Why Lauren? Answers are few, yet...

Today I took part in a running event that, while I would participate again, I would do so with a heavy heart.  This morning, there was a "Silent Mile" that took place to celebrate the life of Lauren Bump.  The event was held at OP Schnabel Park here in San Antonio (and around the world on Facebook), a location frequented by runners, bikers, hikers, walkers, and skaters.  It was also the location of Ms. Bump's murder on the last day of 2013. 
I do not wish to get into the details of her murder.  To do so would bring too much attention to the monster that committed a senseless crime as this.  Police have someone in custody but have yet to find a motive or connection.  The bombing at Boston was a terror attack on running's hallowed ground.  This attack was much more localized, personal, and, for many, poignant.  The greenway is a place for San Antonio fitness buffs, dog walkers, and people just looking to pass some time in a slice of nature.  It is rare that you pass someone on the path without a smile and a salutation.  I have run there at least once a week for the past two years and have started to recognize some of the regulars.  It is one of the unofficial gathering points for the San Antonio running community.  This senseless attack casts a dark cloud over an otherwise happy and relaxing place.  The heart shaped memorial will serve as a reminder and a warning for passers by for as long as it stands. 
I have to admit that I plagiarized the title.  Some of those who know me also know that my grandfather was a columnist in a local paper and wrote an article after my mother's death in January 1984 titled "Why Mary?  Answers are few, yet..."  This article, which still brings tears to my eyes 30 years later, has been a source of comfort for grieving family and friends over the years.  Grandpa Terry could write much more eloquently than I can and perhaps can offer some words of solace and wisdom through the years to the friends and family of Lauren.
I did not know Lauren Bump, nor did my friend Adam who invited me to participate.  Doubtless I have seen her on the greenway or run races with her but I have never officially met her.  Upon reading the Facebook page and talking to people this morning, I realized that many people running in Lauren's memory did not actually know her.  Yet, they were all touched by this gorgeous young woman whose life slipped away after too few years.  There, as Grandpa wrote, is the glimmer of an answer to those questions of "Why Lauren?"  As people came together and prayed this morning, the man who I am assuming was Lauren's pastor reminded us that she is doing just fine.  As we all walked or ran in silence alone, but at the same time beautifully together, in our thoughts, we started to change.  It may not be immediately visible.  But, it is a step along that course.  People who otherwise would have never known each other were brought together.  People were forced to look inward and refocus on what is important in life.
Our gathering together also showed that there is good in the face of evil.  One deplorable act cannot dampen the spirits of hundreds, and can sometimes steel their resolve.  I often jokingly quote Nick Diaz's "Don't be scared homie." This morning, there was no need.  The gathering asked, among many questions, "How dare you?"  But most of all, it showed Lauren Bump's family that they are not alone in this. 
I hope that Lauren's family saw the hundreds of people showing up for support as a testament to her life and character.  I hope that they internalize and remember that, not the creature that took their Lauren.  I also hope that they follow the ultra-running mantra of RFP (relentless forward progress) and continue to press on.  Never forgetting, but honoring Lauren's memory through their deeds and strengthened relationships.  As this holiday season winds down, cherish your loved ones and the time, albeit often fleeting, spent with them.  Grandpa said that there are no answers, only an occasional faint glimmer here and there.  Grab hold of those glimmers, share them with those that may need them, and never lose that sense of hope and caring from this morning.  

3M Half Marathon

Today I had possibly the best race I've ever had.  The 3M half marathon in Austin, TX is noted for it's average 0.4% drop throughout the course, leading to generally quick times.  About three months go, my supervisor asked me to help her and two others to prepare for this race.  I agreed and a couple of weeks into training, decided to do it myself. I searched online and found Hal Higdon's training plans.  I printed out the beginner and the advanced.  I was going to try and keep on the advanced plan and put the girls on the beginner program.  The interesting part was trying to match up to two when we trained together, which normally happened twice a week.  I tried to make it interesting by changing in track workouts, hill sprints, long runs, trail runs, and road runs.  It gets fairly cold here in Texas, but never really too cold to not run outside.  Anyway, on to the race.  We arrived in Austin yesterday afternoon.  After checking in, we went straight to packet pick up and the "expo."  Unfortunately, it was the smallest expo I've ever seen.  There were maybe 10 vendors.  Barely any of the freebies you typically see at these events.  I at least picked up some sunglasses and a flyer for a race here in San Antonio in March. From there, we stopped quickly at the hotel and then left for dinner with the rest of the team.  We had dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill.  It turned out to be average.  Except for the amazing operatic singing of the hostess.  She was surprising and awesome.  We didn't stay out late before returning to the hotel and tried to get to sleep early.  But, it was the night before a race.  Of course I didn't sleep.  That 0445 alarm came really early.  had my breakfast of a banana and orange juice and we took off.  It was 38 degrees and windy.  I wished that I would have brought along my pants.  But it was shorts with some spandex underneath and my shirt from the 2012 San Antonio Rock N' Roll.  We met up at a Panera bread that was nice enough to open their doors early just so we could warm up and use the restrooms.  Everyone made the last bathroom breaks before taking a pic:

