Mindfullness

All in all a quiet week for the Silicon Valley Warrior. I am practicing for my time off later this year. I was talking to a friend today with a good friend who is being laid off. Of course it is mutual. We both mutually agree that I am going to be laid off.

Anyway, mindfulness came up. Slowing things down and doing things more deliberately. So much of what we are conditioned to do is response based.

24-7. Not a football score but a bulls**t term someone came up with to show that they were on the job all the time. We surround ourselves with PDA's and cell phones, text messaging, instant messaging and email. We literally insure that we can't be anything else but up to date or falling behind. Falling behind what might be the question but still these tools, which many of us are slaves to, insure that we can always be reached and always respond.

One guy I coached (sorry it always seems to be a guy) use to take phone calls in meetings.

"Hi Honey," he would say loudly. It was his common law wife or whatever. In any case they share a house and headaches.

"Honey. I am in a meeting. Can I call you back?"

OK, sweets. I love you Honey.

I finally took him out in the hallway and told him to stuff the phone up his a**. Well, you know where.

"It might be an emergency," he said.

"How often is it an emergency?" I asked.

He looked sheepish.

I mean damn! Even the CEO wasn't taking cell phone calls during meetings.

But he wasn't alone. People do it all the time. They stare at their phones myopically. "Gee whiz, I wonder who this call is from? Hold on just a minute," they finally say as they take the call. Ten minutes later, unable to tell the caller that they are in a meeting, they are still talking. I don't get too uptight about it. I do tend to wander off if their call takes too long though. I believe that cell phones give people a false sense of being important and make them not have to be alone with themselves.
Marilyn Monroe died phoning people. Phones were a drug to her.

The worst of the offenders tend to turn over their jobs more rapidly because despite the fact they are always reachable, that bonding person to person connection just doesn't happen.

Finding a job is an art form. So is keeping one.

Back at Forbes Mill (for runners)

Jake and I met early (7:30 AM) to beat the heat. We ran up and back in 24:32 which seemed very easy to me. Good Sign! Then we jogged over to the track that swarming with the San Jose State Girl's Cross Country Team. Jake went off and ran some drills and then 30 meter dashes. I ran 8 x flying 100 meters starting gingerly (my calf is fine. I want it to remain that way). 21-21-21-20-20-19-19-18. 300 easy jog recovery. I ran into Augie Argabright the head coach over at SJ State. He stated the Cindergals back in the 1960's which spawned Francie Larrieu. She made the Olympic team at various distances 5 times! Cyndy Poor also came out of the group. She ran on the 1976 Olympic Team.

Here's the scoop on him from the SJSUS web page.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Augie Argabright embarks on his 14th season as the San Jose State University cross country head coach in 2007. The women’s head coach since 1994, he added the duties as the men’s head coach in 1997 when the program was reinstated.

His student-athletes have earned 15 All-Western Athletic Conference (WAC) honors, 61 Academic All-WAC accolades and two Cross Country Only national championships. In addition, two of his women’s teams were honored for academic excellence by the Women’s Intercollegiate Cross Country Coaches Association.

During his five-decade professional career, he has coached 12 high school cross country All-Americans, 10 U.S. cross country and seven high school state track and field champions.

A pioneer in women’s cross country circles, he formed the San Jose Cindergals Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team in 1967 and was its director and head coach until 1982. The Cindergals were recognized as one of the world’s top teams under his direction and won nine AAU national championships.

Argabright coached five-time U.S. Olympian and 1992 Opening Ceremonies flag bearer Francie Larrieu and two-time U.S. Olympian Cyndy Poor. He was a three-time coach of the U.S. Track and Field team and a two-time coach of the U.S. National cross country team.

The 1971 San Jose State graduate established the cross country and track and field programs at West Valley College in 1977. West Valley won two state championships in cross country and two in track and field. He was named the 1980 California Community College Coach of the Year.

“This is a great place to run if you want to be successful in the classroom and on the course,” said Argabright. “With our main schedule in the fall and our lighter schedule in the spring, you can take more classes or harder classes in the spring. If you want to run in college, academics must come first. Then, this is the best place to come.”

“Augie is one of those very rarest of coaches who combines science and knowledge, with passion for what he does to help young people better themselves,” said Brooks Johnson, former Stanford University and USA national team track and field coach.

Argabright and his wife, Kathy, reside in San Jose. They have two grown children, Jeff and Meg.

Show Menu

Rules of Influence

Rules Of Influence

People at work are always complaining that they don’t have enough power but if they stopped and took a big deep breath, they would all realize that they do have something else and that is influence.

Every way that people are going to act has already happened. Oh, the technology changes but human behavior has changed very little over the past thirty to forty thousand years. So when we are trying to figure out how to deal with a people type challenge we can easily just study history.

You don’t have to go back to far to figure the best way to influence people. Less than a hundred years in fact. Lawrence of Arabia figured it out back in 1917 when he was in the middle of successfully influencing the Arab tribes of the Western Arabia to revolt against the Ottoman Turks during World War One. He documented what he found out about influencing tribes in his Twenty-Seven Articles. Here are the highlights. I have shortened them down and modernized the language so us twenty-first century folks can understand what he was getting at.

1. When approaching a new situation start slow. A bad start is tough to fix.
2. Don’t make it about you. It has to be about them. If you draw too much attention to yourself people won’t trust you.
3. Dress like the people you are influencing.
4. Know and understand the different culture.
5. Don’t make people act or follow your strategy. Figure out how to adapt to their way of doing things.
6. It is better that others do it poorly than that you do it yourself.
7. Get to know and work through the leaders. Put their needs before yours.
8. Have a good sense of humor. You will need it.
9. Don’t drive people to do things. Lead them. They will follow your recommendations once they trust you.
10. Don’t try to influence in big meetings. Get in the tent of the leaders (get their trust) so you can drop by and suggest things on the fly. They will be better received.

Here are all 27 of them (below) just as Lawrence wrote them up back in 1917. There may be some words you don’t understand but if you have a computer you can always look them up. It’s the ability to translate what has happened in the past and harvest the big rules and apply them to the present that is the secret.

http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_27_Articles_of_T.E._Lawrence

Thoughts about Training (non runners can skip)

I walked 60 minutes today. Half of it with Amber, the amazing 12 year old Golden Retriever.

I was thinking more about what it is going to take for me to run "fast" again. Some of it I like and some it I don't like.

I need to drop weight. 135 pounds would be optimal.

The mile is my way back like it or not. If I can get my mile time down, all else will follow.

The key to the mile is getting my 400 meter time down. I need to gap the per lap pace of my date pace mile by about 15 seconds. So for example If I wanted to run a 5:40 mile which is 85 seconds per lap, it would help if I could run a 70 second 400.

The key to the 400 is sprint 100's. It's not important that I run these all out as much as it is important that they enable me to run a 70 second 400.

Strength can come from running over distance time trials and speed from running under distance trials plus those 100's. In a word I need to bracket the 1600 with 400, 800 and 3200 meter pace runs as well as 1600 meter trials. This isn't about doing intervals as much as trials.

Dimitri can help me. I can say to him, take me through a quick 400 and he is glad to do it. It is right down his alley anyway.

The rest of my running will be slow and easy. Steady running, while fun, tends to leave me in a state of constant fatigue. I will miss those progression runs. Good for the head but bad for the body.

News Fast

I am beginning to believe someone who once said that a news fast is good for one's sole. Not watching the news or reading the papers or scanning the Internet for the latest has been an interesting experience. News can create anxiety. There is little any of us can do about what we read anyway. Yes, 41 people were blown up in Kandahar the other day. Of course I wouldn't even be in Afghanistan if it were up to me but as long as we are there, there is not one iota I can do to stop a suicide bomber from blowing themselves up in a crowded area. I have had a lifetime full of floating anxiety and fear. So have most of us.

Yeah, 9-11 was a biggie. I get that. It was hard to pull my eyes away from the TV set. It was mesmerizing and terrible all at once. But short of flying to New York and working at ground zero there was little I was going to really do except to check up on some of my east coast friends to make sure they were all OK.

One of them wasn't by the way. Phil Rosenzweig had died in the second plane to hit a tower in the World Trade Center. He was a colleague of mine at Sun Microsystems. I had been his HR guy when I worked at Sun Labs.

I left Sun in mid 1998. Phil died on 9-11 in 2001 and in 2004 I returned to Sun for a contract job and often took my coffee sitting on a marble bench dedicated to his memory. It was out in the courtyard under some lovely trees.

Anyway, back to this news fast idea. Last year I stopped following the news for months at a time. I missed nothing of importance even though many important things happened. This year I got sucked back in by the primaries until I could puke at the sight of any of the major political candidates. Then I shut it down again. Between cell phones, PDA's, computers, the Internet and newspapers, we have many tools and little privacy. It interferes with our mindfulness. I am not saying that we should dump it all. I am just saying it is good to turn it off for a time.

New Bond Girl

Well they just announced the latest Bond Girl. One of the reasons I was left off the committee (again) was because I recommended America Ferrera with the stipulation that she play the role as Ugly Betty. Looks like I lost out. They name that pops up is Olga Kurylenko another TALL one. At least Ugly Betty is real sized. I'll pass on the movie. They can spritz it up all they want but until they put some real people in it, the whole franchise is just way too antiseptic.

