The Limit As The Runner Approaches Fifty

I'm sipping a cold brew coffee and listening to Santana without a shirt on. It's hot enough to have all the blinds down, hot enough we dream of air conditioning but not so hot we actually succumb to the temptation. It was mostly this hot at 7:55 this morning when I parked the truck outside the high school pool entrance, watched my daughter go in for practice, and set off down the road at a trot. Coming off two days without running, my legs didn't feel like my own. I told them what to do, but didn't feel connected to them. 

I need to be connected to them. Sure, all of us need that, but I'm planning a 50-mile run the day before my 50th birthday. That gives me a big push to know my body in ways I haven't before. I'm not trying to get back to when I was as a younger man or boy. Then I didn't pay much of any attention to my body. I expected it to do things, and it usually did them. I didn't expect a four-minute mile, but of course I could play basketball for hours, hike a mountain trail, and simply keep going. I still expect those things, but as I approach 50, I'm also approaching limits. 

I don't think of limits as fences, barriers, or walls. I imagine the limits I learned in Calculus where a limit is the value that a function (or sequence) 'approaches' as the input (or index) 'approaches' some value. 

Instead of a wall to hit, I keep approaching limits at a slower and slower rate. Imagine the graph y=1/x (which, if we were still in Calc class, would be written f(x)=1/x). Try it. Find a piece of your kid's graph paper and start at x=1. You'll put a point at (1,1) because 1/1 = 1. Move to x=2 and put your point at (2,1/2). Keep going out to about x=5 which gives you (5,1/5) and you'll see that you have a curve sloping down toward the axis. If you had an infinitely sharp pencil and infinitely sharp eyes (something I lack at almost 50), you could go on infinitely and still never hit the x-axis. For all intents and purposes, your line hits the x-axis even though logically it never can. The limit as x approaches infinity approaches zero, but never quite gets there. (My crude sketch of this function is at the top of this post.)

Just for fun, move the other way on the graph. Go to x=1/2 and plot a point at (1/2, 2). Follow that with (1/3,3), (1/4,4), and (1/5,5). As you move closer to the y-axis, the graph goes up. The limit, as x approaches zero, approaches infinity. Cool. 

Unlike limits, I'll approach and hit 50 then go through it for many years, God willing. No limit there. Simple linear arithmetic. 

Okay, back to running and approaching 50. Remember, as a kid I expected my body to just do whatever I wanted. As a catcher in little league, I expected that I could and would throw down to second base with enough velocity and accuracy to pick off any kid who hadn't gotten a good jump against my pitcher. At one practice when I was 11 or 12, our coach lined three kids at first base, a pitcher threw, and the first kid tried to steal second. I threw down and picked him off. The pitcher threw again, the next kid took off, I threw down and almost got him. It went like that for an hour. I went home with my right arm feeling like it might fall off and was pretty sure it was three inches longer than my left, but knew that I would throw down to second the next day and do it better. My job was to pick off runners and I did it. No question. 

This morning, with my daughter at swim practice for two hours, I chose to do two five-mile loops of the course I'll run ten times August 25th. It was hot, my legs felt connected to someone else's body, and I remain twenty pounds too heavy. Still, I know ten miles is within my limits and fully expect that so too is fifty. No matter that I felt lousy for the first mile and a half. I knew I would loosen up and I did. After five miles, I was worn down but not worn out. I had something left and went for a second loop.

On a graph, I'm at x=49.9 years, on a line with arrow, what's called a ray, except those go on forever. I'm not theoretical, so eventually my line will end as my father's did three years ago, but for now mine goes on. I'm pushing forward. My limits all seem theoretical. 

The loop on which I run has two tough hills and two minor ones. It's a fairly easy five-mile run, but will be challenging for ten circuits. I could map a flat course, but I want hills. They are a chance to investigate the limits. 

There is a chance I'll come up hard against a limit. I thought about that today as I tried to cut into my time. I'm not a fast runner, but with two miles to go and the hills behind me, I was averaging 12:06 per mile. Could I get below 12? I picked up the pace. Three blocks later I was at 12:05. I kept pushing toward a 12-minute average pace.

I think about records such as Roger Bannister's first-ever four-minute mile, run in 3:59.4. Amazing. But of course that record has been broken and broken and broken since. The current mark is Hicham El Guerrouj's 3:43.13, a full 1.26 seconds faster than the previous record set six years prior. Records will always be broken, yet the mile cannot be run in zero seconds. There are limits, but no one knows what they are. The science used to say a woman's uterus would fall out during a marathon. And before Bannister, many believed a four-minute mile was impossible. 

