I’m about to get all psychological on you.

You can blame Norman Triplett.  Go ahead.  He won’t mind, since he’s been dead since 1933.  But when he was still alive and at Indiana University back in 1898, he published the first known article on sports psychology.  It dealt with the effects of pacers and competitors on cyclists’ speed.  There have been hundreds of other studies since then, but ‘ole Norm started it.

It’s called social facilitation.  It is the psychological effect (don’t say I didn’t warn you) of group dynamics on the performance of simple, well-learned tasks–like running.  I’ll sum up years of research by Academicians who never held real jobs in just a single paragraph, which will explain why running clubs are cool, just ‘cause I’m good like that.

First, regardless of our current level of performance, we tend to perform better when competing.  Second, we tend to perform better when participating in a group setting, even when NOT competing.  Third, we are much more likely to participate regularly when part of a group.  And fourth, participating with a dynamic group varies the experience (even regular runs over the same course) enough to delay or eliminate monotony (which retards performance).

Oh, and on an interesting side note, we also tend to perform better when being watched by someone of the opposite sex.  This is just one of many reasons to ensure our group remains diverse.  But I digress.

If you want to conduct your own experiment in social facilitation, it is not too hard.  I can help you set it up.  Or you can just take my word for it.  Or ask a sports psychologist…they’re way smarter than me.

Share this one with your friends, RidgeRunners.  Have them join us.  The more, the merrier.

Allyson and I left for Virginia Beach Friday night when she got home from work. We stayed with her childhood friend Kathy. The next morning Allyson and Kathy walked the 8K. I was going to run it slow and save myself for the marathon the next day.

It is fun the hold back and try not to run fast in a large race. I just took in everything and tried not to let race adrenaline take over. The only thing that happened was a little kid with green hair was in front of me and I tried to go around him on the left and he moved right in front of me. So I tried to get around him on the right and again he moved right in front of me. Now he started to look back at me and no matter which way I went to move around him he pulled right in front of me all the time looking back at me. I almost took him out. At last I got around him. Maybe he was not a small kid but an evil leprechaun.

When I saw the finish line, I started to pick up the pace but then put on the brakes and took it easy all the way to the end. I finished the 8K in 47:28, which is a 9:33 pace. I got to drink beer, eat beef stew, and listen to a live rock band while I watched Allyson and Kathy finish the race on live big-screen TV.

We had a big pasta dinner at Kathy’s house that night. The next morning, Kathy dropped me off near the start line. I saw fellow RidgeRunners Club member Josh Gatz and met his grandparents. Josh was starting in Corral 3. I was in Corral 2. Each corral has around a two-minute interval between starts. This allows the runners to spread out some and give everyone more room to run. Since the race is chip timed, everything works out for the best.

I soon saw John Stacy and his girlfriend Stephanie Danahy. John was in Corral 1 and Stephanie was in 2. Stephanie and I decided to start together. The race started and, of course, I never saw John again. He ran a 3:50:21 marathon.

Stephanie and I started fast. I looked at my watch and I think the first mile was at around an 8:30 pace. In the second mile I saw our pace go up to around an 8:15. I thought we went out too fast so I backed off and let Stephanie go. Now everyone seemed to be passing me.

There is an out-and-back section where you can see the runners coming the other way, and I noticed I was ahead of the 3:45 pace group. We went through Fort Story where the the army comes out and cheers us on. Here the 3:45 pace group went around me.

From there, we ran a few miles down the boardwalk. I was still getting passed more than I was keeping pace with those around me. We ran down the main drag of Virginia Beach. This is a nice section of the race because you can see the race front runners coming back the other way.

From there we turned on a main road that has no crowd and is kind of the dull part of the race. They put up signs with jokes on them to help keep you going. They go something like this: “What happens to a leprechaun if he falls in the water?” “He gets wet.”

I decided now was the time to start trying to pick people off and pick up the pace. Around mile 16, Josh caught up to me. He said I looked like I was running well and would like to pace with me. This gave me more of a mental boost and I picked up the pace even more. I felt like we were now passing just about everyone. We turned back into Fort Story and at mile 19 came up on Stephanie. She was having problems with her foot and had slowed down. I tried to get her to hang on with us but she could not.

We ran past a lighthouse. I remembered two in the past but only saw one this time. After Fort Story we came out on the main drag of Virginia Beach. I always have trouble on this section mentally because we come out on 87th Street and you have to run down to 30th Street.

