Gettin’ Hyphy — Long Branch Half Marathon Recap and Lara’s First Half!

She did it! Dear friends, Lara Kimmerer is officially a half-marathoner!

How did we get to such a strange place? Well, it was a long journey that started in the winter where training runs slowly built up distance and endurance. There were tears, there was anger, but it’s the type of flack a brother can expect from an older sister knowing she would always love him a again a few hours later.

I know Lara will tell of her own experiences. So, while my hips are out of alignment and with a headache still attached to my skull like vice grips, I will tell you mine.

It seems like always after a race I’m in a haze. Something happened on Sunday. Trust me, my body is telling me. But all those crisp details I was sure I was absorbing mile after mile, they all just blur together.

I went over to Lara and Peter’s after work on Friday. We left at a relatively early time to head back to New Jersey. Stopped in Worcester along the way at an Olive Garden to get the carbo-loading started early. Our waitress may have been on cocaine. She was still one of the best waitresses I’ve had, definitely the best Olive Garden waitress. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-45 seconds after getting in the car, I fell asleep, which I would remain, more or less, until we arrived home around midnight where I promptly went to bed. I woke up around 9 am, after having slept a good 12 hours. It was magnificent.

We spent a leisurely morning and early afternoon having coffee at home before heading down to Bedminster where my sister’s friend Jen lives and where we would be spending our pre-race night. We quickly hopped from one car to another and took off for the expo at the Monmouth Race Track. Traffic was already hefty for the expo, giving us a glimmer of what it would be like in the morning. The expo was small, but friendly, plenty of Bruce Springsteen playing, although I can say the racetrack definitely saw its heyday around the time of the Kennedy Administration. We went back to Jen’s for a delicious shrimp, pasta and bread (lots of bread) dinner. We went to bed fairly early, but I didn’t sleep all that well. We had to be up EARLY to get down there for the race. And by early I mean up at 3:50AM for a 6:45 gun time. I thought the 8^th amendment protected us from such things.

We did get up and on the road by 4:15. After having some bagels and coffee, I got the morning going with a pretty sweet get hyped up mix – -we’re talking some Chumbawumba, 1996 Mission Impossible Theme, Daft Punk, Pretty Lights’ Hot Like Sauce – you know, the classics. We got to the track, parked, and then headed in to get prepped. The weather had been forecasted to be mid-60’s day of. But, at 6AM it was in the mid 40’s and only headed to 60 at best. So, it was cold – especially for a guy in skimpy shorts and singlet. We did get prepped, the race track bugler did a call to post, had a soulful Star Spangled Banner, 26 seconds of silence for Boston, and a half-hearted rendition of Sweet Caroline and then the corrals were off!

But, one a time. Corral A went. Then Corral B was slowly allowed forward until we were allowed to go. I thought I hit my watch as we crossed the line, but, I didn’t. About a minute in I clicked it, not all that worried. For the first mile, my watch was in sync and gave me my lap a bit after the mile marker. But, by mile 2, my watch was right on target with the markers. I hadn’t hit it until a good 300 yards after the start. Anyway, it took a me a bit to get to a point where I felt comfortable as the front of Corral B very quickly slammed into the wall of the back of A. The first few miles ticked along well. 6:49, 6:36, and then 7:00. Once I hit 7:00 I held at pace really well, finally achieving a semblance of consistency. The course had a lot of turns that kept my mind engaged. However, the crowds could have used an extra cup of coffee, as every time I passed a sullen group of spectators I had to rouse them into cheering. I wound up about 15 yards in back of a group I paced with for about 7 miles. Unfortunately, I just don’t remember much of this course. I know it was flat, I know I ran over two bridges. I know I ran through a dubious looking section of Long Branch where a guy was definitely drinking a 40 out of a paper bag. But, for the most past, it’s just a haze. I ran, I ran as best I could. Jen’s fiancé Scott (who once clocked a 1:10 half marathon) and Lara’s friend Trish were at mile 9 and caught me last second, and off guard, cheering me on which helped snap me out of my little world. By the time we hit the final stretch along the water, the wind was strong off the ocean, it was chilly, and I was hurting. I tried to push hard for the last two miles, but they wound up being the slowest of the day. I really even thought my last mile would be sub-7:00, but was disheartened to see it at 7:09. My watch alerted me that I had run 13.1 miles, but that the finish was still a long ways off. The final distance was around 13.35, which I pushed as hard as I could for and finished just shy of 1 hour 33 minutes. Not my fastest, not a PR, but still the second fastest half I’ve run.