No human will ever run a two- or even a three-minute mile. But 3:30? Sure. It probably won't be in my lifetime, but then again there's Bob Beamon who beat the long-jump record by nearly two feet. Tell him about limits. We just don't know. 

I'll never run a four-minute mile. I have no expectation my body is meant for such things. When I mention that I'll soon run 50 miles, people shake their heads. "You're crazy." Maybe, but it doesn't feel like that. I've simply decided my body can do it. I have some history with distance: the half-marathon, a 50K. I understand pacing and perseverance. It may be that I can't run 50 miles this August, but I doubt I'll see it as a limit. I'll just need better preparation, milder conditions, or a flat course. My body can do this. I'm pretty sure. 

Pretty sure is as far I get until I do it. I did ten miles today despite weird legs and high temperatures. I'm preparing, testing my limits. Two miles from the end, my watch read 12:06 per mile. I pushed through 12:05, 12:04, 12:03, 12:02, 12:01. In the last mile I knew I would beat 12:00. I smiled. My shorts were so wet with sweat, it was as if I'd jumped in the pool. My heart beat at the upper limit of my training zone. My right arm hurt due to an old neck injury (perhaps all those throws down to second base), but I kept going. 12:01, 12:00, and 11:59. I smiled again but kept going.

Back at the pool within my two-hour window (I hate to keep my daughter waiting), my watch read 11:55 per mile for 10.2 miles. Too tired to celebrate, I nodded and blew air from my lungs. What's to celebrate? My body did what I supposed it could do. I pushed the limit a little closer, but there remains daylight between the line of my life and the axis of termination. I tell you, these limits, it's almost as if they go on forever. 

Slow Coffee, Slow Run

Went for a run this morning with Chris. He hadn't run in a couple weeks but was willing to take on a five-mile hilly loop when I said we would go slowly. We did. It was good. We talked and ran. I showed him the cemetery and the house with the pool out of which I hope Phoebe Cates will rise. (I don't know that anyone's ever swum in the pool. The gate is unlocked so I'm likely to dive in someday. No one will mistake me for Phoebe.)

After the run, we sat on my front steps drinking water and he told me about his coffee maker dying. A programmable drip machine, it used to brew as he slept. Convenient! He replaced it with an insulated French Press. Not so convenient. He has to wait for water to boil. There are fewer cups of coffee. But the coffee tastes incredible. 

Chris isn't lazy. He's building a fine-art business and hustles to make it happen. But, he says, I miss coffee being ready when I came downstairs. I get that.

My coffee hasn't been ready when I wake for years. I use an Aeropress and hand-crank grinder. A single cup of coffee requires two minutes of cranking, time to boil water, and another minute to press and then clean out the thing. It's as inconvenient as any coffee you can imagine. 

Which is what I like about it. 

It's not just the press that makes the best coffee. It's the pressing of it. The time we take making coffee makes it taste better. Slowing down to make a cup of coffee, that's just choosing to be part of living. 

It's okay if you don't buy that, but know that drip machines make weak coffee. Don't even bring up Keurigs. That thing is poison to the earth and makes pseudo coffee. Screw that. 

Our slow run felt good. Moving slowly, I savor the run. And why hurry the run anyway? 

It's the same with the coffee. We each took time to make coffee. It was slower than his automatic drip machine. All of five minutes slower. What were we going to do with that five minutes that's better than creating something? 

The act of creation, that's the best part of waking up. Forget about Folgers in your cup. 

It Keeps You Running

I'm in no hurry to exercise. Sounds like the words of a fat man eating Doritos, watching golf on the television, but I mean it otherwise. I'm reading headlines about how to exercise in just eight minutes a day. I see things touting the benefits of high intensity workouts done in no time. There's this hurry to get exercise over and done. I understand. Many people feel rushed, overburdened, and that there aren't enough hours in the day. I feel otherwise. 

It wasn't always so. Years ago my job was an hour's commute each way. The drive and job sucked  the life out of me. By the time I got home, I wouldn't drag my fat ass to any kind of workout. My wife, who thinks about me as much as I do but more effectively, got me a Y membership and I began going there at 5:30 each morning before work. I could work out for a solid hour, shower, and still arrive at the job early. 

