December 2015: Still alive.

Today I am 1817 miles into my running year.  This is the most miles I have ever run in a year, but short as of the 2015 I wanted to finish the year with.   It helped my mileage that at this time a year ago my life was total wreck, or at least that is the way I looked at time. I was more than a year out of my divorce, alone, had failed out of the sonography program, had no job and did not know what I would even want to do. I was thinking of driving a truck, it would be better than working the night shift at Cumberland Farms.

My friends kept me alive, and Donna Utakis kept me running until I could get my act together. I don't know if my act is together, but I am not depressed, not terribly happy, but trying. In the lot next door is a Volvo tractor that I drive five Monday through Friday for Dot Foods. The work is good, hard, frustrating, scary, stressful, a total pain in the ass, very lucrative, and I like it.

Today I ran with the coffee cakers. I fell off the pace after only a couple of miles. I finished on my own, walking and running the last two miles. Not good, but I ran 10 miles last night with Donna, and that included some very solid sprints on the Amherst College track.  Wednesday I ran 10 miles with Donna also.  Tomorrow, another 15 miles with Donna.

I am going to start another post, right now. I am going to call it Driving.

Still Running

So I am still running and now I make my living driving a truck for Dot Foods. It is a difficult stressful job that I actually like alot. I will be starting a new blog about driving and more about the people I meet along way. There are a some very unusual people out there, and this job requires me to work with them.  I enjoy these people and look forward to seeing them weekly.

Riding with Carrie!

Having a streak of running, biking or meditating can bring a sense of accomplishment. When you change the word streaking to training then it takes a new meaning. In a  streak of training for an event the event sometimes eclipses the work, training, streak that made it possible.
My friend Carrie Stone is training for her first (she has hinted that she might do more) triathlon. She is a strong and fast runner, she is good with the swimming, but she does not like bicycling and this is what worried her most.  We have been training for the last few weeks on our bikes. At first her goal was to cover 13 miles in an hour or less. We rode 16 miles at a just under a 16 mph pace. She has gotten faster, but wanted to stay out of the hills until yesterday.

What I like about training with Carrie is that we push each other. Mostly our runs are about doing a run and socializing. When it is a training run her whole demeanor changes and she is a competitor in the best sense. She wanted a hilly course that included the Greenfield Triathlon course. This would be much harder that the Westfield course that she is doing in June. I planned one loop of the Greenfield course then some flat miles. She just wanted to battle the hills so we did two laps of very steep slow climbs and very fast descents. She attacked the hills relentlessly, and if I relaxed she shot by me and I had to work to catch her.

She is not comfortable going downhill at speed, and hard corners are a challenge for her, so when we started down a very steep stretch with hard switch backs, I told her it was very steep with sharp turns. I started down very fast and realized that I was pushing my ability in the corners (I used to be a bicycle racer), I looked over my shoulder to see how Carrie was holding up and saw her going off the road.  She came away with bruises on her knee, back and arm. Not much blood, but still...I did not realize she had even hit the ground she was up so quickly. No complaints, just back on the bike and rolling again.

In the end she suggested adding some miles, so we ended up with just under 18 miles, and averaged better than a 15 mph pace. While we put the bikes away I saw her bruises. She was mostly unphased by it all. Running and biking with Carrie is one the great joys in my life.

Driving and Running

When I run the problems of the world usually leave me, and I come back with the feeling that everything will be alright. More often than not I even come up with a plan to correct what ever it is that is bothering me. I am usually optimistic to a fault. It will be alright has been my mantra for most my adult life. Usually it has been.

 Changing direction is not an easy thing.
"An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless an external force is applied to it."- Isaac Newton.
Newton was talking about a physical object with mass, but I have found that the same principal can apply to the trajectory of one's life.   Nothing changes without effort.

I am three days into a 22 week long training program to obtain a class A CDL license.  This is not the direction I had planned on going, but it feels good right now. I am learning to drive a tractor trailer, and hope to be working again by early summer.

If this seems a strange career choice a few things about me may make it less so. I grew up with a construction company in my backyard. My dad had a shovel dozer, two (or three) backhoes, a Ford F-350 (1 1/2 ton pickup) and a Ford 850 dump truck (a big diesel dump truck) parked in our yard.  When I was 4  would ride in the dump truck to construction sites and see my dad operating the dozer.  I remember waking up in the cab of the truck at the end of the day after everyone had gone home. I got up and grabbed the wheel of that mighty truck and pretended to drive it.
I remember the smell of diesel and plastic in the cab of that truck that I could still smell years later in other old Ford trucks. I even drove a similar truck for a day at the UMass orchard in Belchertown (that was in 1991 or '92?).  I was always drawn to the big trucks more than I was to the heavy equipment.

Driving often has a similar effect on me as running does. I don't get the adrenalin rush, but I find most driving to be relaxing, almost meditative. (Much more so on my motorcycle, but that will be another day's musing.).  In my time at Pioneer Gardens I drove their trucks to New York, Ohio, Michigan, Ontario, all the way down to South Carolina.  I have done this job before.

