yesterday: 22.25 miles
week: 35.25 miles

I'm beginning his piece an hour before the 2008 winter solstice. As a morning runner, I can start looking forward to seeing dawn during my run.

I ran my long run yesterday in anticipation of the ugly winter's weather that has arrived this morning. I ran it at Lake Artemesia on the Paint Branch Trail through the University of Maryland campus and to the north. A 7.5 mile out-and-back, I ran it 3 times.

It was a grey day, grey clouds, grey trees, brown grass. Breezy and 35 F, the windchill must have been around 30 F.

Two days prior, on a treadmill in my home gym, I passed 1000 miles on the year on mile 4 of an 8 mile run. I don't think I've ever run 1000 miles in a year. This was despite 14 weeks' of no running do rest my plantar fascia. 1000 miles does not mean much in the pursuit of a Boston qualifying time, but in our numerically-focused civilization, one can't let it come and go without notice.

I'm used to shorter loops on my long runs. They are variously 1.25, 1.4 or 3.0 mile loops around lakeside strolling trails or my neighborhood. The mental experience of Paint Branch Trail is very different. Going north of campus, it gets much more isolated. A shorter look brings the psychological support of repeatedly seeing people out enjoying the park, working in their yards, or even driving to and from errands. On a 7.5 mile loop, repeated three times, you see no one twice. North of the campus, in the woods, the runner becomes completely, anonymously, alone. On my first loop this bothered me. On the second and third loops, celebrating the increasing awareness of just how strong I was running, my awareness of isolation vanished. Last quarter of the 3rd loop got pretty hard. I found myself asking rhetorically: "Why does it always have to get so hard?"

Truth of the matter is, if you get really tired on your long run, you're probably running too fast. Saturday was windy and cold. My pace was probably a bit fast for me, but comfortably fast. I held it for 20 or so miles with no problems, but then it caught up with me in the last mile or two. I no longer supplement during the run to train my metabolism to use more fat as a source of energy while running at higher speeds. I don't believe I've ever run quite that far without gels or Gatorade.

While in college as a zoology student, I became convinced that human physical and psychic health are greatly dependent on living a life style that most mimicked the conditions and habits that under which humans evolved. Medical, nutritional, and exercise science has largely confirmed this hunch. The current popular belief that "it takes a primitive village" to provide the necessary emotional support for raising our young and caring for our elderly also argues in favor of this notion. Running not only provides the exercise for which humans are most optimized from an evolutionary stand point. It also re-introduces the runner to the daily and seasonal rhythm of nature. Some believe this external support for our own circadian rhythms is a necessary component of human psychological health.

I was able to catch glimpses of several of the more unusual local birds while running through the woods for such a long run. Along the streams, a large heron stalked fish in the cold shallow. There's a section of woods that were decimated in a tornado in 2001. One sees fully mature trees with all large branches ripped from them by the winds. There are also many insect-laden dead trees, still standing. Among these, two large red-headed wood peckers flitted about on each of my loops through that part of the woods. Finally, near Lake Artemesia, a large hawk screeched from a tree top as I finished the last lap. While a zoology student at Florida in 1974, I was consciously very close to the fauna on campus around me. That consciousness has receded greatly with the years. The hours I spend outdoors doing 35 to 45 miles per week are bringing this consciousness back. I think this is also an ingredient of psychological health.

day: 21 miles
week: 36 miles

Yesterday, Denise mentioned that she had never run while the snow was falling.

It was 30F with a 19F windchill when Denise and I set out this morning. The sky swung between snowy and stormy to bright blue sky. We got a period of heavy snow. I learned that snowflakes hitting your eyes in a strong wind can actually hurt.

I took Denise on her 3 mile neighborhood lap, then did six more laps. This rather pushed the envelope for me as my previous long run was 20 on a flat course in mild weather in Florida. Nonetheless, the run went fairly easily and left me with only mild plantar fascia stress which was gone the next day.

At several points in the run, the wind would gust up the leaves and they'd run with me like tiny wood spirits.

Challenging, blustery, emotionally cleansing run.

