Running with emotion. And music …

When you go out running before dusk, you might wanna consider leaving that iPod behind, because there is nothing like a forest waking up. I can hardly remember any moment when i felt more alive and at peace with myself than being out running and hearing the first bird calls.

Any other time i take the music with me. After i have covered the first five kilometers and everything has settled in so i can leave my legs unattended for a while, i can concentrate on the music, go to autopilot and start dreaming. I think of runs i did and what to learn from them and also of major mistakes i made and what to learn from those as well (and this applies to more than just running) and i am always amazed at what kind of thoughts pop up during those long runs. To help me relax and have a good time while running i have an iPod just for running (not that i am so wealthy. It was a gift from Electronic Arts when i worked there) with a special playlist.

I read abouit how you should take music that has a tempo which will not disturb your running, but i don’t really go for that. I have ballads and up-tempo stuff with me and nothing really gets in the way of my pre-set pace. Luckily i am really good at maintaining a given tempo. And after all those years i pretty much know where my heart rate is at even without checking the heart rate monitor.

I just took songs that meant something to me. Had meaningful memories, lyrics that leave you with some food for thought or just a mood i happen to like. So let me share some of the songs and the reason why they have their place in the playlist.

Gonna Fly Now / Bill Conti – This is from the movie soundtrack of “Rocky” and it still gives me the shivers. Whenever this comes on, i straighten up and it DOES mess with my pace and makes me run a tad quicker. But i don’t mind. Anyone not reacting to that song in some kind of way is dead inside. Period.

One Moment In Time / Whitney Houston – If you don’t know what “corny” means, the song explains it all. But it is a nice way of corny. And the words are just perfect: “Give me one moment in time when i’m more than i thought i could be.” Yeah. Gimme.

Don’t get me wrong / The Pretenders – One of the best songs to brighten up a gray day. Also works in the shower and while cleaning the apartment.

I’m gonna be / The Proclaimers – Just hilarious. Even when going anaerobic i feel like singing along. No breath or not …

I will survive / Gloria Gaynor – That’s the attitude. ‘Nuff said.

Born To Run / Bruce Springsteen – This song has been with me for like 25 years. Probably #1 on my all-time-charts. Lots of meaning and in spite of the title, no connection to running whatsoever.

The Man Comes Around / Johnny Cash – I hadn’t known this side of Cash for quite some time. And although i like his old stuff, this now is Cash to me. Creepy. And wise.

Jump / Van Halen – I grew up in the 80s, so what? This one always makes me jump over stuff that sometimes isn’t even there.

God Is A DJ / Faithless – It’s driving, in a way monotonous like a long run and the couple of words it has, appeal to me a great deal. I mentioned this in another post already. Read more there.

Don’t Cry For Me Argentina / Sinéad O’Connor – I haven’t seen the movie and i don’t know whether Madonna’s version is better, but this one is so full of emotion i can hardly imagine anyone else doing it better. And it’s a perfect example of the slow stuff i take along and NOT slow down to an old man’s shuffle.

Diesel Power / The Prodigy – Kinda MY song. I can’t run too fast or at least i don’t want to because it makes me feel like crap, so i always thought of me as a diesel. Not fast, but i keep trucking forever. So this had to be on my list really.

Go Down /Rom Di Prisco – This is from the original soundtrack of the video game “Unreal Tournament 3″ and the original version came with the first in the Unreal Tournament series in 1999. As a fan of the Unreal franchise and of electronic music in general i DO love this one. There is more really good stuff in all of the Unreal titles, but this one kinda stood out for me.

The best part on my playlist though is a monologue that Rocky has in the last of the Rocky movies, as he is talking sense into his son. Here’s what the man says:

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and i don’t csre how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward. Thst’s how winning is done!
Now, if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hits and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him or her or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!”

I sometimes switch the iPod to shuffle mode and promise myself i won’t stop until i hear Rocky speak. Sometimes that SOB makes me wait forever. But listening to it, it’s always worth the wait. Always …

HiTec Running

I go nuts about data. I admit it. I can’t leave the house without my heart rate monitor not even for once and when i think back to the days when i had a Timex on my left wrist and a simple Polar on my right just showing the heart rate i wonder how i made it back then.

I thought my running life was perfect when i finally got a Polar that could transfer the training data via sound to the computer. I had kept a training log before filling out pages and pages by hand about everything i did (just the thought of it!) and getting that sonic thingy was just a revolution. But of course technology never stops moving forward, so the next step was just a question of time.

When i got my Polar S710 with infrared data transfer i guess i trained more just to have something to transfer and the Precision Performance software has been working for me greatly for nearly a decade. The one thing that was kind of a drag was that i was restricted to run where i had biked before. On the bike of course the S710 would record the distance, but on foot i had to stick to some loops i knew the distance of or go scouting out new courses every now and then.

Cue GPS. That’s the final word on training. At least for me. I got a Garmin Forerunner 305 and it feels so different to run with it. I go out and run with it wherever i feel like running. Where i live it’s easy to get out of town and once you hit the fields outside the city there’s no limit. The good thing (and that goes for biking as well of course) is that in case i should get lost, the  thing can take me home. I first saw a Forerunner running in Spain about a year ago and i thought it was just too much. But now i guess i understand and i wouldn’t wanna miss it anymore.