We said our good byes to our awesome support team

and then headed to the starting line in the cold and dark morning.

We got there shortly before the start time so I had to start very far back.  My original gameplan had been to stick with the 2 hour pacers until at least 6 miles and see how I was feeling at that point.  However, I started pretty far back.  I started off quickly.  I was at 3 miles in 25 minutes.  Around that point I caught up to the pacers.  There were so many people packed in around them though, I couldn't even run comfortably.  Numerous times I had to shorten my strides, be careful not to trip on someone, or get pushed off the road.  So, at around mile 4 1/2, I took off ahead of them.  I was still feeling very good and couldn't stand being cooped up.  In any event, they were going faster than the pace.  The mile I could time was at 8:45, 24 seconds faster than the proposed pace.  I hit the 10k mark at 52:57, 10:36 faster than my PR and was starting to feel a little tired. At mile 7, I stopped for a Gu and a drink.  It did not settle too well right off.  From miles 7-9, my stomach was upset and it felt like it was trying to decide which end it wanted to empty it's contents out of.  At this point I walked for about 45 seconds, up a hill.  While doing that the, the 2 hr pacers showed up.  That spurred me on.  A couple seconds later, I was feeling better and seemingly caught my second wind.  I picked up the pace and mile 10 might have actually been my fastest of the whole race.  Mile 12 was sadistic.  After a nearly all (if only slight) downhill course there were three short but steep hills.  But after them, a downhill and a left turn to the finish.  I sprinted home and it felt fantastic.  We ended right before the Capitol building.

The cold that had felt so good while running was suddenly biting.  I checked the results and read 1:54:35!  28 minutes faster than my previous official PR.  (My first half of the AF full had been my unofficial PR, at 2:10) We waited around for the rest of our team in the cold and cheered everyone on.  Thankfully the sun came up and temps rose all the way to 45.  It was great seeing those girls finish their first race, much less a long one.

The course itself wasn't very scenic.  The coolest part was running past UT's football stadium.  Other than that, we were kind of out of the way.  Just want to say thanks to the girls for putting up with me, and great job!

"Andy made me do it!"

I'm sure that's come out of my mouth before.  After reading Andy's end of the year blog, I've been tempted to get back on here and write.  Let's start with writing about my initial reason for starting this blog - running and food.  Since the last blog I've done one race and a lot of training.  The "race" that I did was the Run For Your Lives 5k.  It's an obstacle course with the added twist of zombies.  The best part of the race was that my wife did it with me.  She is not a runner.  She does not like running.  Typically, when I mention it, she makes a whiny face at me.  However, if you put a pack of zombies in front of her, she screeches and takes off sprinting.  So, we had a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, our flags got pulled about 2 miles into the race.  So, there wasn't much motivation to run fast after that.  The obstacles were ok.  They don't hold a candle to Tough Mudder obstacles, but they were enough to challenge Mila.  It didn't motivate her to run a whole lot but, she's open to more obstacle races.
Other than that race, I've been training for the 3M half marathon up in Austin on 13 January.  I'm shooting for a 2:05, which would be officially about 17 minutes faster than my previous PR.  In this training, I've been meeting up a few first timers during the week.  For some reason they curse me out and mutter under their breath every time.  But they're troopers.  They keep coming back 2x a week for their abuse.  It's been so awesome to see their improvement.  What's even more cool than that is the attitude shift.  No, they still call me dirty words.  However, there's talk of "what races should we do next year?"  or "I think I'll do my first full marathon in September."  It's great to pass my newfound love of running to other people.  I'm nervous about hitting that 2:05 though.  We'll see.  I'm sure I'll write about it.
Mila and I checked out a restaurant this past weekend that was awesome.  I put "best pizzerias San Antonio" into Google and saw what popped up.  According to urban spoon, Big Lou's was first and Dough was a very close second.  We ended up choosing Dough.  It was a great choice.  They offer traditional Neapolitan style pizzas, something I'd never tried before.  We had a cheese platter with flat bread to start.  That was awesome.  Then the pizza.  I don't even know what what was all on there.  Whatever it was, I liked it.  We'll definitely be going back.
2012 has been a great year.  It's funny to think how I've changed.  Most of my friends have kids.  Drinking?  Bars?  Clubs?  Nah, I'm fine.  I'll go to a friend's to have a beer and play a board game.  Don't forget playing with the kids.  Who am I?  I'll tell you who I am.  I'm an extremely lucky guy.  My wife is the most amazing woman I've ever met.  I have a job that interests and challenges me.  I have a group of friends that really are a second family.  I have a father and grandmother that I can call any time just to talk or for advice.  And I have the best brothers a guy can ask for.  Who would have thought 10 years ago that I'd rather spend time with my brothers than anyone else?  Finishing that marathon with Mila, Scott, and Andy cheering me on is a memory that I will never lose.  Really, I'm just grateful.  I say I'm lucky, but it's not all luck.  It's the amazing people that I have around me.  All I've got to do is not scare them away.

