Mont’s Full Fledge Weblog

The good: running with Vaughan in the Suncoast Classic.  I have had the opportunity to do well in a few different races and set standards for time that I never thought I could do.  However, running with Vaughan in the 5K has to be the highlight so far.  It was so much fun to be out on the road talking with him, encouraging, and sharing the moment.  I have often longed for the opportunity to know Vaughan better, and distance has not made that easy.  This race taught me a lot about him – he is strong, open to new challenges, committed, and a great person to talk with.  I was as happy for him, and me as I could be. 

The other good thing is seeing Steve and Michelle there to cheer and support him through out the race.  Great parents!  It also struck me how comfortable Justin was with his own talents and drive.  He did not run, but was quite comfortable with cheering and talking about Hawk Nelson as Vaughan was with running.  I think this speaks as much to me as the running.  What a pleasure to see the whole span clan!

The bad – concrete, man does that issue a pounding, which leads to the painful.  Bursitis in my right foot.  I knew it was a bad idea to keep pounding, but it was so nice out.  I’m paying today, but wouldn’t trade a minute of it.  RICE for a few days…

I’m down in St. Pete for a conference and I had the chance to head out for a run yesterday.  I looked forward to this chance for weeks as I found myself navigating snow covered roads throughout Northern New England.  Then I got here and had a chance to experience the “grass is not always greener on the otherside” phenomenon.  I failed to appreciate the unrestricted roads of my hometown.  There are no stop lights to worry about, traffic turning, and most importantly concrete.  This is not to say that running along the beach is all bad when the temps are 68 first thing in the morning, but that the good comes with the bad.  My knees felt like someone had repeatedly pounded them with a hammer after a 9 mile jog on the sidewalks.  I no sooner settled into a nice pace when I would have to stop and wait for a light.  Plus, just because the cross walk says it is safe to cross doesn’t mean that it really is as evidenced by the fact that I nearly was a hood ornament on a large Caddi that turned because they wanted to.  If nothing else it gave me an appreciation for the challenges runners face in all kinds of circumstances.  If I ever become President (or if Rich becomes President as we have suggested he should try and do) I want all cities to have 6 mile running courses of track like surfaces and no interruptions!  I mean if we are building a bridge to nowhere, and pork barrel spending like taxes can go up indefinetly why not?

At any rate, it was quite nice to head out with a t-shirt and shorts for a run.  I almost felt naked without a hat, gloves, pants and jacket.  Heck, I didn’t even mind the burning in my lungs as I tried to breathe the heavy humid air of Florida, although it (as well as the concrete) did slow me down a bit.  How wonderful April, May, and June will be in New Hampshire when the best of both worlds are available.

Tomorrow will mark a real turn in my running experience.  I will be running with Vaughn, my God son, in the Suncoast Classic 5K/10K.  This will be the first race that I run in with a partner.  I am truly giddy about the opportunity.  I don’t care about times, I’m just thrilled to have an opportunity to share a passion with someone I love and care about.  I know Michelle will take some pictures so I’ll post them here when we are done.  I look forward to this Summer when Savannah has expressed an interest in running with me a few nights a week.  Our goal is to complete a 5K together at the end of the summer – it’ll be a blast. 

Training continues for Boston at a descent pace, but I am really feeling the wear and tear of multiple marathon training sessions in the past 6 months.  I’ll probably back off for a little while after April.  I think my body is telling me to relax.  I keep reminding myself that I could probably push through the summer and run a series of races, but the question is “do I want to run this summer or the rest of my life?”  No need to push to hard…

I have blogged about running and training for the Boston Marathon a lot over the past month or so, maybe a little to much.  As much as I am thrilled about the opportunity to participate in such a storied marathon, I think the most important run I will take part in occurs on June 1st.  I’m running in the Covered Bridges Half Marathon in Quechee, VT.  I have heard a lot about this race and it must be something because it filled (over 1,000 runners) in less than 3 hours.  I was a little bummed that I would miss the race, but they had a section about running for charities that I decided to check out.  One charity was the Upper Valley Memory Center, a non-profit organization supporting people and families dealing with Dementia, and more specifically Alzheimer’s disease.  Most of my professional work is focused on improving the quality of health care for the elderly, and I can say without exception this disease is the most devastating challenge for people, families, care givers, and health care individuals attempting to navigate its course. 

I have had the opportunity to run over 50 conferences through out Northern New England meeting and talking with over 1500 people, and I have asked a question at the beginning of almost all “I will be old when…”  When will you be old?  What images come to mind?  Do you deny the reality of aging?  Is there anything you are actively doing to deny it?  I have heard some fascinating responses.  However, I almost never hear anyone say “when I lose my ability to think.”  It is as though people can’t even fathom the thought of losing the very essence of themselves.  This is true for the young, middle aged, and elderly.  This, incidentally, is why Dementia is such a devastating reality.  We can never face it, or consider it – and the people who are forced to live with it, their families, and people who care for them are profoundly affected.