That hour felt good. Not just the workout, but the luxury of an hour to myself. It damn sure felt better than the job or commute. It was easy to get out of bed in the dark and go to the gym. I wanted that hour. 

I'm no longer at that job and my commute is short. The Y costs $1,000 a year and I don't feel like paying. Instead, I run and, as I said at the outset, I'm in no hurry. 

The other day I came home tired but thinking, I should go for a run. It wasn't the obligation of getting in shape or keeping some streak. I said "should" because I was feeling lousy and few things are as relaxing and rejuvenating as running by myself. I set off into the hot sun, in no hurry at all. 

I'm running according to Phil Maffetone's heart rate plan. I stay between 121 and 131 beats per minute. In the hot sun after a full day of work, I hit 121 within three blocks and, if I'm not careful I go up over 131 even on the smallest of hills. I have to run pretty damn slow. The goal is to burn fat instead of sugar because sugar has to be replaced all the time, but there's enough fat on me to keep going 'til Rapture. 

Along with not hurrying the pace, I'm in no hurry to finish the run. Moving slowly, I feel like I can run forever. Going out for that run, I told my wife I'd be back in an hour or so. She accepts that or so likely means I'll be an hour and a half. I went almost seven miles and would have gone longer except I was holding up dinner. I'm running six, seven, sometimes ten miles not because I'm in such great shape, but because being in nor hurry allows me to enjoy time for myself. 

It's a bit greedy, but I'm a better man when I've had a run. I'm happier, healthier, and more accepting of a slow pace. Think of it this way: what kind of family man am I if I'm always in a hurry? 

I still understand why people rush and think that they have to. I just don't want to hurry right now and have found that I don't have to. Running helps me remember that. My wife's love and support is the foundation of that. And my happiness is the result of that. I don't need high intensity workouts I can finish in eight minutes. I want to feel this happy for much longer. 

Do Goats Smile?

Today was the day of The Mountain Goat, a ten-mile run here in Syracuse, but I didn't run it. Last year was my first in a long time without signing up. The previous two years I had paid but been unable to run because of scheduling. My friend Ben has run it fourteen years straight. We used to drive together and after finishing he waited for me to come in. He asked if I was running it this year and was only mildly disappointed that I wasn't. I just can't see paying to run in part because the race becomes an obligation and takes some of the fun out of it. 

Yesterday, midway through a run, my GPS watch battery crapped out. I knew I was doing just over six miles so it wasn't a big problem, but it got me wondering how useful the watch is to me. I use it to track mileage and my heart rate, but I have a pretty good feel for both. The watch is becoming unnecessary and may be getting in the way of enjoying running. Why am I still using it?

One book I finished this week was Sharon Creech's young-adult novel Heartbeat about a girl who won't join the track team because racing and competition get in the way of the joy she feels in running. There's a great section in which she resists the track coach's badgering. She just wants to run barefoot for fun. 

I also finished re-reading Chris McDougall's Born To Run, a book that confirmed my love for barefoot running. The book's real theme is the spirit of running which can have little to do with competition. McDougall tells of people who run well because they are joyous and compassionate. The physical and emotional go together. I kept wondering, Why do I run?

This morning I ran part of The Goat course backwards, jumping in at Thornden Park heading back toward mile seven. The elites were coming through. The beauty of their strength and speed, I just love it, can't get enough. As I ran back through the course, the numbers of runners increased into the hundreds and looked much more like me. On Comstock, I heard my name and saw Ben. I yelled his name and raised my fist. We both smiled. 

I continued against the flow, on the other side of the road. A woman coming up Colvin said, "oh, man, you are so going the wrong way." I smiled. "Story of my life," I told her and kept running down to where the drummers were doing "Stayin' Alive" to help runners up the hill. That song makes me smile. 

Instead of ten, I ran 5-1/2 miles then drove to the temple to pick up my girls from Sunday school. Waiting in the car, working on this essay, I saw Ben coming up the sidewalk. He ran The Goat, finished downtown, and walked two miles back to the temple. That's a bunch of miles, but Ben runs a lot farther, almost always smiling. I went to see him. 

We sat on a bench and talked about running, music, and teaching. The police had taken down all the roadblocks. The streets were open. The race was over. Ben pointed to two women jogging down Madison past the Temple, numbers pinned to their shirts, still working toward the finish though there would be no timer recording when they crossed. "Hard core," Ben said. I nodded and smiled feeling I had just had my questions answered.