no one else in the world is even aware that some kind of metaphorical fight to the death is going down. And even if they knew about it, they wouldn’t care. The Guinness Book of World Records is a freaking anthology of people trying to be the best at stupid shit no one cares about. These things are pointless and meaningless, but when you’re in the midst of epic race that only you and three mountain bikers on the planet know about, it’s the most important thing in the world.

So I came out of that turn as if beating this dude would win me a trip to nationals. As if I’d trained my whole life just to crush mountain bikers on Galbraith. I gritted my teeth, leaned into the hill, and charged toward the finish line that I assumed was at the top of the hill. That’s another problem with spontaneous races on some random logging road between two strangers who’ve never spoken to each other... how do you know where the finish is?

Luckily my attack worked and the official (completely unofficial and meaningless) finish line didn’t matter. I took the lead and as I broke away I felt the biker let up, defeated. I maintained my rhythm through the crest of the hill just to insure that my superiority was unquestionable. It was important that I won with a knockout, no leaving it up to the judges for me.

I have to give the random biker dude credit though. That was one hell of a race up a random hill on some Sunday in July between two guys who didn’t know each other and would never see each other again.

Weekly mileage update:
Sunday: 5.29
Monday: 4.93
Tuesday: 0
Wednesday: 4.1
Thursday: 4.1
Friday: 4.1
Saturday: 8.2
Total: 30.72

I’m now only 45.72 miles off paces and continuing to chip away at that number every week. 30 miles is feeling really comfortable so I’m hoping to bump up to 35 in the next couple weeks.

Air-Bud the Golden 10ker

Before my run yesterday, I was listening to Bill Simmon’s podcast with Chuck Klosterman. They were discussing Linsanity and Tebow-mania, the crazy hype that surrounds these athletes when they come out of nowhere to go on impossible winning streaks and single-handedly save their team’s season. Klosterman hypothesized that the reason people get so captivated by these kind of stories is that sports and even our every day lives have become so predictable that it’s refreshing and probably inspiring to see someone defy the statistics and the analysts and succeed where no one believed he could. It’s sort of like sticking it to “the man”.

To some extend he’s right. Unless you’re a fan of one of the dominant teams, you almost always root for the underdog and even that’s not very satisfying most of the time. The Giants caught fire right around week 17 and won the Super Bowl despite finishing the regular season with an 9-7 record. But was anyone really that surprised? If I’d told you a week or two into the season that the Giants were going to hit their stride going into the playoffs and tear everyone apart on both defense and offense, you’d probably say something like, “yeah, I could see that happening.” Maybe it’s not likely, but it’s not unbelievable. However, if I were to tell you a week or two into the NBA season that Jeremy Lin was going to come off the bench and start draining game winning threes in order to save the Knicks seasons, you’d probably ask, “who the hell is Jeremy Lin?” And that’s when it gets fun. When something happens that wasn’t even remotely on your radar.

In 2001 everyone was rooting for the Patriots in the Super Bowl. They were the classic underdog story with an unheard of backup QB who saved a team on the brink of disaster. In 2012 everyone hates the Patriots. Why, what's changed? The second biggest reason is simply that now they’re good (the first biggest reason is that they cheated to win their Super Bowls). They’re supposed to win. Today, that unheard of QB is dating a super model, doing cameos on Entourage, and is destined for the hall of fame. We all liked him a lot more when he was Drew Bledsoe’s backup (go cougs!).

Amazing insight right? We like surprises, root for underdogs and get enthralled by anything resembling the storyline to a Disney movie. So what, isn’t this a Tim Tebow fan site/running blog? Don’t worry, I’m getting there.

Generally speaking, my favorite sport is whatever I’m currently watching. The Broncos and the Sounders are the only teams that I really care about, but I love sports and can appreciate the merits of pretty much anything where one team wins and one team loses. The lack of commercials in soccer is awesome. It’s great knowing that when the game starts, you’re going to have 90 minutes of uninterrupted action with just a quick bathroom break and beer refill in the middle. But I also realize that by having the final two minutes of a football game last 20 minutes, it allows for a lot more suspense to build up, lets us over analyze every play, and gives us more time to refill our beers and take the additional required bathroom breaks that go along with more beers. Both sports are great for different reasons. But if you’re looking for surprises and performances that no one saw coming, running is actually the sport to watch (I told you I'd bring this around).

For most mainstream sports, players and teams can be analyzed by a bunch of statistics and we’ll have a pretty good idea of how well they’re going to do. Sometimes they overachieve and sometimes they underachieve, but it’s extremely rare to have the Jeremy Lin outliers. For runners, you can look at someone’s PRs and have a sense of how well they’re going to do, but not if they haven’t raced recently. Running has a very distinct correlation between input and output. If you train harder, you’ll run faster. That’s not as true with other sports. You can practice to improve yourself during the off season (I’m sure hoping Tebow learns how to throw a football before next season), but it doesn’t necessarily translate to measurable results the way it does in running. That means that when a runner hasn’t raced for a couple months, he or she can seemingly come out of nowhere to shock the running world (all twelve of us!).