San Antonio Rock n Roll write up

Sunday was the 5th annual San Antonio Rock n Roll marathon and 1/2.  After 2-3 months of training, the day had arrived for Britt to run her first half marathon.  I'd promised her that I would pace her the whole way.  So, we were able to run maybe 5 training runs together over the past couple months.  The night before the race we got some homemade spaghetti and meatballs.  (I did pretty awesome if I do say so myself.) Britt came over and brought her husband, daughter, friend, and our friend James.  Everyone took off by 10 and I got in bed a bit before 11.  You know I wasn't sleeping.  It's the same thing as before karate tournaments. I just get so hyped that I can't sleep much.  Maybe not always the best thing for me.  I got up around 4:45, I got maybe 4 1/2-5 hours off sleep.  After getting my stuff together, well most of it, I headed over to Britt and Pat's. 
We got downtown around 630, about an hour before start time.  Being all the way back in corral 18, we had to walk a bit to get to our spot.  We walked past the long lines for the portapotties knowing we'd be there in a minute.  We ended up waiting in those lines for about 30 minutes.  Good thing we were in that corral 18, because we just barely caught up to our corral before the start.  We saw Pat and Blake at the start and then took off. 
Britt was shooting for a 2:20 finish time.  To get her there I planned on pacing us at 10:45.  Problems started right off the bat.  I do not understand what was going on, really.  There are corrals for a reason.  I don't know whose fault it is, but we spent our first 6 miles just weaving through traffic.  There were so many people walking right in the middle of the road and moving in large packs that we probably ran an extra half mile.  I was so annoyed/angry.  Did people lie on their forms?  Or did the marathon just screw up in the corrals.  Through 10k we were dead on pace.  But, to get there, we probably had to run at about a 9:45 pace.  I just don't get how hundreds of people that were walking from mile 1 were placed in front of us.  I'm not annoyed that there are slower people than me at a race or that people are walking.  Just annoyed that there were literally hundreds there.  So, like I said, we were right on pace through 10k, even at 8 miles we were only 30 seconds off pace.  Unfortunately, Britt's knee started up around mile 7.  She put some gunk on it that made it feel better for a couple miles, but it wasn't enough.  We had to slow down.  I was so proud of Britt.  She kept trucking.  Of the whole race, she walked for maybe 3 minutes. She just gritted her teeth, muttered curse words at me, and kept going. We finished in 2:31:12.  In 7401 and 7404 out of 16372.  Britt sprinted up the last hill to the finish line.  I'm so proud of her!
Today started training for the 3M half marathon in Austin on 1/13.

