Running Song of the Day

(I'm blogging my journey to the 2024 New York Marathon. You can help me get there.)

Steve Jobs gave me back my music. Thanks Steve!

I got my first iPod a bit more than 20 years ago. It was a 3rd generation iPod, the first version with an all-touch control. I loved that I could play my Bruce, my Courtney, my Heads and my Alanis at an appropriate volume without bothering any of my classical-music-only family. Looking back on it, there was a period of about five years when I didn't regularly listen to music. I had stopped commuting to work by car, and though commuting was no fun, it had kept me in touch with my music. No wonder those 5 years were such a difficult period of my life!

Today, my running and my music are entwined. My latest (and last 😢) iPod already has some retro cred. It's a 6th generation iPod Nano. I listen to to my music on 90% of my runs and 90% of my listening is on my runs. I use shuffle mode so that over the course of a year of running, I'll listen to 2/3 of my ~2500 song library. In 2023, I listened to 1,723 songs. That's a lot of running!

Yes, I keep track. I have a system to maintain a 150 song playlist for running. I periodically replace all the songs I've heard in the most recent 2 months (unless I've listened to the song less than 5 times - you need at least that many plays to become acquainted with a song!) This is one of the ways I channel certain of my quirkier programmerish tendencies so that I project as a relatively normal person. Or at least I try.

Last November, I decided to do something new (for me). I made a running playlist! Carefully selected to have the right cadence and to inspire the run! It was ordered to have to have particular songs play at appropriate points of the Ashenfelter 8K  on Thanksgiving morning. It started with "Born to Run" and ended with either "Save it for Later", "Breathless" or "It's The End Of The World As We Know It", depending on my finishing time. It worked OK. I finished with Exene. I had never run with a playlist before.

Last year, I started to extract a line from the music I had listened to during my run to use as the Strava title for the run. Through September 3, I would choose a line from a Springsteen song (he had to take a health timeout after that). For my New Year's resolution, I promised to credit the song and the artist in my run descriptions as well.

I find now that with many songs, they remind me of the place where I was running when I listened to them. And running in certain places now reminds me of particular songs. I'm training the neural network in my head. I prefer to think of it as creating a web of connections, invisible strings, you might say, that enrich my experience of life. In other words, I'm creating art. And if you follow my Strava, the connections you make to my runs and my songs become part of this little collective art project. Thanks!

Reminder: I'm earning my way into the NYC Marathon by raising money for Amref. 

We'll run 'til we drop

(I'm blogging my journey to the 2024 New York Marathon. You can help me get there.)

 It wasn't the 10 seconds that made me into a runner.

I started running races again 20 years ago, in 2004. It was a 10K sponsored by my town's YMCA.  I had run an occasional race in grad school to join my housemates; and I continued to run a couple of miles pretty regularly to add some exercise to my mostly sitting-at-a-computer lifestyle. I gradually added 10Ks - the local "turkey-trot"  because the course went almost by my house - and then a "cherry-blossom" run, through beautiful Branch Brook Park. But I was not yet a real runner - tennis was my main sport.

In 2016, things changed. My wife was traveling a lot for work, and one son was away at college, and I found myself needing more social interaction. I saw that my local Y was offering a training program for their annual 10K, and I thought I would try it out. I had never trained for a race, ever. The closest thing to training I had ever done was the soccer team in high school. But there was a HUGE sacrifice involved - the class started at 8AM on Saturdays, and I was notorious for sleeping past noon on Saturdays! Surprise, surprise, I loved it. It was fun to have people to run with. I'm on the silent side, and it was a pleasure to be with people who were comfortable with the  somewhat taciturn real me.

I trained really hard with that group. I did longer runs than I'd ever done, and it felt great. So by race day, I felt sure that I would smash my PR (not counting the races in my 20's!). I was counting on cutting a couple of minutes off my time. And I did it! But only by a measly 10 seconds. I was so disappointed.

But somehow I had become a runner! It was running with a group that made me a runner. I began to seek out running groups and became somewhat of a running social butterfly.

Fast-forward to five weeks ago, when I was doing a 10-miler with a group of running friends (A 10 miler for me, they were doing longer runs in training for a marathon). I had told them of my decision to do New York this fall, and they were soooo supportive. I  signed up for a half marathon to be held on April 27th  - many of my friends were training for the associated full marathon. The last 2 miles were really rough for me (maybe because my shoes were newish??) and I staggered home. That afternoon I could hardly walk and I realized I had strained my right knee. Running was suddenly excruciatingly painful.

By the next day I could get down the stairs and walk with a limp, but running was impossible. The next weekend, I was able to do a slow jog with some pain, so I decided to stick to walking, which was mostly pain-free. I saw a PT who advised me to build up slowly and get plenty of rest. It was working until the next weekend, when I was hurrying to catch a train and unthinkingly took a double step in Penn Station and re-sprained the knee. It was worse than before and I had only 3 weeks until the half marathon!

The past three weeks have been the hardest thing I've had to deal with in my running "career". I've had a calf strain, T-band strains, back strains, sore quads, inter-tarsal neuromas and COVID get in the way of running, but this was the worst. Because of my impatience.

Run-walk (and my running buddies) were what saved me. I slowly worked my way from 2 miles at a 0.05-to-0.25 mile run-to-walk ratio up to 4 miles at 0.2-to-0.05 mile run-to-walk, with 2 days of rest between each session. I started my half marathon with a plan to run 2 mimutes and walk 30 seconds until the knee told me to stop the running bits. I was hoping for a 3 hour half.

The knee never complained (the rest of the body complained, but I'm used to that!!) I finished with the very respectable time of 2:31:28, faster than 2 of my previous 11 half marathons. One of my friends took a video of me staggering over the finish. 

 I'm very sure I don't look like that in real life.

Here's our group picture, marathoners and half-marathoners. Together, we're real runners.

After this weekend, my biggest half marathon challenge to date, I have more confidence than ever that I'll be able to do the New York Marathon in November - in one piece - with Team Amref. (And with your contributions towards my fund-raising goal, as well.)

We're gonna get to that place where we really wanna go and we'll walk in the sun

Jim Thorpe Half Marathon 2024 results. 

My half on Strava.