Summer 2013 Megafuntastical: The Red Hook Marathon

So I did a marathon over the summer. Of swimming. In Red Hook. For a t-shirt. Here is the third and final post in the series I like to call Summer 2013 Megafuntastical.

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New York City Aquatics has been operating their outdoor pool adult lap swim summer program for years now. This was the first year I took advantage of it.  Carla started a Facebook group page and added a bunch of us SCBkRs.  I imagined visiting the pool a few times to complement my running. But then we spotted this:

        "Participants who swim 25 miles or more over the summer will receive a free t-shirt..."

Tempting, but I was focused on my running and training for my A race and did not see earning that prized t-shirt as a reasonable thing to do. And then my calf happened. So the quest for the Night Owl T-Shirt began.

Red Hook Recreation Center: My second home for the summer

Endurance fitness translates.  It was demonstrated while cycling through the Berkshires in June and swimming in the Red Hook Pool in July. All the running I do translates to other activities. My first dip in the pool went for 3/4 of a mile, the second for 1.2 miles, and the third for nearly 2 miles.  I got into the habit of getting to Red Hook as soon as possible after work, trying to be at the door at 6:55pm as they let the evening lap swimmers, or Night Owls as they called us, into the building.  Then I'd swim until the lifeguards blew the whistle.  That generally equated to about 90 minutes of swimming. Some days I'd arrive late, but still for a solid swim. It was enough to feel like I wouldn't lose much while allowing my calf to heal.

As the sessions accumulated, it occurred to me that the t-shirt may actually be in reach. I started getting tingles of motivation. Twenty-five cumulative miles over the summer could mathematically be achievable for me. But maybe not everyone saw it this way for themselves.  Maybe not everyone was interested in devoting so much time in the water over the summer. I wished they were.  I came up with the charts because I'm a data geek.  I came up with the badges to get more of my friends in the pool.

One of my favorite badges.  I'll be back on that track in a couple weeks

This badge was a big deal, a real confidence booster, I think. So many earned it and are on their way to an actual half Ironman!

Don't knock it until you've tried it.

This one was a hit and many swimmers earned it

It's hilarious how much fun I had with this. It seems everyone did. More than thirty of us hit the pool and twenty six participated in the lap tracking and badge earning. Why are these badges so motivating?  Why was the t-shirt such a prize?  I have no idea. I suppose it's the same with finisher medals at the end of races or that pretty cool hoody for the Brooklyn Marathon. Some people save their race bibs, others get tattoos commemorating their achievements. But that's not to say events without awards aren't fun.  One of my favorite thing is finding small, inexpensive, medal-less events to run. Perhaps that, in and of itself, is a badge of awesomeness, too, though...

Just a sample of the mileage we covered

As we approached the last few weeks of the summer, the pool started closing at 8pm. Because of this, my planned 90 minute sessions would be limited to 60. And where I thought I'd have plenty of time to squeeze the 25 miles in, I now saw I'd be one or two days shy, leaving me a couple miles short of 25, but more to the point, it would be a couple miles shy of that t-shirt. I wasn't having any of that.  Neither was Jon.  We both cut out some plans, rearranged our schedules and ducked out of work "early" to get laps in.    With the fear of weather causing an issue, I left an extra day at the end.

This one only applied to Jon and I.  I have a feeling next year more of us will earn it.

Sun sets on the season

On that last Friday of the season, I surpassed 26.2 miles.  Both Jon and I earned our t-shirts, but our quest did not end there.  It seems there was a end of season swimming party, where t-shirts were handed out, that we were not invited to.  We had the option of either going to the NYC Aquatic headquarters in Flushing Meadows, Queens, or calling them up and asking them to transport the shirt to the borough office of our choice.  We chose the latter and Jon's shirt made it safely to Brooklyn.  Mine did not.

From a fitness perspective, swimming saved my summer.  My calf, in all its painful glory, prevented any meaningful miles on foot. September came and my running returned with a sucessful Reach the Beach Relay. It was now October, a week before what would have been my Marathon, what was now my next half marathon, and time to finally wrap up the quest the only way that seemed fit.  I ran 8.7 miles to Flushing Meadows and claimed my prize.

Quest complete.  At least for 2013...

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"It was a summer of extra-ordinary magnitude."

This statement will forever identify one distinct and amazing summer for me- the summer of 1994- which had nothing to do with swimming or running or cycling, but rather Mountain Dew, Cooler Ranch Doritos, and blacksploitation movies.  It was the summer the sky opened over Rotterdam, life long friendships were forged in the fires of funk and ridiculousness and the Squad was formed.

Perhaps it's too early to say, but I'm going to say it anyways.  This summer and all its megafuntasticalness will stand the test of time.

Summer 2013 Megafuntastical: Seven Week Furlough

Wait woah woah woah... It's November and I'm not yet done rapping about a summer full of miles.  Here is the second post in the series I like to call Summer 2013 Megafuntastical.

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On the last day of May, I ran my 200th mile of the month, reaching that soft goal and still feeling healthy.  I eased back my mileage in June, going instead to the bicycle for workouts, including my Acton to Rotterdam ride with Mark, feeling good about where my fitness was and how healthy I felt.  But by the end of June, my calf began aching, just a bit.

