S.A. Sachs
For the last seven days of February, I have been plagued with the flu. The symptoms started on the day of my natal anniversary and have lingered on past the last day of Pro Football.
Seven days or 168 hours or 10,080 minutes or 604,800 seconds and for the athletes who count even further, 604,800,000 milliseconds my body has been under constant attack.
However, today I think I am on the downside of the slope heading back to, normalcy?
Friday, I stayed away from the office. The constant cough that I had developed was dreadful enough that I felt if I made a presence that anyone who walked by the door would have covered their mouth to block the disease that I may have projected. I knew I was not contagious and this time, but out of courtesy to my fellow employees, I stayed away and worked from home.
Working from home has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that you are not interrupted by the “hall strollers” who stopped to asked how you are doing in an attempt to tell you how they are actually doing instead. This lack of interruption breeds more productivity for me. After 11 hours of working from home almost straight, a lot got accomplished. A major disadvantage to working from home is the “out of sight, out of mind” theory. Especially when you have a boss who has not embraced the telecommuting craze.
Friday was the day I had scheduled to run 20 miles as well. I had set up a time and place to meet the Wonder Twins for their 10 mile tempo run. I planned on starting the first half of the long run from Alpharetta and running at 4:11AM then meeting up with the Twins at 5:30AM to not only complete my run but also spend some time with the Twins to see how their training was coming along. It was all planned out. 7:51 pace for the first 10 then 7:33 pace with the Twins on their long tempo run. The only thing I could not control for this run was the weather. I woke at 3:30AM to a heavy downpour of rain and wind. With the recent fever I had encountered the mere thought of even thinking of running in the rain did not appeal to me at all. 99% of the time, weather does not impede me, but add being sick into the mix, well, I was out. I emailed the Twins to tell them they were on their own and I went back to bed.
The Twins ended up running 10 miles outside and I found out that Brian had run 20 miles on the treadmill at the same time. Now, I am crazy, and I admit it, but these men are hardcore. Another fellow athlete that I am finding is "hardcore" in her training as well is, Carmen. I believe she was out riding 2.5 hours on Saturday morning in the weather described below. What kind of people do I associate myself with???
At the end of the day on Friday, started the weekend. The start of the weekend in our house is homemade pizza’s, beers and a movie. The flu was not going to deter me from my rituals of carbo-loading from pizza and beer while enjoying our weekly Blockbuster rental. Ah, the simple things in life.
Saturday was the fall back day for me to make up the 20 mile run. The pace was set at 7:45 per mile, but the course had not been laid out. Sarah had suggested that we go to JC-LTF and meet up with the LTF Running Club. She stated that there were a number of runners training for the ING Full & Half Marathon in the club. There were scheduled runs of 8,10, 13, 15 & 18 miles leaving LTF at 7AM. I figured since I have hit all the long stuff solo up to this point I would try it.
We arrived at JC-LTF, unpacked and headed to the side parking lot where the group meets a little before 7AM. A light rain with a sturdy gust of wind occupied the morning as we made our way to the side of the building in the dark. The lot was wet, cold and deserted. Not a runner (besides Sarah & I) to be found. We waited until 7AM and not one runner approached. At that point, we needed to make a decision. Sarah was running 9 miles and I still had to figure out 20. She decided to wait a bit longer to see if anyone would show, but I wanted to get going. I make a quick decision and advised my wife that I was going to head down Route 141 towards Dunkin Donuts by the Forum. That is 6 miles from the gym. I would head back and finish the rest of the run indoors on the treadmill.
I had brought extra running clothes just in case the running group’s pace was not my scheduled pace. I figured if I ran 15 with the group, I could hit 5 miles on the treadmill to even it out.
I said my good-byes and lucks to Sarah as I headed out of the parking lot towards Route 141. The mornings wind and rain had already made its way to the core. I was shivering as I ran down Lakefield. I did not want to increase my pace faster than 8 per mile since I knew I had a long run ahead of me and needed to conserve my energy.
The wind blew rain directly into my face as I made my way south on Route 141. The road was not congested with cars at 7AM to add even more force to the wind as the automobiles flew by me. I settled in with some tunes and at a good pace after the first mile of 7:45’s. The road has a number of rollers but is a gradual downhill to my point of reference, Dunkin Donuts. I knew the climb back would be a positive split so after I crossed State Bridge Road I increased the pace in order to even the total time out to 1:33:00.
I hit the 6-mile turnaround at 45:32 leaving me 58 seconds in the bank for the trek back to the gym. I knew the hills would slow me down a few clicks on the way back, but since I had a head wind out, the tail wind would be to my advantage. Wrong. As I may the turnaround, I went from having the wind in my face, to the wind in my face? 180-degree change in direction produced the same outcome. Wind!