I’m notorious for saying everything was one of the greatest sports moments I’ve ever seen. It’s not that I’m lying, I just get so caught up in the excitement of whatever I’m currently watching that at the time, it feels like one of the greatest sports moments I’ve ever seen. But still, being in Boston last year and watching Desiree Davila come within seconds of being the first America woman to win the Boston Marathon in a gazillion years was one of the greatest sports moments I’ve ever seen. The yo-yoing during the final mile, the three or four times when I was sure she was done only to see her surge back to the lead. It was incredible, and it came out of nowhere. I mean it came out of months of dedication and hundreds of miles of hard work, but to the viewer, it came out of nowhere.

That’s what’s great about running. So much of the race is is already won or lost before anyone even toes to the starting line. It’d be like if the first three quarters of football games were played behind closed doors (how great would Tebow seem if no one saw the first three quarters of ineptitude?). To beat this analogy to death: it’s an Olympic year and the first quarter is winding down with meet, collegiate, and American records all falling last weekend, some more predictably than others. If you like surprises and underdog stories, this summer in London is the time to watch. Odds are, no American will win a gold a medal in any distance event. We never do. But doesn’t that sounds like the start of a Disney movie? Except I guess in Disney’s version Galen Rupp would be played by a golden retriever. “Where in the rule book does it say a dog can’t run the 10k?”

Weekly mileage recap:
Sunday: 5.77
Monday: 4.22
Tuesday: 0
Wednesday: 4.1
Thursday: 4.22
Friday: 4.1
Saturday: 8.2
Total: 30.61

Slightly higher than last week and keeping my ~30 mile per week goal. I’ve finally found a 4.22 and 4.1 mile loop that I don’t mind too much and my Saturday 8.2 mile loop is great. Gonna continue with this same basic plan for another couple week and see how I feel. Only 49.9 mile “in the red” now.

The Story of Estes Road

Going on real runs, more than just a couple laps around the block or a dinky five mile loop out your front door, is cool because of the stories. I mean, it’s cool because it gets you into really good shape and you feel like a badass and win races, but the real reason it’s cool is the stories. The random crazy stuff that happens when you decide to face whatever crap mother nature throws at you and log the 12, 14, 20 or however many miles you need to get in for that particular day. There was the time I passed out and had to go to the emergency room due to severe dehydration after a 12 mile run in 120 degree weather. Or the time a few of us got crop dusted when we were out running during the summer (I thought about putting quotes around “crop dusted”, but figured it wouldn’t make any sense because we literally got crop dusted by a crop dusting plane. If Alex, Williams and I all develop the same weird rare cancer, we know what’s to blame). Those crazy unexpected adventures are among the things I miss most about being a real runner. Racing was fun, making it to nationals was amazing, but there’s something special about you and your teammates suffering through the endless miles together and experiencing the same ridiculous stuff that happens during your normal daily routine. Sometimes you can sort of see it coming. When it’s minus seven outside with the windchill and snow’s continuing to dump down, you can expect some shenanigans. Other times, it’s just an average Monday morning and you get ambushed by a couple of bloodthirsty owls completely out of the blue.

In retrospect, we should have seen this first story coming. It was a cold, snowy Sunday morning in Pullman and the wind was starting to pick up. But when we piled in the vans and drove out to where we’d be running it really didn’t look that bad outside. I was only a freshman and still had that self-conscious high school mindset where I wouldn’t wear running tights (well maybe with shorts over them... always the sign of a running noob) and I hated wearing running pants, especially on long runs where once you warmed up, they just became a nuisance. So both Chris Williams and I made the fatal mistake of stripping down to our running shorts, totally oblivious to the excruciating, mind-numbing, earth-shattering, pelvic-region-freezing pain we’d be experiencing just a few miles later.

This is the story of Estes Road.

An easy mistake to make when you’re doing an out-and-back run is not noticing the tailwind on your way out. You don’t feel the tailwind, you just notice that the pace feels a little bit easier than it should. On a cold day it also feels warmer, more comfortable. You’ll sweat more than you would normally and this all makes things even worse when you finally turn around and face the wind that carried you through the first half of the run. Add in some falling snow and an icy road and you have the situation we were facing on Estes that day.

