I remember Mike Tyson saying crazy like “my Sanity is My insanity”. Whatever he meant, he understood it even if no one else understands it that is ok because it's Mike Tyson. How much information must you consume before you go on system overload? That is what I had to ask myself the other day. When I first started running in 2004, I was new to running in every possible way. I labeled myself a running idiot. The best thing about being a running idiot is that you know nothing but you think you know everything. From the first marathon to the second, I stumbled my way through races, escaping with black and blue toenails and quads that felt like someone had beat them with a baseball bat. Sounds horrible right? Wrong!
I had no clue as to what socks to wear, over-pronation, hydration, vo2 max and so on and that was the best part about it. I just put on whatever shoes I had and I went out and I ran. I ran in cargo shorts, swim trunks, it didn’t matter. Blinded and an infant in the game of running, I just went out and learned on the fly but I was starting to get greedy. I took a look around my living room the other day it resembled that of a running store. I had stacks of runner’s magazines and various books on running all my coffee table. Running shoes all over the place, race event flyers on my refrigerator, and race medals piled high on my end table. Too make matters worse I have a giant poster board photo of myself from my Saucony sponsorship talking about what else, running!
Over the last three years, I learned everything there is to know about hydration, 5k training, injury prevention, how to run faster, or how to be a better uphill runner. I have technical shirts, the dri-fit hats, the best socks, and what has it all done? Nothing! I sat around weeks before some running events, trying to calculate past running times, and negative splits, and what shoes to wear given the race, and whether I should run with my hydration pack or not. I studied the weather so I would know what the weather would be on the day of the race or at least try to estimate so I could assimilate the race and its affect it may have on me if it was hot or cold. I have done so much preparation and planning and plotting on how to run better but the simplest thing I forgot how to do is to just run like an idiot.
When I ran like an idiot, time didn’t matter. When I ran like an idiot, I ran from the back of the pack, the front, the middle, I just ran. If I came in 50th place or 20th place, the result was always the same and that was me crossing the line with a smile and finishing strong. Lately, I have shut down in a race because I calculated the odds of finishing within a certain time and when I realize I had no chance of capturing that time, I just called it and cruised in, unhappy and my spirit broken.
I am competitive, that I know but I did not go into running with the idea I was going to win the Boston marathon but I think I always remember that saying “no one aspires to be second” and then I have to remember that is not what running is about. It is about lacing up the shoes and heading out the door and ending up wherever you end up. I think I need to just take my Runner’s World magazines and running books and diaries and just throw them in the trash. I need to forget about everything I have read and everything I think I know and just go back to being the idiot I once was. Easier said than done right? We will see……
Monday, October 24, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Jones Retires From Running!!!!
Yesterday, was the first time I’d ever questioned whether or not it was time for me to hang up my running shoes and switch to fishing or spending thousands on a high priced road bike and start wearing spandex and coned shaped bike helmets. How and why did this all cross my mind? Last year, I posted some of my fastest times in more than one running event. I got a PR in the LA marathon after previously running it seven times. I won top two or three in my age division twice at different 5k events and my first time running the Point Mugu 11k trail race, I was just minutes from coming in the top three in my age division. This year, I expected to just return with even more success but it certainly has been anything but success and yesterday, I started to wonder if my days as a running were all but gone.
After running the Point Mugu 11k trail race last year, I was sidelined from October until February of this year with a knee injury. The hardcore downhill running there just broke me down and I had to spend day after day hoping and wondering if I would bounce back and I did, completing another LA marathon while extending my streak of complete the race eight consecutive years but my time was nothing like that of my PR last year. I went on to challenge myself by running the Malibu Creek 22k trail race in May and I couldn’t have been happier with my performance there but since then, it was been a nightmare in terms of my overall performance and mood in every race I have completed. Yesterday, I returned to Point Mugu with a goal to get in the top 3 in my age division but after the race I was left wondering if my running days were behind me.
I started off the race with a quick sprint and some spring to my step type but within five minutes I seem like I was running in reverse. I realized as runners began to sprint by me, something was wrong. I tried to respond but my legs wanted no part of the incline and they seemed to be unprepared for the task at hand. It was at that point my competitive spirit and whatever edge I thought I had, was all but gone. I did not compete, I did not challenge myself and most importantly, I gave up. I found myself trying to understand what was happening to me while still trying to run while I felt like I was pulling a thousand pound safe. Around mile 3, I tried to push myself as hard as I could and I did. I began to make a move and I was starting to make up all the ground I had lost to several of the runners who sprinted past me. I knew that the killer 2 miles downhill to the finish line was where I did my best work but when I got to the downhill, I became incredibly frustrated and upset that runner’s refuse to move to the side which is a basic and common courtesy and understanding in trail running, especially on the single-track trails but yesterday’s most of the runner’s seemed inexperience as well as selfish and refused to move. I couldn’t run the way I wanted to run and with less than a minute to finish line, I stopped. I stopped on the trail and I walked. I walked to the finish line with no desire to do anything but get to a place where I could forget what just happened. I wanted to choke at least twenty of the runner’s who had block me from finishing strong but was it really their fault?
