hooligans
i headed out to run at noon today as temps were in the mid-forties. i ran essentially the same route as yesterday. about 2 miles into the effort, a mom and three kids were walking on the sidewalk toward me. the mom herded her kids off to the right to let me pass. as i passed by and waved, her oldest son who was maybe 8 or 9 gave chase shouting words of encouragement. way too funny.
as i continued on north, i was running by north beach and three boys were out walking in the opposite direction. i was in the street and they were on the opposite sidewalk. as i approached, i could see them trying to stealthily make some snowballs. i gave them the "i got my eyes on you panama red" signal from the movie "meet the parents" which really dumbfounded them. it must of thrown off their aim because as i passed the snowballs scattered harmlessly behind me.
i turned around at 3 miles with about 24 minutes elapsed on my watch. heading back to campus was a bit more uneventful but it did feel good to be outside in the fresh air. i ended up stopping my watch at 46:20 with 6 miles completed and hit the shower.
MTD – 186.5
YTD – 507.7
Odometer – 26,845
good day sunshine
i was a bit tired from my sunday afternoon effort so i opted to bring along some gear and get in a run during lunch. outdoor temps were in the mid-thirties with a wind from the south. the only decent route(s) to run are to the north which meant i’d be running back into the wind. i headed in the direction of the zoo and turned around at 3 miles with 24:45 elapsed. heading back south i just put my head down and pushed through the wind. i rolled back on campus a few ticks past 49 minutes for a slight negative split and hit the shower.
Analysis
looking at my YTD mileage, i’m not doing too bad for a "non-Boston/Ice Age 50M prep" year. here’s my mileage totals YTD through 3/24 for each of the years this decade.
2007 – 598.7 (Boston prep)
2004 – 569.3 (Ice Age 50M prep)
2002 – 550.4 (Boston prep)
2008 – 501.7
2005 – 480.0 (Ice Age 50M prep)
2000 – 474.4
2006 – 454.2
2003 – 400.5
2001 – 326.9
tentatively, my upcoming racing schedule is shaping up to be…
3/29 – Half Marathon – Green Bay, WI
5/10 – Ice Age Trail 50K – Southern Kettle Moraine
6/7 – Kettle 100K – Southern Kettle Moraine
i’ll need to get in more "sandwich" weekends if i’m going to tackle the 100K this spring.
easter sun day
this easter, we had a rare holiday where we weren’t visiting family or had family visiting us. (not that we mind family…it’s just rare that it was just the 5 of us for a holiday) i got out the door in the mid-afternoon with temps in the upper 30’s and sunny skies. i pointed myself down the hill on comanche then turned north onto university. i ran north until hitting I-94 then turned west on the frontage road. i stopped in the local McDonalds for a "pit stop" after a little more than 5 miles.
after my brief bio break, i headed back west along the frontage road then turned south onto university. my watch registered 7.5 miles for the first hour of running which translates to 8:00 per mile pace. i kept heading down university then ran up the hill on comanche and passed my house at about 10.3 miles.
i continued north on comanche then turned east then south onto university. i followed it down to where it met up again with comanche and ran up the hill. (yes, i’m running a loop at this point – roughly 5K long) i passed my house a little short of 13.5 miles and kept heading north to repeat the loop.
after 2 hours, my watch showed that i had covered 15.5 miles so during the second hour i ended up covering 8 miles at 7:30 per mile pace. i rolled myself down the rest of university avenue then up comanche hill one last time. i improvised an extra 6/10ths of a mile once i reached my house so i could finish with a nice round 17 miles. i stopped my watch a few ticks short of 2:12 and headed for the shower. (overall pace was about 7:45 per mile)
extra ordinary
saturday morning broke with the realization that we received 15 inches of heavy/wet snow (on the first full day of spring). trying to run in the semi-plowed streets would be challenging at best. my buddy dana called me at 7:30AM and neither of us really felt much like running. i figured it would be best to just get it out of the way so i said i’d meet him down at the pettit center for some left turn indoor running.