It’s funny, I really don’t remember the first half of the run. When I think back to that day, the first memory I have is of turning around at the halfway point and feeling like a runaway semi from Ice Road Truckers slammed right into my face. Running into a 35 mile per hour headwind is miserable when the weather’s nice. But when it’s nine degrees outside and your feet have no traction, that kind of headwind is soul-crushing. It makes you wonder why the hell you’re out in the middle of nowhere on the border between Washington and Idaho wearing a pair of short shorts while snow and wind eat away at your will to live, instead of being at home sleeping off a hangover and waiting for football to start like any normal college kid. Years later, it still sounds like a dumb idea, but at least I have the story.

Williams and I reached the turnaround at roughly the same time and I think the same Ice Road Trucker that hit me just about leveled him too. We briefly considered face-planting into the ditch on the side of the road and calling it a life, but decided we still had too much to live for. We hadn’t done the Pizza Hut Meat Lover’s Challenge yet and still had several seasons of 24 to catch up on. So instead, our survival instincts kicked in and we started trading leads and hammering into the unrelenting headwind. And I mean seriously hammering. We weren’t checking our mile splits, but it’s possible we PR’d in the two mile during one stretch coming back. We blew past a couple of the guys who had been ahead of us and just kept pushing.

When you’re in shape, running hard doesn’t hurt any less, but your body sort of relishes the suffering. It’s like in the first Rocky movie, how it didn’t matter that Rocky lost. Going toe-to-toe with Apollo Creed for 15 rounds, getting the crap beaten out of him and refusing to throw in the towel, that’s what mattered. Williams and I weren’t hammering in order to beat anyone or break any records. We were hammering just because there’s something cool about surviving a beating like that.

For a while it was fun in a way. It hurt, but it hurt in a lung-burning, leg-aching way. It wasn’t until we had about two miles to go that we realized the true consequences of running into a 35mph headwind in freezing snow and wind wearing just a light pair of running shorts with nothing on underneath. Your. Penis. Freezes. Wow, was it painful. There’s no way to prove it, but I’d bet a million dollars it was worse than childbirth. I tried taking off my hat and stuffing it down there for some protection, but it was too late, the damage was done. The final ten minutes of the run was a battle between trying to keep up the pace so that we finished faster while also figuring out the most efficient way to run with one hand stuffed down your shorts. And the worst part was that there wasn’t any relief when we finally finished. You can’t just shake off something like this.

After the run, I remember sitting in the back of JD’s car next to Williams, both of us with our hands down our shorts trying to protect our junk. It hurt to have anything touch anything down there. The actual freezing of the crotchal region was one thing, but the thawing was almost just as bad. I don’t know the physics or biology behind what was happening, but think of what it’s like to be in a hot tub while it’s snowing, then running and jumping in a icy lake or pool and then back into the hot tub. How your body sort of goes through shock from the sudden change in temperature. Now imagine instead of jumping in cold water and back into warm water, you were dipping your manhood into liquid nitrogen then sticking it into a fire. That’s exactly what we were dealing with. Well that’s what it felt like anyway.

And that wasn’t even as bad as when we got home and tried taking a shower (we didn’t do that part together). I still shudder just thinking about it, it’s a miracle there was no permanent damage. After things had thawed and warmed up the pain went away relatively quickly. My guess is that childbirth might have a little more lasting discomfort than what we experienced, I’ll concede that much.

I like to keep a record of my success against various running routes. You know, how many times I’ve conquered them versus how many times they’ve gotten the better of me. For almost any given road or trail, I have an overwhelming winning record. Against Estes, I’m still 0-1. Maybe if this resolution goes well, I’ll make a pilgrimage out there this December and log my 1,380th mile on that fateful road. Probably I’ll just stay at home, sleep off a hangover and watch football though.

Mileage summary for the week:
Sunday: 5.29
Monday: 0
Tuesday: 4.28
Wednesday: 4.24
Thursday: 4.22
Friday: 4.05
Saturday: 8.2
Total: 30.27

That means I’m 53.97 miles in the red right now. Not bad for taking two weeks off. I’ve stopped the bleed and if I keep my ~30 mile per week up, I should be back on schedule in less than two months.

Go Cougs.

$99 Aqua-socks

I finally bought a new pair of running shoes. Since college, I’ve been running almost exclusively in an old pair of Nike racing flats. I’m sure they’re called some combination of the words: air, zoom, streak, and racer… maybe there’s a vapor in there too… but whatever, they’re five years old and I can’t remember exactly what snazzy name Nike came up with for them. The point is that even though my yearly mileage has been comparable to that of a high school girl’s softball player, five years is a long time for a pair of racing flats and since I’m kinda-sorta running again, I should probably reward myself with a new pair of shoes.

Before I get into the shoes that I bought, I want to set the record straight on a couple popular running shoe myths.