Getting Fired

My first job after college was with 3M. I was in the manager's training program starting off at the order desk for microfilm sales office in Redwood City. That ought to date things. In any case I lasted about 3-4 months and was fired. I had no real training. The guy who had the job before me, Chuck (God, I can still remember his name!) was leaving the day after I started. He took me through the basics and then was gone. Now there was another order desk guy right across the hall for another division but no one ever thought to have me spend time with him. I was also pretty green and the thought didn't occur to me either.

The first month I led all sales offices in errors. My boss, Ray made sure that he threw that one in my face. Can't say I blamed him. It was up around 16%.

The next month focused hard on improving my score. Every time you made an error the warehouse in Santa Clara would send you a notification in the interoffice mail. I traced the number of orders I put through and the number of errors. It was simply math.

Duh!

Anyway after my second month I knew I was down around 3% which based on the number from the month before told me I would be among the leaders. I waited for Ray to bring that tally sheet in but it never showed up. I asked about it but was given some sort of mumbling excuse about that not being very important. I was only 22 but even at this point I knew something was wrong.

In the meantime I had figured out a way to speed up order processing so that some of our very pissed off customers could get overdue product. One of the very angriest was a small company called United Airlines. Most orders were sent in by interoffice mail. In a few cases each month I called in orders directly to the warehouse and sent in the order paperwork at backup. It seems that this was against policy. Bottom Line: Sales people happy, former pissed off customers happy but someone wasn't happy.

One day I am covering the front lobby when someone walked in to interview for my job. Even this dim witted, green behind the ears, recent college grad knew what was up. I talked to my father about it.

"They are going to fire you," he said without any fanfare.

I decided to hang in there and get fired. My father and I agreed that it would be a good experience. Strange but true. It was the beginning of my oddity for the surreal in the world of work. Each day I would chant silently to myself, Today I am going to be fired! Today I am going to be fired.

Strangely it didn't happen for another month. My error rate was down to about 1% but I knew that at this point I was a dead man walking. When I was finally fired I went out gracefully. The sales people were very pissed and so were several of our big customers. I didn't tell them. The sales resp did. One of the senior VP's over at United called me and offered me a job with them sight unseen.

"As long as you don't have two heads," he added cautiously. I thanked him profusely but said that my future lay elsewhere. I was 22 and already burned to a cinder.

I always thought Ray was sort of a jerk for not letting me know what was going on but recently I realized that he was just a young branch manager trying to make a go of it and I was a loose cannon. Maybe if I were him I would have fired me too. He still ranks among my worst bosses (even though I forgive him). In presidential terms I would rate him below James Buchanan, who put off the whole Civil War so Lincoln could deal with it but above Bush Junior who never found a war he didn't like.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the running front. I jogged an easy 40 minutes today. I got out before 9 am. The heat is settling in and will hammer the Bay Area for the next 4-5 days.

The Sign of the Consultant

I have been a consultant for 6 years. I have had numerous clients. Every now and then I run into a worker bee (like I once was) who becomes enamored with my work, life style. They want to be a consultant too.

I have this business name, Last Chance Consulting. For many clients I am their last chance to turn things around before their organization topples down around them.

The other day a guy I have been coaching, calls me and tells me that he is finally getting the hang of this Last Chance Consulting thing. Of course he is not a consultant but an employee of a client. I have already warned him repeatedly that his job is at risk. He is a bit like the Holy Roman Empire. Neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. Recently I have just gone silent on him. Way too high a bloody body count to prop him up. Good person, means well but he is like a woolly mammoth running off a cliff.

I have to turn away. This guy will crash and burn. Not much money in the bank. He has not made it priority to put some cushion dough for situations just like he will be facing head on soon enough. I hate it when you are only as good as your last paycheck.
You can make millions a year but if you don't put some of it away, you are toast.


Anyway, here are some of the signs of a true consultant

1. You can walk away from any job at any time. This is true whether a client blows you out or you blow them out.

2. You have go to hell money in the bank. Even 6 months will do it. You make putting this money in the bank a priority because you know this is part of your strategy. See number 1 above. Otherwise you are just another employee-type in hiding.

3. You don't need an office, computer or phone at the client site. Nice to have but you can operate without it.

4. You have no need to go to company party's and events. You either get this or you don't. Most people don't.

5. Job title and pay no longer are an element in your work strategy. You charge what you feel you are worth or what is fair. That is that. Your title? Consultant.

6. The price to make you go inside is way too high. Loss of freedom (see number 1). Doesn't mean you'll never do this but it would only be for a set period and for a large amount of stock and even that is a big maybe.

I had to struggle to get to this place in my life. I took the long way around route (stupid me) but I still got there.

Break Time

I am thinking of taking 3-4 months off from work. My present contract runs through the end of September but maybe I can get out early. I won't walk out but if the company doesn't seem to need me, I will gladly slowly evaporate. I have been working solidly for the past 28 years. OK, I have been consulting part time for the past 6 years but I am overdue. The goal is not to stop working just to take a break and see how it feels.

I always thought it would be easy to walk away. I certainly did in 1974, 1976 and 1979 but my conditioning has changed. I keep saying "this is it" but it never really is. I was thinking about how we cage ourselves. In Lord of the Rings, Aragorn speaks to Eowyn a maiden of Rohan about such things.


"What do you fear, lady?" he asked.

"A cage," she said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire."

The Return of the King: "The Passing of the Grey Company,"

The words of Eowyn, daughter of the King of Rohan.


Zoo Animals and Beasts of Prey, A Parable

There are two types of workers in Silicon Valley.

The first types are zoo animals. That accounts for most of us. We like to feel safe and we like to stay put and be fed every day by our keeper. The really good animals try to stay in a zoo as long as possible. Eventually they lose whatever hunting instinct they ever had. If the zoo lets them out they wouldn’t have a basic idea of where to get their next meal. It is important for Zoo animals to fit in and not make too many waves. It’s particularly not a good idea to bite the keeper even though it happens now and then.

If a zoo animal consistently misbehaves they might be put out to fend for themselves or they might be sent to the circus where they have to perform special tricks for a time and then they might be let back in the zoo.
Good little zoo animals really get off on being part of the zoo community and doing zoo type events. In time they come to expect them.

The second type is a beast of prey. A prey animal does not like the zoo and in fact prefers to be out on the plains fending for themselves. They will take a chance and go for a long time in between meals to stay independent even though, now and then, they will come into a habitat just for the food then they will quickly disappear again. They can’t perform and do tricks like zoo or circus animals. They can only be themselves.

Sometimes you’ll see animals that will call themselves beasts of prey but they will come and squat in a zoo for a long time while telling the zoo animals the glory of being independent. But in fact they are not prey animals at all. These are really zoo habitat animals that can survive knowing that while they don’t officially belong to the zoo, they are allowed to stay as long as they perform tricks now and then. When they are asked to leave the zoo they become quite indignant. That’s when everyone knows them for what they really are.

One of my very favorite zoos is a place called Zoogle. It is a very big zoo and the animals are expected to act quite tame. It helps if they went through some sort of well-regarded animal obedience schooling and scored highly when tested for what type of tricks they could do. If you take a tour of Zoogle different talking animals will come out of their cages and give you pre-scripted speeches about what they do. By the way, old animals need not apply.

Beasts of prey best stay away from places like Zoogle. There are many other interesting hunting grounds and sources of fresh meat. Even though Zoogle has a half dozen or so feeding troughs, beasts of prey would rather go hungry for a day or two. The food is advertised as free but the price is living in a cage. That is way too high a price to pay for a beast. Beasts may not get regular meals or live as long as Zoo animals but they get to live life as nature intended, living freely on the open plains, hunting their next meal. Their instincts are intact.

But then it is all a matter of what type of animal you want to be.

35 minutes of glory

I ran an easy 35 minutes over at West Valley this morning. So the progress continues.
Went to breakfast afterward. Quite a crowd. Jake showed up. He is in recovery mode. He really blasted himself.

Which reminds me, when I get back up to steam I plan on doing perfect training. The only problem; what exactly is perfect training?

Up and Back

I returned to Forbes Mill today and ran a slow continuous up and back with Jake. 2.62 miles non stop. No problems. We walked 32 minutes afterward. I originally pulled my calf muscle on the 4th of June so this little side trip has been another month of rest and rehab.

Jake is very beat up between running dinky workouts himself on the days he should be resting and then trying to run with the kids he is coaching. I get it. You want to believe you can stay close but the pure fact is that they are 14-18 years old and we are in our 60's. The very best of us would have problems keeping up.

20 minutes

I warmed up on a walk with Amber and then ran/walked my 3 mile course along the RR tracks. I ran (OK, jogged) 20 minutes of it in 5 minute increments and walked the rest.

All is well with the calf. Not a tinge of tightness or pain.

I will continued to go up slowly for another week or so. If I don't blow it, I should be up to normal by mid to late July.

The Long Walk

Between walking Amber in the morning and a long trek in the afternoon, I covered close to 100 minutes on Sunday. The one nice discovery about walking is that I can do it every day if I so choose. I don't know if it helps my running but the idea is to burn some calories and keep my legs fit. When I get back to my regularly scheduled running, I would like to walk long on the intervening days if possible. I just don't know how it will effect my recovery.

Walking Amber is not optional. At 12 years old she needs the exercise and seems to just float through our 20-30 minute jaunts.

Walking these days reminds me of long slow distance back 25-30 years ago. No pressure or expectations and it doesn't leave me stiff and sore.

Note to to myself. This summer, 30 years ago I came out of the hills and with almost no speed work or racing ran a 9:44 two mile on the track in a Los Gatos all comer's meet. I also ran 18:21 on Farwell. Typically Walt added a second to my time so officially it is 18:22 but not in my running diary.