Upset, confused and disappointed, I thought maybe it was time for me to just throw in the towel and hang up my running shoes but then I realized something. I was thinking like all the other people who just decided to give up and all the people who have tried to encourage me to give up running because their running careers have ceased to exist. What happened to me? I had a bad race but this was not the first bad race I had had this year. I blamed all the other runners for clogging up the trail on the downhill but I knew the strategy to the race and that was to avoid this by getting head those slower runners. The race result was my doing and I have to take responsibility for that.
Last year when I was running PR’s and winning age divisions, I was also training better and I was prepared. This year I have played catch up with my training and I have refused to miss running events even when I knew I was in no condition to run them. The end result was just misery. I had come to expect to the best without putting in the work. Who did I think I was? I forgot that nothing in this world comes without hard work. I started skipping steps and I got exactly what I put in.
I think it is important to have failing experiences in life. It teaches us to work that much harder to overcome those shortcomings and to prove that you belong. Running is such a rollercoaster. One week you can be on top but in order to stay there you have to continue to put in the hard work and the effort in order to achieve your goals. It is funny, last year Point Mugu sidelined me for months with a knee injury this time, it sent me into an epiphany about my running career. Down and out is not who I am. I am going back to the drawing board because the best thing about a board is you can erase it and start all over again. Next race, I will be better, stronger, and ready to do what I do best, which is compete.
I have to thank Elizabeth for showing me that nothing comes without hard-work and for encouraging me to go back and train and put in the time to get back to where I was last year. She rocked the race yesterday by finishing first in her age division and she was the second female overall in the race. She is one of the best runners, male or female. Sometimes you have to take notes from the best in order to be the best.
After running the Point Mugu 11k trail race last year, I was sidelined from October until February of this year with a knee injury. The hardcore downhill running there just broke me down and I had to spend day after day hoping and wondering if I would bounce back and I did, completing another LA marathon while extending my streak of complete the race eight consecutive years but my time was nothing like that of my PR last year. I went on to challenge myself by running the Malibu Creek 22k trail race in May and I couldn’t have been happier with my performance there but since then, it was been a nightmare in terms of my overall performance and mood in every race I have completed. Yesterday, I returned to Point Mugu with a goal to get in the top 3 in my age division but after the race I was left wondering if my running days were behind me.
I started off the race with a quick sprint and some spring to my step type but within five minutes I seem like I was running in reverse. I realized as runners began to sprint by me, something was wrong. I tried to respond but my legs wanted no part of the incline and they seemed to be unprepared for the task at hand. It was at that point my competitive spirit and whatever edge I thought I had, was all but gone. I did not compete, I did not challenge myself and most importantly, I gave up. I found myself trying to understand what was happening to me while still trying to run while I felt like I was pulling a thousand pound safe. Around mile 3, I tried to push myself as hard as I could and I did. I began to make a move and I was starting to make up all the ground I had lost to several of the runners who sprinted past me. I knew that the killer 2 miles downhill to the finish line was where I did my best work but when I got to the downhill, I became incredibly frustrated and upset that runner’s refuse to move to the side which is a basic and common courtesy and understanding in trail running, especially on the single-track trails but yesterday’s most of the runner’s seemed inexperience as well as selfish and refused to move. I couldn’t run the way I wanted to run and with less than a minute to finish line, I stopped. I stopped on the trail and I walked. I walked to the finish line with no desire to do anything but get to a place where I could forget what just happened. I wanted to choke at least twenty of the runner’s who had block me from finishing strong but was it really their fault?
Upset, confused and disappointed, I thought maybe it was time for me to just throw in the towel and hang up my running shoes but then I realized something. I was thinking like all the other people who just decided to give up and all the people who have tried to encourage me to give up running because their running careers have ceased to exist. What happened to me? I had a bad race but this was not the first bad race I had had this year. I blamed all the other runners for clogging up the trail on the downhill but I knew the strategy to the race and that was to avoid this by getting head those slower runners. The race result was my doing and I have to take responsibility for that.
Last year when I was running PR’s and winning age divisions, I was also training better and I was prepared. This year I have played catch up with my training and I have refused to miss running events even when I knew I was in no condition to run them. The end result was just misery. I had come to expect to the best without putting in the work. Who did I think I was? I forgot that nothing in this world comes without hard work. I started skipping steps and I got exactly what I put in.
I think it is important to have failing experiences in life. It teaches us to work that much harder to overcome those shortcomings and to prove that you belong. Running is such a rollercoaster. One week you can be on top but in order to stay there you have to continue to put in the hard work and the effort in order to achieve your goals. It is funny, last year Point Mugu sidelined me for months with a knee injury this time, it sent me into an epiphany about my running career. Down and out is not who I am. I am going back to the drawing board because the best thing about a board is you can erase it and start all over again. Next race, I will be better, stronger, and ready to do what I do best, which is compete.
I have to thank Elizabeth for showing me that nothing comes without hard-work and for encouraging me to go back and train and put in the time to get back to where I was last year. She rocked the race yesterday by finishing first in her age division and she was the second female overall in the race. She is one of the best runners, male or female. Sometimes you have to take notes from the best in order to be the best.
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