1) “You need to replace your shoes every X miles.”
I think most people are told that they should replace their shoes something crazy like every 200-300 miles. That’s is a great plan if you’re a recreational jogger who only runs three days a week or if you’re a running store who makes money by selling shoes to recreational joggers who only run three days a week. But in college, that would have meant replacing our shoes every fortnight, which was impossible even with the handful of free pairs we were given.

Modern running shoes are incredibly durable. Unless you’re in something like the five-finger whatchamacallit (which we’ll address in a minute), your shoes were built to survive some heavy pounding. Replace them when you can tell they’re getting worn out, or when you want a snazzy new pair that looks cool. Don’t feel compelled to buy new shoes just because they passed some made-up mileage barrier.

2) “The human body was meant to run barefoot.”
I’ll be honest, I haven’t read Christopher McDougall’s book. I’m sure it’s really good and that he makes some excellent points. But the new hipster craze over barefoot running is ridiculous. It just is. I’d consider myself a “minimalist” when it comes to running shoes. In college, I frequently trained in racing flats and generally wore the least amount of shoe I could get away with. I did a lot of secondary runs barefoot on grass and even product tested the Nike Free. So I completely agree that for a lot of people, less is more when it comes to running shoes. We probably don’t need the three pounds of rubber and foam that shoe companies are super-gluing to the bottom of our feet nowadays. But running barefoot isn’t some magical solution that will take away your injuries and make you a 2:15 marathoner. And that’s what I have a problem with -- that and how hideous the five-finger fuglies are.

Modern day Americans are obsessed with the quick fix. Whether it’s some new diet that will allow them to drop 30 pounds in two weeks while still eating half a pizza and a case of beer a night, or whether it’s these amazing new shoes that have separate slots for each of your toes and will somehow take away all your running problems. First of all, having all those separate slots for each toe is idiotic. Go run barefoot in the grass and tell me if your toes ever act individually. They don’t, they’re just a big clump of ugly co-dependant stubs. Never, in the thousands of miles that I’ve run have I ever thought “Boy, if only my second pinky toe was a little bit stronger”. We’re not monkeys, we don’t need our toes to be spread apart like that. Why can’t the makers of the five-finger shoes put all our toes in the same pouch and call the shoe what it really is, a $99 aqua-sock.

Again, my beef isn’t with minimalist/barefoot running movement/cult -- except I do think those shoes are ugly and overpriced. I agree with them on most things. My problem is that people think running without wearing shoes is a short-cut, when in reality, it’s a very small part of the bigger picture. The key to getting in shape and avoiding injuries, and the reason some random tribes in Africa can run a gajillion miles is slowly but surely building your fitness and running lots and lots of miles. Those African tribes have been doing nothing but running since they were old enough to walk. That’s the real reason that they never get hurt and can seemingly run forever. They have the greatest aerobic base on the planet. If you want to improve your running form, lose some weight, and break your PRs, the best way to do that is to stop thinking so much and just run more. Period.

As for me, I decided on a new pair of shoes the same way any logical person would. I went to eastbay.com, searched for size 9 Nike running shoes and sorted by price. I bought the cheapest pair I could find, a $39.99 pair of Luna Racers... in bright orange. My color selection was limited, but at least orange will go with my Tim Tebow jersey.

As for mileage this week:
Sunday: 0
Monday: 3.03
Tuesday: 3.64
Wednesday: 3
Thursday: 4.22
Friday: 4.22
Saturday: 9.2
Total: 27.31

Two weeks, two miles, zero guilt

The nice thing about being a recreational jogger is that I don’t feel guilty about taking two weeks completely off. When I was serious about this running stuff, I would have never dreamed of taking two weeks off. It was impossibly for me to fully appreciate vacations because I had to find a time to run… every single day. Even when I went to places that had decent running trails, I wasn’t familiar with them and would end up doing simple out-and-backs to avoid getting lost. I remember one time in Sun River Oregon, my long run was a 90 minute out and back. Not 90 minutes total, 90 minutes in one direction followed by 90 (maybe 85) minutes in the other direction. Miserable right? That was the other thing about running in places where I didn’t know exactly how far a certain run was, I always made sure to be wildly conservative with my estimates. So I’d call a three hour run 20 miles, despite the fact that I probably wasn’t running any slower than 7:00 pace even on the hilly trail. It was crazy and sort of stupid, but that’s the way I was.

Now I can actually enjoy a vacation without that voice in the back of my head telling me to go running. Jenny and I were in Singapore and Bangkok the past two weeks visiting her parents and appreciating some well deserved time off (At least for Jenny. I’ve only been working at my new job since September and, like a normal person, I actually get weekends off). It was in the 80s-90s the entire trip with comically high humidity, not exactly the kind of weather I’d want to run in even if I did want to run. So over the two weeks I only jogged once, on a treadmill, for two miles. And I never even felt guilty about it. I was too busy enjoying the amazing sightseeing, food-eating, and elephant-riding.