I always ran better on little or no speed work.

18 minutes running and a whole lot of walking

I walked about 25-30 minutes this morning with Amber. In the mid afternoon I came back with another 60 minutes of walking and running. I capped the running at 18 minutes. I did this by jogging 2 minutes nine times. No pain or tightness. I did have a ghost of a sensation in my left calf. Very much like the last time I went through this. Nothing really. But Sunday will be walking only. Then we'll see on Monday.

I know this injury can recycle rather suddenly. I am being cautious.
Jake back in town. Don't know if we'll get a chance to run or not. He's coaching at Lynbrook and that might mean we don't sync up for a while.

If

I love playing the "if" game.

In this case if I were to come back. I was watching The Roaring Twenties a great old Cagney movie the other day where Panama tells Eddie that they finished out of the money. They weren't going to be on the top anymore. Personally I think my days are over as far as competitive running is concerned. I haven't been in that mindset for 13 years.

Not really.

But anyway.....IF....

I would have to get down to a good fighting weight. Probably 135 pounds. I was never really that skinny even in my best days. Probably closer to 138-142. But 135 would lower that body fat one gains with age.

I would run every other day. Sorry but no contest here. Everyday running wears me out. So I would have to run huge every other day. Huge is probably 10-12 miles. Doubles whenever I needed them.

Heart monitor would rule. I would need to keep this on most of the time so that I didn't over train.

Time trials and tempo over intervals. Intervals rip me up. I liked the program I was on early last year focusing at 1600-2400 and 3200 and working the times down. Of course there is always just running those 3 mile of 5K AT runs that tell me the truth about what shape I am really in.

Racing..ugh. I am not race-fit. That would take getting use to again. Probably a year and an acceptance of the desultory early results. I am not in Kansas anymore. My guess is that I am in poor 5K shape. Several years ago i could still run under 21 minutes (not too bad for a 60 year runner) but I think I have fallen off big time.

And of course understanding that even with all this work there may not be much there anyway.

I would need to keep my mouth shut about this if this is the path I choose. I would have to work into it and see if the commitment is there in any form. DSE races and obscure fun runs would be good places to practice my craft. Run at 85-90% and just get sued to being back in there. later on I could begin to intensify things up into the 90-95% range.

The road back seems open

I walked and ran 60 minutes this afternoon. The running portion was 12 minutes done in six 2 minute increments with plenty of walking in between. So the road back seems open.

Medicinal workouts continued

Ho hum.

50m minutes of walking with 9 x 1 minute thrown in for come-back medicinal purposes.
Amber with me for the first 20 minutes then I went on by myself.

Medicinal Workout

MUCH COOLER!

After 3 days or 95-100 degree heat the temps dropped down to normal.


I walked for 60 minutes on Sunday with the first 30 minutes with Amber. On Monday I went out for a walk with Amber again and then dropped her off at the house and walked over to the college. Once I arrived, I trotted on and off in one minute jogs interspersed with my normal walking. 70 minutes all together.

No pain. I will walk tomorrow and go medicinal again on Wednesday.

The Desert

I walked for 62 minutes today. It was already in the 80's and it wasn't even 8 AM yet. The heat is oppressive. Amber gave the look. And why aren't you taking me out for my walk? At 12 and half I just can't see subjecting her to this sort of weather. It's no country for old dogs even though she seems in pretty good shape. But that look is still there developed over thousands and thousands of years since her ancestors risked coming inside the ring of fire.

Drove over to Carrows for breakfast. Only Todd and Dimitry were there. We still had a great time chatting things up. Strange though, where were the other dozen or so folks who usually show up?

Turns out that Danny had bled a number of them off for the corporate cup (or thimble as I like to call it these days). It's usually Lock-Mart, SCVAL (whatever that is) and another company who goes about picking up ringers to compete for them. This is dying event like The Holy City Race but somehow like the late Byzantine Empire, it stays alive. I would put a bullet it its head and move on. Danny just laughs when I say something like this but Madelyn would pounce on me with claws out. So if I say something it just with Danny around. Those claw marks take time to heal up.

No hurry

June 19th: No running for a while. I have been walking though. All the way up to 90 minutes. No pain or tightness. Now and then I will get those phantom pings in my calf but it seems to be nothing really. When I stand barefooted in the house, the calf feels normal. I can bounce up and down a few times and feel nothing. I think all systems are go but my plan is to wait a little while longer before beginning the medicinal workouts. I may start next week. We'll see.

No hurry.

Calf Heart Attack..Again

So what does back to stop mean?

It is good to keep a log even if one is no longer the runner of yore. I re-read the whole section from the very end of January through to the end of March. It imperfectly documents what I had to go through to get running again. I swore up and down like some condemned prisoner that I was not going to run for 6-8 weeks but in the end I went back way before that. In the early stage I fooled around and kept running way too much pushing out the begin the healing date. So I won't make that mistake again. I will start medicinal workouts After about a week of nothing. I should be able to walk around and up and down stairs with no tightness.

This is the program I will follow. I have already started by doing the self message.
I will have to figure out the stretching part. Never been good at stretching. Also not included here is hills. I will have to stay away from for a good deal of time.

Anyway, here it is from John Parker if you are interested. Otherwise it is just for me.



It’s possible to diddle around with micro-tears for months. One miscalculation and you might be back to square one.

About ten years ago, I started having a lower-leg problem that I assumed was a pulled calf muscle. The calf would get tender, sometimes knotty, after hard training (usually intervals); then a few days later, while out on a run, I’d feel a sharp pain very deep in the gastroc, and bingo, I’d be out of business.

The injury would respond to massage and rest, and after a few days, it would seem to be fine. Here’s the tricky part, when I’d start back running after a few days off, things would go well for a mile or so, and then, yikes! The sharp pain would be back!

So I’d take a few more days off, more massage, and then start back. Deja vu all over again. And I found I could repeat the cycle as many times as I wanted, and the injury would just keep popping back up. It was the most frustrating injury I had ever dealt with.

I finally mentioned it to my old mentor, Roy Benson, and he set me straight.

"It’s probably not a calf pull at all", he said. "More likely, it’s a microtear deep in the muscle. A spasm forms around the torn muscle, that's the knot you feel in there. It starts to heal; that’s when you think you’re OK. But the process takes longer than we usually think – several weeks at least. When you start back too soon, you’re simply re-injuring yourself".

Roy was right. I found that I had to say off the injury for several weeks, and even then, I had to take it easy when I started back. One miscalculation, and I was back to square one. It was possible, I soon discovered, to diddle around with this injury, literally, for months. (Ironically, I did pull my calf muscle in a skiing accident a couple of years ago, and though it seemed to be a fairly serious injury at the time, I was back to running much sooner afterward than with this pseudo-pull).

Since that initial injury, I’ve had this problem, in both legs, many times. It was always extremely frustrating because it always seemed to happen just as I was getting into halfway decent shape. But each time it happened, I learned a little more and cut my downtime by a few days. I now consider myself one of the world’s experts on this injury, which my buddy Tom Raynor calls a "calf heart attack", and I’ve managed to avoid it altogether for several years now.

The root cause of this injury, according to my orthopedic friends, is compartment syndrome, which means that the sheath around the calf muscle isn’t flexible enough, and when the muscle swells up during exercise, it can’t expand enough to accommodate the necessary blood flow. The muscle becomes constricted, and eventually some fibers tear. Even after it heals, scar tissue often remains, which makes the site a prime candidate for reinjury, thus the cyclical nature of this problem.

If you’re prone to this injury, you’d do well to focus on it right from the beginning. Otherwise believe me, it will frustrate you for years.

Here’s a program for dealing with calf heart attack syndrome, including both short-term treatment and long-term prevention and maintenance:

Step 1.

Stay off it for as long as it takes to heal completely. I recommend at least a week. Do some wet vesting or cycling, but don’t run just because it feels better after a day or so.

Step 2.

Get as much massage – including self-massage – as you can, TheStick massage tool has been invaluable to me in this regard (because this injury is in deep, icing has not been as helpful as it has for most injuries). Definitely don’t stretch your calf yet. Let it heal first.

Step 3.

This step is the real "secret" to recovering quickly from this injury. I’ve found that it can cut recovery time from weeks or months to days. After a week of no running, start back with a "medicinal workout" on a track or another flat, controlled surface. Start by walking a mile, then jog very easily for a few hundred yards, and then walk again. Alternate between walking and jogging for three or four miles or until your calf begins to feel numb or sore. Then stop immediately. Your goal is to get as much circulation to it as possible without re-injuring it.

Step 4.

If you get through the whole session and your calf still feels good, you’re still probably not healed, but you’re on your way. Take a day off and then repeat the procedure. Do this every other day for a week; increasing the jog portion of the workout as your calf improves.

Step 5.

After a week of the medicinal workouts, try a short, very gentle run of three to four miles, on as flat a surface as possible. As always, if your calf gets numb or the sharp pain reappears, stop immediately and walk back. Remember the cyclical nature of this injury. Keep adding to your mileage and intensity day-by-day, but be ready to retreat at the first sign of trouble. After a few such runs, if you haven’t overdone it, you’ll be back to your normal routine.

Step 6.

The long-term key to prevent a recurrence is just to stretch the hell out of your calves and Achilles tendons. I use a homemade, 45-degree stretching board in my office, which I try to get on several times a day, standing on the high end and lowering my heels as far as I can.



