A recent long run (in preparation for my first event of the spring) reminded me of a basic truth: to be a distance runner, is to run a distance. And there are times when that is all you can do. Not fast, not pretty, not feeling grand.   Especially toward the end of a long run, when all your strategies are behind you and it’s hard to spare the energy even to dig that Advil out of your pocket, much less to tear open a gel-pack and re-fuel, you may need something really simple to fall back on.

When I find myself having one of those moments; when nothing else works, I seek satisfaction in the plain belligerence of not quitting and remind myself what I realized when someone asked how I’d completed my first marathon – ‘by the end, I was too worn out to do anything but keep on putting one foot in front of the other; I was too stupid to stop.’

Now, I’ve wondered if it would be more politically-correct to say I am ‘Too Smart To Stop,’ but that’s giving a tired runner more credit than they – or at least this one – deserve. Maybe ‘Too Determined To Stop,’ (TDTS) would be better, or ‘Too Committed To Quit,’ (TCTQ), or any number of other formulations… Sometimes, just pondering the possible variations on that theme is enough to distract me for a while, and when your feet are hurting – and your knees, and your hips, and your shoulders, and just about everything from your blistered toes to your sun-burned scalp – distraction is pretty valuable in itself.

Which is one more reason this MPR is proud to admit to all the world: “I don’t run pretty, I don’t run fast, I’m just TSTS – Too Stupid to Stop.”

Distance running is about maintaining a relatively high level of effort over a long time, and that takes concentration and motivation.  In the middle of the pack, we can work off other runners to make it both less difficult and more fun, by choosing a ‘rabbit.’

Once the initial warm-up is over, and you’ve settled into goal pace (which you’ll know from your GPS, stopwatch, or level of effort), pay attention to the other runners around you, noting who’s struggling to maintain that pace or dropping away, and who’s breezing off into the distance.  Keep your eyes peeled for a runner who passes you with confidence, but pulls way only gradually, and when that happens, challenge yourself to match their pace and keep a consistent distance instead of letting him or her disappear ahead.

You’ll know pretty soon if you’ve chosen well – if you quickly start feeling winded, let ‘em go, settle back, and see who else comes along. But if find you can keep up with just a bit more effort than you had been giving before, then you’ve chosen right.  Keep on his or her heels for a few minutes – or a few miles – and that rabbit may provide the focus you need to push yourself to do your best.

The goal is not to finish the run in a dead-heat competition – most times your paces will diverge long before that, but chasing rabbits every now and then can make any distance seem shorter – and way more fun.  It just may make the difference between a ho-hum run and one that truly satisfies.

Rabbits – one more reason the mid-pack view is nothing to sniff at!

A nerdy formula with a simple meaning: “Two is less than, and not equal to, 450,000.”

In the case of the 2013 Boston marathon tragedy, the number 2 represents the pair of misguided, impotent fools who tried to make the event a symbol of something they thought was wrong in the USA and the world.  (‘Impotent,’ is used intentionally, because despite what was apparently months of planning and preparation, and the ruination of their own lives and family, all those two really accomplished was to show just how little they could achieve and how much was wrong inside their own frustrated and cowardly minds.)

The 450,000 represents, in rough estimate, the number of positive energies present along the course that Monday, based on media statements that Boston (yeah, even mid-pack runners can pretend to a first-name basis with the Big Event) draws upwards of 400,000 spectators, plus knowing that in 2013 there were 26,000 scheduled runners, and allowing for the thousands of staff, volunteers (thank you, to every one of you) and media who were present.

Whenever I think back to that day, after taking time to remember the innocents who lost so much, I remind myself to focus on the astounding outpouring of support, encouragement and pure joy that went on for over five hours before the tragedy.  For 26.2 miles it seemed there was barely a ten foot stretch on either side of the course without a spectator; for most of the route they were lined shoulder to shoulder – sometimes several deep – and all of them making a continuous joyful noise for family, friends and strangers alike.  It truly felt, in the middle of that pack, like you were all running together, being cheered on by one enormous family, in pursuit of a goal you had each set by choice and worked for, out of a common human desire to strive and to achieve.