The 305 is very affordable, i can totally live with the size and weight and in case you don’t like the software Garmin provides (Training Center), here is an Open Source alternative that’s gonna give you so many possibilities to play with it’s not even funny anymore. Talking about information overload …

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho. It’s off to work we go …

Now with the cold and all it took me a while to get back on track, but it looks like i’ll finally be myself again. I was bouncing off the walls by now. You need goals, long term as well as something a lot closer. Needless to say what my long term goal is, but searching for a new race i found the Adler-Langlauf in Bottrop.

It’s a 50k race on November 8. So far 81 runners are registered and it looks like a really nice little race to do on a Sunday morning. So 25 days from here i’ll be headed for the coalmines.

He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother …

Little Brother

Being sick is a total drag, but it gave me extra time for some things that were on my endless To-do-list forever and finally i started building some new training wheels for my race bike. You can’t have him running on ten-year-old rims forever.

So i gave him the race wheels so he wouldn’t feel totally naked and he sure looks good. He must feel kinda bad because with all the running we didn’t spend as much time together as we used to do. But since i got at least one time trial and one ironman race coming up next year, we’ll be out there again a lot.

He’s a Softride Classic TT and apart from the fact that he is the most beautiful buddy to go on the road with (and the evil 56 teeth chainring that punishes you for every day you missed training), he’s like me: He’s got a heavy build. In some regards he’s so totally different. He’s fast. And he makes heads turn.

Him and me

And it’s off …

No race for me tomorrow. The cold is still here. I wouldn’t mind it feeling like crap, but this could have an impact on the races and the training ahaead. And next year is so much more important than this. So i’ll write up stuff for the webpages instead including the new date, the new course and the new training regimen. And drink lots of fluids like mom said.

Suck it up …

Holy mother of four! With the 63k of Cologne only three days away and after long negotiatons with my bloodshot toe nail (who finally agreed to hold on just a couple days longer), i managed to catch a cold. So not only did i rarely run after Winschoten because of aforementioned toe nail, but now i gotta stay in bed at least until 24 hours before the race. The weather forecast could be better, there is a chance of rain and it just might be windy. Just grand. Wanna get rid of a cold? Go running for a couple hours getting all wet and cold. What people do for a medal and a t-shirt …

It’s on.

The Cologne marathon is only nine days away and as you might remember, i’m in not only for the marathon itself, but also the half marathon before that. Now i had some problems with a toe nail that seemed to be bloodshot then again maybe not. Anyways it was hurting and it didn’t seem to be a good idea to force it into running shoes. It’s okay now – more or less and although i didn’t get any serious mileage in since the race in Winschoten i will go and run these 63k on October 4. It won’t be a race for me really, but the Cologne marathon has a great atmosphere and hey – i just want that medal. Ultra runners are starting ahead of the main pack so i guess it will be kinda depressing being passed by thousands. So that sunday it’ll be a lesson in humility for me. But then again knowing myself i’ll have about twenty people pass me, then fire it up and pay later. Will i ever learn?

Looking back

Winschoten, September 12, 2009, 100k

I don’t know what time it was on the picture. It is still light and i take a wild guess and think it was somewhere halfway through the race. At that point i already felt like you always do at some point in long endurance races. I was asking myself what the hell i was doing here, i was searching my body for some individual source of pain bad enough to be a reason to quit (and it offered plenty) and i tried to come up with some sort of motivation. To make the rest of the distance feel not too big.

I started feeling worse and worse around 55k into the race. I told myself that any minute now it is “only” another marathon. Not too much of a problem if those 58k before that wouldn’t have been wearing me down pretty damn good. After 75k i told myself: “It’s only 25k. That’s what you run at home every day.” Didn’t help too much. There had to be something else.

And it had started out so good. The race itself. The day itself maybe not completely. I woke up at four in the morning after three solid hours of slumber, drank my coffee and since i didn’t stick with ole Freddie Green (“Always pack your bag the night before and leave your uniform on top.”) i packed my gear and made the first mistake. After Jörg, Dominik (who would be taking pictures and videotape the whole ordeal and be an incredible help all the way through the day) and me got to Winschoten and i got dressed, i noticed i forgot my really cool black running shorts i had bought in New York at home and had to wear those old, pretty uncool long blue tights. Bad start. I’ll have Freddie’s words tattooed on my forearm next week.

Next was a really good thing. When i had registered, we went to meet someone from organization, because my two friends should get some information about where they could be when taking pictures and video footage. And here comes Liesbeth Jansen, talks to us and takes us over to the guys with the motorbikes to introduce my guys to them, so they can ride with them later on. Here’s a race director one hour before the main event, other races are already on or finished and she’s all relaxed and friendly. Unbelievable.

I jog up and down Stikkerlaan for a minute and it is only like two minutes before the start that i realize i don’t really know which way we are going. Up or down? I end up talking to a guy with a german postal service cap who doesn’t know jack either. Since he’s german as well (the cap gave him away), we start talking and as the gun goes off, we just follow the crowd and keep talking for the next 20 or so kilometers.