To me, the amazing thing is that 2 or 3 years ago, this run would have been unthinkable. The transformation of body as years of marathon training go by is itself amazing. The transformation of mind is more so.

today: 7 miles
week: 7 miles

I delivered Denise to the airport today, no run this morning.

So, this evening I came home after work, fed Sophie and Peanut and went straight down to the gym to run. I just didn't want to do 41 F and dark, so it was fluorescent lights, the treadmill, and a very special movie on the LCD TV in the gym.

Watching "The Spirit of the Marathon" made the time on the treadmill invisible. http://www.marathonmovie.com/home.html I've thought that only someone who has completed a marathon could connect with this movie. Yet, it can hold Denise in its thrall almost as much as me. Perhaps this because she has vicariously lived through marathon training by living with me; perhaps because it resonates with her own 13.1 mile efforts.

The vagaries of the world ensure that success is as much dependent on forces beyond our control as forces within our grasp. Success at the marathon is unusually dependent on the person making the effort. Injuries are errors in training - over ambitious errors. If you don't train enough, the distance will crush you. The long, slow, steady build up of distance and speed is an exercise in restraint as well as determination and enthusiasm. The resulting growth in strength is inescapable.

The individual can succeed in the marathon - never "match it" - by the due diligence of life spent in the single-minded pursuit of that goal.

The weekend after that last entry, I did a 19.25 mile run. Last weekend Johns Hopkins grad school took its pound of flesh and I did no long run.

This morning, it was 25F for my run with Denise. I did 3 miles outside with her, then another 3 miles on the treadmill in our home gym while she worked out.

I posted this to a distressed newbie runner's board entry:

After 3 years' training, running has finally become second nature to me. Eventually, it grows to become a part of who you are. The reason why so few people are fit is because they are unable to discipline themselves to train until the day when the discipline is no longer needed because its second nature.

Coming from South Florida, I hated the 5:30 AM runs in winter time Maryland. One quote, often attributed to Aristotle, got me through the first year: "You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."

today: 4.5 miles
week: 16.5 miles

I run with the Prince Georges Road Runners when I can. I'm largely a solitary runner, quite comfortable logging 18 or 21 miles alone. PG Runners is my chance to be social. I run with the beginners to encourage them. Beginning running is hard. You have that non-stop mental chatter telling you can't do this. It magnifies the aches and pains, eventually making you think that if you don't stop, you'll die. If you don't stop, your mind synchronizes with your body. You begin to appreciate what your body can really do. You evolve to what your body was meant to be.

I was late and the groups had already set off on their runs. I ran alone, occasionally passing a group. In fall, at dawn, Greenbelt Park is a sea of red.

I came up on three does standing by the road. They did not bother to move as I floated by, staring at me. They were almost indistinguishable from their background, excepting their white tails.

I joined PG Runners afterward, having coffee. A young lady from Scotland, Eileen, and I traded impressions of Europe and the U.S. So was another day in the life of a distance runner.

It is a failing of me as a runner that I undervalue my runs in single digit miles. The cumulative stress of those runs really does matter. That is one of the lessons from this spring.

The sun was just clearing the treetops when I arrived at Buddy Attic this morning. Its glare lit up the steam from the lake. The water was smoking in the chill night air. The scene was surreal. No details of lake and tree line were visible. The mist glowed and everything in it was a dark gray shadow. I began my run.

On the fourth lap of the 1.25 mile trail around the lake, I was joined by a young woman introduced by a mutual friend. I'd guess she's in her 30s now, but she retains that light, gliding, stride you see in talented high school and collegiate runners. She slowed significantly to chat with me in a thick Central or South American accent. I seldom run with others on my long runs, but it was truly pleasant to hear of her competitive running past, how she balances being a mother of 3 and running, and how she dislikes doing long runs alone. On the other hand, I was pretty quiet. She taxed me, inadvertently causing me to run just a little faster than I had planned.

Completing the eighth lap, I was done for the day. My slow, gentle, comeback to marathon training continues.

10 miles today; 22 on the week.