Again, make sure the injury is completely healed, and then make serious calf stretching an integral part of your routine. Continued use of TheStick is also highly recommended, both to mitigate any scar tissue and to keep the muscle and sheath as flexible as possible.

So take it from a long-time sufferer, the next time you "pull" your calf and it doesn’t seem to heal, consider changing the diagnosis to "calf heart attack", and get yourself back on the road to good health.

RT

John L. Parker Jr. is the associate publisher and editorial director of Running Times

Back at Stop

I ran 3 loops starting at Forbes Mill and on the 3rd one I yanked my lower calf again. I ran in but I know I am back at STOP again. This is the same place I was at back in February. I told Jake that I am putting myself back on IR* until the pain is gone.

I am almost positive that it was the Rancho run. It was first time that I was on somewhat challenging hills since last winter and obviously the "tear" is still there. The last time it took me about 3-4 weeks to get it right. Maybe if I stop right now I can come back more quickly.




* Injured Reserve

68 minutes in Rancho

I ended up running in Rancho for the first time in about 6 months or longer. The area is always a treat but tends to be crowded on weekends so I rarely go there. Monday around mid day was perfect. Upper parking lot basically empty, Clear skies in the 60's with only a slight breeze. Not too many people on the trail. I ran 68 minutes hitting various combinations of trails, staying off the big hills but still having to deal with some nice rollers. Saw deer, cotton tails and quail. My legs were a bit tired but not enough to have not gone on if I had wanted to.

Not sleeping as well as I would like. Waking up early. Some issues floating out there I probably need to resolve.

Uninspired

OK, I may have paid the price today for running too hard Monday and running easy on Friday. Jake and I met over at WVC and did our 25 minute warm up run. Then we hit the track for 2 x 800. I was uninspired and so ran the first two laps with Jake. I pulled away from him with about 100 meters to go.

My time was 3:21 which was truly underwhelming. Jake was 3 seconds back.

We did a two lap jog-walk and as we approached the second rep I told Jake that I was going to hang back and let him take off first. I figured I would just use him as bait to draw me along a bit quicker because I was definitely disengaged. Jake took off and I let him get through the first turn before I launched myself.

I caught Jake at about the 300 meter point and went through the 400 at 91. I picked it up slightly. It was an effort but I held back something in reserve most of the way around finally letting it hang out in the last 100 meters. I cleared the finish in 2:59. Jake ran 3:20.

Sooooo..... 3:21-2:59.

3:10 average. One second per 800 faster than the last time. I guess it was sort of a full court shot with 3 seconds left on the clock.

Jake grumbled at breakfast that he was thinking about firing his coach again and adding in a couple more days of running.

Forty minutes that became fifty minutes

I woke up and my legs felt spiffy so I decided to break my rule and go out for a 40 minute run. I wore my HRM just to make sure I kept the effort slow. When I clicked on the display my HR was 58 which is about 15-20 beats lower than it was reading 4-6 weeks ago. My normal resting is in the high 40's or low 50's but by the time I wake up, drink coffee and get going, my HR is usually in the low 60's.

Anyway, this was a good sign.

I jogged down the RR tracks and turned left heading towards the De Anza College track. It was fairly empty so I decided to run a couple of BIG loops and head back home. On my second loop I could hear someone coming up on me rather quickly. It was that sleek thirty-something Korean gal, Nadia who slowed down to say hello. We ran about a mile together before I had to peal off and head back home. By the time I stopped I had run for 50 minutes which was a 10 minutes over my budget.

We'll see how this shakes out on Saturday.

Best Yet

Forbes Mill progression run. 3 up and back's. Cool weather. Only a little breeze. Almost perfect.

23:39
22:38
20:58

Best yet. Could have been better.

Jake dropped out during the 3rd loop. I never saw him. He was behind me from the beginning. The early pace on the first two loops plus the fact that he did not really rest on Tuesday sunk him (again). I paid the price for running too hard on Monday. I was slightly leg weary but was strong enough to handle it. The thing was, had I not run so aggressively Monday I might have run the last loop today even faster.

Next Monday I either run without a watch on a course I know or I run by the clock and not the watch. Once I click on the stopwatch, I seem to want to run faster than the last time which is nice, but is not the point.

I am getting the sense that Jake is going to get drawn back into coaching which could put a crimp in our Wednesday running. With me perhaps going back into an interim job for one of my clients, it could be a two way street.

Maybe we just move the days around and keep the spread. We'll see.

The game is afoot

I ran my 6 mile course up the RR tracks to Sunnyvale-Saratoga and back. I waited until 11:30 to go out. Just felt like lazing around the house.


Kept the pace steady (but didn't push) which these days seems to be an 8:51 pace. 53:07 when all was said and done. On my way out, I ran into Hank Lawson who was off-road biking. He had his knee operated on and is hoping to run again. Puts my situation in perspective.I thought about going another mile or two but then decided to cap it at six.

Age graded the run was a 41:22. The run felt good. It felt fine to move along except it wasn't really moving along. Not pace-wise. Only effort wise. Is there the chance I could get back into the low 8's? I have no idea. I realize that not running fast has made me slow. That and aging. They are the twin-towers of slow running.

“Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot,” instructed Holmes.....

It's a fool's game but I will play it out anyway.

Reps on the Track

Cool morning. Overcast. Threatening to rain. Wind blowing down from the hills.

Jake and I met at WVC and were very businesslike about the workout. Not too much sandbagging. I had grabbed an extra 5 and half minutes warm up going to the bathroom and back. Jake rolled in and we ran our loop. I was at 28 minutes upon reaching gate to the track. The club was running tennis court loops so we saw very little of them.

We did some striders. Jake made a strong recommendation that we start at our normal 200 meter mark so we would be running into the wind when we were fresh and with the wind at our back down the home stretch.

I did the first one in 88 and as usual my body asked me the question. What the hell do you think you are doing? We walked 400 (no walk-jog today). The second was a bit easier. I ran off Jake's shoulder and picked it up down the backside to get an 87. Still labored breathing afterwards telling me that, like it or not, this is new territory. The next one was 86 but by now I was in the mood. The last was 83 with a strong last 100 meters.

So 88-87-86-83.

My average was 86 courtesy of the final 400. If I age graded the workout it was like running a 66 second average back when I was 30.

A vast improvement over two weeks ago when I averaged 91 with an 84 on the last one. Still, the workout was tough enough and Jake owned most of the 25 minute jog back to where we had parked our cars until he tripped over a root within shouting distance of the final stretch. He bounced back up with only a cut knee but his hands were good thanks to the gloves he was wearing.

I seemed to have recovered from Wednesday's workout well enough to run an improved time on all 4 reps today. I will stay the course for now. Tempo on Wednesday and reps on Saturday.

Forbes Mill Again

I showed at 8 AM. Sunny but in the low 50's. It was almost perfect weather. A slight breeze blowing up the trail but not enough to slow you down.

Jake was already there having done his usual warm up run ahead of time. We quietly did the first loop in 24:45 a much more sensible effort that last week when I ran in the low 23's. I could tell Jake was sucking wind though. Another tough night's sleep. He eventually related to me that the drama around the coaching situation over at Mitty continues. He was grinding it up in his mind and it was screwing up his sleep and sapping his energy. Just like the rest of us!

He stuck on his headphones and we headed up for our second loop. I felt like I was just gliding along but he continued to suck that wind. This one was a hair over 23 flat and I felt better than I did on the last one.

"That's it for me," Jake said after we stopped.

"OK," I said, "I will be right back," and launched myself up the trail for that last up and back. I hit the turnaround in just under 11 flat (just ghosting along) and kept the same effort all the back to the last 400 and then picked it up coming in at 20:40.

I felt all around, pretty good and at least after we had had breakfast and got up to walk out of the restaurant, I felt little or no stiffness in my legs. But then there is always that delayed muscle soreness thing which creeps up later on.

Asian Girl

Today was supposed to be run as easy as I could stand it but I ran a bit faster especially over at De Anza track where I finally caught up with Asian Girl. Turns out her name is Nadia and she likes pushing the pace. I was running BIG loops clockwise and noticed that we came by each other at roughly the same point on each circuit so I reversed direction, did a few 100 meter pickups and caught her going up the hill. She immediately surged as I came up on her shoulder and I finally said "You surged!". She laughed and asked what that meant but I knew that she already knew. After I told her anyway she laughed again. Then she introduced herself and we continued running doing a few hard laps together while chatting away.

I finally told her that she was wearing me out. Actually I was feeling OK but was thinking about Wednesday's run and how I was really not running a recovery effort. I said good-bye and headed back to my house. 65 minutes total.

Welcome To My World

Jake and I met on Douglas across the street from the college. At least for now the days of my buying a parking pass seem to be gone. The weather was already warming up before I had dropped a foot on the pavement. We slow trotted Douglas-Saratoga while Jake regaled me with his tale of being paved over as the boys track and field coach at Mitty. Seems that they were going in another direction. It meant he could continue as the boys cross country coach but he was out as far as track and field were concerned.

Neither of us had had a great last night's sleep. Jake kept rolling the coaching situation over and over in his mind and I was up and down much of the night thinking about my own problems. The fact that it was warm hadn't helped.

We arrived at the track and did some striders and launched our first of two 800's. I ran the first lap in 98 feeling very sluggish. I then picked up the second lap but the plain fact was that I was simply running harder for the same time. I came across in 3:16 and leaned over breathing rather hard. Jake ran 3:24.