This is where the demons started to open the door and flood the mind. Doubts, inabilities, fatigue, frustration, lack of confidence all poured in between mile 6 & mile 7. I recounted the first week of training until now. Cold weather, rain, solo runs, hip injury, sciatica problems and illness. I am not one to look for pity. Pity is a sign of weakness in my book. Life is not bad at all and I do not ask for sympathy. I write about these demons to flush them from my subconscious. There are far more people worse off than I am and I know it.
While you are in the moment and are passionate about a particular thing, “Junk”, litters you mind and brings you down. You want to stop and quit. Why run? Why train? Why am I out here in this god-forsaken weather pushing myself to finish? There is where a miniscule fire deep down in the belly starts to ignite. The reason why? To not be a quitter, that is why. To set a goal and see that goal through to the end, that is why. To push yourself farther and faster than you thought you were capable of, that is why. Not for glory, not for bragging rights, not to say that you are better than anyone else, but to say I did it! So, suck it up and get this done!
This fire is the thing that keeps me going and keeps me sane. The demons come, but they also go. It is easy to train while the demons are locked up, but it is a challenge when they are running amuck in your cerebral mush and you need to control them. This is why I do this. It is always easy not to do it, the challenge is doing it.
As I ended the 12 miles on Lakefield at 1:33:54, I was off pace. The extra baggage of the demons had slowed me down, not to mention the rain, cold and wind. I needed to make up that time, but still had to change into the indoor running garb from the cold weather gear.
I sprinted from the entrance of the parking lot to the doors of the gym. I was changed and quickly headed up to the treadmills. I saw Sarah upstairs and she walked with me over to far end of the gym to a row of mills in front of the stretching floor. We talked about her run outside, no one ever showed from the running group. As I jumped on the mill and cranked the speed Sarah told me, she ended up running her route around Johns Creek Pkwy and then headed out onto Route 141 for 3-4 miles to finish up. She was pleased with her run and she asked me how my 12 was.
I told her fine (not going to complain about the demons) and advised her I was off pace and needed to crank this mill up to make up the time. Sarah could see I was focused in my task and she told me she would see me at home. I turned the speed up to a 7:33 minute mile, drank some Gatorade and settled in on an 8-mile run leading to nowhere.
After 1.5 miles, a familiar face appeared on the left treadmill, it was Stacy. Stacy was going to meet Melissa over here to take the 10AM spin class. Sarah appeared again and chatted with Stacy for a few minutes. I drudged along with small talk as well until the conversation broke and Sarah left to head home again. I looked over at Stacy and a wave of confusion hit me. I could not remember what LTF I inhabited? Alpharetta or Johns Creek? It took a second for me to figure it out since I only see Stacy over at Alpharetta. About a mile later in the run, Melissa showed up and hopped on the treadmill next to Stacy. The three of us talked about stuff…Spandex Dude, weather, football cookie cakes and Disney. This conversation helped me push the miles to nowhere out of my mind until mile 18 out of 20. This is when my conversation companions left for the spinners. With no distractions, the last 2 miles of my journey felt longer than the first 18 put togehter. I found a few tunes on the iPod, cranked the speed up and finished this treadmill portion of my run in 0:59:53.
I was done with the 20 miles. It was unconventional to say the least, but it is marked in the book as “20 miles @ 2:39:47 which included 6:00 minutes in transition.
The rest of the weekend went by in a flash. Saturday was spent building cabinets, cleaning the house, working on preparing everything for Super Bowl and waiting for my parents to arrive. Over the years, my parents have come down from NC to celebrate not only the Super Bowl with us, but to rejoice in the jubilation of their son and granddaughter’s days on Earth.
This year Sarah and I decided to pay homage to my mother’s days on this planet which was in two weeks. We took the family out to Ted’s Montana Grill were we had burgers, fries, beers and ice cream. We also witnessed as my father deep in age and who has traveled the world eating everything from leaches to monkey brains eat his very first bison burger. He enjoyed his newfound meat source as we laughed and talked the evening away.
Sunday was recover day for Sarah and I after our runs and not from Ted’s. Recovery consisted of church services, Essex Bagels for breakfast, nachos, wings, Tzatziki sauce & Veggies (Ellie made this), chips, crackers, pulled pork, cole slaw, caramel bars and of course, beer. We spent the day eating and playing cards and board games in preparation for the 6:30PM kick off.
Since we all know the outcome of the game, I will spare you the play-by-play. I am glad the Saints won, even though I am not a Saints fan. I am just not a Colts supporter at all.
Now with the SB over the months ahead in the world of sports will be sparse. At least this year we have the Winter Olympics, then Baseball, the Tour and before we know it, Pro Football will be here again to fill our weekends and give us excuses to camp out in front of the tube after long training runs and rides.
Ah, life is good as long as the basement fridge is stocked with beer.
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