Author Archives: robinandrew0804

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About robinandrew0804

Robin Andrew is my pen name; I’m a runner, a writer, and a parent, from a small town in central Colorado. As a youngster, my biggest athletic aspiration was to not be the last person picked when teams were chosen for games. Since taking up running for stress relief (right about the time our kids entered their teen years - go figure) and fun, I’ve run fifteen marathons and dozens of other events, on both pavement and trails. This site is my way of sharing the joy and sense of accomplishment I’ve found in simply putting feet into motion, plus a few other bits and pieces of what I find interesting and worth caring about.

The Long and the Short of It

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Most runners start out relatively short – with short distances, that is.  Whether as track athletes steered by coaches to an event which best suits them (100m, 200, 400, 800, 1600…), or recreational/fitness runners who choose a mile, 5K or at most a 10k for their first official  target.  Only after substantial experience with those more modest distances do they build up to hours-long efforts in half-marathons, marathons, or ultras – if ever.

As it happens, my first-ever organized running event was a half-marathon (or ‘hemithon’, if you’ve read an earlier post on giving this distance its due) which I entered with an over-ambitious buddy who’d started training and wanted company in his challenge.  It also doesn’t hurt that I live in a small town many miles from larger communities – it’s difficult to justify driving several hundred miles and spending one or two nights in a motel for any event that will last less than a couple of hours.  Whatever the factors, I tend to focus on events of 13.2 miles or more, and maybe not to fully value their more compact alternatives.

This year’s though, a local Turkey Trot 5K provided a good reminder of something to love about shorter events: the high ratio of Start/Finish time to cruising time.

It’s no secret, after all, that the start of a race is very exciting. The crush of bodies before the tape, the inspiring music, the cocky buddy-chatter with whoever winds up at your elbows.  The possibility of a new experience, a new PR, or just another notch in the old shoes…  Enough excitement and joy that many of us have to consciously avoid going out too fast and hurting later performance.

And the finish has an appeal all its own: that competitive burst as the line approaches (if there’s still that much gas in the old tank…), the imminent relief of ceasing to run (without guilt!), the after-race beverages – whether water, electrolyte or brewed…  The celebratory connecting with friends and co-runners.

In contrast, the mid-part of any event tends to be considerably less intense.  Unless you suffer a cramp or collision, or make a wrong turn and have to find your way back to the course, it’s mostly steady-state pacing and self-control (and how many people find self-control exciting?  not a lot of hands shooting up there…).  No wonder so many distance runners strike up conversations with strangers, or plug-in to music, podcasts or talk radio (well, maybe not that last one, we want to spend our energy running, not raging).

What struck me this turkey day is that the start line time and energy of a 5K can be just as great as that of a marathon.  In fact, it’s actually more related the size of the field than the length of the course.  The Bolder Boulder is a 10K,  for example, but with a field of nearly 50,000 it boasts remote parking, city-wide shuttle buses and a plethora of waves and corrals, meaning one may leave the house three or more hours before toing the line – plenty of fantasy time for any of us feel like an athlete in the Olympic Village.

And the emotional weight of a finish is really determined by one’s strategy and approach.  Sure, if you start accelerating at mile 23 of a marathon, that’s 3 miles of buildup and anticipation: hopefully enough foreplay for a satisfying release after the line is crossed.  But heck, you can get the same duration in a 5K; just start anticipating the finish at .1 mile in – right after you’ve forced your pace down from that initial foolish start-sprint.

The point is, these precious moments are just as accessible and meaningful no matter the length of the event!  We can have as many minutes of juicy start and finish experience in a 5K as in an Ultra, if we just remember to focus and enjoy them.

Long, short or in between, every organized event is a chance to experience excitement, anticipation and release.  What’s not to love about that!

 

He Said What?

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Following the Sutherland Springs shootings, our President opined that, if two townspeople had not pulled out their own guns and shot the perpetrator, he would have “.. had hundreds more dead…”

Considering what this deranged shooter was able to do inside that crowded church (horrible, terrible, indefensible, but not “hundreds”), or what the Las Vegas shooter did with an enormous crowed, time and multiple pseudo-automatic weapons (again, horrible, terrible, indefensible, but not “hundreds”), it is simply not credible that the TX shooter could have killed “hundreds” while speeding away with police in pursuit.

Once again, our President cannot help himself exaggerating to the point of obvious falsehood.   We deserve better.