That positive energy – not the horror and grief – is the true meaning of Boston, even in 2013, and the running community will not allow any two individuals to take that away from the multitude who put so much of their better nature into that day.

If you’ve ever read the reviews in a boating magazine (yes, I’ve wasted plenty of hours in my lifetime…), one thing you may have noticed is that although a boat has a top speed, what seems more important to the reviewers is its ‘cruising speed.’

The Oxford online dictionary defines Cruising Speed as “a speed for a particular vehicle, ship, or aircraft, usually somewhat below maximum, that is comfortable and economical.”

For a runner, ‘cruising speed’ is that pace at which you realize your body is doing something it was actually designed to do, and you feel (for the moment) like you could go on forever (though the objective mind knows that is not actually the case….).

Mid-pack runners are well served to find their own cruising speed, and use it as a baseline, consciously choosing when to run faster (that last gallop to the finish, or when someone you passed a half-mile back shows up in the corner of your eye and starts to creep ahead…) and when to run slower (that December-weekend long run in the snow and slush).

You’ll find your cruising speed by feel, but it helps to have a measurement and a way to compare from day to day.  Since mid-pack runners generally aren’t doing laps on a track with a stopwatch, keeping track of total time and distance every time you run is generally the way to go, but since your pace varies from beginning to end, it will be pretty inexact.  For those ready to make a larger investment, a GPS watch that tells your pace at any given time is great, but whatever way you measure your cruising speed, it’s really the feeling that matters.

There’s a real cachet to the Marathon – that Greek history, all the great runners who’ve made a name for themselves by winning in New York, Boston, Chicago, London, or the Olympics, the sheer absurdity of any normal mortal actually choosing to run that far.  But 26.2 miles is a long way to go, and an even longer distance to train for.

The half marathon has a lot in common with the full. It’s long enough that you must train, so there’s a real sense of achievement, and it draws on many of the same skills – goal-setting, proper pacing, hydration and nutrition, developing an efficient and non-injurious stride.  And, there’s much the same camaraderie stepping up to the start and at the finish, plus there seem to be a lot more ‘halfs’ around (maybe because they can accommodate more runners with less traffic-management and fewer volunteers/staff).

The only thing holding back this otherwise very appealing event is that name – half­- marathon.  Like being half-asleep, or half-qualified (or half-pregnant!) it just doesn’t sound very satisfying.  I mean, where’s the sense of accomplishment in completing half of anything!

The 13.1 mile run deserves its own full name, and my modest suggestion is to call this event the Hemithon – as in hemisphere, hemihydrates, or the ubiquitous hemidomaphobia (fear of half a house).    It’s got the same punch as its longer sibling, and sufficient semantic resemblance to connect to that grand heritage, but rolls quickly enough off the tongue to sound casual and confident. And even thought we all know ‘hemi’ really means the same thing as ‘half,’ that Latinate construction obscures things just enough to sound like a whole of its self (and a lot more credible than ‘Halfathon.’)

13.1 miles, I hereby christen thee, the Hemithon.

P.S. – The folks in Green River, Utah used to put on a wonderful small event in scenic Goblin Valley, which offered an Ultramarathon (anything over 26.2 qualifies; this one was 50k or about 30 miles) and a 25 k event (about 15 miles).  I did the latter, and ever since have struggled to figure out how to explain my Goblin Valley Ultramarathon t-shirt:  did I run a half-ultra-marathon, or an ultra-half-marathon, or half an ultramarathon – or maybe not an ultra-anything-at-all?   There’s just no way to combine ‘half’ and ‘ultra’ in the same language that doesn’t sound like you’re trying to get away with something, but if my plan gets enough traction, maybe I can finally be proud to claim my Ultrahemithon completion.