(I’m a member of the Running Fools board over on The Motley Fool, and when I started running again they were the ones I went to to talk about it. I’ve made it a point to do race reports after my events … and I’m going to be posting those throwback reports here to get us up-to-date. This was my third 5K, in Harrison, NY. This report was written in May, 2013.)
As of my last RR, my next scheduled race was the 10K in June. However, I got to reading old posts on the board and came across the discussion of prime13’s streak of running in an event every month for 10 years. Now, I’ve got no crazy illusions that I’ll ever have a streak like that – but if I didn’t run something in May then I’d have removed the option, which was bad. So I looked, and this 5k was about 15 minutes from the house. Done and done.
Pardon the negativity here. It rained this morning, so that sucked. The course was more difficult than I expected – an out-and-back with a loop at the end, and it sure seemed like we spent more time going uphill than downhill for an out-and-back. So that sucked. My training runs had been going very well – almost smooth – but, alas, ‘twas not to be today. My legs felt dead all morning. So that sucked. And the visual clock wasn’t working at the finish line, so I had no idea how I did until I got home and was able to look online. So that sucked. In general, this one sucked more than the others.
BUT … I PR’d by right at 40 seconds, so THAT’S good. I’m happy with progress, that’s for sure. I’m scheduled for my long run tomorrow on the ramp up to the 10K, and I imagine I’ll be doing it pretty slow based on the way I feel right now. And it was cool to get my mileage in on a rainy Saturday in a race, not just slogging through a soggy solo run. So, I’m happy with it, and I’ll be putting all of that negativity behind me.
I’ve gotten better at looking up…
Notes:
1. Really good SWAG for a local $20 5k. Technical shirt, nice water bottle, actually useful coupons – was happy with that. And nice food spread, too – oranges, bananas, yogurt, pastries, bagels, muffins, danishes … good stuff.
2. A lot of the runners were employees at the hospital that was putting on the race, and they had made the race packet pickup available starting Wednesday of this week – so there were a lot of people wearing the race shirt. Which wouldn’t have stood out so much except that these shirts are probably the brightest fluorescent orange I’ve seen in a long time. Just stunningly orange. There was no missing people ahead of us making turns.
3. Designated people at the finish line to yell and “whoo” and say “great job” are awesome. They help.
4. I’m already signed up for races for June, August, September, and October – and I’ve got my eye on a 4K (automatic PR!) in July – so my streak should get to at least 8 straight months. So it begins.
Next up, for real this time: Phillips 10K Trail Run / Walk.
I talked about the bigger picture significance of this event for me here.
First, let’s talk about Ragnar. The easy description is that it is a relay – 12 people run roughly 200 miles in 36 legs. 6 people “live” in one van, and they run the first six legs. The 6 people “living” in van # 2 then take over and run the next six legs. And the vans leapfrog each other like that until the finish line. In this particular Ragnar, our team started in Chattanooga at 9am on Friday and crossed the finish line in Nashville at roughly 3pm on Saturday. They build the legs so that teams can be formed with various levels of experience and speed – each leg is rated “easy” through “very hard”, and there are always one or two runners that have a relatively light load and two or three that have an exceptionally difficult load.
But describing a Ragnar by talking about the logistics is a bit like describing a song or poem by discussing its cadence or rhyme structure. That’s accurate, but doesn’t quite get at the thing.
Ragnar is camping and running and “living” for 30 hours in a small van with people you just met yesterday (or maybe even this morning). Ragnar is cowbells and encouragement and airhorns and pulling over every chance you get – and not just for your team, but for all the teams.
Ragnar is a shooting star during your 3.5 miler at 3am.
Ragnar is running and logistics and craziness – but Ragnar is also an experience and a memory. And what an experience.
At Exchange #6, waiting on Van #1
So … when I committed to do this I had run about zero miles. Pretty much exactly zero miles. So I got the “newbie runner” position – I’d been working towards a total of about 10.5 miles in three legs measuring roughly 4.5, 1.5, & 4.5 miles. And I was very comfortable with that. But about three weeks before the race kicked off, our team (Pants Optional) lost a runner. Since the best options for last minute replacements probably needed to be in that “newbie runner” slot, I agreed to move. And I’m glad I did … but.
My mileage increased to more like 17.5. My first leg was 8.1 miles, and was a total downhill bomb over the first half. In the first 4 miles, I lost about 900 feet in elevation. And while the downhill itself is tough, the bank of the road on the curves was worse. I had to hold back to not just fly down that mountain. And then at the bottom I had another 4 miles through the Tennessee countryside, ending in a town called Cowan. I was runner number 12, so this leg happened during sunset and it was totally dark when I got to the exchange point. And I was ready to be done running.
Comin’ down the mountain on Leg #12
Our van was then off-duty … we then went and ate some dinner at a little Italian place in Cowan, and it was GOOD. And then we drove up to the next major exchange in Tullahoma to wait on the other van. I wound up being “on duty” for a lot of this one, so got pretty much no sleep.
The second leg for me was a 3.5 miler that happened at about 3am. The night was very cold and clear, but the race bible lied. Well, not lied exactly. But misled. See – there is an elevation profile for every leg, and this one was no different. But the Ragnar organization puts on races all over the country, in very rugged territory, and they apparently have standardized their scale – which was 0 to 2000 feet. On this leg, with a total elevation change in a 100 foot range, that meant it looked very flat. It wasn’t, however, flat. Much of this one was one of those long, gradual uphill climbs that aren’t steep enough to slow down but never let you coast for a minute. And I just wasn’t prepared for it. Overall, my time was fine – but I was not happy with how this leg went.