We jogged and walked two laps and went at it again. Whatever it was going to be the relief was that it was only two of 'em.

Once we started, I immediately felt better going through the first lap in 96. Then I just gradually picked it up ghosting away from Jake and running a 3:06. Jake came in 11 seconds later.

So 3:16-3:06. Not very uniform. Sort a negative split rep workout. 3:11 average. That made it about a 6:31-6:38, 1600 meter trial level effort. I guess it could be called progress. Better than the 4 x 400 I ran last week but definitely leaving room for improvement.

We reversed our warm up and jogged back to our cars.

The breakfast group was sparse. We were in and out in under an hour.

Another heater!

Another heater. Already in the 80's and it's not even noon. Supposedly will climb in to the 90's today. Haven't slept well in two nights. I decided to take today off which actually was planned. The goal is to fresh for the 800's on Saturday. If it had been cooler (much cooler) and I had gotten my ass off the couch I might have run 3-4 miles.

Now it's just veg and go out to a late lunch with Sue. Not running is training. This is not the first time I have said that.

Progression Run

Maybe this was not smart but I ran a progression workout up on the up and back out of Forbes Mill.

The first loop was 23:20. I then ran over to the high school track and back to sync up with Jake who started After me. The second was 22:51 with Jake. The last was 21:41. Jake trailed me in but not by much.

I felt strong throughout.

Jake locked his key in his car so I lent him a dry shirt and we and had breakfast. Then I drove him up to his house where he found the key in his running shorts where he had put the key in the first place. He had been wearing them all the time. It had occurred to me to ask him if he had checked the key pocket in his shorts but my lactate addled brain didn't hang on to the thought long enough to actually bring it up. Well, at least I got to see his house. The picture above is where Soda Springs Road forks to the right. Jake's house is in that direction.

60 minutes on back streets

They say that the heat is coming later in the week.

They say....

Who is they?

In any case I got out in the morning for a 60 minute ASAIC run effort. My route was mostly back streets with long gradual uphills. For once, I stayed away from the trail. The idea was to relax and stay fresh. The roads seemed strangely empty of the usual traffic. I went to Linda Vista Park. I hadn't been there in a year or two. It was a good test for my left calf. The park was basically deserted. Two women in black sweats walking some loop. Otherwise the park was mine.

A Long Way To Go

I ran an easy 3 miles on Friday. I was going to run 4 but felt so good at a mile and a half that I turned around saying to myself, save it for tomorrow.

On Saturday morning Jake and I met up at WVC and did a very easy 25 minute warm up jog followed by 3 x 100 meter striders. Jake said "Wow!" after the first one. I figured we had run an 18 or something in that neighborhood but it was a 21 after all but Jake was happy. Good sign I guess. The club was doing relay so we mixed it up with them as we ran 4 x 400 with a 400 meter walk-jog in between.

I ran 96-94-93-84 which was a decent workout. Jake ran in the mid 90's on the first 3and then dropped the hammer and ran 87 on the last one. In fact he ghosted up next to me on the last on at the 200 meter mark and said very plainly, "Rich! Faster!". Haven't heard that in a long time. It was his best in a long, long time.

We jogged down for an easy 26 minutes afterwards.

So the 3 day a week program shows early returns for Jake because he took the 2 days before today's workout off. I felt good too. In fact I was actually quietly elated for both of us. I have a long way to go but not being focused on miles and just running stuff that prepares me to run a faster 1600/3200 is enough.

The first day of the rest of my running life

Today was the first day of the rest of my running life. Took an easy run with Jake starting from Forbes Mill and going up to the dam and back and then over to the track in just under 30 minutes. Then Jake and I did some easy striders and ran a 1600 meter trial. It's been months (and months) since I last did this but I just followed the man for 3.5 laps and then ran 6:59 doing the last lap in 95 seconds. Jake, who later admitted that he had run 7 miles easy yesterday, faded to 7:06. There is no seven miles that are easy. Not in this program.

Secret Miles!

We're both in the dumpster but it's a start. The effort was not startling and it wasn't painful but it wasn't easy either. I simply am not used to running anything this fast.

I checked back to last year and I ran a solo 6:18 last spring so I am a long way from there. I was there and then abdicated for some reason. I can remember my meta-goal was to get back under 13 minutes for 3200 meters and down close to 6 for the 1600. I might have been there by now and then some. I actually peaked in July with a 13:13 and then stopped running the trial efforts. Now I have to go do it again.

ASAIC for 72 minutes

Back up the railroad tracks this morning at around 9 AM without the HRM. I ran in ASAIC* mode. This is a very different way of running. I stayed out for 72 minutes coming by most milestones at new slower than ever times. I just have to get used to it. The reward was feeling really (really) good when I finished. Once again as if I could have gone on.

I recommended a 3 day running plan to Jake. Given that I am a happy camper just running slow, I may be doing it for him (or secretly for me to get me jump started).
When you read the workouts below you need to understand that at one or time of the other all have worked well for me but usually I did only one weekly hard day. Of course I have never offered to commit to a three (3) day running week. The last resort of the slow and old. Nothing is too hard that I couldn't adapt. No diets. No worrying about weight (well, hardly ever).

Anyway, here it is.

One long run very much like today.

One tempo day. Maybe 2 miles on the trail or track a good 30-45 seconds per mile slower than mile date pace.

One Danny day. One mile of reps a week. Either, 4 x 400 (5-10 seconds faster than pace) or 2 x 800 (5 seconds faster than pace) or 1 x 1200 (at pace).

A mile test run every 3rd to 4th week in place of the reps or tempo run. No other running or cross training that involves the legs. Easy for me but tough for Jake. Probably a deal breaker for him. He is not a relief pitcher by nature. He can't just sit out a day much less 3-4 days a week. We'll probably talk about this Wednesday.


*As Slow As I Can

Unemployed Atlas

Someday I'll walk away and be free and leave the sterile ones their secure sterility. I'll leave without a forwarding address and walk across some barren wilderness to drop the world there. Then wander free of care like an unemployed Atlas

James Kavanaugh, Someday


This is how I am feeling about work lately.

Let the speed come to me

I was still pretty beat up Friday but I got out for a 45 minute run. It was one of those why amd I still doing this runs.

Why and I still doing this?????


I slept in Saturday, missing the club workout but I made breakfast. In the early afternoon I went out for a 60 minute very easy run and felt somewhat recovered. Jaske was complaining at breakfast that he was beat up too. In his case he runs very hard when he can and then recovers by doing hilly 90 minute walks. In other words, he does not recover.

In a moment of clarity during my run today, I knew once again that the slower I was willing to run, the better I would feel. Wednesday was a nice place marker to see where I am but a regular diet of that sort of stuff will simply beat me up. Dwight is right. Letting the speed come to me is the key and of course the HRM can let that happen.

20:22

I went to Forbes Mill this monring getting there earlier than usual. Jake was already out running so I ran an up and back in 23:30 and change, jogged over to the track at the high school and back. Then I ran back up the trail, saw Jake and ran back with him. Jake told me he was running the last loop hard but not all out. Tempo Minus he called it. I decided to go up with him. I hadn't run tempo in months. I just followed him up. We hit the top in 10:40 made the turn and came down pushing the pace all the way back. Not all out but TEMPO. We came in at 20:22. Including the last loop, I ran 57 minutes and change.

I went back in the late afternoon and ran 4 x 800 with the club but frankly I was creaky through the whole run. Another two miles but I am not sure it did any good.

Something at a seven minute pace

I got out early today. Ran 51 minutes. Legs felt good for the first time in a while. No ankle pain what-so-ever. In the middle of the run, I dropped by the De Anza track and ran a test 800 meter in 3:19. The goal was just to see if I could handle something (at all) at sub seven minute pace.

I ran solo. No HRM.

60 minutes of Slow

I ran an easy 60 minutes this morning up the RR tracks and with a swag down to Sunnyvale Saratoga and back up to the tracks again. The right ankle held throughout the run but I kept it woefully slow to keep the pounding at a minimum.
I feel the injury more when I am not running then when I am running. I am doing trigger point massage and I finally took some Advil to see if that would speed things along. As I sit here writing this, I would not know I had an injury at all so that is good news. We'll see how it goes.

Betrayed

I ran around 6 miles in the morning from Forbes Mill. I am guess I am eating enough because my legs and body felt good. I went back out in the afternoon and ran another 3 miles with the club. Legs continued to feel good but my right ankle started bothering me. So what is that about. I drove up to see Tarr and had him adjust my legs just in case. I can still feel it though. Just like the calf injury. I find myself running around the backyard or in front of the house to see if I can "feel" it. But it's mostly hiding. I feel it afterwards. After the run. It's sneaky that way.

I will try to run Friday to test it out. I would hate to take more time off but if it's going to be a problem then I will not run for several weeks. My body is betraying me but that's what happens with aging. All those years and fairly few problems and now they just seem to line up one after the other and just come on down the pipe.

Old runners. You see the young guys prancing around the track or on the trails and I can remember what that was like. They are figuring out their strength and speed and they can get faster. We're out there for another reason. Habit maybe or perhaps, as I have said in the past, just to get faster than I was last week or last month. It's not much.

Over A Glass Of Wine

My long suffering wife looked steely eyed at me last evening over a glass of wine and said that he thought I was under eating. She doubted it was all the other things I had cataloged as reasons for my bonking running performances. She may well be right. I do tend to over regulate my calorie intake at times when I am either not running or if I am trying, once again, for the elusive 5 pounds.