The Upper Valley Memory Center supports just these people.  I am running in the CBHM for this charity.  It will be a great run for an even better cause.  Check out the website put together by the organizer of “Team Alzheimer’s” here:  http://teamalzheimers.org/ and if you would like to contribute any amount (a dollar a mile is fine) it will go to a great cause.  If you are as broke as I am right now then just say a prayer, or keep these people in your thoughts.  Heck, even show a little more patience when standing in line at the grocery store as an elderly man or woman fumbles for some change, you never know what they are up against.

I’ve mentioned in the past that many demons have been left out on the road during my runs.  I’d like to leave a little sweat out on the road for people facing the unthinkable.  Thanks…

By the way, running note from today as I thought about this post while doing an easy 5 miler: enjoy the wind, cold, and sun – store all of them in your memory.  You never know what will give you peace when you need it most.

This is the last 200 yards +/- of the January 27th run.  I’m looking forward to a much better picture with Vaughn in about a week!  At least there won’t be ice particles falling off at the end.  Amazingly, there were people who ran this in short!  The thing about pictures taken when running that you don’t know are going to be taken is they catch how you really feel – that and what a dork you look like in the Wal-Mart hat you got on the way down for $2.  I’m bringin’ sexy back in that!  I can’t wait for St. Pete…

Just got done running on the treadmill for the second day in a row.  I hate running on treadmills – as compared to going outside.  I just feel like a gerbil on a wheel, not very uplifting.  I brought all of my gear to run outside no matter what the weather was doing.  I heard it would rain in the afternoon and I thought “cool, I can run in the rain.”  Wrong.  The rain sat on slush and froze.  No kidding, everything is covered in two inches of ice.  Determined I made it down to loop road around the hospital and saw two cars slide into each other and common sense said “if they slide into each other, they can slide into you.”  I turned around and ice skated back to the hospital, went down the exercise room and jogged on the treadmill.  Not as fun, but certainly the right choice.  I’m a hearty New Englander, and that is supposed to be bragging rights.  I’ve pretty much decided this year that anyone who lives in this state is either hearty or fool hearty…  I’m probably the latter of the two.

It has been a while since I have put anything on here about running.  Of course a while is relative I suppose, but being that I started this blog in large part to track the training for the Boston Marathon I guess “a while” is appropriate.  I think at least some part of the delay is that the last two weeks have been somewhat challenging.  Either work, weather, or pain seemed to drastically affect my runs.  Last Sunday I went out for my long run of 17 miles giddy about my new training shoes.  I finally broke down and decided that the pair I had about 600 miles on were probably contributing to my aches and pains.  I’m not sure I like these new shoes all that much.  They have gotten better since being broken in a little bit, but they still tend to slap the ground harder then I like.  At any rate, I made it 13.5 miles into the run when I stepped off the road to avoid a car (more on that in second)and felt a little pop behind my right knee.  I think it is because it was so cold and all my muscles and ligaments were tight.  I slowed a bit, but kept getting a calf cramp and decided not to push it. 

Ordinarily walking the 4.5 miles to home (I did an out and back run) would be a pleasant way to spend Sunday afternoon.  February in New Hampshire when you are wet with sweat is not the best combination.  I kept thinking my wife would find the amount of time I was gone a little odd and come out to look for me.  I always outline my course with her for just this reason.  Well I walked for a little while then began to shiver.  I tried to do a very slow jog just to stay warm, but everything had completely tightened up, and there would be no running from those legs.  I recalled my long run in Florida where I had to walk for a couple minutes because of heat cramps and thought “I will never complain about that again.”  About 2.5 miles from home my fingers began to tingle, the sweat on my gloves had frozen, and I began thinking about going to a house to call Christina.  The wet hat, thin gloves, t-shirt and light jacket combo just wasn’t going to work.  At 2 miles I went to the first house, but no one was home.  A little further up and I started up a drive way only to see a large dog and decided this might not be the best place to try.  By the time I got to the more residential part of Claremont I was only about a mile and a half from home.  So I tried the slow jog/walk routine – with marginal success.  I made it to our road, which is 1/10th of a mile from our house with blue lips, white fingers, shivering, and maybe a little loopy and there was my wife setting out to look for me.  Seems she had taken a little nap on the couch in front of the fire, woke up and saw I wasn’t home and raced out the door convinced I had been hit by a snow plow or something.  In no way would I say it is her fault, but the irony of her sleeping in front of the fire while hypothermia set in and I began thinking that death in a snow bank a half mile from home wouldn’t be so bad definietly deserved some comment.  The problem – I was to freaking cold to say much.  I came home and sat in front of the fire for about an hour.  Needless-to-say that was not the training highlight I would like to remember.  We laughed about it that night as Christina asked if it was possible for a man to suffer so much shrinkage that his entire organ shrank into his abdomen.  I can say with great experience, no, but it can come damn close.  I took a few days off and did slow jogging on the treadmill until my knee felt better.  But the early part of the week was pretty well shot.