My calves regularly give me issues, so I didn't think too much of it.  A bit of rest, a lot of rolling and stretching, and I should be able to run through it.  But weeks passed and it wasn't getting better.  On July 3rd I ran a 5k race that I scheduled to be my first test of the season.  I was to use this result to set my workout paces for the next few weeks.  It was a sloppy, rainy evening in Prospect Park and I PRed by 3 seconds.  But that calf, that bloody calf, wasn't feeling so hot.

I stretched and rolled, but I did not rest, still convinced that it wasn't abnormal. After a marvelous run to Coney Island with SCBkR on the Fourth of July, I scaled back, not running for seven whole days, in hopes I would heal it time for the Boilermaker. It didn't.

Mid ride fueling on our way back from Nyack

SCBkR gathers for a Fourth of July run

SCBkR on the Coney Island boardwalk on the Fourth of July

So comes the question, "Why do I train?"

It's obvious that running the Boilermaker at this point will just make things worse.  I need more than a scale back; I need to lay off running for a bit.  If I skip the Boilermaker, I will already be 7 days into the healing. But if I run, well, I forfeit that week and will need to start all over again.  It was time to measure priorities- my A event of the season/year or this super fun 15k that I want to run every year for the rest of my life.  I chose the Boilermaker, and subsequently, to be sidelined for two weeks.

SCBkR... Warriors... TNT... or TIT... we represent!

Rendezvous with Ed, Kait and the Closes once again

Pool Party hosted by Kristen's family (yes, my friends are hot).

RonFire!

Ha ha... I wish it was only two weeks...

Those fourteen days passed, and though I did test the calf on a couple very short runs, the real test came on a 10 mile jaunt with Amanda in Lake Placid.  We were up in the Adirondacks camping and cheering on the Ironman event, volunteering, swimming and cycling, and having a blast.  But that run did not go well. We took off from the village and out onto the course, watching the athletes cycle their 112 miles. The calf hurt pretty much from the start.  I should have stopped.  I was naively hopeful, which is ridiculous since I am no novice and this isn't the first time my calf has felt this way. At the end of the run, I "iced" my legs in Mirror Lake, drank beer, ate a burger, and enjoyed the rest of the day.

Biking the IM course with Jon

Last shift of the race, fueling and hydrating the athletes

Cross Training: wading, floating, laughing and drinking

Two days later, I tested it again with a quick 6.2 miles along the Mohawk River bike path with no better result.  It honestly felt no better than it did over two weeks prior. It was disheartening. I let seven days pass before my next run of just 1.2 miles, which still felt bad.  So I stayed off the road for seven more days. How many weeks is that?  We were now in to August.

Finally feeling good and still holding on to the hope that I could prepare myself into to run the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon in October, a started running again. But by the third day, the calf started aching again. By the end of the fourth day, I had to face the cold hard truth: I was back at square one again.

Cross Training: Roofing

Cross Training: Fist pumping

Cross Training: Hula hooping

More than a month had passed since the Boilermaker and by this time I was questioning whether to drop to the half marathon or defer completely until next year.  My focus turned from that event- my planned A event of 2013- to getting healthy in time to participate in my seventh Reach the Beach relay.

I rested ten more days, then built back at a rate that seemed ridiculously slow. It was a conversation with Amanda that convinced me to try that. A healthy me would consider my normal 5.3 mile to-the-park-around-and-back route a short run.  But I kept my distances around 2-3 miles. It worked.  On September 8th, I formally switched to the Mohawk Hudson Half Marathon.  And on the 12th, I headed to New Hampshire with the Warriors once more.

Cross Training: Jumpshots

Cross Training: Baby holding

Had I gone to a doctor in any of this time?  Physical therapy?  No and no.  I visited Leslie and am convinced her magic hands helped, but it was clear massage alone wasn't going to do it. Still, I did not go to a doctor and the weeks rolled by.  I know I send runners to doctors all the time. But I seldom go myself. I've just never gotten useful information from one regarding a running injury before. That's not to say you'll find the same result (and if I recommend that you visit a doctor, please believe that I think it's best for you).

Here are my thoughts on doctor visits. For the type of pain I was feeling, I believe the only thing they could do is confirm how long I should not run for. If it was a strain or a sprain or even a stress fracture, they would have given me a time range, probably in weekly units, for how long it would bother me and how long I should not be running. They may be able to tell me the thing that hurts- the soleus or posterior tibial tendon or whatever, but not necessarily what caused it. A visit to the doctor would not speed up my recovery.

Being smart and disciplined would speed up my recovery- and prevent injury. That's what I still need to work on.  It amazes me that I'm still trap myself like this. So to be proactive, I will start taking more detailed logs of my runs, specifically noting if anything ached or felt off. And when I do declare an injury, I will log its recovery- another idea I credit to Amanda.

I'm happy to say that my calf is now ok and I'm ramping up for another go at a marathon.  I share my frustration with you through the words above, but hopefully you see what fun I had regardless, through the photos.  And in my next blog entry, which I swear will come sooner rather than later, I will tell you how swimming saved me.

Cross Training: The Red Hook Pool