I ran the Double Peak 10K a few weeks ago. The start line is less than a mile from my house, and the course is on routes I have run hundreds of times. I’ve run the race every year that I have been able to, and it has provided me with a steady downward trending data set.
Numbers aren’t everything, but it’s not often you can see your athletic decline in graphical form. That’s precisely what Strava gives me for the race.
I wanted to write about how my enjoyment of running has grown as I’ve started to slow down, but it hasn’t.
Running relatively fast and pain-free is fun. There is still suffering, but it’s a different kind of suffering than the plodding, heavy footfalls of an out-of-shape runner.
I love this picture. The only reason I keep Facebook is that these memories pop up and make me happy. This was the finish line of the Double Peak 10K 6 years ago. I wasn’t training for this race, but I was fit.
I took 8th that year, and I felt good. Runners will tell you that time and place don’t matter and that you should enjoy where you’re at, but I’m not that evolved. I want that feeling again. The same race this year was slower, and it hurt, and there wasn’t a smile like that at the finish. There is a difference between being happy that you are finished and being happy that you are running.
Welcome to my mid-life running crisis. Did you know you signed up for this group therapy session with me? I know everyone gets slower and ages, and I need to accept this and find different ways to measure success beyond times and placings. I know all this, but I’m not ready to do that yet.
Men’s bathrooms are disgusting places. Half the time, it feels like you are walking through puddles of muddy urine, and I have never understood why we are so bad at aiming. Urinals are enormous, most are the size of a tiny human, and we still can’t aim right.
Most men will recognize this image.
It’s a bee, but it’s more than that. It’s a target.
This image is the product of the omnipresent Sloan Valve Company urinals. It’s simple and genius. Men like to pee on things, so let’s give them something to pee on.
I call it the pee bee and aim for it every time I see that image on the urinal. I don’t think about it, I shoot. No signs say, “Aim for the bee to prevent splash,” but they’re unnecessary. This bee is just sitting there innocently getting drenched in urine, and there’s an R. Kelly joke in there somewhere, but I refuse to make it because this is serious business.
Running used to be a cornerstone of my life, and for the past ten years or so, I’ve been struggling with heel pain caused by bone spurs. Since it hurt to run, I surfed more, and I focused on climbing and yoga. I started mountain biking and recently picked up a new gravel bike. I don’t regret that, and I still run, just slower.
With all of these activities, I feel like I’ve just been spraying my pee all over the floor. I need something to aim at. I don’t know what happens in women’s bathrooms other than I’ve heard some women hover above the toilet with their feet on the toilet seat. What the what?
I thought back to the hardest athletic things I’ve done. It’s a short list that includes Ironman, Boston Marathon, John Muir Trail, and the Canadian Death Race. Those were my bees.
I trained for those challenges. I trained hard and systematically. I suffered, but they were all worth the work. I aimed instead of sprayed.
So, the whole point of this is I’ve got a couple of things I’m aiming for. One is the Belgian Waffle Ride, and the other is the Thunderbolt to Sill Traverse. More on those in future newsletters, but for now I want to put that picture of a bee out there, so I have something to aim at.
To make up for all the bodily fluid fun I just subjected you to, I want to share a few things that have recently helped me deal with injuries. I need to preface this by saying I do the bare minimum. I’m not an optimization kind of person. I don’t have the time, the motivation, or the patience to do all the extra podcasty stuff.
First, mobility, just moving around. It’s harder now, and the injuries don’t heal as fast, or maybe they don’t heal. I have a shoulder one now. It happened while climbing and pulling on it too hard. It’s been months. I figure the least I can do is stretch a little bit, which is what mobility work is. It’s like yoga, but for bros who don’t want to balance the chakras. It’s quick and painless, and I can do it in the gym while I watch my wife lift heavy weights to solidify her place as the badass in our relationship. She’s swinging kettlebells around like pom-poms and throwing medicine balls up against the wall like they’re, well, balls while I’m in my child’s pose, lifting my unweighted arm up and down. Actually, it’s semi-weighted with shame.
Here are a few videos I use that might help your mobility:
Seriously guys, call it yoga.
I like this one for shoulders.
The other thing that has kept me motivated lately is group training. Luckily, I have a couple of good running groups—more on that in future newsletters, including the drunken, delirious fun of the beer mile. As far as riding bikes goes, I do most of that solo unless my buddy Joe reads this and decides to join me in the BWR. He said the email I sent him went to spam. Must be a filter.
Good Aim
Dax.
Mountain biking!! Shoot for the Hihawatha trail on the northern border of Montana and Idaho. It is. 17 mile trail converted from a no old railway line. The view are amazing.
I can totally relate to this post (except the bee target LOL). Love this line: “There is a difference between being happy that you are finished and being happy that you are running.” I recently had an MRI that confirmed the cartilage loss in my knee that I had suspected. Now I know that my knee, and consequently my running, has a shelflife and is not fixable except with a full knee replacement. My target continues to be hardrock and I hope I can do it before the knee gives out. Meanwhile I’m trying to enjoy it for what it is, and I am also doing a lot more mobility. check out the Yoga by Kassandra YouTube channel, that’s my go to. I miss the days of feeling really good and fast finishes, but I still have moments where I’m happy to be out there and finding a flow. Thank you for the therapy session!