I got my medal, which must weigh at least a pound, grabbed my stuff, changed and then went to look for and cheer on Peter, Lara, and Jen. Along the way, I ran into my high school friend Susan who set a PR minutes after I crossed the line. I missed Peter, but caught Lara and Jen.

Me and the newly minted half marathoner

 

The crew

With the race over, we headed to a diner where we ate monster meals, had a shower at Jen’s, and then hit the road back to Boston. I was asleep within minutes again and had a good hard nap. When I woke up my sister was still in the midst of an intense runner’s high. About time, Lara!

We got back to town, had some awesome burgers and a few beers at The Abbey in Brookline.

My sister is a half marathoner. My sister is a half marathoner!

Despite my lackluster time, I realized I had only run 4 times at speed. In the coming months, I’ll train harder and get back to the level I want to be. This was a good litmus test for fitness. Because, this guy is now running the Lehigh Valley Marathon in September. BQ or PR, I’ll still be running hard and fast.

2013 James Joyce Ramble Race Recap

James Joyce is stream of consciousness writing. This agrees with some, annoys many.  As a lapsed English Major, I remember well the thoughtful seduction of Joyce and Virginia Woolf.  Getting lost in thoughts, my own mind wandering, rereading passages only to get lost again.  If you haven’t guessed yet, it agrees with me.  There’s a lot of repetition, recurring thoughts layered on recurring thoughts, getting lost in your mind, working it out. Sounds a little like running, right?  I think so.  Especially the repetition of thought, like the little mantras we say to ourselves when the miles get tough, working it out, finding that point of exhaustion.

Peter brought the James Joyce Ramble to my attention years ago and have wanted to run it since then.  On Saturday on my way to work for a few hours, I stopped by and signed up having only decided to run the day before.  Apparently there had been a sudden late surge of people registering in the wake of the marathon bombings.  I like a motivated crowd.

 Katie and I headed out after bagels and coffee to the Endicott Estate in Dedham.  A beautiful property with sloping lawns and columned verandas.  It was a perfect spring day, touching 60 and headed for 70, and if there had been water instead of a sea of runners, would have felt like I was home on the lawn of the yacht club.  It’s a comfortable feeling.  I warmed up, briefly met up with fellow RaceMenu teammate Matt, and then headed to the start before the 11:00 gun time (and by gun, I mean gong, which was preceded by the most dramatic rendition of the Star Spangled Banner I’ve ever heard sung by an ex-state trooper.  This is an eccentric race).  The US Track and Field Masters Championship was also on the course, they went first, and 3 minutes later we took off.  I wanted to hold back, learn that pacing I so desperately want to learn, so I just let my legs go at a comfortable pace.  Comfortable translated into a 6:12 mile.  It was going to be one of those days.  The course was tough, but beautiful.  Lots of turns to keep your mind from focusing on distance, but also lots of hills.  I am not a great hill runner, up or down, and this course hit my weaknesses hard.  During the leg that went through Noble and Greenough School, I ran a morbidly slow 7:19.  I settled in to where I wanted to be by mile 4 and hovered around 7’s for the rest of the race.  Along the course there were actors in costume reading from Joyce works – one problem though, you couldn’t hear a thing they were saying.  There was one guy reading from The Dead under a bridge about a mile from the finish.  He was pretty much mumbling to himself, almost like he was studying at a library and a race happened to be mournfully distracting him.  I wanted to say “Dude, I’m out of breath and could be more vocal”  But, I was out of breath, so I didn’t.  I finished, did my prerequisite dry heave that caught the attention of a medic, and I told him this was a normal ritual.  Saw Matt after where we both said that damn, that was harder than we thought it was going to be.  I cooled down under a tree with Katie before we headed over to Deep Ellum for some beer and burgers.  I spent the rest of my day lazily cleaning my apartment and reading on my balcony.  What a great Sunday.

