Twenty Eleven YIR and Twenty Twelve Tunnel Vision

I said I'd do a year in review of last year revisiting the goals I had.  Here are the over/under results for 2011:

1) Continue to do a race a month. - I could shoot to go for more, but all I would accomplish is paying more money and having more shirts I need to get rid of.  Over  I still overdid it.  I think the final tally for 2011 was around 35 races.
2) Can I Get a Half-Marathon? - I can do this. After the Crim we felt like running the 5K, and would have if Pat showed. Now it's just a matter of where to do it.  Over  how about 4 (Martian, DxA2, Panda, Brooksie) and 1 trail half (The Legend)? Also the 20K Volksläufe was pretty close to that distance. You could say I nailed it down with authority.
3) Try to Run a Race out-of-State - I'd really like to do this if the opportunity arises. We'll see what this year and the finances hold.  Under  Somebody else's scheduling conflicts in September on my honeymoon got in the way of the one I was planning on.  I could have planned better to get this in, but I thought I had it locked up (Note to self:  Have a backup plan).  After the wedding and the honeymoon, I couldn't justify a trip just to accomplish this goal in 2011.  However, I ran a 5K in Chicago on 1/1/12, so I only missed it by a day.
4) Register earlier - I could deal with saving some money on these races. I need to make a game plan and pick what races I'm doing this year, and sign up early.  Even  Registered early a lot, and also opted out of shirts when possible a few times.
5) Make lifestyle changes that actually affect my weight - I've done everything else. For my size, I am a powerhouse of energy and endurance. Imagine what I could do if I slim down. I could be unstoppable.  Even  For 3/4 of the year, I did awesome. I was down below a weight I hadn't been down to in 5 years in September. I let things get away a bit at the end of the year, though. Still, I will tentatively call it a success as long as I jump back on track this year.
6) Do "The Legend," the "Warrior Dash," or "The Martian" (or all three) - I haven't decided yet, but two are races I missed last year, and the other looks like a blast (though I am actually somewhat in fear of it).  Over  Done, Done, and Done. The Legend was the hardest running-related thing I've ever done. The Warrior was a blast, and the Martian was where I did my first half.

There was also some nonsense goal I added late in the game about running a double loop of the Crim course, but that never happened either.  Still, I said it, and it didn't happen.  All in all 2011 was a major success for me though.  It was such a success, in fact, that I'm worried about being able to top it.  That will be what I want to do this year, though.

So here we go.

2012 Running Goals


1)  A Marathon.

...and that's it.  Done.  Anything else I do this year will be gravy, or be done in the name and vein of getting the 26.2.  Every pound taken off, every mile I log, every race I run, and many many other things will be what I do will be to get there.  Don't believe it?  I haven't eaten poorly since New Year's Day.  Don't believe that because I took a picture with the Big Boy on the 2nd?  I did salad bar!

I've already had to reel myself back in a bit because I was overdoing it and my weight was dropping like a stone the past week.  It's probably not healthy going that fast.  It's not that I was starving myself or anything, but probably the worst thing I ate was a vegetarian stuffed pepper.

I got all crazy yesterday and a had a bagel and a root beer, and today I actually had some mashed potatoes.  Still though, even with that, I'm maintaining a very controlled calorie altitude.  Needless to say the fat Friday call-out blogs may be fragged.  Besides, I'm guessing there was some sort of subconscious motivation for me to screw up big and have something to write about.  I'll still call myself out, but there won't be anymore laughing at myself about failures.  There are plenty of other things about me to laugh at.  Besides, this is a running blog, not Brent vs. Food.

I also have a few goals outside of running that I don't mind sharing.

The Twelves of Twelve (Resolutions)


1)  Pick 12 things of social importance that I've had limited exposure to, but decided I didn't like and immerse myself in each of them for 1 month.  The idea is to reopen my mind to a few things I've dismissed too quickly.  I'm not planning on doing my version of Fear Factor and tackling major fears or eating foods I think are disgusting, but all else is fair game.  I've turned to my wife and friends for help, and I'm hoping I come up with twelve things large enough in scope, especially things that are potentially life-enriching.  Upon telling my wife this, she shrieked "Harry Potter" immediately.  It is a phenomenon, and there are enough books and movies to keep me tied up for at least a month.  It fits the bill.  I don't have 12 yet, and I haven't received as many suggestions as I anticipated.  Apparently I'm not as rigid as I judge myself to be.