Today I listened to lectures on down shifting before a hill, before a curve, and watched other students driving the courses on the tarmac outside the school classrooms.  I have changed direction. I wonder where this trajectory will take me.

Keep your feet on the road.

Winter Runners

This morning at 5:40 I met up with Donna and Dave for a three mile run, before our planned 5 mile run. At 6:15 there were 6 of us running from the Amherst Cinema parking lot. It was 9 degrees, and the roads were crunchy, and we all felt is was better than yesterday's running. Yesterday the ice and falling snow made our endeavors more treacherous than is usually fun. The day before Donna and I met for what would be 15.6 miles of sliding around on the streets. At the same time Tim and another runner went out for a long run as well, and suffered through the same poor footing and traffic. After today's run we compared stories. We observed the ice forming on each of us, hanging off clothing, skin and hair. Winter's extreme conditions and dangers don't deter the winter runners. The worse it is the better the story about it will be. It was cold this morning, but we have all run in much colder conditions. The coldest run I ever participated in was an 8 mile Saturday morning run through Amherst in 11 bellow zero air. There were at least six runners that day as well. We posed outside of Rao's after, showing off the icicles that hung off of us. Winter running cures the winter blues, keeps us in shape, prepares us for spring races, and shows us how much we rely on each other and how much we can do by ourselves. Keep your feet on the Road - Mark

A Winter Runner.

Running is not a seasonal sport. Runners go out in the heat and in the cold. Good weather or bad runners can be found pounding the miles along the road. Shortly after we had started running together seven years ago, I asked my friend Carrie if she would still run if it was raining. She looked at me as if I had insulted her, and said, "I am not made of sugar." We headed out into a torrent of blinding downpours, thunder and lightening cracking near by. We have since run in ice storms, rain, cold, extreme heat and long into the evening through to the next day. As the that first summer of running came to an end she warned me that she is not a winter runner and would be retreating into the gym with the cold, and loss of day light savings time. We ran that winter, and every winter since. Every year she warns me that she will be retreating to the gym for the winter and yet every year we run through the winter. Winter returned about a week ago and the temperatures around here are getting scary. I warned her that Thursday the high temperature is only supposed to reach 18. I gave her an out to our weekly run. She emailed me back saying let's plan on running. Last night in an IM she said she had run that evening in 12 degree weather. She can no longer pretend to be a seasonal runner.

The New Year

When failure is not an option, how do you find peace when failure is the reality? I begin this year with a new plan that I did not anticipate and wish it was not necessary. The short version is that after months of subpar performance as an ultrasound student at my clinical site I was told that I could not advance. I was done. I have never worked so hard and still failed at what I was attempting. Small defeats are a part of life that I have used to make myself stronger. This wasn’t a small setback. It’s huge and it is no easy feat to get up some mornings. Nor is it an isolated event in an otherwise stable life. The challenge of the year is find a direction I can turn to with the resources I have remaining. I need to feel good about where I am going and accept where I have been. When faced with the imminent end of my sonography program I made two lists. My goal was a realistic list of 10 things I could do to get back to work. My second list was of 10 things I could do to stop from going crazy. I signed up for a late spring marathon and started reconnecting with friends I had not seen since my divorce. Good friends have made it possible for me to move beyond defeat. Support, encouragement and simply not treating me differently have helped me work to a new normal. Surveying my skills and experience, and interests I have decided to get my CDL and drive a truck for a while. This may be my last career, or it may just allow me to make some money and put my head back on while I consider a return to academia. I start driving school in two weeks. I don’t know what the future will bring, but I start out this year without the dread I did a year ago. For 2015 I am already committed to seven long races (2 marathons). I have already found my friends (they were never as far as I thought, or feared). 2014 is receding and 2015 is starting well. Good luck everyone, Happy New Year! Keep your feet on the road, Mark

20 Weeks til the Marathon

The time for forcing myself out the door and logging of miles has begun. All I really want to do is stay in bed and feel sorry for myself, but running in the end is more productive. Tonight I ran a little over 4 1/2 miles after I brought Ben home. I ran from the Amherst Cinema to the North East corner of the UMass campus, down and around and back through the campus and eventually back to the Amherst Cinema parking lot.

Oh what a long strange trip it has been.

I am training for the Providence Marathon which is May 3rd, 2015. This will be marathon number 20 for me. When I last posted I was in school trying to get into the ultrasound program at STCC, married and living South Deerfield with Lisa and Ben. I got into the program, but as of last week I am out of the program. I am no longer married, and Ben is with me at my apartment in Easthampton. Ben and I have dinner together on Tuesdays, he stays over on Wednesdays, and is here every other weekend. So marathon 20. I made a list of 10 things I could practically do to get back into the work force. I then made a list of 10 things I could do to keep from going totally crazy while I work on the first list. Top on the list sanity control activities was to pick a spring marathon and start training with the goal of running a BQ for 2016. I am still running with Carrie and Donna, as well as the Shutesbury Coffee Cake Club. I have not really written out a training plan. As of tomorrow it will be 20 weeks til marathon.