Running has taught me a few things about generational driving habits.  It seems that older people either have a real fear of moving over and avoiding pedestrians or they just don’t care, see, acknowledge (whatever) them.  I’m not talking about on a corner where I will typically stop running and stand off to the side, but on open flats with absolutely nothing in sight for a 1/2 mile.  It is scary sometimes.  Young adults, adults, and middle-age ease over a little and then ease back.  Teenagers seem to relish the opportunity to whip the car in the other lane, kick up 10-15 mph and rip it back into the other lane.  On the whole, I would rather a 17-year-old come at me then a 80-year-old with few exceptions.

The past three days have begun to go a lot better.  Everything has healed since the last race and that odd pop, and today was a great run.  I decided to head out at 7 am to avoid as many cars as possible and beat the snow that is now falling.  There was nothing on the road, it was quite, my legs felt great, and I kicked it up a notch for the first time in two weeks.  I could see my breath, and began to think about blowing the stress of the week out with each deep exhale.  I thanked God for the fact that I didn’t do something severe to my leg.  I’m not sure how well I could handle the let down of missing Boston.  There are more important things, and using the 10-scale helps to put it into perspective, but it would be hard.  The 10-scale is like saying that on a scale of 1-10 where 10 is losing my entire family to tragedy, and 1 is stubbing my toe where would a certain event rank.  Hurting myself and missing Boston would be a strong 6.  Hammering 10 miles today at a 6:15 second pace was therapeutic to my head and soul.  All is well with running.  That is until tomorrow when I have an 18 mile long run to fit in…

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/07/berkeley.protests/index.html

The link above goes to a story about berkely (yes that berkely) city council and protestors telling a Marine Corp recruiting station to leave their town.  Are you kidding?  One lady held a sign that says something to the effect of join the Marines, travel to exotic places and meet exotic people, and kill them.  I’m not a fan of this whole mess we are in.  I think that it has been terribly mismanaged, was started under changing and false pretenses, and is costing an exorbinant amount in terms of life and money.  However, if everyone followed the lead of these wackos and outlawed military recruiting (of an all volunteer force mind you – no one is forced to join) what the hell would we have?  No military?  Sure, that would be great – let’s all get together, eat some granola, hold hands and sing peace songs without a military.  What a crock – you know what Berkeley city council if you are so convinced that you just need to offer peace then take your pink signs to the mountainous region of Pakistan and share some granola with Al Qaeda – we’ll see you on al jazeera getting your head whacked off.  I know this can be a political hot topic, but I just can’t stand the extremes of both sides.  Including the idiot politicians who immediately want to pass a bill revoking 2 million in government funds to Berkeley.  “Their actions have consequences” is the excuse – thanks daddy Washington.  Just what we need is you rushing in to spank the citizens exercising a right to free speech.  They’re both morons.  Berkeley city council – the war is a mess, and Bush and his cronies are idiots for being so cavalier, reckless, and unilateral, but you can’t stop able bodied and independent minded people from serving their country – in fact a simple thank you would suffice THEN SHUT THE HELL UP!

They should all be put on a boat and sent to live on a remote island – it could be like Lost and Survivor combined.  The idiot war hawk camp and the crunchy granola berkeley camp.  That would be a great show in the midst of this writer’s strike.

For the people who are smart enough to move South I thought I’d give you another reason to enjoy your location right now.  We are in the midst of our weekly school delay/closing this morning.  To quote the weatherman “yet another winter storm is pushing its way into cold northern air and making travel dangerous” so all 200+ schools in New Hampshire are delayed or closed.  It has become a weekly planning session for Christina and I “who is going to stay home this week when school is delayed?”  I have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday – she has Monday and Friday.  It might be another symptom of our over-worked society, but this has really started to suck.  I know I should appreciate the quality time with my kids and such, but can’t we avoid just one freaking week of re-scheduling, frantic calls to family, and “I’m working from home yet again” emails to my boss?  I’m not advocating for companies to avoid hiring working parents, but I understand why it can be challenging.  Oh well, at least I have a little extra time to sit here in my flannels by the fire and post a final thought on the Super Bowl after listening to all the Patriot fans whine yesterday.