Official Time — 43:02.

The Transformation is Complete!

Ladies and gentlemen, it has happened. Lara Kimmerer is a runner.

Let me explain how I know this is a fact:

Please note Article of Evidence 1). A text exchange yesterday wherein I stated I was intending to run Summit Ave. repeats. For those of you that don’t know Summit Ave. is .4 of a mile up and .4 of a mile down of solid leg thrashing. I mentioned I was going to be doing this around 5:45/6:00. Lara agreed.

Article of Evidence 2). Lara thought I meant 5:45/6:00 this morning. She agreed to waking up at dawn to run. Even texted me at 5:45 this morning to see if we were going while I was slumbering. She set alarms to wake up. I am not a morning runner. I need a solid 2 hours in the morning of coffee, breakfast, and reading and listening to the news to be something resembling vaguely functional. But, still. Waking up at dawn to run up Misery Hill? Badass.

And…Article of Evidence 3) Lara ran 5.5 miles today. 2 months ago that distance would have inspired fear and tears and Lara just went out like it ain’t no thang. But, that’s not all, people. She then came and did hill repeats with me anyway. Yep.

You can decide for yourself, but I’m calling it-BOOM RUNNER. Ready for the Long Branch Half Marathon? Drop the mic.

Rocking her suicidal double session…my sister!

So, that happened

“Well, that was terrible” -Peter Higgins after 12 miles.

We are 13 days out from the Long Branch Half Marathon and at the tail end of training for Lara and Peter. Yesterday we set out to run the longest run yet of our long runs. After a morning consult on the route we would go we settled on this, meet in Coolidge Corner, run down Harvard onto Comm Ave, cross the BU bridge, run down Memorial Drive, cross at the Museum of Science, run up the Esplanade, cross Comm, cross Beacon, run down the Muddy River, then back across Route 9 and around Griggs Park ( where Lara and Peter first started their running 5 years ago). Also, if you’re not from Boston, none of what I just said made any sense. Anyway, we met in Coolidge Corner.

I told my sister she had to do this in 2 hours or less or we would be doing a double session that day. She laughed. That would be the last time Lara Kimmerer laughed for over 2 hours. We started running at a good pace, mile 1 at 9:32 mile 2 at 9:08, mile 3 at 9:27 and I thought we could do this all day long. Mile 4 was still strong, mile 5 we slowed down and that’s when things started to get tough. My usual trick is to have Lara pick something and run to it then pick another. However, these have been on shorter runs, and there was going to be a lot of things we needed to pick to keep on going. It started out as a game of I spy but then I changed the rhyme to “I will meet with my fast feet”. I don’t know if this was helpful or horrible. There were a few walking sessions. At mile 7 we sucked down some goo at a water fountain in on the Esplanade. We crossed over to the Muddy River where my sister’s minor and momentary hatred of me flashed a few times. We made the turn to head back to their apartment. Ran to Griggs and I Kept saying “so close!” when we had a half mile to go. That was the longest half mile of their lives. We had to run to the end of their street, passed their apartment, before we clicked 12 miles. But, they did it! And in just over 2 hours. There was not a double session.

I was really hoping there would have been a runner’s high while we were running, a ‘we’re doing this moment’. That didn’t happen. Nor did it happen right afterwards. But, once we were all showered and at the Publick House for burgers, beers, and fries then it set in. Accomplishment pure and simple.