Founding Brothers – The Revolutionary Generation, Joseph J. Ellis

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A thoroughly engaging recap of several first-string players’ roles in our nation’s early innings.  Structured around six key incidents (The Duel, The Dinner, The Silence, The Farewell, The Collaborators and the Friendship) this relatively slim volume provides a compelling picture of the interpersonal conflicts among what we today recall so monolithically as our Founding Fathers.  Profoundly divided and conflicted, as Ellis dramatically illustrates by starting out with The Duel between Hamilton and Burr and elucidating it’s root causes, it is their very differences that gave us a system which has managed to accommodate our nation’s more profound conflicts for longer than any other republic ever has.

This is neither puff piece nor hatchet job; Ellis admits flaws in even his favorites (Washington foremost, with Adams as runner-up) and virtues in those he has pegged down (Jefferson, Franklin).  Only Aaron Burr is completely dissed, as selfishly opportunistic and without values (a modern parallel comes to mind…).  The penultimate impression is as the author clearly intends: gratitude that these men (and one woman, Abigail Adams, presented as wise, tolerant and far more worldly than members of her sex were given credit for in that time) happened along at such a moment.

Clearly they alone did not create the historic circumstances for independence, many others contributed to both causes and effects, but these eight (Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, the two Adams’s, Madison, Franklin and Washington) played crucial roles.  Over 200 years later, still we live in their shadow and their debt.

A book well-deserving of its Pulitzer.

 

It’s Put Up time

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“Put Up” – two words that can cut two ways, depending on which old saw one has in hand.

For those who hoped the election of 2016 would turn out differently – it’s past time to Put Up With It; to get over your frustration, disbelief or whatever else you may be feeling, and accept the result and work as best you can to forward your goals, under the new administration.

For those who are happy about how 2016 turned out, it is also Put-Up time – as in Put-Up or Shut Up.  Time for our new President to deliver on his plethora of promises, and for all his colleagues and supporters to show they can actually solve real-world problems, not just invent slogans that simplify the issues beyond recognition.

With that in mind, my first challenge to Mr. Trump is this:  you said you were the only man who could help ordinary Americans, the ones who feel they have limited jobs, limited opportunities, limited wealth, limited prospects.  If you’re so good, by summer of 2020 (when the next election season is roiling like a creek in springtime), we should clearly see a statistically-significant reversal of the trend for wealth to accumulate in the top few percent of households.

And before anyone  hauls out that old line about liberals wanting to re-distribute income or wealth, it won’t wash.  The re-distribution has been happening for decades, damn it!  Redistributing from wage and salary workers to the top tier of business, real estate and securities owners.  That’s the real social engineering that’s been going on, partly due to trends beyond our control – technology, a populace more enamored of entertainment than education, other nations maturing into real competitors instead of farm teams – but also due largely due to a tax code which favors those who already have wealth over those who are trying to accumulate it.  (Yes, Virginia, the less you tax home purchases, business profits, capital gains, hedge fund fees and inheritance, the greater will be the relative tax burden on wages and salaries – the only vehicles most working folks have to improve their position).

I admit I’m skeptical, seeing as how you’ve turned over the reigns of the economy and policy to Goldman Sachs and the rest of the investment banks, to mega-corporation CEO’s and lobbyists; but maybe trickle-down economics will work out differently this time around…

The point is, if three years after your election the proportion of wealth held by those in the top tiers has not decreased, then you will not have delivered and the people should be the ones snarling ‘You’re Fired!’.

Yeah, its Put-Up time, for  all of us.

“Stronger and More Powerful”

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From his country club in New Jersey in August 2017, our President stated that, as a result of his “first order as president” the nation’s nuclear arsenal has been renovated and modernized and is now “stronger and more powerful than ever before…” As reported by many, the review of nuclear posture which he ordered was nowhere near his first order and had no effect on the renovation, modernization or strength of nuclear capability, it is just a review (though, of course, it may lead to some action in future, which when and if worked out in full detail, approved, funded and executed, might someday affect the capability, in some as yet undemonstrated way).

As so many times before and since, the strong and powerful message of our leader’s words is that they are meaningless, except in the damage they do to his and our nation’s credibility, and what they tell us about his character .

The Girl With All the Gifts, M. R. Carey

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Took a risk in a London thrift shop and boy, did it pay off – a better-than-most dystopian future thriller, and far better than the usual zombie fare.  To be fair, Carey does not use the Z word, he call his creations ‘hungries’, but they are undead cannibals, so what’s to quibble about?  The real difference is that this author cares about the world they infect, cares about the future of humanity and his characters, and uses his premise to explore those, rather than the other way around.