Running two miles over the course of two weeks does set me back a bit on my mileage goal though. Fortunately a year is a really long time so I still only have to average about 28 miles per week the rest of the year and I’ll hit my 1380 miles easily. Since I aimed so low, taking two weeks off doesn’t actually set me back much from a fitness perspective because I don’t even have to be in shape to slog through a bunch of 30 mile weeks. It’s more a matter of finding the motivation to put one foot in front of the other for 30-45 minutes a day rather than being in shape enough to run any kind of respectable mileage.

With that said, here’s my strategy for the next month or so. This week, my goal is to hit 25 miles, that’s right about where I was before I spent two weeks gorging on pad thai and coconuts. Then I want to jump up to 30 miles per week for the entire month of February. That’s higher than I need to average for the year, but it’s still really low and shouldn’t be any problem. For a given week, that means running four out of the five weekdays, between four and five miles per day, and running six to seven miles Saturday and Sunday. I’d see an average week looking something like this:

Sunday: 6 miles
Monday: 4 miles
Tuesday: OFF
Wednesday: 5 miles
Thursday: 4 miles
Friday: 4 miles
Saturday: 7 miles

If anything, I might run a little shorter during the week and a little longer on the weekends since it’s actually mildly enjoyable to run at 9:00 when it’s light outside instead of before or after work when it’s dark and miserable outside. After four weeks or so at 30 miles per week, I’d like to bump it up a little bit to help make up for lost time and build a bit of a buffer. Ideally, I want to start hitting 10-12 mile long runs on Saturday and maybe 8 miles on Sunday. That’d actually be a somewhat respectable weekend of running and even if I continue my pathetic 4-5 mile runs the rest of the week, I could conceivably approach 40 miles per week. When it finally starts getting light enough before or after work, that’s when I’d consider bumping up the weekday runs. But still, I’m not going to push it. If I can knock out consistent 35 mile weeks by mid April, I’ll be happy.

This week so far:
Sunday: 0
Monday: 3.03

Mediocre is okay, unless you're Daniel Lincoln

Week two is in the books and I'm still feeling good. Well, I'm feeling like ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag, but that's probably as good as can be expected having not run this consistently in years. I ended up hitting almost 25 miles this week, which confirms my suspicions that Runner's World is full of crap when they write articles about PRing in the marathon off 30 miles per week. To get good at something, you have to do that thing a lot. Running is no different, and 30 miles per week is not a lot. Luckily, I don't really want to get good at running, I just want to be better at life.

You know how people say that the key to a good life is doing everything in moderation? My motto used to be "nothing in moderation". I dedicated myself to running at the expense of almost everything else. It works out well if you're in a position where you can make some major sacrifices for something that you're passionate about, but it's not very sustainable -- at least not for me. One of the hardest things about coming back to running was knowing that it'd be impossible for me to compete with my college self. I couldn't stand the thought of losing some 10k fun run to a scrub who I could have wiped the floor with a year or two earlier. I know that sounds arrogant for someone who didn't even finish in the top 100 at Nationals, but I could clean up at local fun runs, just check out my back to back Jingle Bell Run trophies. Actually don't fact check that, I may have only won it once. The fact that I don't even remember speaks volumes to how much a logical person should care about fun run wins.

Regardless, a key to getting myself out the door again was accepting that being mediocre is okay. There are far more important things to me now than running an arbitrary distance as fast as I can. I know, plenty of people work real jobs and still run incredibly well. Wasn't Daniel Lincoln in med school when he won the Steeplechase at the US Outdoor Championships? Well those people are assholes for making the rest of us look bad. For now, I'll just be a little less of a candy-ass, next year I'll challenge Daniel Lincoln to race.

This week's mileage:
Sunday: 5.4
Monday: 3.16
Tuesday: 0
Wednesday: 3.61
Thursday: 4.55
Friday: 2.65
Saturday: 5
Total: 24.37

And of course, I can't sign off without mentioning the Broncos-Patriots game. It was disappointing, yes. But as I posted on Facebook right after the game, this was still the most enjoyable season as a Broncos fan since 1998. Maybe Tebow never becomes a consistent premier passer like Brady or Manning. But maybe he does. Sprinkled throughout a season of ugly throws and disappointing blowouts were brief moments of brilliance. There's definitely potential, and that's more than we've had since '06.

Goals and participation trophies

Goals are important. I know that’s not exactly a monumental revelation, but it’s true. Not in a “you can do whatever you set your mind to” idealistic way, but in a “if there’s a risk that you’ll fail at something, it might help you get your ass in gear” motivational way.