We were around mile 23 and I thought Josh looked like he was ready to take off and dart to the finish. To my surprise, he fell off the pace. Around mile 24, I hit the wall and slowed to over a 10-minute per mile pace. The four-hour pace group went around me.

I tried hard to hang on the back of that pack but it was no use. I was shot and just had to jog to the finish line. My time was 4:03:53. For the Whale Challenge, which is for both races, I was in 46th place.

Josh finished his first marathon in 4:09:01. Stephanie came in at 4:11:49, which was good enough for 4th place in her age group. There was more beer and beef stew at the finish. There was also an Irish band. I did not feel like doing a jig right at that moment.

Some people are inherently motivated to achieve all of life’s goals. I am not one of those people. My motivation ebbs and flows with the tide. Winter has always been a low point for me. It is a constant struggle for me to understand myself and how to keep motivated.

I played many sports in high school, mostly focusing on tennis and soccer. The coaches would always dictate what I needed to do in every practice. As I look back, I understand that part of my difficulty with self-motivation is the fact that throughout my sports career, I never had to make the decision to motivate myself. The coach planned the practices and instincts would take over during the games. The team provided motivation through our desire to win.

After high school, I ran a few road races in college and then joined the Air Force, which also provided some motivation to work out with its annual physical fitness tests. However, I found myself doing the minimum when working out so that I could pass the tests. I was never concerned about setting a personal best, etc.

While in college, my friend and I created a bucket list that including running a marathon. We never got close, but it stuck in my mind. In 2007, on a whim for my New Year’s resolution, I decided to run a marathon. I chose the Air Force Marathon in Dayton, Ohio. I had nine months to train and decided that it was sufficient time to prepare. I was motivated by many factors including my family and friends.

I read anything I could get my hands on to help with this vast unknown called “The Marathon.” I found an excellent resource online from a life-long runner with over 100 marathons under his belt, Hal Higdon. I bought one of his books and used the free training plans from his website.

I am a person who needs structure. I planned out nine months of training runs in January and can count on my fingers how many I missed on my way to the September marathon. I was motivated and it showed. I made it through the marathon in 4:15.  I had to slow down when I hit the infamous wall at mile 20, but I got through it. My wife, daughter, friends who were stationed there and my parents were all there to cheer me on.

The next year, three of my friends at work who had followed my progress were motivated to start running races, with one doing a half-marathon. I realized that motivation can be contagious.

I need goals to keep motivated. I’ve run a total of five marathons now and plan on doing more. In years past, I have had annual mileage goals and race time goals. This year, I have a goal of 12 races of various distances and am scheduled for the Marine Corps Half-Marathon in May.

What I am most proud of is my wife. She hadn’t exercised much since high school when she was in track and cheerleading. We’ve joined Gold’s Gym and I haven’t been able to keep up with her. She has been motivating me to keep up in my annual winter ebb and flow of motivation.

Everyone has a different motivator. It can be internal or external. The tough part is knowing yourself and keeping the fire lit.

You do not need to enter a single race to be a runner.  To be a runner you need only to run.  But as a runner, you have opportunities that people with other hobbies (interests? activities? obsessions?) don’t have.  Without traveling farther than the distance of a typical DC commute, you can run a race every single weekend of the year.  I know of no other sport or activity in the US which can boast more than 22,000 events per year, and all but about three or four open to the general public.

Okay, so there are lots of races which you do not have to enter to be a runner.  Here are a few reasons that I think you should anyway:

• The feeling you get as you cross the finish line will last a lifetime.  Entering a race, especially your first, can be very nerve racking.  But once you’re off and running you’ll settle down and will forget the anxiety.  The elation you feel as you cross the finish line is much harder to forget.