I know that endurance athletes need to eat and that carbs need to be heavily in their diet (or at least in mine). Knowing and doing are two different things.

I have 2-3 days off from running to ponder the great question and then start running again on Wednesday. I am at an off site for one of my clients. I may be able to get in a run on Tuesday but that will depend on sleep and especially scheduling that is not in my control.

High Noon

I dragged myself out of bed today at 7:15 AM (I could have slept longer..MUCH longer). I never got out to run. I went down and had breakfast with my club instead. I finally got out the door just after high noon and ran for about 60 minutes. No HRM today. Just me and the stop watch. This was not a good run. I generally felt like I was wasting my time and body out there. I finally added in 4 x 100 striders to liven things up (20-20-19-18) but still jogged home afterwards feeling very, very tired.

Maybe I am not eating right. Maybe I am just beat up from work stress. Maybe my body has run the table and running just isn't in the cards for me right now. Maybe I am still dealing with that month I took off to heal up the calf strain.

Whatever it is, I am not enjoying the sport much these days.

Negative self talk doesn't help but my body has always told me the truth and right now it says this is way too hard.

Jet Lagged

I ran a very easy 45 minutes this morning. Kept the pace slow. I only slept 6 hours last night, I stayed up late reading Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing and I didn't roll into bed until after midnight. I still woke up at 6:30 AM with that sort of empty, out of body, jet lagged feeling.

I have this tendency to stay on the computer until around 10:30 or 11 PM at night and then read for an hour. It is no big surprise that I cut into my sleep due to this behavior. I don't sleep in. Not like the old days.

Good To Go

Today was my first BIG day since I came back from my calf injury. I ran 55 minutes and 5 seconds this morning up by Forbes Mill. I was Roughly two minutes faster than I was on the same course last week. Jake walked while I ran. I was not the fastest guy on the dam trail. I was blitzed by some stocky runner on my way up saw tall, skinny, blond gal whipping up the trail on my way down the second time. She must have gone up the face of the dam because I expected her to blow by me on way back to the parking lot. I could feel her back there but she never came by.

In the afternoon I drove out to WVC and played at the track with the club running another 3 miles. I felt good to go this morning but by the afternoon my back was bothering me and I was feeling creaky. The good news is that I am going to see Bill Tarr on Thursday to get straightened out.

Interesting dinner with Dimitri. We chatted about training and I came to the realization that the mental part of my training effect seriously lags behind the physical side of things. This means I can be physically ready well before I have convinced my mind that I can do a certain level of workout or race. I guess this is the way I have always been now that I think back on things.

The biggest deal these days is well past the mental side. Physically, running has become very tough. It's as if my body only wants to run every 3rd day or maybe 30-35 minutes 3-4 days a week. I am not sure yet. The last time I faced this was at age 45 when I finally shifted to every other day running. The question on the table is do I keep running every other day or do I accept another change?

Don't know yet.

No Country For Old Men..Again

I got up early and was out running before 8:30 AM (early for me). I dragged myself through 60 minutes of something, being very unmotivated and sluggish throughout.

Maybe it is the month I took off or maybe it is working too much but whatever it is my life is not set up for running. I know I have said that before but I simply feel out of sorts with the whole idea of running out the door.

Nick came by at 11 am and we drove up to AT&T Park to watch the Giants play nine innings of A-1 stink-o baseball. They lost 8-2 and it was never that close. The park, the weather, the garlic fries, they were all great so we just hung out and enjoyed the sunshine, the half filled stadium and the whole experience of just being off work. We sat in the mezzanine which meant less crowded bathrooms and access to food. Also what a difference to the last time I was there when Rick got drunk and started yelling at me because I was booing the then, 2002 pennant winning Giants who were dropping a game to the Angels. I can remember that game because Rick spent most of the game playing corporate kissy face with some work guys that were sitting next to him.

Two guys in the row just in back of us alternately booed and cheered loudly. Remembering the Rick incident, I laughed and high-fived them.

Bottom line. Choose carefully who you go to a game with. Nick was a great gamer today. We both enjoyed just being there.

Again, not the club...

Saturday morning. I didn't make it to the club workout. I ran 60 minutes from the house up the RR tracks, cutting back along Stelling and a loop around the college before heading home. Kept my HR in the 140's most of the way. Drifting really more than running. The day was going get warm (80's) but I got out before all that happened. Not many folks out except Asian couple walking the streets. Finally a gold class at the school. More people like me but not running. Swinging, putting but not running.

had a l;ate lunch with Dave. I told him I was going on a work fast (didn't keep that quite very long did I?) In situ.

That is hard to do, he said.

Watch me, I responded.

By the time we walked out of the restaurant around 3 pm, it was a heater. Like summer but not summer.

Bonking and work fasting

I really bonked on Friday morning. I think I was just stressed out from consulting (AKA..Work) and I cut my 60 minute planned run short and came in at 50 minutes. I strapped on the HRM and my heart rate was immediately up in the 80's and 90's and I had barely moved. In HRM land that usually means, don't run but since I don't care that much I went out anyway. I felt sluggish and out of it from the very beginning.

I am thinking about a work fast in situ. That is not an easy thing to carry off. It means that I stop thinking and talking about work and just do the minimal necessary to get through the next week or two. It's really a mental vacation rather than a physical one. It means setting up some basic rules and following them quietly. Of course your client can't know it but you know it.

I have often said my life these days is not set up for running and there is truth to that. I only have so much energy to spread around these days.

The Last Full Measure

I drove over to Forbes Mill this morning. It was cold. The temp said low 50's but with a slight wind it felt even colder. Maybe low 40's. I rolled out of the car feeling like a slightly lumpy fat cat. No longer that lean mean running machine that I once was. I keep looking down to see if I was wearing a money belt around my waist. OK, to be truthful I feel a bit like the before photo of a "before and after" ad. I have posted the "before" picture of Angela (that's what her name is said to be on the Fat Blaster Ad). Angela, thanks to Fat Blaster, is quite sleek and thin these days. I admit that even a fat Angela looks better in a bikini than I do.

Anyway, I feel fat!

Jake was already out on the trail. I strapped on the HRM and ran the first loop in about 26 minutes and change staying around 65% the whole way. On the second up and back, I ran my HR up close to 70% and covered the same course in about 25 minutes and kept on going over the high school and back for a total of 57:07. Ka-Ching!

Game of Patience

I jacked things up to 60 minutes wearing the HRM. I was able to just cover 6 miles. I may be in the worst shape of my running life. I know it is mostly because of the time I had to take off for the calf injury but there is no doubt that this will be a game of patience. On a scale of 0-10 I would say that I am a 2 or 3. Most of that is "I am glad to be running again" points.

The weather was nice enough. I ran up the RR tracks all the way to Sunnyvale-Saratoga and back with my HRM reading 65-70%. I had to slow down significantly on the way back to stay under 70% so the meta-message was plain.

Dragging Ass

I dragged my ass all morning and finally got out to run at around 1:30 PM in the heat of the day. Well, maybe it was not that hot but it was warmer than my morning runs.

I strapped on the HRM for the first time in months and ran for 50 minutes having to slow down the pace in the latter several miles just to stay under 70%. I came by the house in 44:04 on what used to be my short 5 mile course. It was the awful truth but at least it is a starting point. I didn't push the early minutes of the run so this wasn't the real 70% test run I normally do.

I am going to run 4 days a week.

I will doubles if I want to add miles.

It would be nice to avoid frying myself.

45 minutes

I ran 45 minutes this morning. My pace was sluggish. Since I wasn’t running a month ago I guess I should be happy that I can get out on the roads and trails again. I ran right up the railroad tracks swung back on Prospect and then cut back up to the trail again. The trail was basically empty except for several folks walking their dogs. I passed by the woman in the hat who always smiles and waves. Her dog was skittering back and forth on the trail picking up rocks.

45 minutes wasn’t that easy. Maybe it is time to strap on the HRM. I might be running too hard for my present conditioning. 45 minutes. Maybe 5 miles. Maybe not. A month off. At my age, it might take twice that time to get back in shape. Was I ever king of the trail? My mind plays tricks on me telling me that I can be faster but my physical self doesn't want to cooperate.

Saturday is another day Scarlett and frankly I do give a damn. 50 minutes or bust on Saturday. It's less than an hour away.

40 minutes and smoking girls

I drove over to Forbes Mill and finally went up to the dam and back in around 24:30 and then added on another 15 minutes to make it 40 minutes even. I ran into Jake in the last part of the run. He was walking after destroying himself this past Monday running with his high school kids.

"I am back to 3 days of running," he said. Jake likes to bash himself and then walk for recovery. He enjoys it more that way.

I went by the car to change into a dry t-shirt. There were a group of high school girls who had parked right next to me. The windows were down and they were smoking.

"Is this the designated smoking area," I asked jokingly. One of them whipped her head around with a really nervous look on her face. She was probably thinking, I AM BUSTED!

The others got it and started to laugh.

Hey, I'm not the cops!

Jake and I went to breakfast.

36 minutes: The adventure continues

I woke up, grabbed some coffee and was on the phone early trying to make things happen in the world of work. By 8:30 things felt under control. Usually I run first and do the work stuff second.

I finally got out on the roads just before 9 am and jogged 36 minutes. So the big buildup continues. I ran down the railroad tracks to McClellan and then took a hard left down to the college for a couple of laps around the track. The school was post apocalyptic (as in empty). Well, except for the two Asian girls walking around the track counter clockwise while I ran the reverse direction.