When I was a real runner, my overarching goal was to qualify for nationals. It was ambitious yet achievable. I still enjoyed running at the time, but a motivating factor to keep me out the door and suffer just a little bit longer and train just a little bit harder was knowing that I only had a finite amount of time to get my body ready to run as fast as it possible could.

My new goal is somewhat laughable and reeks of mediocrity, but it still helps motivate the hopelessly competitive part of me to stick with this silly training regimen of mine. Previously (post-running career), my workout schedule went something like this: I'd do no physically demanding activities for a couple weeks until I felt especially fat and useless. Then I'd run for a couple days in a row, maybe four or five times over the course of two weeks until I was sufficiently convinced that I was no longer at risk of obesity. Then I’d go back to sitting around doing nothing until I hit rock bottom again. Now that I’ve set a measurable and achievable goal -- one that requires a consistent commitment to something besides playing video games and eating pizza -- I’m getting out (and staying out) the door on a much more regular basis. Good job me.

But that’s enough self-reflective patting on the back for now. The more important point I wanted to make was wishing good luck to Drew Polley and the Hansons-Brooks team at the Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston this weekend. I ran with Drew in college and whereas I wussed out after achieving mediocre collegiate success, he decided to continue living the dream and see how far this whole running thing could take him. And for the record, there's a difference between truly racing a marathon and simply completing one.

Anyone who's ever run competitively at any level has probably experienced that awkward conversation when someone discovers that you're a runner, immediately asks how fast you can run a mile and whether or not you've ever run a marathon. Then they go on to explain that their neighbor's uncle's brother-in-law has run like six marathons -- you should talk to him. Listen, I'm sure I painted some pretty finger paintings in kindergarten, but that doesn't mean I should compare notes with Michelangelo if another chapel needs its ceiling painted. Running a marathon is great, it's a hell of a lot better than if your idea of daily workout is opting to take the stairs instead of the elevator. But it's not the same as racing one. Drew and those guys work their asses off to do something more than just finish marathons.

Weekly mileage update:

Sunday: 5.4
Monday: 3.16
Tuesday: 0
Wednesday: 3.61
Thursday: 4.55

Tebow 3:16

I’m an irrationally competitive person. I always have been. For years, I refused to do the running leg of the Junior Ski-to-Sea race because I couldn’t stand the thought of not coming in first. When I play Apples to Apples, I’ll be visibly irritated if someone makes a stupid pick for the winning card. I’ve gotten better in recent years, but I still care way too much about winning a game of Words with Friends than I should.

In college, my competitive outlet was running. I trained for months and months, logging thousands of miles for just a couple critical races. I remember so vividly the feeling of being a half mile from the finish of regionals in 2006 and seeing my coach, JD shouting “you’re 27th, 25th is right up there, GET HIM!” (top 25 had a shot at making nationals individually, and was my personal goal all season long). My whole season -- in retrospect, my whole career -- had come down to that last half mile, and without even making a conscious decision about what to do, I just starting sprinting. I passed one guy, rounded the final turn and passed another. As I strained toward the finish, I’ve been told the expression on my face made it look like someone was performing a lung transplant on me mid stride. I don’t remember feeling any pain, but I think I’d reached the rare euphoria just beyond agony and just before collapsing altogether. I finished 25th, and the rest is history (though a really obscure appendix in the history books that only anyone directly connected to our team knows about). But the point is that racing and running my ass off to try to beat people who had more natural talent than me was all I needed to satisfy that competitive voice inside me.

I have no desire to run competitively any more, possibly ever again. Now I’m one of those idiots who cares way too much about the success and failures of millionaire athletes who I’ve never met. Professional sports seem to matter so much more when you don’t have your own races to worry and competitions to train for. It’s like I’m that 11 year old kid again, inconsolably crying after the Broncos got upset in the 1996 divisional round of the AFC playoffs by the Jaguars; or running around the house jubilantly when Elway finally lifted the Lombardi trophy a year later. I need a competitive outlet. When I was running, that was great, and probably a healthier way to get my fix. But now I have Tim Tebow and my Denver Broncos.

What happened last night during the Denver-Pittsburgh game was amazing. I don’t care what teams you root for or how you feel about hyper-religious quarterbacks who spend more time praying than Tiger Woods spent banging hot blondes from 2006 to 2009. That game was in the top handful of playoff games in the last decade. On the first play of overtime, lining up like they were going to run the ball, sending a man in motion like they were going to run the ball, then faking a handoff like they were going to run the ball, all in order to set up Demaryius Thomas in man-to-man coverage against Ike Taylor who he’d been burning all night. It was confirmation that this was what Tebow’d been planning all along, a dramatic finish to a home playoff game that came impossibly close to never even happening. And Tebow played phenomenally nearly the entire game. He broke Elway’s Bronco record for passing yards in a playoff game. He made the “best passing defense in the league” look like a team crippled by injuries and missing several of its best players -- oh wait, I guess that’s sort of what they were... but still.