“In running, it doesn’t matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say, ‘I have finished.’ There is a lot of satisfaction in that.”  — Fred Lebow, New York City Marathon co-founder

• Entering a race can break up the monotony and routine of running for fun, health, and fitness.  It doesn’t take too long to settle into a running routine that gets monotonous.  Monotony breeds complacency, which makes it more likely for you to blow off a run or two or three or…  Throw in a race, however, and you put more focus in your runs.  You’ll be less likely to skip a run.
• Improve your fitness with a race boost.  Many people take up running to get in better shape or to lose weight.  They see immediate and impressive results.  But the human body quickly adapts to this new level of exertion and those dramatic improvements slow or stop.  Entering a race, setting a goal, and making a training plan to meet that goal will challenge your body and you’ll once again see some of those early results.
• Racing is fun and you don’t have to win to have fun.  Run with friends and/or make new friends.  Run though a historic city or a scenic park.  Many races have a carnival-like atmosphere and sport impressive post-race parties. Worried that you won’t be the first across the finish line? So what?  Only one person gets to cross the finish line first.  Worried that you’ll be the last to cross the finish line?  So what?  The odds are exactly the same that you’ll be last as first (although training for last place is easier).  Oh, and the last one across the line usually gets as big a cheer as the winner. But if the only reason you won’t enter a race is your fear of being last, then you should know that the median 5K finishing time in 2010 for a male runner was almost 28 minutes and for a female runner it was over 33 minutes.

 “Runners just do it – they run for the finish line even if someone else has reached it first.” — Author Unknown

• Racing can boost your confidence and inspire you.  For several reasons, we tend to run faster in a race than we do in even our most challenging training runs.  Finishing a race, setting a personal record (PR), or placing in your category/age group can boost your confidence (most races give awards for the top finishers based upon age and gender categories…so you can “win” without being the first across the line).  This increased confidence will not only help you improve your running, but will spill over into the rest of your life.

“It’s very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit.”  — George Sheehan

• And even if you don’t place or PR, you can be inspired by other runners.  At a race, you’ll see runners of every shape, size, and age.  And they can inspire you even when they beat you.  I won my age group in a 5K once, but was also beat by a 10-year-old girl and I was passed in the middle of my first marathon by a guy with two prosthetic legs.  If that won’t pump you up, and encourage you to run faster, nothing will.

“There ain’t no shame looking at a good runner’s back. Now, if the runner sucks, that’s something else entirely…” — The Rage, Training Tips “Comeback”

• Run to help somebody else.  Many races are held to raise money for worthy causes.  Just by entering, you can make a difference.  There are also many organizations which raise money through runners.  According to RunningUSA.com, the top five running fundraising programs raised over 800 million dollars in charitable contributions in 2010!
•  Race to show others you can.  You never know who you might inspire by entering and completing a race.  Maybe a friend, coworker, or family member will make a healthy lifestyle change because you finished a race.

“I run because I used to be envious of people that could run, and now I am that person.” — Kendra Thompson

There are many more reasons to race; at least one good reason for every excuse.  If you are in the RidgeRunners Club and have never run in an organized race, you should make our May Day 5K your first!

“Why aren’t you signed up for the 401K?  I’d never be able to run that far.” –Scott Adams, Dilbert (4/2/01)

I started running because I was bored and lonely.

By started, I guess I mean “started seriously running on my own.” I ran plenty when I was younger, either a single mile or so once a year when either Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted me to earn a patch or a different single mile or so when my football coaches decided the team needed it. There were a couple individual fits and starts in college. Then I graduated and joined the Army. Of course, I did a lot of forced running over the ensuing six years.

God, I hated it. There were times it was fun. When I was a young specialist, my buddies and I would push each other on every run. But mostly, I just hated running. I’d get bored, my back would hurt, my knees would hurt, it was raining, the track was iced over; my complaints were endless. Yet somehow, I always did enough mostly to pull in a decent time on the two-mile run the Army insisted I complete every six months. I was never a stud, but I wasn’t ever in danger of failing either.

I left active duty in 2008 and joined the Reserve while I figured out civilian life. Finally, an Army in which they barely ever made me run! I still had to do that two-mile thing every six months, but that would take care of itself. I cruised through life, met my now-wife (many of you know her as Melissa), and watched my scores on the Army Physical Fitness Test trend downward while my weight – which I finally tamed during the last two years I was on active duty – trended the opposite direction.

Around mid-2009, right as Melissa and I were getting serious, I decided to throw a monkey wrench into things and took a job in Norfolk. I packed my things, we vowed to stay together, and I got a little one-bedroom apartment. I spent the first several months waking up, going to work, coming home, and either watching TV or talking on the phone to my girlfriend. I also drank a little too much. That fall, I took my regular APFT during a drill weekend and let’s just say it didn’t go as well as normal. I didn’t fail, but I cut it WAY closer than I would’ve liked and absolutely struggled on the two-miler. I decided I needed to do something about it.