Hey, Lara, you’ve put in the work. You can do this. On May 5th when your miles into the half marathon, remember you and do it, you will be doing it, so just do it!

Also, these are my new shoes-Brooks Pure Connect 2′s and my first GPS watch

It is necessary to go through dark And deeper dark And not to turn.

First off, I should tell you I am not currently in Boston. I left last night and came to my childhood home in New Jersey. I needed to find calm. I haven’t found much of it yet. I went to bed when the news of an MIT shooting first broke and I thought, “weird, I wonder if this has anything to do with them”. I hoped it did and it didn’t at the same time. I hoped it was so this would come to an end. I hoped it wasn’t because I hoped it was nothing and just a scare. I was wrong on both counts.

Either way, I’ve come home. I had been feeling a little homesick in the days leading up to this week and decided last night to come home a little spur of the moment. I did that a night in February 2006 not knowing my mother would pass away the next morning. I escape only to find more troubles.

I woke up to a flurry of text messages about what happened last night and this morning. Then I drank 4 cups of coffee watching the news, twitter, and Facebook. At noon I had to get out. I came here for calm and was getting even more worked up.

I went for a run in Allamuchy State Park along and old railroad track. I love running here. It’s peaceful with several rivers and streams trickling through rocks. I used to go hiking with my grandfather in these woods. They haven’t changed at all. My first mile was 6:26. Way too fast. So I stopped and realized I was running for all the wrong reasons. I was trying to prove something. Trying to run my mind out. So I slowed down and settled in. The next three miles all hovered around a comfortable 7. Back at the car I walked down to the river and splashed my face with the cold, cold water and then came home. I sat down at my dock. I’m going out with friends tonight. This will be ok.

I thought about a few things, though. I know after this people may question the safety of Boston. Boston is safe. I still feel more safe there than anywhere else. Only in Boston would the police selflessly throw themselves into a search like this. Only in Boston and Massachusetts do I know the politicians generally care about their people. My city is locked down for the sole purpose of safety and I know my friends and family in Boston right now will be safe when this is all ends. The simple fact is evil can happen anywhere. These people are few, especially in Boston. The good are legion, they are many and far more powerful and brave than those insignificant few who manufactured all this on Monday for some still unknown reason. Though I am at one home, I look forward to returning home and continuing my wonderful life there.

The second is this, particularly if anyone from the BAA reads this. Make next years marathon bigger and better. Allow more to run and experience how pure and good those 26.2 miles are. But here’s how: allow more charity teams and make those teams even larger. Let the presence of those who want to try their bodies and minds in a marathon for the benefit of others overwhelm the course. Competition is a great and wonderful thing, but the good fostered by the charity program cannot be discounted. Let all of us who work toward that finish line of several fronts an expanded opportunity to inflict good through the marathon.

My last thought is this, it is a quote from Massachusetts native Stanley Kunitz’s poem The Testing Tree, and it has helped remind me that difficult times will always end – even in the darkest of those times:
In a murderous time,
The heart breaks and breaks
And lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go through dark
And deeper dark
And not to turn.

On the 117th Boston Marathon

Exactly one year ago today I was running the Boston Marathon.  In fact, approximately about this time, 12:15, I was running passed Wellesley College, minutes from where I work.   I’m at work today and it feels wrong.  I was at work yesterday, too, and it felt wrong.  I came in early in order to beat the road closures before the marathon.  I wished then that I was running.

I left early because I couldn’t stand not cheering on the runners like I’ve done.  I went over to my sisters and we went and saw the elite runners go by, which I had never seen before.  Then I went home real fast and changed. I hesitated on whether I should put on my finisher’s jacket from last year, but decided to, because I had earned it.  I went back to our usual spot just before Coolidge Corner and started cheering runners on, calling out names of strangers, screaming at my friends that came by.  It was fun as it always is.  Meg came by and I gave her a good, encouraging pat.  We saw Alain in his orange suit and he came over and snapped a picture.  And then the cheering stopped and we all looked at our phones and then we went home to watch the news.