Some people have pointed to Tebow’s completion percentage as an obvious blemish on an otherwise Ashton Kutcher-esque face. That’s partially true, but keep in mind that a handful of those incompletions came on plays that would have been sacks, if not for Tebow escaping from pressure and throwing the ball away (sometimes purposefully, other times missing an open receiver along the sideline). It was the best game of his career, in the most important game of his career, and that’s exactly the type of performance I want in a quarterback. I never jumped off the bandwagon, but I’ll admit, I expected to die in a fiery crash weeks ago.

The game was a lot more satisfying than my attempts at running this week. Luke dragged me through 5.4 miles on Sunday morning and spent the lion’s share of the time trying to talk me into doing an iron-man with him. I don’t think he quite understands the only reason I’m running again is to feel a little less worthless and to avoid getting fat. Well, that and so I can have a place to post my long-winded odes to Tim Tebow. We averaged something like 6:30 pace for the run which was way faster than I’d been running on my own. The plus side to running, what was for me, a tempo run is that it gets the run over with a lot sooner. The down side is that it hurts to walk down stairs now. Holy crap, am I out of shape; embarrassing. This morning I logged my 3.16 mile loop, which I realized was fitting given Tebow’s 316 passing yards and the new “Tebow 3:16” meme that’s spreading through the internets. If this was a movie, we’d be calling it wildly unrealistic.

This week’s mileage so far:
Sunday: 5.4
Monday: Tebow 3.16

If you don’t count New Years Day, when I was too busy fighting a hangover and watching football to go running, I’m actually on pace for my 1,380 figure. Keep in mind, I’m going to be taking two weeks off to travel around Southeast Asia, so I’m not going to stay on pace right now. But jumping right into almost 30 miles per week is decent for a candy-ass who hasn’t run more than 3 days in a row for the last five years.

My how the turn tables

I finished up my first week with a 6.67 mile run down the Burke-Gilman trail, bringing my weekly total to 21.31 miles, and surprisingly, only about five miles off of my goal pace. Considering I only ran five days this week and half-assed most of the runs that I did do, I'm feeling reasonably confident that I'll be able to make it to that prestigious 1,380 mile make for 2012 as long as I don't get bored and decide to refocus my efforts on pizza and beer consumption instead of logging miles. It was a little disheartening when I looked back at my running log from 2006 and saw that I put in 121 miles the first week in January with a 12 and 7 double on Saturday. But whatever, I own a house now -- in your face 2006 Woody.

But enough about running. I know what's really on everyone's mind is whether Tim Tebow will be able to upset the Steelers and continue the improbable journey that has captivated us all (okay, maybe just me). Outside of the "this whole thing is feeling like the first season of Friday Night Lights mixed with Air Bud: The Golden Receiver" argument that the Broncos will win because this is exactly what happens in TV and movies, I objectively (subjectively) feel like they have a legitimate chance to win. Roethlisberger is hurt, he's not going to be as mobile and will be much more vulnerable to Dumervil and Miller. Ryan Clark isn't playing because last time he played in the thin air at mile high he lost a couple internal organs -- literally. Mendenhall is out, Pouncey is questionable and won't be at 100% even if he does play. That's a lot of key players for the Steelers who will be limping into Denver practically asking to be upset. Don't get me wrong, Tebow has to play better than he's been playing the last couple weeks, and the Denver defense has to be on the top of their game, but it wouldn't take a miracle for them to win.

I've heard some analysts compare this Bronco team to the 2006 WSU Men's Cross-Country team. Just like the Broncos, that team had an undeniable lack of talent, a rough start to the season, and went into the "play-offs" knowing they'd need to perform their best and get a little lucky in order to win a trip to Indiana for the National Championship. Really, the only difference between the two stories is that the '06 Cougs won a trip to beautiful Terre-Haute while the Broncos are trying to get to some random town called Indianapolis. And I bet if you put any of us from the '06 team on the football field, we'd throw just as poorly as Tebow, so don't even try to play that card.

The rest of my picks for wild card weekend:
Texans over Bengals
Saints over Lions
Giants over Falcons

My miles for the week:
Sunday: 0
Monday: 4.12
Tuesday: 3.12
Wednesday: 4.24
Thursday: 3.16
Friday: 0
Saturday: 6.67
Total: 21.31

The hardest part is staying out the front door

You know how people say that the hardest part of a run is getting out the front door? That's a lie. The hardest part of a run is staying out the front door. If the key to getting in shape was as simple as finding the motivation to turn a door knob and push, there'd be no obesity epidemic in our country. People walk out of the front door all the time, rarely do they stay out the front door and go for a run. No, the hardest part of running is continuing to run, especially when you're out of shape.