Of course, I didn’t have many excuses. On most weeknights, I had plenty of time, and like I said at the start, I was a little lonely and a little bored. I went home from a week off in Northern Virginia in mid-November and decided it was time to get started. So I pulled out the crappy running shoes I bought in Iraq two years prior that I was sure weren’t the right ones for my feet and got started.

The first day was murder. I decided since I was struggling so badly at even two miles, I would start even shorter than that and work my way up. A mile and a half seemed like a decent compromise, and even running that distance on the completely flat streets in Norfolk killed me. Two days later, I was back at it again. I kept going, progressively lengthening my runs and speeding my pace through fits and starts of running over the next six months. Before I knew it, I’d cracked the five-mile mark, a distance I was relatively certain I’d run maybe once in my life before that.

Running in this manner was fulfilling, but still a lonely pursuit. It was easy to skip a day, a week or even a month with no one running with me and no one holding me accountable, but I kept going through the following summer, my engagement to Melissa and a move back to NoVa so we could get started on our lives together. We moved to Fairfax and I created new routes on a new type of terrain: hilly. Eventually, Melissa started running, too, and we’d occasionally run together. Even though I was no longer lonely and bored – in fact I was precisely the opposite – the time I spent in that state seemed to have built a regular habit.

I ran my first race in October, a month before we moved from our apartment in Fairfax to our house in Lake Ridge. It came about because one day I just decided it was time to crack the next barrier: 10 miles. It was slow and long, but I came home and let my run tracker brag about it on Facebook. An Army friend got in touch and asked if I was going to run in the Army 10-Miler. The annual race was a month away ad I hadn’t registered, but she had a friend with an extra bib to sell and I decided it was a good time to keep pushing things. Mel and I went to the Pentagon and I went for it, finishing in less than 1:30 (my goal, unachieved even in training). Nice feeling, that.

So we moved to Lake Ridge, and our friend Andrea Crookston pushed the RidgeRunners Club on me. I thought “Why not?” Running on my own had gotten a little old, even though I still did plenty of it. It’s nice to add a group of friends to my running, people who push you and encourage you and are trying for the same things you are, be it a 5K or an ultramarathon. Gliding down Mohican is a lot easier, and you push yourself harder, when you’re in the middle of the pack in that Tuesday baker’s dozen and you can hear footsteps approaching. Of course, it’s not doing much for me coming back uphill, but I’m working on that.

So I started running because I was lonely and bored. I kept running solo when that ended, and now I’ve even taken the solo out of some of it. The RidgeRunners Club is that accountability, that fun, and that competitiveness that makes running something more than something I feel like I have to do no matter how much or how little I’m enjoying myself. See you on the streets!

If you’re like me, you are sometimes bestowed with the great honor of traveling for work. It doesn’t matter whether it’s near or far–if you’re spending the night, you’re left to ponder several points on how to schedule a run into your travel.

Last week, I was “away on travel” in Dupont Circle for Week 4 of a four-week leadership development program with 79 other people.  During the day, I’m loaded up with activities from 6:45 a.m. to around 5 p.m. Right off, that means that if I’m going to enjoy human interaction over dinner, then I have to run in the early dark hours, unless I can find some other folks who are also jonesin’ for a run after a long day of instruction. Normally, I’m getting up at 5 a.m., but I agree to meet colleagues and be ready to run at that time. They don’t know where Rock Creek Park is, so I offer to be the guide. The night before, I tell myself I want to run to burn off the extra calories and compensate for the lower daytime activity level, but the commitment to people was truthfully the only thing that got me out of bed.  I’m feeling satisfied. Two show up plus me, and I talk non-stop with a very nice colleague from Buffalo. The other guy has headphones on, incommunicado, reminding me of a slug sitting in the backseat of my car on the HOV. We go six easy miles and I feel great.

When I’m on travel in unfamiliar places, I try to stick to out-and-back routes.  I’ve had awkward experiences where four left turns did not bring me back to the starting point. I’m not normally navigationally-challenged, but on one trip to Little Rock, Arkansas, I found an area that does not follow the square-block convention.  I had allocated one hour to running and was nearly back to my starting point, yet I was dead-ended at the Burlington rail yard.   A five-mile circuit turned into a ten-mile out-and-back, and I was late to work.  Not a good start to the day.  GPS has solved that to some extent.  I’m something of a curious type, so I’m still prone to “momentary disorientation.” The Garmin map is really small when you want it to tell you where to go.