Rich had a great blog talking about the Super Bowl, and how it was perhaps the greatest ever.  I don’t think I could argue that point, but as a Bronco fan I will always put XXXI “this one’s for John” at number one.  Another huge underdog won, great back and forth, all the drama of a first ballot Hall of Fame QB winning that elusive title, and it was the Broncos!  That being said, this was a great game.  I had planned on going to bed at half-time expecting a blow out, but something happened along the way.  You got a sense that an all time classic was in the making, hell even the half-time show was memorable for reasons other than a nipple popping out.  I couldn’t go to bed – no matter how tired I would be in the morning.  After the Giants went up 10-7 I thought somewhere, right now, Walt is just a little giddy.

The catch, you know a play is special when it can simply be called “the…” and everyone instantly knows what you are talking about.  It was one of the most remarkable plays I have ever seen.  Unbelievably sports talk radio in New England was filled with loser Patriot fans trying to minimize the play in a variety of ridiculous ways.  “Eli was in the grasp, if the refs would have called the game correctly he would have been called down,” and “the nose of the ball hit the turf, it wasn’t a catch,” or “did you see so and so hold Richard Seymour.”  Give me a break, shut up!  The refs deserve props for letting the game be decided on the field – there was no blatant holding, if he was in the grasp he would have been sacked, and if there was doubt about the catch it would have been reviewed.  Every non-biased person in the world is amazed by that remarkable play – a clean play from beginning to end. 

My favorite play is when Alford (I don’t know his first name) pancaked Brady with about 20 seconds left.  I mean the dude just bitch slapped the center, and planted Brady, Belicheck, and all of New England in an emphatic way that seemed to knock the wind out of an entire region.  Here is a reference New England fans can remember a little more fondly – remember when the Sox were in the midst of the greatest comeback ever down 0-3?  It seemed the impossible dream right up to opening pitch of game 7, then Johnny Damon steps up to the plate (I think in the 3rd inning) and hammers a Grand Slam into the upper deck of Yankee Stadium.  Right then you could feel all of New York get punched in the gut.  Sports history was no longer in doubt, the final few plays/innings were a mere formality.  Watching that sack I said to Christina “I can’t believe it.”  Nothing else needed to be said, the impossible happened.  There are few sporting moments when fans and casual fans alike can say “I can’t believe it,” and this game provided that opportunity – only it is finished with an exclamation point the size of the hole left from Tom Brady’s ass in the Arizona turf as Alford body slammed him “I can’t believe it!!”  Listening to the Patriot fans whine almost makes me feel bad for them, almost.  Then I start recieving emails, I didn’t even fire the first shot with these fans, saying things like “we may have lost and it sucks, but we were at least in the playoffs, and we’ll be back next year – something I can’t say for the Broncos,” and “my pain is dampned by the fact that we have won more Super Bowls then the Denver Donkeys.”  The empathy dissipates quickly, and I can calmly remind them that when the history of the 2007 season is recalled, no one will remember the fact that the Broncos sucked, but everyone will remember the Patriots choked in the biggest game on the biggest stage.  Somehow I think it is better to be a Bronco fan this morning then a Patriot fan filling the hole in the turf from Brady with my tears.  One last thing – Mercury Morris needs to shut up.  I’m betting that 72 Dolphins team couldn’t beat the 2007 Dolphins, let it go already.  Speaking of someone who needs to be planted, I’d like to see Alford take out Mercury in the midst of his “my neighborhood” rant.  Now that would be a perfect ending, and yes I did use perfect in a blog about an almost perfect Patriot team.

Time to get ready for school…

…and that is a sound I simply must hear.  It started in low then it started to grow, the sound of a tear in their Sam Adams beer.  From the top of Mt Washington, the streets of Boylston, the balcony on the John Hancock, to the employees of Dartmouth-Hitchcock – it is the experience of humility.  I think a chance to sit and feel this one for a whole offseason is just what the Doctor ordered…

I just wanted to get this on the blog before the game – I hope the Patriot’s are freaking humiliated tomorrow.  I’m not sayin’ they will be, in fact if someone forced me to put money on it I’d have to go with the Patriot’s.  I can’t stand the smug, pompous, perfect, and arrogant quarterback, coach, front office, and “team” first B.S. that surrounds a bunch of guys who just irritate the hell out of me.  Now, I know I am a hippocrate on some level, and probably suffering sour grapes from my crap hole Broncos team – so don’t bother pointing that out.  I guess at the core of my rant is the desire to have all the “fans” of the Patriot’s (who incidentially irritate me with their New York Yankee fan like behavior more then sand in between the toes with flip flops on) suffer.  Just suffer some humility.  I want to hear a collective moan through out New England as the Patriot’s lose and become a perfect season gone wrong.  To bad it won’t happen…  that is all right too everything there is a season, and soon enough Tom Brady will break his big toe or something and never be the same.  In the mean time I feel better…