I didn't feel very semi-retired today. I am a recruiter, an interim head of staffing, coach and account manager all rolled into one. It's the last year of doing this so I may as well have some fun until the plugged is pulled.

32 minutes

I ran an easy 32 minutes on Sunday morning. Cool and sunny. Took Advil to head off the achy shin. It went away during the run and didn't come back. Relatively uneventful run. The track was close to empty except for the usual Asians. I picked up the pace coming back and actually felt less lethargic and sluggish. As i came back, I glanced at a band of glass office windows and saw that a 60 plus looking runner was shadowing me.

I read this on the web about a world class triathlete who runs no more than 3-4 days a week. The rest is swimming and cycling.

Rene told me that his 'secret' is to always do some 'fast running' every time he goes for a run. So if he does a long run, he will always finish with strides, so that his body does not forget how to run fast.

I really relate to the last part. I have forgotten how to run fast.

30 minutes

I finally did a continuous run of about 30 minutes Saturday morning. Speed was not the thing. It was just get through it and get over to Carrows for breakfast with the club afterwards. The next morning I noticed that my left upper shin was achy. Nothing bad but probably one of those we ain't use to this yet type of messages.

Past The Curve

If you take a month off eventually you are going to feel it coming back. Today I felt it. I walked and ran for about an hour this morning kicking the run portion up to 24 minutes. I ran 14 minutes, took a short walking break and ran another ten minutes. I really felt knackered after the 14. The good news was that I did 24 minutes and that once again there was no calf pain (he said cautiously).

I did run partly on the DeAnza track watching while the big blond women (BBW's) ran up and down the bleacher steps and did various other exercises. These gals are really trying to get into shape but they both need to lose about 30-40 pounds. Blond hair won't do it alone. I try not to fantasize about them..wink..wink! They, like me, are past the curve where one can ever go back. You just try to be better than you were last week or last month. If you are really lucky you might actually be better than you were last year.

21 minutes and counting

In the spirit of things, I boosted my running up to 21 minutes jogging up and down the trail to the dam and then finished off on the track. It was good to see that I could handle some uphill. I was out for about an hour total with most of the running packed in the early section. It was sunny but windy heading up trail. I kept my gloves on.


I felt like I could have kept going, that's how good I felt. It was that type of feeling good where you start making plans, something I really don't want to do right now. Oh, I will go right on up to 40 mpw and see how that goes.

I keep remembering that this injury can come back in a tug so I plan to keep on building but at a slow rate of climb. I did tape my calf again. Still using masking tape. I have not ordered the real stuff yet. I am going on the cheap and will see how it goes.

Jake was in recovery mode having run hard for the prior 3 days. I ran a bit with him but he kept breaking into walks wisely choosing to recover rather than thrash himself.

18 Minutes of Running

I got out relatively early walking a mile before launching into my run. I covered 9 minutes without stopping. walked a bit and did another 9 minutes for 18 minutes total. I put masking tape across my calf. Two strips on the area that had bothered me. I don't know if it helped or not but I ran with absolutely no pain or even shadow pain. Nada. Legs felt good. The total workout with run and walk was about 40 minutes.

15 Minutes and Shadow Pain

On a ragingly quiet spring morning (Easter by the way,) I went out for an hour's walk throwing in 15 minutes of low quality running. Once again, no pain. Sometimes I think I feel shadow pain, which really isn't pain at all but this sort of sense that something is coming...But then it doesn't. It was nice to get out and walk. I did the first mile with Amber, our 12.5 year old Golden who acts like she is 2.5. I dropped back at the house and went on by myself. Good just to move but I feel a bit large and sluggish. Like an old wooden ship that needs to be careened and have the crap scrapped off my hull.

I sent off a message to Dwight, he of the 100 mile weeks, on Kinesio Taping for my calf. He hasn't answered yet. He may be traveling or in email ROM (Read Only Mode) which he often falls into when he is off his meds. One never really knows. Anyway, I found some information about this type of taping on the web (picture at top) but I am going to have to go buy some of the specially designed Kinesio tape. My guess is that masking or duct tape probably isn't the best.

Another 30 minute walk

I high tailed over to WVC this morning to walk on the track. Unfortunately (for me) there was a big high school meet going on so I had to stick to walking around the campus trying as much as possible to stay with flat surfaces. I did throw in some runs totaling up to 10 minutes. No pain. NO discomfort.

Vigorously massage my calf after the workout.

30 minute walk

A quiet 30 minute morning walk over in Los Gatos. I parked by Forbes Mill and walked to the high school track and then did about 8 minutes of running interspersed with walking breaks. Not much but it was all pain free and no tightness afterwards. Jake and I hooked up and went and had breakfast.

I hope to increase the running portions gradually over the next weeks. I am treating the walking and running as medicinal according to John Parker. Walk and run until there is the distance or time is reached or until there is pain and then stop. Keep increasing the running portions until I am back to normal.

One hour walk and then some

I walked today for about an hour throwing in 5 or 6 very slow 100-200 meter test jogs along the way. My calf held up. No pain and no tightness. I did feel the calf several times during the walk. A few mild zingers* that I wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the recent problems. I know I am not over this thing but I may be on the way to recovery.

* Zinger: A slight mild tightness that quickly passes.

I am resolved not to run

More than two weeks in and I am still resolved not to run for at least 6-8 weeks.

My legs and body can use the rest and I hope this will go a long way to helping my left leg knee and calf problems. I thought I would walk and may still but I am reminded of the fact that complete rest is just that. Complete rest.

OK, now and then I will trot on and off for around for 1-2 minutes as a test but otherwise I am restricting calories laying off the fast ball.

All Quiet

Not much to report since I have not been running. Tomorrow will be two weeks. I don't have even a hint of any calf pain and my knee feels OK too. I will begin to downsize the heel lifts and walk to burn some calories (or so I hope). I admit that work has been busy so not running has actually been good. It gives me plenty of time to overstress myself for the good of my clients. Last night, my wife asked me if I was stressed. I told her I was but that it went with the territory. I tend to have three gears.

1. Engaged and involved which means stressed.

2. Neutral which means I really don't care even though I try to do good work. Not very stressed.

3. Not engaged at all as in not in that world. For me that would be stepping away from this type of work which it doesn't seem I am ready to do. But I am not that far away. No stress. At least not from that world.

What I have found is that having money doesn't really change things. It's nice because it gives you options (like walking away from a client if it isn't working out). But as long as you are in the game, it feels much the same.

Franklin said a fool and his money are soon parted. I would say that a fool who has money and doesn't use it to change their life is still a fool unless, of course, the fool enjoys what they are fooling around at.

No Cross Country For Old Men

In deference to Cormac McCarthy, after reading his book that has been made in an Academy Award winning movie, I realized that it struck a chord. In the book the veteran sheriff realizes that his time has come. Time to get out of being a sheriff.


This is year 40. Forty years of running. Maybe one hundred thousand miles on my legs. I am not sure but it's more than ninety for sure and maybe more than one hundred if I throw in all the half hour runs I did around the soccer field before practice back in college. There were hundreds of those runs. But I count it from 1968 because that is the year I first ran just for runnings sake. I wasn't getting in shape for soccer. I was just running to burn some calories and because I enjoyed the way it felt. Whatever that joy was I will never fell that way again no matter how much longer I run. One hundred thousand mile legs just don't bend the way younger legs do. Not now, not ever.

I just didn't get it until now.

It wasn't all about racing. That was 23 years of it the rest was about just getting out the door and hurling myself on to the tracks, trails and sidewalks of wherever I happened to be at the time. I guess my running today looks more like it did back in the beginning. Intermittent and unfocused.

I am injured right now. Only my second real injury in 40 years. My achilles almost snapped back in 1985. That cost me a month but in '85 I was only 40. Seemed old back then. Seems young now. I recovered fast at 40. Terrell Owens fast. Not so fast now. I expect to out of the saddle for 6-8 weeks. Maybe I am being too careful or maybe I just don't miss running that much. Could be either. I am not sure yet.

I have become what I always hated in runners. The one who did the stupid thing that put them out of action. The only problem is that I am not so sure I know exactly what I did wrong. Shoes? Maybe. I did change my shoes. Went to a bigger size. Half a size up. Maybe it screwed up my stability. Not sure. I do pronate but then everyone pronates. I went to high too fast. Icarus-like. Several months ago I was running mostly flat-land course. Oh there were some rollers in there but mostly I was at sea level. The I went up into the hills above the dam and ran high. 2500 feet high. Steep too in places.

When the pain came it came slowly as an ache in my calf. Nothing big but I thought I could outrun it the way I always did. A thousand injuries and I had outrun them all. Well, at least excluding 1985. If there was way to keep going I knew it. The magic of heel lifts and taping and icing and Advilling. I knew them all. But it turns out that I didn't know this one. This one came on and hung around and I couldn't shake it. So last Saturday I finally slid off the saddle and said enough.

Had been thinking of returning to racing next fall. Cross country has always been my strong point. Someone could beat me by a minute at 10K on the flats and I would be on their shoulder if the course went off road. A body is built for something and that is what I was built for. But this year, unless I can come back, and I am in no hurry, There will no cross country for this old man.

On Course

It s Wednesday. No running since Saturday. I can walk up and down stairs with absolutely no pain my my calf or knee. Whatever is going on it comes on very quickly once I begin running but goes away if I stop. I am not going to chance running for a long time. 6-8 weeks as I said earlier. I feel like I am on course but have stopped all stretching because after I do it the pain returns rather suddenly. Guess my body is trying to tell me something.