The office stuff never quite leaves me alone, but I’m able to monitor via Blackberry and take care of it after dinner. Generally, this means between 10 p.m. and midnight, since dinner usually involves group bonding over food and drinks. Normally, I commiserate with my wife after work over dinner, but my lovely spouse does not really feel the sympathy when I’m away on these trips. I have stopped whining about the annoyances of getting lost on my run, listening to talking heads all day, bad restaurant service, a limited karaoke menu, and fiascos at the office. On her end, it never fails that there is some issue at home that I’m not able to help with or fix.

In the end, running while on travel is a great way to maintain some semblance of balance between work and life.  Today, I resolve to do a better job of when I’m not on travel, too.

Since I was contracted to do a blog post for the RidgeRunners Club, I thought it might be interesting to recount how I got to where I am now, someone who willingly goes out in all sorts of temperatures to pound the pavement in my trademark deliberate (slow) manner.  I apologize for the length of this entry but it’s the only way I know how to tell the full story.

To summarize my youth, I was heavily involved in sports as a kid, baseball and soccer mostly, but being a more accomplished baseball player dictated that I would concentrate on that sport once I hit high school.  I also had a brief relationship with football in high school for which I didn’t care much.  Both baseball and football are marked by short bursts of sprinting and periods of rest, but I’d imagine the total distance run in any one game (especially as a pitcher or defensive lineman) is less than one mile and probably not close to that.

Once I hit college, I had briefly considered walking onto the baseball team (many of the pitchers were walk-ons) but found that I had lost the desire to work constantly at the sport.  When you compare that against all the newfound freedom I had discovered (mostly beer, parties, and women) my choice became easy.  My focus changed and I became a gym rat.  I loved weight training; I threw myself into it and was even employed for a time by the school gym.

To this point, my only real serious running training was one college summer with an old high school friend named Dan.  Dan had been on the cross-country team, indoor and outdoor track teams in high school, and had gotten plenty of awards and recognition for his efforts.  My only goal at that point in life was to break seven minutes in the mile, something I had never done.  Dan wanted someone to run with, and even though I was much slower than he was, I was a willing partner.  He ran me around the track all summer: pace miles and 200-yard sprints after 200-yard sprints.  Though I was in fantastic shape from a weight training perspective, my lungs weren’t prepared, so it was slow going, but my times kept improving.  I had hit a wall around the 7:10 mark and figured it wasn’t going to happen, but I had gotten close.

One of our last runs was about a week before it was time to go back to college.  Dan was out of town and I sure as hell wasn’t going running on my own.  He wound up coming back early and knocked on my door around 6:30 or 7 p.m. to see if I was ready to go.  Note that I had just eaten a delicious fish dinner and was fairly comfortable on my couch, but I got changed.  I’m sure you can see where this is going.  You may want to stop eating for a minute before you read further.

We hit the track, warmed up, and I felt surprisingly good. I decided to go for the seven-minute mile mark.  It wasn’t like I had much time left anyway; once I got back to college it was going to be back to my usual weights and beer regimen.  Dan had an amazing ability to run an exact pace, to the second, for each lap.  My job was just to keep up as best I could.  I remember hitting the end of the first lap at about 1:34 or so, which is what I always ran at that point; it was always the third lap which did me in.

I felt good and kept pushing.  Times are approximate, but lap two was I’m sure a little slower, probably around the 1:45 mark, so let’s say I hit the half-mile around 3:20 or so.  Not bad, but I had always had trouble with lap three.  This time, I got an adrenaline surge and told Dan to keep pushing me, and to this day, I remember finishing the third lap just after the five-minute mark, maybe 5:05 or 5:10.  Lap four always felt easier, like one big homestretch, and I had given myself somewhere around 1:50 or so to do it.

We kicked it into high gear, or what passed for my high gear at the time.  Pushing and pushing, we hit the halfway point, and I had about 50 seconds to make it home.  This was where all those 200-yard sprints he had put me through helped, because I was able to keep my pace, with one small problem—that fish dinner I had eaten less than an hour before.  At this point, Dan was yelling excitedly that I was going to make it, and I was yelling that I was going to throw up, which he told me to run through.

And so I did.  Like a scene out of some horrific, disgusting, Garbage-Pail-Kids-inspired Disney movie, around the 50-meter mark I turned my head sideways and threw up into the grass on the football field, running forward all the while.  I can not imagine what that must have looked like to an outside observer.  I collapsed as I hit the finish line and rolled into the grass.  Dan showed me his watch.  6:52…to this date, still the fastest mile I’ve ever run.

