Nov
1
In college I played club lacrosse and we had this saying, Turf Sniper. We said this whenever someone tripped for no apparent reason. Running down the field, nobody around, all of a sudden you’re laying face first in the grass, Turf Sniper. Taking a shot on goal, trip on your own feet, Turf Sniper. I bring this up because I thought the close of my lacrosse days signaled the end of the Turf Sniper. And I suppose it did, but he didn’t go away completely, he just changed his name. Now he’s the Asphalt Sniper.
In my last post I talked about running. What I didn’t mention was that at the end of September I ran my first Half Marathon; 13.1 miles through Jersey City and Liberty State Park. It was a great day and a terrible day all at the same time. My training had gone well and I felt pretty good before the race started. Unfortunately, it was 80 degrees and 90% humidity. The one saving grace was that it was overcast. But perhaps the worst thing that happened that day was that my old friend the Turf Sniper finally made a reappearance. In the slightly more than a year that I’ve been running, I’ve fallen twice, both times during the Newport Liberty Half Marathon. That damn Asphalt Sniper tagged me twice.
About a half mile from the start, surrounded by about 200 people, I ate it…hard. This wasn’t one of your little rinky dink falls. No, this was a limbs flailing, feet going over your head tumble. I distinctly remember having one thought while my view cartwheeled between sky and pavement: Get up! And so, when I finally came to rest, I popped back up and immediately started running again. If I hadn’t, I would never have finished the race, I would’ve been done right there, at the .5 mile mark. I turned to my running partner, we were still running together at that point in the race so she got to see my fall, and said, “It’ll give me something to focus on later.”
I am a prophet. 3 miles later, when I stumbled again (this time not nearly as spectacularly), it didn’t feel like that big a deal. I trotted over to the side of the course, retied my shoes, and started running again. Then, from mile 4 to mile 9, when I thought I might throw up with every step, I just focused on the pieces of gravel embedded in my right palm and the back of my head. And then a strange thing happened at mile 9: I realized not only that I was going to make it, but that I might reach the finish under my target time of 2 hours.
That elated feeling was crushed 2 miles later when some jackass threw a half mile hill in the course at mile 11. But then, finally, the end was in sight. With a quarter mile to go, I looked at my watch and saw that I had only a couple of minutes left. I started kicking and crossed the line with 29 seconds to spare. I don’t think I could’ve gotten through that middle part of the race, those 5 gruelling miles when the humidity really peaked and the blisters on my feet started making themselves known, had I not fallen so early in the race. After that, everything else seemed kind of trivial, and for that I have the Asphalt Sniper to thank. So, here’s to you, Asphalt Sniper.
Oct
11
To Run or Not To Run
Filed Under Running | 2 Comments
About a year ago I had a depressing realization: I was fat. Not in a you’re so disgusting other people see you and don’t eat for a week kind of way, but in more of a you just don’t look fit kind of way. Except for a brief period in my freshman year of college, I’ve never been truly physically fit. In high school I was skinny, but there were no athletic qualities to back it up. I wasn’t a sprinter, long distance runner, or lightweight wrestler; I was just small. I think I can best sum it up by quoting Charles S. Dutton’s character from the movie Rudy, “You’re 5 foot nothin’, 100 and nothin’, and you have barely a speck of athletic ability.” Unfortunately, I can’t lay claim to the line that followed it, “And you hung in there with the best college football players in the land for 2 years.” I did deliver one hell of a pizza though.
So there I was, unhappy with my physical state and not quite sure what to do about it. Fortunately, this realization coincided with my wife’s return to grad school. Not only did I need to get into something resembling a shape other than round, but I needed to figure out a way to do it cost effectively. Gym membership got tossed out the window immediately, too expensive. Cycling required an expensive bike and I would also have to drive somewhere where I stood more than a 50/50 chance of being the victim of vehicular homicide. My condo didn’t come with a pool, so that just left running.
My relationship to running is probably a familiar tale to any serious runner. Some days I hate it, some days I love it, some days I don’t care either way. There are times when I would rather do anything else, and I mean anything else, than run. And there are times when I feel like I need to run so badly that I finally understand what it must be like for people with an addiction. Because that’s what running is, an addiction. Once you’ve got the itch, it’s almost impossible to go more than a couple days without scratching it.
Of course, running is not as cost effective as I thought it would be. There’s shoes, socks, shorts, t-shirts, long sleeve t-shirts, shells, jackets, pants, Body Glide (not what you think it is, get your mind out of the gutter), GU (seriously, out of the gutter), etc. And those are the things you need to be a casual runner. If you want to run races there’s a whole other set of purchases required. I know that there are some people who never have and never will run a race, nor do they have a desire to, and that’s fine, because at the root of it, running is a very personal thing.
Everybody comes to running for different reasons. Mine was a desire to feel good, to be “100 and nothin’” again, although this time with a little bit more athletic ability. After 1 year, 6 races, over 350 miles, and 17 pounds, I know two things for certain: I feel pretty good, and I have no intention of stopping.