2)  Learn 12 new recipes (1/month).  We both can cook.  There's plenty of meal variety in this house, but every time I add another meal, it gives us another option that we might just be in the mood for.

3)  Do 12 home improvements (1/month).  Whether I do it, pay for it, or just add something to the place to make it better I want to do one thing a month on average.  It doesn't need to be anything major, just something.

4)  Try 12 new restaurants (1/month).  There are not a lot of really good restaurants around here I have not eaten at.  This may be a slight challenge, especially if I'm trying to eat halfway decent.

I have a few other resolutions, but they're mostly the boring things you see everywhere like:  do better at work, get more sleep, finally beat Metroid Prime 2.  You know, stuff everyone has on their list, and will forget about.  As far as the other ones.  There they are.  They're public knowledge now (ok, maybe just a small sliver of the public).  The marathon is scary to me.  The furthest I think I've run is about 15-16 miles, and setting it up as the singular goal is setting up an entire year to be a pass/fail venture.  I need to do it now, though; not because Maya Angelou's poetry calendar is supposed to kill us all in December, but because it's time and life's only going to get more complicated.

I know there are those of you out there running in the morning before you wake up your kids, running through health issues, and overcoming all kinds of odds to find time to get out there and do it.  Knowing you are out there and reading your blogs is massively inspirational to me, but I'm not you (at least not yet) and I'm pretty sure I can't hack that.  I'm just not that awesome.

Volksläufe Part II

First off let me say that my race preparation during the prior day of any race is not exactly commendable.  I was pretty good in setting everything out for the next morning, but as far as eating right, resting, hydrating, and getting a good night's sleep, those things never seem to happen. 

My Sunday plan was as follows:  go to church early, hang out with family and friends for a couple hours, go to Frankenmuth for the race expo, pick up my packet, have a nice spaghetti dinner, come home early, relax while drinking lots of water, and go to bed about 10pm.

However it went much more like this:  church at noon, family cook-out till 3:00 (but missed most of the food which wasn't cooked yet), rush back home to meet my friends at my place, watch Tigers game, fiance goes to Frankenmuth for fun and fireworks without me because my friends just want to sit and hang out, watch multiple episodes of "The Good Guys" with them on Netflix until about 10:30 (all the while drinking Labatts and eating pizza and wings from Wizeguys), clean up the man mess and finish laundry, wait until my fiance gets home, yadda yadda yadda, go to sleep at 2:30am.

I tried my best to get a little water in before I went to bed, but that's just not the way to prep for races.  I really am taking a lot of them lightly these days.  I don't have this overwhelming sensation that I'm biting off more than I can chew, and it's to the point where any distance I run just doesn't scare me anymore.  Of course this can all flip around with a tight muscle before the start, but so far I haven't had too many barriers stop me from running at least what I consider a respectable race.  Even this past week after the Solstice Run I didn't run a bit until Saturday with Jason, where we both took it easy.  Of course work caused that on my end, a bit, but I should have forced myself out during the waning hours of the day for at least one weekday run.

Where most good trips to Frankenmuth start.  The big permanent "tent."

For the Volksläufe this year, I decided to step up with the big boys and girls (or is it little, because they're actually smaller) to run the 20K.  Last year we did the 5K, and we ate pancakes before and had a beer after, but my friend and I weren't so sure that would be the way to go with the extended distance.  We ended up splitting on that decision, and I got myself a stack of pancakes before the race.  Jason opted out of them.  I figured it was a good way to spit in the face of the long race and just tempt it to give me a big side cramp or possibly a nice spew halfway through.  Like I said, I'm getting bold and reckless when it comes to these races, which just makes me think more and more I need to get pimp-slapped by a marathon at some point.

After the pancakes we made our way to the start and wondered where everyone was, only to find out the 10K and 20K started a little west of the 5K, and realized we were getting really close to race time.  In fact we were lucky the 10K started at 8:00 and we were at 8:10, because we barely made it in time to see the 10Kers off and to get in some last minute stretching after the national anthem.  With the race actually on the 4th this year, there were a lot of folks dressed in red, white, and blue (myself included, but much more modestly). 

