Merry Christmas from Dr Juls!

Special thanks to my training partner Julia who surprised me with a giant and fantastic Christmas present. I now have in my proud custody plane tickets that will take me from London to Spitsbergen Norway! Thanks to her I'm at least getting my butt to 80 deg North!

Merry Christmas Mr Schroeder!

Special thanks to my best friend and hero Kyle Schroeder for his special Christmas donation. That puts me over the $3,000 mark. There is still a long way to go, but we are getting there. Thanks Good Buddy.

18.6 miles and a metoer shower

Sunday night I made my longest run to date. 18.6 miles, which is two laps around the Mojave airport. The sun went down about 2/3 of the way the way through the first lap. The second lap was in the pitch black of a dark clear night. The sky was clear and I was treated to a private meteor shower. My legs look like I ran though a barbed wire fence from the bits that are off a trail and though the open desert. I consumed one and a half liters of water, one ounce of honey, and my entire collection of Steve Earle and most of my Romi Mayes. It was exactly three hours on the move. I was tired when I got done but thanks to some serious post run streatching, I'm not as sore today as I was after the 16 mile run.

Also last week, I made my fasted pace on the 9.2 mile course at 8.3 min per mile. Still not fast, but getting there slowly but surely!

Also. During Sunday's run, I got to thinking about how when you run far, you take alot of steps. Sure enough 18.6 miles is something like 33,000 steps!

One foot in front of the other kiddos.

Thanks to Mike Mangold and Things that Come in 3's

Special thanks to aviation and air race legend Mike Mangold. Mike says that good things come in three's, and his support is proof enough for me.

Check out his website for more info on a guy that is a true competitor and a hell of a stick.

http://www.mikemangold.us/

Busy Week

This week is pretty busy one at work. I did manage to squeeze in a three mile last night and a seven in today at lunch. Last night's three was a new fastest pace at 7.6 min per mile. Not a big improvement, but something. I think the full moon made my usual night pace better. The lunch run today was good, it was warm and clear out.

I was looking at the seven mile course today and it is starting to look well worn. Even the parts that are not on a trail, have sort of become a trail. Part of me is tickled to have done something significant enough to be visible, part of me is just surprised that it is so easy to leave a mark on the land

Iron Mike Saves the Day!!

Thanks to Micheal Albright for his awesome Donation!

16.2 Fueled by Leftovers

It was a windy and clear Sunday in Mojave today. I set off on my longest run yet in the early afternoon. A sort of ritual seems to be emerging in preparation for the long runs. The short ones are easy, throw the shoes on, stretch, and you're off. The long ones are more complicated. Maybe because there is a little more excitement, maybe a touch of fear. I carefully tie my laces and tuck them in so that they won't chaff but so the also can get snagged on any of the crap in the desert. The camel back gets filled to the brim. Nipples get a dab of neosporin. Stretching is almost meditative. It is sort of like preparing a deep space probe. The run today wasn't impressive by any standard 16.2 miles in 149 min. That is something like a 9.2 min pace. After I was finished I realized that I could have gone faster, maybe I was a little afraid of not making it.

I seem to be haunted by some sort of pace demon. I feel like I have grown my own personal sound barrier. By and large I find my self at a regular 8.4 min pace. I have been thinking of my short runs as 'pace runs' but for the last three weeks or so I'm not any faster. If the cadence of breath is your bodies rpm, then I find that the peak of my power curve is about the speed of Fred Eaglesmith's song "Georgia Overdrive". The stanza of breath is a quick in-in-Blow. The runner's transmission is their stride. My transmission only seems to have two gears. One step to a breath stanza or two steps for a breath stanza. Now I have tried runs in both gears and a few where I swap back and forth. The only difference is where I'm sore the next day. The kicker is that gears are the same speed. ...At least for now!

Special thanks to my Mom who sent me fifty bucks and moved my sponsorship ticker closer to the goal! (she also sent me some really awesome granola)

Also special thanks to Mrs Sara Reed who not only fed me on Thanksgiving, she sent me home with a big pile of leftovers. Some of which fueled today's run.

Halfway Plus. Or the Old Motor's Revenge

Last Sunday was perfect in Mojave. I was gonna go for a 12.2 mile run but it all felt good and it turned into a 14.4 mile run. That puts me over halfway to the marathon distance. My pace was about eight and a half min per mile. Nothing to write home about, but at least it is about the same pace as my shorter runs.

Last week I watched a documentary about six runner preparing for the Chicago marathon. The runners ranged from world class athletes to first time runners. The most interesting thing was how humble the world class runners were. Almost like they realized that they had tuned their bodies as best they could and the rest was up to chance. Most of the new runners, or at least the non competitive runners, seemed to have this subconscious arrogance. Its hard to explain, but it was interesting. In this film they asked all the runners what they thought about when they were running. That got me thinking about where my mind wanders while I'm running.

For me, long runs are like driving my old pickup. The old girl is a '52 model Chevrolet that I put together in high school. There is no cruise control and driving is a full time job. You have to balance speed with water temp. and are constantly listening for anything out of the ordinary. She is not a powerhouse by any means and is an encyclopedia of quirks. Every start and every shift are an exercise in technique. When you drive cross country, you drive with the dash throttle, which always wants to creep toward idle if you are not paying attention.