Melanie (the Pandora of the title) is tough and smart enough to carry a story, as is miss Justineau, her teacher, and much of the novel is a two-character play as they get to know one another and the new world in which they find themselves, after a plague of sorts has killed much of the local population, turned others into hungries and done who -knows-what to the incommunicado rest of the planet. Sargeant Parks and Private Gallagher are effective foils, the former more believable than the latter, but both fleshy enough to care about, especially when the Private’s flesh is sacrificed lamb to the story line.  That’s about it for characters, as the hungries and the few Junkers who survive out among them remain quite as anonymous as they are disposable.

From the author’s notes, it seems this tale grew of small beginnings, but as it ended up, the main points is a large one; a cautionary note about the hubris of assuming our world will stay manageably close to what we know and love, and that any species, once ascendant to the top of the food chain, will necessarily stay there.  An easy and exciting read, well worth the time and afterthought.

I love thrift stores!

Inside the Dream Palace, Sherill Tippins

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Subtitled The Life and Times of New York’s Legendry Hotel Chelsea, this revelatory recap on a counter-culture icon should cement its position in urbanist history.  Rooted in socialist utopianism of the mid-nineteenth century, the Chelsea  Home Club (as it was initially known and intended) has twisted and morphed to survive through a century and a quarter of changes in its physical, political and spiritual context.  As Tippins makes clear, though the physical plant has some novel and benevolent characteristics (its roof-top garden being among the most interesting), that survival is primarily the result of individuals; the many idiosyncratic and committed artists involved, from architect Philip Hubert – a self-defining non-conformist from an ‘artistic’ family – and his initial cadre of well-healed demi-monde, all the way through the fin de siecle , Roaring Twenties, depression, McCarthyism, Beats and Summer of Love to the tawdry decline of the Punk era.  Only now, in the twenty-teens, does it appear to have been taken over by the Mammon of real estate interests, which hope to re-open it in 2018 as – one fears – a high-tier simulacrum of artsy prestige.  One hopeful note is that the present speculative owners have been required to continue to accommodate a couple of dozen long term residents, even as they modernize and apostatize it to their own ends.

This is urban life in all its richness, chaos and fertility.  No where else would one find Mark Twain, Boss Tweed, O.Henry, Thomas Wolfe, Edgar Lee Masters, Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Brendan Behan, Arthur Miller, Arthur C. Clarke, Christo, Warhol, Kubric, Dylan, Ginsberg, Lennon Joplin, Hendrix, Viscious, Rotten – indeed any such assemblage of single-named notoriety – cohabiting with the nineteenth-century-sounding artist Alphaeus Cole, whose photo in his studio at the ripe old age of 108 concludes the volume’s illustrations.

Entertaining, enlightening and inspiring, this is a gem.  Long live the Chelsea!

(For those with a continuing interest, the accumulation of Chelsea-iana continues at  http://www.chelseahotelblog.com/  )

Running is Different –

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Life is big, and life is complicated.

Running is simple: one foot in front of the other, as quickly as you like, for as long as you like.  Everything else is optional.

Adult human life is deeply entwined with others – whether job or family, neighbors or government, or just trying to establish a place for yourself in a crowded world of not-enough-of-everything – most humans spend an overwhelming proportion of their time trying to satisfy others.

Running – especially for us MPRs, who are not paid or sponsored or skulked by the press – is about satisfying yourself. 

In so many parts of life, you must invest years to get anywhere – to earn that diploma, work up that job ladder or write that symphony, to raise those kids from infants to adults, to reach that golden anniversary.

As an MPR you decide today to be a runner. You can stop being a runner tomorrow – and start again the next day, month, year, whenever.  A new start every day if you want it.

In many sports, you compete to get on the team, compete to play a certain position, and even then get rotated in and out depending on how well you or someone else perform – or just the lucky chances that do or do not come your way.

As an MPR, you choose to run.  You choose the distance, trails or road, event or solo, day or night, local or far away, tried-and-true or new-and-unknown.  You are in control.

In any kind of group pursuit, even if you don’t do well, the enterprise may succeed, and you may still benefit. When the group succeeds, you share the glory (or maybe not – if you or they do not feel you contributed as much as you’d have liked).  And when the group does not succeed, it’s pretty hard not to share the disappointment, even if you performed your very best.

As an MPR, success depends one hundred percent on you.  There’s no one else to steal the limelight, no one else to share the blame – but remember:

Success and achievement in most parts of our lives are measured against external yardsticks – standards met and requirements fulfilled.

As an MPR, all that matters are your own goals; your own ambitions or lack thereof, your own satisfaction. 

Running is Different – Running is Yours!

To Hydrate, or Not to Hydrate, That is the Question…

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If you’re interested enough to read about running, you’ve surely encountered admonitions about hydration.  Performance starts to suffer, the articles tell us, as soon as one gets the slightest bit dehydrated, as evidenced by the first touch of dry mouth, or the passing thought ‘I’d like a sip of water.’