Where we were

Where we should have been

After the 10Kers vacated and I watched my coworker come running behind them, because he likely did exactly what we did, we lined up on the grass for the start.  It was hot and bright out, and I just realized I forgot to put on sunscreen, but at least I had my sunglasses this time.  The cannon went off for the race, and after the initial jump we all had, we began to run.  I immediately started sweating and, having never used my sunglasses in a run before, found out immediately that radiating body moisture and tinted glass don't work all that well together.  I needed some wipers on the inside, so for the time being it was goodbye to the dark realm and hello lots of squinting.

About 2 miles in a small plane went directly over the road we were on, only a bit above power line high, landing on the other side of the road at "Tiny" Zehnder Field Airport.  It was a nice little unintentional race touch to keep us all from being bored with the flat open roads we were on for the first half of the race.  That's all it was too, open roads near farm land without any shade or anything else.  You'll get that in a lot of the long races, though, and at least you can see (mostly smell, though) some animals here and there in the distance.  The water stations were set up nicely about every 3 km, and there were a lot of neighbors our with sprinkers and hoses going for us, so I didn't get into many situations where I was wanting for something too much. 

I just kept a nice pace on the front half, and didn't really even push to the point where I'd have to do a lot of mouth-breathing.  Before I knew it I was crossing a sign that said 9km/20km and a bunch of people dressed in Christmas attire, with decorations all over, and confetti coming down from above.  Of course I'm referring to the Bronners people (where it's always Christmas).  During that water stop I somehow managed to get a couple pieces of confetti in my mouth along with my water, and I ended up losing half the water trying to spit out the paper stuck to my tongue.  To the outside observer it may have looked like I was just puking water or something, but luckily I was not really around too many people.  Not that I'm ever all that grace-filled normally, but I'm glad nobody seemed to see that paper/water gulp and gag.  Needless to say I needed the 12km water stop pretty badly when it came around.

It was also about that time that we were hitting more country roads, and I noticed when turning down one that Jason was still there right behind me waiting to strike.  I was kind of surprised he hadn't passed me at this point, but I figured it would be coming.  I also was starting to recognize the route we were on as the Winterläufe route when we hit the bridge, so I knew there were hills to come, and I thought for sure he'd get me then.  Not that I was worried about it, I just figured it was inevitable because he'd beat me so badly before on the Crim and Martian.

I took the hills pretty nicely, though, and I even had the energy to go out of my way to high-five a giant inflatable Sparty with the woman next to me, who must work for MSU in some capacity from what she was saying about them giving her money.  We were going off course, though, and the race official kept waving us back in, but we continued to commit the running foul and went over to Sparty anyway.  About another mile and a half, there was a band playing the chicken dance, and I joined in on that too.  I was officially having too much fun out there.  Jason later said he was thinking "I'm just trying to keep the energy to run, and he's up there chicken dancing and goofing off."  Maybe I got in his head a bit with that, ha ha, because he never did pass me.  He never fell behind, either.  I pulled a small distance ahead early, just after the plane fly-over, and he stayed about that exact distance away the entire time.  I guess there were a few points during water stops where he said he got right behind me, but I pulled ahead because I've now learned to drink and run without stopping.

We finished pretty much back-to-back with late 2:07/early 2:08 times, and started drinking water like a couple of restocking camels.  There was a lot of great stuff there for us.  We had Gatorade, apples, bananas, popsicles, bagels, etc.  It was a nice setup.  At this point I just appreciate getting water right away, anymore, but all that was very impressive.  I had to have a Gatorade after the water, and an apple after that, and a popsicle after that (red,white, and blue bomb pops!  Love it!).

Gatorade.  Are you in it?

 After the initial settling down, we grabbed the camera and some money for a beer.  Jason grabbed a Frankenmuth Pilsner and I had a Frankenmuth Batch 69 (IPA) and sat down for a bit.  Pancakes, Running, and Beer, that's my Volksläufe tradition, and I'm going to keep it that way as long as they have them all.  Of course "tradition" right now is just something I've done twice and think I'll continue to do.  It's tradition the same way an expansion team has "tradition," so I'm not sure it counts for that much yet.  I don't know, I would think all those pancake flavored burps along the 12.4 miles would count for something.

How about you?  Any race traditions you have in general or traditions for a specific race?