Twitter Road Race #3/training run w/Britt

Yesterday I did my third Twitter Road Race.  I had forgotten about it until Friday night, but I've done the first two, so why not do the third?  Plus Doug Cassaro donated $1 per finisher towards Hurricane Sandy relief.  I mean, all I had to do was run 6 miles.  Plus, I'm tapering for next weekend's San Antonio Rock and Roll 1/2 marathon.  I had planned on doing a 5 mile run today (Sunday).  Well, as things are turning out I did the 10k yesterday and running with Britt on a 5 miler in a little bit today. 
This run was an ego check.  I listen to the Trail Runner Nation podcast regularly and I was reminded of a recent episode while struggling through. An ultra runner on there said that you have to respect the trail, always.  Because if you get cocky and think "I've done this before, I don't have to worry" that's when it comes back to bite you in the butt.
That is exactly what happened.  It was a combination of a bunch of things that led to a horrible run.  There was the dumb decision to buy Taco Cabana at 1 am after picking up my wife from work.  There was the fact that I only drank 1 bottle of water the day before. And, I also decided to wait around the house until 11 am before running.  But, I digress, let's start from the start.
If you have never been to San Antonio, you have never been lucky enough to see the greenways we have here.  San Antonio is a sprawling city, taking up more land area than even NYC. The one closest to me follows the dried up, overgrown Leon Creek.  Obviously, it's been a long time since there was ever any creek there.  However, it's a nice swath of green running through the city.  You can actually run up to 25 miles without having to do laps and they have run 100 mile races out there. The longest I've gone there was 15 miles. I chose the mainland entrance because that's where the mileage posts start in both directions.  Here are a couple shots of the entrance:
... well this is frustrating, it keeps refusing to accept my pics.  Guess you'll have to go to my Anyway, so I started off great. My goal was sub 56 minutes, which would have been a 7 minute official PR.  My unofficial PR is 55:50, but that was on a muddy, rocky, hilly, trail.  So I figured that I could comfortably come in under 56.  I started off strong, too strong.  My first mile was 8:01 and I felt great.  At 1.75 I was at 14:07.  And then everything went downhill.  My calves seized up.  I ended up taking breaks to walk to try and work them out and it just wasn't getting better.  But, I was at 29 flat at the halfway point.  I didn't think it was too unrealistic to still get my 56 since my calves were starting to feel better.  But, that Taco Cabana reminded me of its presence. It turned out that I struggled through most of the second half, finishing it in like 39 minutes. Add to the fact that I got the famous bloody nipple.  I must have looked a hot mess shambling those last two miles with blood running down my white shirt. overall, I ended up in 29/41.  Nowhere near what I was hoping.  While I'm not happy with my result, it's good that it happened.  It will help me keep a smaller ego.

Today went better.  Britt burst in the front door at 9 am singing "Happy Birthday."  After sitting and talking for a bit, we went on a five mile training run.  She's a bit slower than me but I enjoy our runs because we talk a lot.  It makes the time go by.  We ended up running 5.04 miles.  My brother has gotten her to change up her stride a bit so she had to run a little bit slower to concentrate on how her foot was landing. Next week should be fun!

The last couple days

So, the last two days I worked with the girls I'm training in the heat.  It's been in the upper 80s to lower 90s.  Yesterday we did hill sprints.  I did 12 and they did 8 each.  I got one of them to puke so, great success?  Today was a wagon wheel.  It was ok, but I got tired. Ended up having to walk for a little bit.  Not sure how far I went.  The slowest girl ended up doing about 3.6 miles, so I'm going to say I did about 2 more.  Went ok.  Tomorrow is 3 miles at race pace. Hopefully Mila will come with me.

Is there such thing as a lazy 11 mile run?

Because, if there is then that's what we did yesterday.  We were supposed to start at 7.  My partner woke up at 650, 5 minutes after I texted her that I was ready.  So, we didn't actually start til about 745.  Add on the fact that she hasn't run 2 steps in 3 weeks and the pace slowed shortly after we started.  At around mile 5 her knee started hurting.  We were on an out and back course so we just kept going that last half mile before turning around.  Ended up walking and finishing in 2:30.  So, we've got some work to do before November 11th.  Hopefully the knee isn't anything serious.  Also on the path they were running a 20 mile race.  Actually saw a couple people I know. One of them got chewed out by a biker for not hearing when the woman screamed LEFT!!! she then proceeded to stop her bike to yell at this girl.  That's the problem with races out there, they can't exactly close off the course.  I'm sorry, but I'm thinking the girl that's challenging for a top 10 spot should get the right away, not some woman out joy riding.  Wish I would have thought of something smart to say in the moment. Well, today is off and tomorrow is CrossFit.  Maybe I'll have some AF people to torture with the workout.