When you're in good shape, you can get some satisfaction out of running because it's like flexing in the mirror. No one needs to see you hammer out a 20 mile long run at sub six pace for you to know you're kind of a bad ass -- it's an added bonus if you can find a way to bring it up in casual conversation though. Checking your watch every mile and seeing 5:58, 5:55, 5:54, is like the Jersey Shore guys admiring their waxed, oiled and tanned abs in the mirror before going out clubbing. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's fun to be able to take pride in yourself. But when you're trudging along at 8:30 pace, checking your watch every 47 seconds for when you can turn around, you feel more like Brett Favre during his last season with the Vikings. You used to win NFL MVP awards and lead your team to back to back Super Bowls (note that they lost to the Broncos in the second one), but now you're making more headlines for texting pictures of your penis to unsuspecting females than for throwing game winning touchdown passes. 

Three days in and I'm a 41 year old Brett Favre who can't even make it through a full NFL season. I've made it out the door twice, but came back in almost immediately both times. The good news is that I had exceedingly low expectations for this month. I'm Tim Tebow going 1-6 in the first quarter and luring the the other team into a false sense of security. There's still a 50-50 chance I'll rally in the fourth quarter and ride Matt Prater's coattails to an overtime victory. That, or I'll throw four interceptions in my last 16 pass attempts and get blown out 23-41 by the Patriots. Either way, I'm in the playoffs. Right?

This week so far:

Sunday: 0 miles

Monday: 4.12 miles

Tuesday: 3.12 miles

Weekly total: 7.24 miles

Monthly total: 7.24 miles

Yearly total: 7.24 miles

Miles to go: 1,372.76

On pace for: 883.28

It begins...

I ran 5,977.78 miles in 2006. I was a machine. Every day I woke up at 6:45 and went running, on Monday through Friday I ran again in the afternoon. Sunday was a long run of at least 20 miles and Saturday was an easy day of "only" 12. It sounds a little crazy to me now, but at the time I was focused, dedicated and disciplined. My goal was to help my team qualify for NCAA Nationals and I knew the best way to do that was to run my ass off every single day. I truly enjoyed it at the time, but running that much on that rigid of a schedule is mentally and physically exhausting. By the end of the year I was burned out. I had achieved my goal of qualifying for Nationals but my competitive running career was over. I stopped enjoying the peaceful feel of a cool 12 miles in the morning before most college kids had even woken up. It  started to feel more like job than a passion, which was ironic because I avoided getting a job all through college so that it wouldn't interfere with my running. So I retired. I hung up the racing spikes and sat on the couch.

I know I'm never going to be in that kind of shape again in my life. Lance Armstrong can make a heroic comeback from stage four lung cancer to win the Tour de France annually for the better part of a decade -- but he's a professional athlete. I'm just some dude who does computery medical record stuff and watches a little too much football. For me, a comeback has a slightly different definition. My 2012 New Years Resolution is to average running as many miles per month as I averaged per week in 2006: 115 (rounded up). So that's 1,380 miles for the year, a little over 26 per week. To give you a sense of where I'm at right now, in 2011 I think I ran about 115 miles total. This is going to be quite a jump, but I figure new year resolutions have a success rate lower than Tim Tebow's completion percentage so if I do fail it won't be the end of the world.

Back in the day, I kept a precise running log of all my runs (this explains why I knew my 2006 yearly mileage to the nearest hundredth of a mile (it doesn't explain why I was so obsessed that I needed to measure my runs to the nearest hundredth of a mile before the era of MapMyRun iPhone apps)). In 2012, I'll instead do the hipster thing and keep a running blog. This will hopefully keep me motivated by not wanting to let down the half a dozen people who end up reading this (hi mom!).

Let's quickly lay down the game plan and get a few preemptive excuses out of the way. January is going to be a really low month. I'll be digging myself quite the hole to climb out of. Not only is it dark before I go to work in the morning and before I come home in the evening, but I'm also going to Singapore and Thailand for two weeks with Jenny and her parents. The over/under for my total mileage while I'm there is zero (take the under). If my monthly mileage for January is 50 I'll be pleasantly surprised. My goal is to really ramp things up in the spring and summer when the weather's nicer and I can get in some long-ish runs. If I can string together a few 50-60 mile weeks in July and August, I think I'll be able to pull this thing off. Mainly, I just want to still be in the hunt when November and December roll around so I can pull off my own version of #TebowTime by going for 12 mile runs everyday and finish the year with an incredible comeback, logging the 1,380th mile as the clock strikes midnight. My other goal is to continue to make two Tim Tebow references every entry. Not really. But maybe.