“You need to drink enough to replace all the water you sweat out,” is a common injunction, followed by complex instructions about weighing yourself before and after runs, then converting pounds and ounces to liters or ounces (but a different kind of ounces, the liquid ones…) in order to calculate just how much you need to drink for every mile, or every hour.

For those of us not inclined to that level of lab-work, ‘drink early drink often,’ seems to be the simple bottom line, so if you’re a good scout, you may find yourself purchasing any of a variety of hydration devices – bladder packs, trail vests, belts with holsters for water bottles (single, double or even more), and using them almost religiously.  Despite the fact that when you look around at events – the top finishers are nearly always water-naked, or at most, sport a single hand-held bottle.

And being an even better scout, you may have tried to go farther by hydrating before the run; downing a couple cups of coffee, (yes, caffeine can enhance performance, but coffee is also a desiccant – meaning it encourages your body to expel fluid – and a laxative, which can become problematic an hour or two later…) and topping off with Gatoraid during the drive-to, so you’re fully watered up at the start.

Hence the scene in one marathon: first patch of thinned-out woods the course passed, passels of the boys stepped aside to relive themselves, in full view of the rest of the field. Poor form dudes! Especially given that a good number of the ladies were no-doubt holding-on for dear life till a more discreet opportunity presented itself.

Regardless of gender and manners though, every minute watering the lawn or on line for a Porta-Jane is a minute not running, as was pointed out to me after one race when a sleek young runner, with whom I’d played leapfrog throughout the last half, suggested she never would have passed me that final time if I hadn’t kept stopping off at the porta-potties.

Being a slow-learner is better than not learning at all, and since that day I’ve tried limiting beverages in the hours before a big run to no more than a single cup of coffee, then starting moderate drinking (oops, that sounds wrong: I mean ‘moderate hydration’) a half-hour before the start and continuing to drink (OK, ‘consume’) small amounts regularly throughout.  So far, the relief stops are fewer and times correspondingly shorter, plus it’s just more comfortable not running on a full bladder.

“To hydrate, or not to hydrate?”  It’s all about the timing.

Who’s Faster – He’s or She’s?

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A recent article* about the possibility of someone, someday, breaking two hours in the marathon, contained what seems a contradiction.  Despite citing several reasons women’s physiology might be better suited to endurance running (smaller bodies for better heat rejection, longer legs in proportion to total height and mass, slender calves that take less energy to swing, less upper-body muscle-mass to carry around, etc.), nearly all the discussion about breaking the record was focused on men.  Which scratched-up an old pet peeve: the tendency of casual conversation to assume that, because the men’s record in a distance is faster than the women’s, it means that “men are faster than women.”

Actually, all it really demonstrates, is that the very fastest men are faster than the very fastest women; but those are the exceptional individuals, and ‘exceptional’ means just that – the ones for whom the rules do not apply.  For ordinary folks like us MPRs, the rules do apply, and in this case the operative rule is: the range of variation among either group (men, women) is greater than the difference between their extremes.  Or, put the way humans really speak, “some women are faster than damned near every man.  (How many men could equal Paula Radcliffe’s world record marathon time of 2:15:25?  Or Tirunesh Dibaba’s 14:11:15 in the 5K?)

If you’re a male MPR, you can count on plenty of female runners disappearing into the distance ahead of you.  Just as, if you’re a female MPR, you can reliably anticipate finishing ahead of some men.

For this dog, in fact, that’s one of the joys of the sport.  None of your old ‘boys on this side, girls on that side,’ gym class segregation; we’re all in the run together.  Androgen-fueled-aggressiveness has nothing on estrogen-paced-persistence, and vice-a-the-verse-a.  Lining up for a start in the Middle of the Pack, the gender of the runner off your shoulder tells nothing about where they will be by the end.  Any more than it tells who will be the one shouting ‘way to go,’ as they get passed, or ‘you’re kickin’ it’ when another runner seems to be flagging.

(Speaking of gender neutrality benefits: ain’t it grand that running is one of the few public activities where men wear Lycra and women sweat profusely – and sometimes even spit – and hardly anyone takes note!)

A runner struggled to the top of a Himalayan peak (on a rest-day, of course), to ask the fabled hermit a burning question.  “Who’s faster, oh Wise and All seeing One, men, or women?”

After many hours of meditation (during which the runner kept busy with gentle stretches and mental calculations of how much faster the run down might be than the hike up) the ancient gray-hair replied.

“Yes,” was all she answered.

*  What Will It Take To Run A 2-Hour Marathon?, Alex Hutchinson, Runner’s World, November 2014