we got rolling by about 20 minutes to 9AM and admittedly we weren’t moving awful fast. about 20 minutes into our run, a guy (Carey) i had run with a few weeks back showed up and ended up joining us. this is the guy who was a 2:20-something marathoner in the 70’s. he’s now 61 and has no issues running along with guys in their 30’s. we started talking about duathlon – which is his primary sport – and just rolling through the laps.
a little after 40 minutes into the run, we were rounding the turn on the east side of the building. i was on the outside of both Dana and Carey and noticed someone laying on the outside of the track flat on his back. a few other runners were gathered around him and i could see his face was purple. i took another couple of strides, came to a stop and started back toward the situation. Carey and Dana stopped as well.
as we approached, i could hear the other runners gathered saying "I can’t find a pulse"…"He’s not breathing"…"Did someone call an ambulance." Dana charged into the fray and grabbed the guy’s blackberry which was on his belt. It was password protected and Dana flipped it at me and ducked back into the fray. The blackberry at least had the guy’s name it as well as where he worked. I didn’t try guessing his password so that the device wouldn’t be wiped from unauthorized attempts.
After it was determined that the guy wasn’t breathing and that a pulse wasn’t found, they started doing CPR on him. Dana was down giving chest compressions while another guy was giving the mouth to mouth. At this time the Pettit Center employee who was calling 911 brought over the defibrillator. Luckily a nurse happened to be running and she stopped to give assistance. She helped coach the folks doing the CPR and unpacked the defibrillator.
Once the defibrillator paddles were placed and the device was charged, Dana and the other guy giving CPR stepped back and the man received the first shock. The defibrillator audibly said to stay clear of the patient while it took readings. I believe it rolled into a second round of a shock to the patient. I’m not real sure as that’s when the EMTs came running in.
I was able to give the name of the guy to the EMT who had the paperwork and handed him the guy’s blackberry. Looking at the situation, we figured we’d done what we could do and slowly trudged back onto the track. We started to talk about how none of us carry any identification on us when we run. As we kept moving around the track we caught updates on his status from onlookers. Soon enough, they had oxygen on him and then had moved him onto a stretcher and were wheeling him out.
The situation really sapped me (and likely many of the other runners) of any desire to run so after looking at my watch we decided to run a few minutes longer to get to an hour. Dana picked up the pace for a few laps, no doubt to burn up some extra adrenaline. We wrapped it up and Carey turned to Dana to say that at 61 years old he needs to have someone like him to run with in case he drops over. He went on to say that it was an honor and a privilege to have run with us.
We packed up our gear and headed toward the atrium. Dana stopped at the front office to leave his name and phone number with the person at the front desk. I congratulated him on his efforts and we headed back to our families.
What lingers in my mind is that if we hadn’t gotten a freak spring snowstorm, would that guy have been running indoors? Honestly, we wouldn’t have opted to have been running indoors this late in March except under the circumstances. It is a rather humbling experience to see a situation like that transpire. It makes the silly things we get upset about seem trite.
At this point, I haven’t heard any further status on the guy. Nothing has been said in the local paper or on the Badgerland Striders message board. Hopefully this man pulled through and can get back to a normal life. Regardless, the efforts of those involved were truly heroic.
(7.5 miles)
before the storm
i begrudgingly rolled myself out of bed this morning and geared up for a morning constitutional. the weather forecast spoke of a spring snowstorm that was to start in the morning…totaling some significant accumulation. the wind was blowing from the east so i pointed myself into the wind and ran down madison avenue toward town. i was glad i had brought along my clear lens oakleys to block the flurries from being blown in my eyes. i also noticed an aluminum can being blown by the wind down the street…which you don’t see every day.
when i reached the downtown area, i turned to the south then once in bethesda park i turned west and enjoyed the tailwind pushing me home. i thought i heard the sound of a train whistle approaching but when i crossed the track i didn’t see anything coming my way. regardless, i mustered 7 miles in about 57 minutes and hit the shower.