Running is alot like that for me. I spend most of the time tinkering with breathing or cadence, or how my feet land in the dirt. For me, keeping pace is like manning that old dash throttle. When my mind wanders, I tend to slow down. It is a constant battle to maintain a head of steam. When I am pushing hard, I find myself breathing with my whole torso. Arched back on the intake stroke and crunch forward on the exhaust stroke. Sometimes I find my self sort of detached from my body just listening to the rhythm of another motor on a road trip. Wind. Step. Step. Intake. Step. Step. Exhaust. Ad infinitum. I am just the driver, making little adjustments now and then. Add a little water, push the pace a little now and then, and enjoy the ride. Other times I let my self be the motor and let the pace be pushed be pushed by some unseen driver. I let my legs and lungs burn. This is my penitence for every old motor I pushed too hard. I imagine all the times I was in a hurry to get some place and let the water temp wander a little too close to the 'H' or when I pushed the rpm a little too far past its comfortable cadence. Maybe I pretend that that all those old motors are driving me and I let them have their revenge.

First Sponsor!!!

Special thanks to my running partner Julia Tizard for being my first sponsor and for putting me 1.22% closer to my goal. You can check out Dr. Tizard's progress at http://juliatizard.blogspot.com/

A quick one at Lunch

Today, as an experiment, I did the 9.2 mile course during a long lunch. I worked out pretty well. It was my fastest pace to date for that course, I think because I was worried about getting back to work. I had almost forgotten how nice it is to see where you are going.

I am still looking for sponsors for donations and am open to any suggestions.

New Shoes Hit the Sand

Ran the seven mile course tonight with the new shoes. They are perfect. Just the right amount of stiffness and bounce. I know its cheesy but I've named the new kicks. The left one I call 'Fram' and the right one goes by 'James Caird'. Fram is a Norwegian ship that was built for ice and polar exploration in the late 1800's. She is a kind of whispered legend amongst sailors and explorers. She is the meter by which all modern ice boats are measured or compared. Aside from her bulled proof wooden hull she had advanced insulation and ventilation that allowed her crews to live in relative comfort where many suffered. Additionally, Fram's hull is an odd bowl shape that was born for ice. Her hull tended to lift her when squeezed by ice, where contemporary hull shapes of the day, particularly in the stern, tended to grab the ice and allow themselves to be squeezed. Fram sailed three major expeditions and holds the distinction of having, at one time, been the ship that sailed the farthest North, and farthest South. I call the left shoe Fram, meaning 'forward', because the left foot leads the way and I like the idea of being carried to the pole aboard my very own Fram. We'll save the James Caird for another day.

The pace on tonight's run was an improvement for the seven mile course, but was still an unimpressive 8.3 min/mile pace. This would me at a 3.6 hour marathon if I could keep it up.

Since the time change and it has started getting dark earlier, I have found myself running almost exclusively at night. If you have ever run in the desert near a town at night you know what this means. Even miles out of town, if there is no moon, any lights at all are relatively blinding. You learn to aim for land marks and let your legs take care of themselves. It is sort of like steering by the stars... except it is more like: Turn left where the fence ends with the trail. Turn left about thirty degrees. Steer through the open desert aiming for the lights of a distant overpass. The desert is a black hole, and only occasionally are the tops of the creosote bushes illuminated by an airplane on short final.

Almost Half Way There

Sunday was a beautiful day in Mojave. I got a 12.2 mile run in at just under two hours. The good news is that this is close to the half way mark of the marathon distance. The bad news is that my pace was close to a minute per mile slower than on my seven and nine mile runs. I am loosely following Hal Higdon's marathon training schedule but am adjusting it to focus on increasing pace. The other downside of Sunday's run was the amount of water I went though. I drank 1.5 liters of water during the course of the run but I still managed to come back five pounds lighter than when I started. Guess I am gonna need a bigger Camelback.

In other news I got a new pair of running shoes last night and am excited to try them out. They are actually North Face trail shoes. The desert seems to eat shoes for lunch, so this time around I'm trying a little tougher shoe.

Also, I am still on the fund raising warpath. Every little bit helps. You can donate here:

http://www.sponsorspace.com/new_donation.php?memid=9838

... and you will have a buddy for life.

Zach

Howdy and Welcome

In this blog I'll be keeping track of my training and fundraising efforts for the 2010 North Pole Marathon. To date I have been actively training for about three weeks and have run 59.2 miles. My fastest pace so far has been a 7.8 min/mile on a three mile run. The longest run so far was 9.2 miles (according to google earth). The marathon is April 7th of next year. That leaves plenty of time to train. My biggest hurdle at the moment is raising the €11,900 registration fee in time. The registration fee covers accommodation in Spitsbergen Norway before and after the race, flights to and from the pole, and all the race support that it takes to stage a race in the middle of a frozen ocean.

I can accept donations through Sponsorspace.com which routes donations though PayPal. You can try it out here:
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5849976375126481341
In exchange for corporate sponsorship, I am offering advertising space on my race jacket.