Running for Your Life: Sub-Two Gurus

I kinda don’t know what to think about the Sub2 Project.  Part Two of a story by Jere Longman in the New York Times is below:

 http://nyti.ms/1qriYAo

Science isn’t a passion of mine, but a growing interest. I’m fascinated by the discovery this year of the sound of gravitational waves. Space time. Ripples in the fabric of space.

But when it comes to what it means to be human, my old school brain takes over. Not wild about human gene research, clones, the advent of robots assuming more and more human roles.

What galls me is the idea of strapping measurement gear to a young African boy to benefit those looking to advance the human body to the point that it is a running machine that can do the amazing: Tear-ass around a 26.2-mile marathon course in under two hours. You know, the time it takes middle-aged weekend warrior to run a half-marathon.

I understand that in pushing the human body through more advanced training techniques there likely will be lessons to be learned so that my own training can be improved, which will show up in my results. To run longer, faster, stronger.

That being said, what I suppose bothers me most is the reduction of running as a pure science. That rather than nurture the spirit and mind on a long run, the Sub2 Project leaders see the human body as a means to an end. The machine that gets overhauled so that it runs perhaps faster than it was meant to run. So fast that you don’t notice the cardinal on the branch or even the sun as it sets on the horizon.

Come to think of it, I might just run for my life from the Sub2 Project.

Next: Running for Your Life: Do You Read Newspapers?

Running for Your Life: Shoe Talk

When it comes to running, it took me awhile to be a gear head.

Nevertheless,

• Am Fitbit-less

• No mobile phone with earbuds

• Thirty years of running every other day, in a ratty T, slump shorts, grotty ballcap – wearing shoes until they literally fell apart.

In recent months I’ve learned my lesson on that last point. I can’t say there is any athletic or health benefit to looking slightly more spiffy in T, shorts and cap. But in the past few years I swear by some gear that has kept me running for my life, now in my fifth decade. That’s compression socks (to keep shin splints at bay), patella bands below my knees (to help cushion joint shock) and Brooks Defyance running shoes.

I tried for longer than I should have the neutral strike shoe, Asics Gel Kinsei. The shoe seemed fine at first, but was easily the least durable runner I’ve ever worn, and am firmly convinced that my stubbornness in using them for my usual eight months to a year contributed to all the injuries I suffered last year (primarily Achilles tendonitis, severe knee injury). Now, though, I’m back in Defyance, and the injury threat has fallen into the background.

So here’s the word of caution. If you’ve found a shoe that works for you, stick with it. Oh, and don’t use that sixty year-old body like a thirtysomething. Even if your shoes aren’t showing too much wear, change them at four hundred miles or every eight months, whichever comes first. You won’t be sorry.

Next: Running for Your Life: Sub-Two Gurus 

Running for Your Life: Matt With a Touch of Bobby

How much younger is Penguins goalie Matt Murray now than the incomparable Bobby Orr was when the latter scored The Goal on May 10, 1970? Is it fair to point out that Murray – the clear favorite for Penguin MVP during the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs (if not the tournament favorite) – is from Thunder Bay, a Great Lakes-long drive from Parry Sound, the birthplace of Robert Gordon Orr? Do I jinx the young man by even mentioning how his poise and the aura of sport destiny evoked by his superb goaltending remind me of the great No. 4, arguably the best player that ice hockey enthusiasts have ever seen?

I’ve watched enough of these Murray games to hazard this opinion: There is more than a glimmer of Orr-style fortitude at Matt’s age of 21, just beyond boyhood. He’s 66 days younger than Orr (Murray won’t be 22 until May 25) was when he scored The Goal to clinch the Cup for the Bruins for the first time in 29 years.

It is going to be fun to watch young Murray. If you’re looking for a sports story of the moment to follow, look no further than the Penguins No. 30.

Next: Running for Your Life: Shoe Talk

Running for Your Life: Half Size It

It’s been awhile since I set and accomplished a running goal. Not since summer 2014, when K and I traveled for races in Nova Scotia. She ran the half-marathon and I started my eighth marathon (finished six of them, the last five in a row). Foot and knee injuries kept me out of the running for months last year, and stirred doubts about just how much more long-distance running I could do.

Thankfully, 2016 has been a different story. And while I’ve yet to feel comfortable about getting back to marathon training, the past few weeks have been promising, in terms of returning to one-hour-plus training sessions.

All of which is to say that I am planning to train for a Brooklyn-based half-marathon in October, four days shy of my 61^st birthday. That would be the riverside Bay Ridge Half, out under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

So I’ll be half sizing it, for now. We’ll just see, once this race is done, whether I’ll be going back to supersizing my training regimen. Time will tell, but after more than two years am thrilled to be able to set a running goal that I feel I can reasonably achieve.

Next: Running for Your Life: Shoe Talk

Running for Your Life: Live Tree or Die II

Just because I read this poem by Jean Sprackland in the London Review of Books, April 21, 2016, here’s an eloquent verse version on the above theme:

April

Jean Sprackland

machine of spring with all your levers thrown to max 
clouds in ripped clothes and sheep trailing afterbirth
where last week’s buds sucked blue juice from the dusk
now the branch is swollen     priapic 
cherry bling and hawthorn sex-bed smell
motorway hedgerows on thrust      electric rapefields

your levers are jammed and nothing can pull them back 
not now      not frost       not squall 
city gutters clogged with blossom
muddy ponds spuming with cannibal tadpoles
the long blinding days      your bashed clock 
the violent small hours      magpie clacking at the robin’s nest

and us lying open-eyed all night
breathing in the white noise of pollen
hearing the long bones of the trees stretch and crack
wondering      will you ever power down or is this it now
wondering      what can any death among us mean to you

and will we make it through to summer or is this it now

Next: Running for Your Life: Half Size It