Back in college, as predicted, I dropped running for my usual habits, and though I was still in quite good shape, it wasn’t running shape.  After graduating, I continued weight training as I began my professional career, but distractions kept creeping up, be it long hours, a wedding, changing jobs, or having a kid.  I was also getting tired of paying gym fees.  And that’s when I learned a hard lesson: unused muscles don’t exactly disappear, they sag, and it doesn’t look too great.  I needed something else.

Beyond that one summer with Dan, one other thing really cultivated my interest in running, but to explain it properly, I need to go back to my youth again.  I grew up with a bunch of athletic friends, and we were a hyper-competitive group of guys.  We actually kept a “Champions List” on someone’s computer that listed who was the current king of whatever we could think, be it penalty kicks, free throw shooting contests, home run derby, fighting video games (such as Street Fighter), chess, cards, Risk…you get the idea.  Anything that could be considered a competition was probably on that list, and we were forever challenging one another and trying to knock each other off.

(Side note: as the only baseball player in the group, guess who added home run derby to the list?)

The reason I mention the list is that in 2005, another one of Dan’s friends (and fellow track runner) named Joe decided he was going to take on the Marine Corps Marathon.  By his own admission, he didn’t train as much as he should have, nor did he do so properly.  Most of his training was done on a treadmill, and never more than 12-13 miles.  Despite that, Joe did have an accomplished running background and his finishing time is burned in my brain, 3:48:13, and I was there to cheer him on every step of the way.  Though our list was long since forgotten, there was no denying that Joe’s name was etched under “Marathon” on the Champions List and was never likely to be replaced since no one else cared to try and run one. 

Back in 2005, I was in the middle of my gym days and running was no consideration beyond the co-ed soccer league in which I played, but Joe’s accomplishment always stuck with me. 

At some point, I gave up the gym for the most part, not that I was going anyway, and finally started hitting the track at Lake Ridge Middle School.  My weight had ballooned; the first day, I couldn’t finish one lap without walking.  I kept plugging away and working up to running a mile, then trying for more.  I was not consistent in my training and was never able to run more than six laps without walking, so instead I decided just to go around the track for an hour, in whatever combination of running and walking I could manage, and work up to more running.

It was at this time I discovered the RidgeRunners Club’s old website and learned of the Turkey Trot 10K, which I considered entering, though I hadn’t even run a 5K.  However, upon finding the previous years’ results, I learned that at my current pace, I would have finished dead last, behind the runners in their 80s and behind the eight year olds.  This was not an appealing prospect, and I wound up giving up entirely and putting the weight back on. It was the usual cycle.

The next year, I tried again, and decided to join the RidgeRunners Club for motivation.  I downloaded the form off what turned out to be the old website, showed up to the Pizza Gourmet on Hedges Run, and met a wait staff who looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.  The club hadn’t been there in months.  In an odd coincidence, the next day, the website had disappeared.  The club obviously no longer existed, and I quit running again.

I finally decided that I was going to have to make my own motivation.  My family history is not stellar—a grandfather with seven heart attacks, a father with angina and a stent—I was staring at the same fate if I didn’t do something.  I had recently started taking a Statin drug for high cholesterol and my weight was as high as it had ever been; a far cry from my gym rat days in college.  With a nine-month-old child and another (though we didn’t know this at the time) soon to be conceived, I was going to have to be a better role model if I wanted my kids to avoid the family history.

So in February of 2011, I picked it up again.  I hit the track at Lake Ridge Middle School and worked my way back up to running a mile, along with sprinting.  But the same barrier remained: I could never get past five or six laps without stopping to walk.  Luckily, I had conversations with runners on a Redskins message board and I got tips from them, such as, “Stop trying to set records every time out,” “run slower and increase distance to get a feel for it,” “get better shoes,” etc.  Finally, I managed to run a 5K on the track.  I had ignored their advice to get a change of scenery and run neighborhoods since I always wanted to know exactly how far I had gone and in what time.

In June, I entered my first 5K and, excited, entered another one for the next week, which I flew through (relatively speaking) on adrenaline and exhilaration.  Racing was a kick, even though I had no chance of winning an award.  I was really enjoying myself.  I kept with my training and entered a 10K, a trail run, and had a disastrous experience with a mud run, where I learned that staying up all night drinking with some friends and then attempting to run five miles in the sand the next morning did not mix well.  At least they were there suffering with me.