I don't miss running but I have also had to cut back on calories so I am hungry all the time. 3 small meals today. All out of the house. I will need to be careful not to pig out. Banana and oatmeal this morning, rice and chicken this afternoon and a salad this evening.

I did go over to Forbes Mill and walked for 30 minutes. No ill effects. Had breakfast with Jake afterwards.

This Time I Really Mean It !

I drive over to West Valley College to run an easy 25-30 minutes and test my knee. I wore the strap and had no problems from start to end of the run. However my lower calf acted up again reminding me that it is not healed. Because I keep coming back and testing it, it keeps coming back as an injury so I have decided to just give it a total rest. I talked about taking 6-8 weeks off several weeks ago and this time I mean it. There is no other way out. I will try walking once the calf is no longer sore. My goal is to not know that it is there. No pain, no tightness. Plus I might get that two month off boost that I have spoken about in the past.

In the meantime I will write about other stuff and try not running again until mid April at the very earliest. It may be overkill on rest but it's the only possible way out for me now.

20 Minutes!

SVW (Silicon Valley Warrior) ran an easy 20 minutes today over at Forbes Mill. My knee was bothering me for the past several days just walking around so I wore the Protech strap which seemed to immediately relieve the problem.


I ran part of the way with Jake but cut back to the parking lot as soon as we hit "the hill" about 8 minutes out. My calf didn't bother me but I plan to stay flat as possible until I feel that I can chance it.

Jake and I had a rousing conversation about a study done on runners who did miles but kept their efforts at about 60 percent of max verus those who did intervals. The former group improved markedly over the speed trained group. It's Joe's Long Slow Distance all over again. Since I ran my best times running this way, I tend to be prejudiced. Intervals are a good test to see what shape you are in, not the path to getting faster. Of course I am in the minority on this whole issue.

10 Minutes

Amber, our 12 year old golden, woke me up early. She wanted out. I staggered back to bed and drifted off for another 20-25 minutes before the alarm finally shook me awake. Amber was on her pillow so I must have let her back in before I sacked out again but I had no memory of it.

After a giant mug of coffee and a banana I went finally decided to go run. I put on my classic Supernova's and jogged for 10 minutes in the slate gray of the morning. No HRM. Just a hand held stopwatch. The goal was just to see if I could run 10 minutes with no discomfort. I ran around the neighborhood which has some slight rises but is mostly flat.

So was it there? Except for several steps towards the end of the run around 9 minutes, I could feel absolutely nothing.

I took my father's old billy club from his army days and ran it over the calf 20 times afterwards.

New Balance 320's

I went up to Jack Leydig's house in San Mateo and bought the last pair of New Balance 320's in existence. Well, perhaps NOT the last pair but the last pair in my existence. This is the shoe that I trained in back in the late 1970's. The joke was simple. If New Balance called them 320's then just move the decimal pint to the left and you roughly had the price. $32.00 dollars. Later on (much later on) the NB 100's cost over one hundred dollars.

As I held the shoes in my hand Jack pointed out that the foam in the tongue of each shoe had turned to little more than dust. He was being fair and offered them to me for nothing but I gave him his original price which was ten dollars. It cost me more in gasoline to make the drive but it was worth it. A small connection back to the days when I was at my fastest.

I tried them on when I got home. 8 E's which is about my street shoe size these days but well below the sizing of my current running shoe's. Still they fit even though they are a bit snug in the toe box. They will give with wearing. I won't run in them. The support, which was excellent for 1975, is not enough for my 62 year old foot.

I haven't begun to run again. It's out there and it might only a matter of going. I just haven't taken the frst step.

Go or No Go

Well, except for a handful of secret one minute "test" jogs I have not run since a week ago Friday. The calf feel OK. No pain or tightness. The question is whether it is GO or NO GO next week. I really don't miss running but I miss the sense of weight control it gives to me.

Once again, my decision to begin running aqgain is day to day or if as I originally planned, it might be 6-8 weeks of no running. That option seems to be receding in the blurred distance as the injury repairs itself. With no race goals though, there is really is no hurry.

Stay tuned.

Mike Fenner died last week I believe. Good guy and a decent runner (2:43 marathoner). We used to train together on Thursday nights at Los Gatos with Doran, Sanfilipo, Wurm, Norm, Walt and that gang. I don't know the details. He was fighting cancer some years back but had overcome it. Maybe it came back.

4 Minutes!

I jogged around my miniscule backyard for two minutes and then went out front and ran another 2 minutes.

No calf pain.

Maybe I shouldn't be doing this. I mean it was going to be 6-8 weeks. I think it is my inbred desire to test. What harm can 4 minutes do? Much if it delays my recovery but then the world is not waiting, with its breath held, for another OTH* 60 year old runner.





*OTH Over The Hill

2 minutes

Of course I am NOT really running but I still went over to Forbes to join Jake for breakfast. He was still out on the trail bashing the hell out of himself so I did a mini-job of two minutes around the parking lot.

No pain. No tightness but then it was only two tiny minutes.

6-8 Weeks!

I have been burned out and dinged up since the fall. Several times I actually thought about taking 6-8 weeks off with no running at all. The two times I was forced to do this in the past because of non running related injuries, I came back stronger than ever.

Now this opportunity has been laid at my feet because of the calf strain, my first serious running related injury since 1985 when I pulled my Achilles tendon.

It takes time to come back. Take 6-8 weeks off and it takes 12-16 weeks to come back and see the effects. It ain't pretty at first but once things kick in, it is beautiful.
The key will be to hold my weight in check and to thoroughly rest my legs. As of now I am a non runner.

Thoughts will creep in after several weeks to go walk-jog a bit but I will have to simply let them go and consider that not running is training. It is laying the base for the rest of 2008.

STOP

I went out in the late morning to run and had to quit after 37 minutes. I was literally hobbling. The low calf or high achilles strain was getting worse as I ran so I headed back home.

I have simply decided to take 4-8 weeks off. Maybe more if that is what it takes.
My comeback will be slow at first. If I can walk in the meantime, I will but it has to be without any discomfort.

The injury was chasing me around reminding of its existance but I seemed to be able to get away with running on flat surfaces with almost no discomfort. My big mistake???

I mildly stretched the damn thing! Why did I do that? Stretch a frayed rope and it will fray further and, in time, unravel. I ignored my own advice. I forgot to watch was happening. I wasn't in the moment. I was drifting off and not paying attention to what works for me.

The road to wellness starts today. I am fine with it.

The Damn Thing Is Still There

I went over to Old Forbes Mill and ran 70 minutes partially with Jake and partially alone. I went up and back with Jake and had no problems with my left calf. We stopped at the end of the loop and then I set out to run up again but immediately my calf tightened up so I turned around and headed over to the track and ran that and the baseball field with little or no apparent discomfort. But make no mistake; the damn thing is still there haunting me. As on Monday, I found that the flatter the surface the better the run. Of course slower is better too. It is what it is.

Breakfast was the usual blueberry panckaes and coffee. Just great.

Calf Muscles and other things

I waited until late morning to go out for my run. It was sunny but cold and windy too with the gusts blowing leaves and branches down the streets. I did a loop around the neighborhood. My lower calf was tight but not painful. I decided to do another loop and my legs felt good enough for me to try the college track. It was strange. The moment I hit the track, that ultimate running surface, both forgiving and flat, all tightness went away. I kept doing loops on the outside lane. The calf muscle held and finally I did a loop through the college and headed back home. 62 minutes in all! The moment I got in the house, I took 3 Advil, put ice on the injury and fired up some oatmeal in the microwave.

The key seems to be staying low, slow and flat. Not the right time to fly high (do the hills).

The Ice-Man Cometh

I went over to the club workout with the goal of just running some lactate effort stuff. I am so unmotivated that I figured I could use some company.

I jogged around 17-18 minutes and then joined the club workout which was in progress. They were doing .66 miles around the tennis courts. I figured that I would follow Tim and just keep it easy but halfway through the first loop my upper achilles (or lower calf) started to hurt and while I finished the workout I also knew that I was finished too. I did slow jog another 15 minutes for a total of about 40 minutes but I finally realized that I had to take this whole injury thing more seriously.

When I got home I iced for 20 minutes and will do that twice a day until the injury gets much better. I will try to run Monday and see if I can run through it. I am going to stay on the flats. If not then it's two weeks and a cloud of dust before I got out again.

Easy 60 minutes

I had a meeting with a client canceled this morning so I hung out and ran around 11 AM. I did an easy 60 minutes with the HRM basically hanging out in the 130's. My left achilles felt good as did my knee which seems to be on the mend (for now). I had planned to ice and advil when I got back home but the achilles didn't bother me at all so I decided to just move on. The extra heel lifts and taping the left foot really seemed to help. I also did my pigeon toe gait whenever I headed up any sort of rise. It's an old George Sheehan trick. It keeps tension off the tendon.

Tension off the tendon

Tension off the tendon

Skip to the lou my darlin'

There was a dark haired woman running on the track who was wearing a black running outfit. Knee length tights and dark top. I have seen her before. She kept looking my way. Either I was the alpha male on the track (right) or she just was warning me off. Probably the latter. Luckily I am not a stalker or a dirty old man so she was safe.

I ducked any shower activity. It was breezy but the sun was out and the temps in the high 40's. It really wasn't too bad.