I’m not being dramatic when I say the Boston Marathon is one of the reasons why I moved to Boston.  You can go back to the earliest posts on this blog and see that I’ve always felt this way.  On a cold Monday in April 2009 I did what I did yesterday in the same spot and felt like this was a city a person could belong to and not just be an anonymous part of.  Everyone that watches those overcoming the distance on Marathon Monday thinks to themselves “I can do this”.  Some of us do and I hope more will.   This event is pure.  It about overcoming yourself in every way.  It is about finding your strength and making it stronger.  And for those that run for charities, as so many in Boston do, it is about friends and family and strangers and the good you can do.  No one finishes a marathon a worse person than they were before they started training.  It will change you.  And because it changes so many, a marathon has the ability to change the world.

Many people asked me leading up to this year if I wished I was running again.  In spite of the unnecessary and misguided cruelties that happened yesterday, I still wish I had.  I know I will again.

Hopefully next year I will see you all again at the finish line where people will be changed again, where Boston will prove its strength and be made stronger.

A Setback can be a Synonym For Progress

When I first plotted out the training schedule I wanted my sister to follow, I made a forecast. That forecast was that at a certain point during training, distances that at one time seemed insurmountable would become easy, commonplace, even routine – I was right. Two weekends ago my sister and I went for her long run, she casually, and I do mean casually, mentioned that she might be doing a three miler the following day, and the fact that she said that with ease was definitely a breakthrough point in training.

However, as those who have trained for a race know, it is a slow progression. Not every day is the best run of your life, you don’t run your fastest, you don’t feel your best, your mind and your body are taking two separate paths – in other words, it’s not easy. But, it’s in this lack of ease that the ultimate feeling of accomplishment is born, if it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth it. Setbacks and bad days are a part of the natural course of running, overcoming a setback is as important as crossing the finish line, because without that act of moving on, we wouldn’t cross the finish line. That’s some preamble I just wrote.

Anyway, this past Saturday I coaxed my sister into running a 10 mile time trial put on by the Heart Break Hill Running Company on Comm. Ave in Newton. It’s a ten mile loop that runs up Heart Break, through BC, all along Beacon through Newton and Waban, and then turning on the marathon course on Washington St, Comm. Ave and ending back at the store. It’s not an easy loop by anyone’s standards, hills and inclines all over. For the half marathon in NJ in May, while I’m training my sister, I also want to run a good race myself, with her permission, I was going to run the time trial at my speed. The ten miles was one mile longer than we had scheduled, but I assured her that she could do it. We drove over to HHRC. This was nicely organized, people milled about talking, we had polaroids taken of all participants who signed their names to them, all in all, I was excited to be part of the inaugural run. Somewhere between 10/10:30, we got going. I started off at a good speed, linking up with a runner named Greg and we paced each other for about two miles. Hills are not my strong suit, a weak-link I know I need to work on, and he went ahead of me along Beacon. I kept up a fairly good pace through Newton, but shortly before Waban, started to fatigue. It’s a mile from Waban center to Washington St. and that mile felt like 10 itself. But, once I was on the course, I felt like I was home and ran strong despite the hills on Comm. Ave. I finished around 1:15 give or take a few minutes – -still a little bit slower than my target pace, but I’m getting there.

My sister made a wrong turn and fell along the way giving herself a runner’s red badge of courage, a scraped knee. After realizing her mistake, she did a second smaller loop to tack on some more mileage, probably finishing close to 8 miles on the day. A distance any normal person would be pleased with. But, Lara (though she refuses to entirely believe it) is becoming a runner, so that wasn’t good enough. Upset with the mistake, upset with her performance, we’re heading back to HHRC this weekend to run it again. Runners may hit walls physically, they may hit them mentally, but plowing through them separates those that buy running shoes from those that need to keep buying them.

One month to go, a setback can be a synonym for progress depending how you use it.