The real saving grace, however, was opening one of the Lake Ridge newsletters and seeing in an ad that the RidgeRunners Club was back, an injection of life I really needed, as my motivation was starting to wane again.  Though I had lost 30 pounds, I had hit a plateau in both weight loss and timing results, and being a weak runner mentally, I was letting it get to me.  Finding folks with whom I can run has really kept me going.

Later in the summer and fall, I was able to break through a couple barriers.  I had wanted to break a nine-minute mile pace in a 10K race and finally broke that mark on a flat course at an Ashland race by posting a time of 55:35.  I had signed up for the Army Ten-Miler as a final goal for the first summer, and I managed to achieve my lowest goal in that race, which was running it without stopping.  My time goals were not met as I had no idea what it would be like navigating through 23,000 other runners, and thus they were a bit unrealistic.  Still, running 10 miles, when I can remember what it was like to be able to barely finish one mile on a track eight months earlier, was a great feeling.

My goal for the upcoming year had been to end it with a half-marathon, but that timetable got moved up a bit as many club members and I are running the Virginia Wine Country Half-Marathon in early June.  My goal is now to improve constantly and eventually break the eight-minute mile pace in a 5K, breaking 8:45 and then 8:30 pace in the 10K, and improving my performance in longer distances.

Thanks to the club, I’ll hopefully be able to stick with running this time.  I certainly would have never gone out in some of the temperatures we’ve experienced in these past few weeks if there weren’t others to chat with me before and after our runs.  And in the end, that’s what I need from running: an outlet to keep my health, the camaraderie, losing a little more weight, and having constant goals to attain.

And I won’t lie, at some point down the line, I’m probably going to tackle a marathon once I feel I can challenge Joe’s time.  Nothing will be sweeter than being able to send that e-mail, with our friends copied, which states, “Champions List – Marathon – Patrick” along with links to his time and mine.  It’s how we grew up together; I’m sure he’d expect nothing less.  For me, it’s just one more carrot to chase.  I’ll see you all out in the neighborhoods.

We kick off the New Year in swanking style with a plastic-cup-and-apple-cider toast to the club’s future health smack in the middle of the McCoart Administrative Center parking lot. Luckily JC has a bottle cap opener (cheers to the makers of twist-off caps) and police officers don’t stop by to investigate suspicious early morning group drinking. The Parkway beckons and off we go on a long run marked by brisk weather and a bright rising sun.

January 2, 2012

I am running solo on the CCT and the Giles Run Loop at Laurel Hills and nothing is going right. I am feeling the burn of yesterday’s long run and the hills are killing me. Chanting mantra “Epsom Salts bath, Epsom Salts bath” does nothing to improve my performance. If anything, I’m fizzling down fast, as if in imitation of said bath. Note to self: change mantra.

January 4, 2012

Skipped yesterday’s group run on the coldest recorded day of the season. (I do suffer, after all, from achy bones and cold symptoms. And my husband refuses to care for me if achy bones syndrome develops into full-fledged flu after I return from a sweaty run.) Today fares no better yet I venture out for my usual “W-shaped” seven-miler (Hedges, Cotton, Mohican, Cotton, Antietam). I realize that I am attracting my fair share of stares from passing car drivers. Is my nose running? Am I suffering from spontaneous facial boils? I would ask a dog walker or fellow runner but I see absolutely no one on these streets. And I get it: They are looking at me because I’m the only crazy person running around town in this weather. Ah. Welcome to Woodbridge! Next time I’ll wear my Canadian tuque as a patriotic tribute to cold-weather madness.

January 5, 2012

Thursday Night Group Run Inspires “Ode to Keith’s Psychedelic Pants: A Poem in Two Parts”

I: Haiku
Purple beatnik swirls
Pound a night’s wintry pavement
Club following still

II: in the style of e.e. cummings

(i need
some of those) tights
have
a
life
of
their (wonder where
he got them) own

January 6, 2012

A lovely afternoon run with Ernie around Belmont Bay and Veterans’ Park turns into a three-part revelation. One: I am a lazy solo runner and I need RidgeRunner companionship to amp my stride. Two: In the space of three days, the temperature has risen twenty degrees Celcius. I don’t speak Fahrenheit, but I’m told that “sixties” is ideal running weather. It is. I finally understand American Weather Language. Three: The thought sinks in that there are no hills on this loop. I repeat. No. Hills. I secretly offer my gratitude to the gods of running (and to Ernie, who happens to be a running power-that-be.)