Felix Lill is in his early twenties, triathlete and runner, but this is his first attempt at 100k. We talk constantly and share water and sponges and all seems well. We even wait for each other during potty breaks. We keep a pace of just under six minutes per k, but sometimes i notice how my heart rates drops lower than i want it to be. At this point i am still looking at finishing under 10:30 to qualify for the Spartathlon next year. And i just know that if i get too close to six minutes, i will mess this all up later. So i just take off. I can’t really remember but i think it was when Felix was stopping to pee, which made me kinda feel bad, but i met him later on (i think on Mauritsstraat) and we talked for a second there and it was all good.

So i ran on and for thirty kilometers and all was looking well. I kinda hated Nassaustraat by then already, because the surface was bricks laid out in a fishbone pattern and it felt like crap to run on. Whenever i was on Oude Werfslaan i knew this was just around the corner and i dreaded it.

I kept losing seconds for the next 20k and just past the halfway point, i knew i was in trouble. I kept thinking about quitting too much. My back was killing me, somebody implanted something like a spear between my shoulders, i knew it wouldn’t be a pretty sight once i would finally take off my shoes and my knees started to feel like they would cave in any second now. I tried to keep thinking motivational stuff, cut up the rest of the distance into manageable pieces, about how disappointed everybody would be (including myself) and how much DNF sucks. It was mainly this thinking and not really coming to a conclusion that kept me going. And the fact that whenever i came to the start/finish area, my guys would be there.

I walked through the aid station at the fire department on Grintstraat and i actually sat there for a couple of seconds taking in the feeling when not having to move is a real gift. And knowing full well just to have kept running would have been so much easier and it would have saved me the agony of starting to run again.

Anyway somehow i got through lap six, seven, then (you guessed it) eight. And then finally the motivational thinking worked out. The second to last lap. I even started thinking about how the last lap could be actually fun again. By then i knew the course so well. The first kilometer through the sportpark and onto Ludensweg, which they decorated in orange and was called Orange Street that day. The 2k mark on Elandhof, which felt like a tunnel with wooden moose all around. The bridge where the 3k party was. The packed pub on the corner at k4 where you felt misplaced when it got dark and all these people were out for a drink. The 5k aid station where they (and not only them) kept asking how you were and how far you still had to go. Oude Werfslaan where you were so busy thanking all these people with the participants lists shouting your name (and pronouncing it wrong. Amiable, but wrong) that you so totally missed the 6k mark. The seventh mark on the corner of Mauritsstraat, marking the beginning of brick road torture for this lap. The corner of Mr. H.J. Engelkensweg where they had signs saying good bye in all languages.  And of course the ninth mark where you knew it was only the roundabout and then straight down to the finish.

I counted them maybe until Nassaustraat and then it didn’t matter anymore. It was dark by now, people left the streets mostly and you could hear music and parties from a lot of houses along the way. I was looking forward to my own little party under a hot shower. I was actually running faster again, proving to myself that it wasn’t all so bad because of my body, that i would have to work on my mindset as well. But none of that mattered anymore. In spite of everything that happened that day i crossed the finish line after 10 hours, 55 minutes and 9 seconds. I didn’t know it by then, but it made me # 289 out of 899 runners in the german ultramarathon asscociation’s 100k rankings for this year (and # 1473 of 3778 international). I made a friend who pulled in about an half hour behind me. And i knew that running 100k couldn’t scare me anymore.

I’d like to thank the organizers and the whole city of Winschoten for a long day, considerable pain, doubt and being just plain miserable. It was great. It felt like the right place to be on this September 12. The only place. See y’all next year.

Zooming past at more than 9 km/h …

Winschoten is over, done, finished. And so am i. Dealing with a couple of blisters, sore legs, rubber knees and whatnot. But still i am pleased. 10 hours, 55 minutes and nine seconds were not what i had in mind when i set out to get the qualification for next years Spartathlon, which meant i would have to stay under 10:30. But the race itself was beautiful, the whole town of Winschoten is so enthusiastic, everybody takes part in the event and pretty much everybody was more than friendly. It was a great day and a whole deal of the fact that i made it through those 100k was the fact that Jörg and Dominik were there all the way. Making it without them would have been at least doubtful, if not impossible.

I’ll probably have to share more about this day and the experience. But for now i am just thinking about my next endevour. Making it to the bathroom to take a long, hot shower.

Just go north …

I know it’s still a long way to next summer and The Longest Day, but here’s one change in plans that is pretty big.

The original plan was to run to Koblenz, join the Hospiz-Lauf to Trier there, go back up to Aachen and then home via Krefeld and Düsseldorf. Now for personal reasons i don’t think anymore going to Trier is such a good idea after all.

So i am looking into a new route that will take me north from Cologne. This will actually be a bit easier on me as well since the land up there is flat in general. We might also go to the Netherlands for a while, a country i always loved (lived for a year and a half in Arnhem) and the dutch go nuts about endurance events.

I’ll post more information about that when i have found a new course. For now all i’m thinking is “Saturday”, “100k”, “Winschoten” and “Holy mother of four, it’s only two days!”.