January 7, 2012

I meet Keith and Debbie at Manassas National Battlefield Park for a ten-mile run along scenic battlefields, creeks, and rows of century-old trees. We run on flattened hay fields, which smell sweet and faintly of flowers to come. The historical gravitas and sheer beauty of the landscape dotted by stately stone houses make this one of the most significant runs of my five-year running life. I have never experienced “runner’s high” yet I feel as if we could run these paths forever.

Please Note: The Battlefield Park run inspired us to create a series of area group runs located on historical sites. “Run Through History” marks the first of several RidgeRunners Club activities scheduled for 2012. See our club calendar for more information.

Here’s a trivia question for you:  How many uniformed services are there in the United States?

I bet most of you answered either four or five, but there are actually seven.  Pretty much everybody knows the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force from the Department of Defense and the Coast Guard from the Department of Homeland Security.  But most people are unaware of the other two Sea Services, the Department of Health and Human Service’s Public Health Service Commissioned Corps led by the US Surgeon General (who, interestingly enough, is an Admiral) and the Commissioned Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  As sea services, they wear uniforms/ranks similar to those of the Navy and Coast Guard.

You may be asking, “So what does this have to do with running?”  Well, I’m glad you asked.  The answer is, nothing and everything, at least for me.   I think Major John MacGillis (Gerald McRainey’s character in the old TV show Major Dad) summed it up when asked why he ran.  He answered, “I’m a Marine and Marines run.”   This holds true for all of the uniformed services, which, in addition to rigorous educational, professional, and ethical standards, have pretty stringent physical requirements as well.  I’m an Airman and Airmen run.

So in recognition of the running done across the uniformed services and to honor those who serve, I am planning to run a race sponsored by each of the services in 2012.  It was pretty easy finding races sponsored by the larger DoD services, but the others required some significant research.  Fortunately, being in the DC area makes this endeavor a bit less daunting as many of the races are close at hand.  With a little luck, I might just be able to pull this off even though it seems that to NOAA “RACE” means Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering and a “run” is something salmons do in the spring. 

Here’s my tentative schedule in case you want to join me for any (or all) of the races:

1 Apr – NOAA Fitness Center April Fool’s Day 5K (Silver Spring, MD) – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

20 Jun – Surgeon General’s 5K (Washington DC) – Public Health Service [if held in 2012]

4 Aug – TCYorktown CG Day 5k (Yorktown/Newport News, VA) – Coast Guard

15 Sep – USAF Half-Marathon (Dayton, OH) – Air Force

21 Sep – Navy 5 Miler (Washington DC) – Navy [unless they move it to 15 Sep, then I’ll have to find another Navy race]

21 Oct – Army Ten-Miler (Washington DC) – Army

28 Oct – Marine Corps Marathon (Washington DC) – Marine Corps

–Mike

What’s good people! My name is Brennan Kemp and I’m a member of the Lake Ridge RidgeRunners. I am on the Cross Country team at BYU-Idaho. Idaho air is so different than back home in Virginia; the air is so dry here that walking upstairs winds me out.

For practice, we are separated into teams according to our class time and when we can join our group.  All teams are co-ed, with a ratio of four girls to one guy. I love it.  There are three time slots, and within those slots are one to two squads. During the practice I attend, my coach has us do harder and faster workouts (sprints, mid-distance, hills, long drills, etc,) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and long distance (6-7 miles) on Tuesday and Thursday. We usually run through the city of Rexburg then hit the fields going towards the mountains for our long distance runs. For our shorter distance stuff, we stay on campus and mainly on the track.

The weather here has shifted many times since I joined.  Back in September, we would run in 70-80 degree weather. Now it’s snowing and raining, and on average 35 degrees.

We’ve only had two races so far. The first was a relay where in which we ran 1.5 miles on a very awkwardly-sloped field and the second was a 5K that was mostly flat and mixed elements of the city with giant fields behind some townhouses.

Advice for running: Don’t drink milk or eat meat beforehand. Don’t wear underwear. Listen to a song you want to run to before a race, because it sucks when you get a random or crap song stuck in your head at mile two.

Questions on anything at all?  Comment on this post.

Brennan