Back in the van – I changed out of my clothes, laid down, and don’t remember anything for the next 3 hours or so. The next major exchange was in Franklin, a suburb of Nashville.
When we got rolling again, there was a surprising amount of overall energy in our van. At this point nobody had gotten more than 2 or 3 hours of total sleep – and I’d run nearly 12 miles in the most recent 12 hour period. But, daylight makes things better and we were off again.
I’m not sure where this energy came from…
Leg # 3 for me was also the final leg for the team – and they did a spectacular job of showing off the city of Nashville. We ran the first mile or so near the Belmont campus, and then ran the entire length of Music Row. We then looped around to Bicentennial State Park, ran into Printer’s Alley downtown, and then through the crowds outside the bars and the nightclubs. By this time all of the runners were very spread out, so those people were surely … surely … wondering what the sweaty fat guy was doing trying to run through all of that humanity. And by then I was done – this was a 6 mile leg, and I started alternating runs and walks with a hill at about mile 4. The idea was just to survive, and I survived.
About 200 yards from the finish line the teams all line up and wait for their runners – and then fall in behind them and the whole team crosses the finish line together. It was both cool to see my team, and also a shot in the arm to have all of those other teams there cheering. We crossed the finish line, had our team picture taken, and went straight to the beer tent and the pizza tent. The beer was too hoppy and the pizza was awful.
But it was glorious. I can’t wait until my next Ragnar.
Notes:
– The biggest thing I’ll do differently next time is organize my bag better. I spent just entirely too much time rooting around in my stuff trying to find the right shirt or shorts or socks, or panicking because I couldn’t locate my headlamp or my iPod or my race number. That will need to tighten up.
– Cowbells. Seriously. Cowbells are basically mandatory.
– Three of us staggered to our hotel in Nashville after it was over and got takeout barbeque. After eating until we couldn’t take another bite, we passed out at about 7pm. I don’t remember anything else until 7am the next morning. That was one of the most glorious sleeps that has ever been slept.
– Really cool technical shirt in the SWAG, and the medals are big bottle openers. My medal has already acquired magnets and been permanently placed on the refrigerator. Our team captain had GREAT team shirts printed up, and we also got a stainless steel pint glass with a coozie emblazoned with the Pants Optional logo. Plus I made a stop at the merchandise tent. I LOVE all the stuff I came back with
– Actually gave an “interview” (I put that in quotes because it was more like a recorded conversation) while I was in Chattanooga about taking up running and losing weight. THAT was a pretty awesome experience, about which I’ll have more if and when that ever gets published. That could also come with a big announcement. Fun!
– October event, which means the streak is now up to 8 months. I’ve got races scheduled in November, December, January, February, & March. That will get me to 13. This is still no 10 years, but I’m starting to get attached to this streak.
– Next race – Fall Pier-to-Pier Run/Walk, from the Hermosa Beach Pier to the Manhattan Beach Pier, Los Angeles, California … November 9th.
Photo Taken by Runner # 11 as I was running my first leg…
Last week was a no-weigh-in week because of the travel for the race, and when you stack that on top of travel I was a bit concerned about this. This week has been OK, though my mileage was a bit lower than planned (I think I got a bit aggressive with post-event recovery runs) and the food situation is only “meh”.
HOWEVER – that number went in the correct direction, which is fantastic. I bought a dress shirt today with a neck a full inch smaller than I was wearing a few months ago … and it isn’t even that snug. I’m legitimately too small for many of my clothes. And the mileage is getting ready to slowly start ramping up. So I feel optimistic going into the holidays.
Also – I have lost 54 pounds. I was walking around with the equivalent of 4 or 5 fat babies strapped to my waist. And they’re gone. It’s a remarkable state of affairs.
My long run this morning was scheduled for an easy six miles. Because I missed a day out of the schedule this week, I extended that a bit and did about 7 ¼. Overall felt OK – not great, but OK. No pain, just tired.
Travel again next weekend, but also a 5K next weekend, too. So much going on.
‘Tis the season for giving. And that urge to give, that desire to be helpful in a world that needs it, is a glorious thing, a ray of light in what can be an otherwise bleak world. But here’s the thing. We are VERY BAD at making efficient choices. Inefficiency = waste, and waste = not helping people that need help. So lets boil this down to one sentence:
If you really want to help people who are hungry, don’t give food to food banks, food pantries, or soup kitchens – give them money.
Lets do some math, shall we?
(there is some rounding here – the scale works, regardless of how you round)
That link takes you to dried spaghetti noodles that you purchase by the metric ton. 1 metric ton = 2,204 pounds of spaghetti. And they charge, on average, $700 for that much pasta.
$700 / 2,204lbs = $0.32 per pound.
Now – this link takes you to the cheapest spaghetti noodles I could find available at retail:
Here, you get 24 pounds of spaghetti (which is still an awful lot) for $30.99 with free shipping.
$30.99 / 24lbs = $1.29 per pound.
Now – you won’t be buying a metric ton of spaghetti for donation, but you might buy 24 pounds. And you’ll be doing the equivalent of setting money on fire. Because a food bank WILL buy it by the ton. And that means that if you give them the $30.99 instead of giving it to a retailer, they can buy nearly 4.5 times more food than you can.
If we assume that 1 serving = ½ pound, then you can buy 48 servings with $30.99. They can buy 212. Put another way – for every $30.99 you spend, you’re taking 164 servings of food OUT of the system.
I did this with spaghetti, but it works with just about anything – cereal, canned goods, fresh vegetables, etc. And this is just for direct food purchases – food banks also get matching donations, which scale this up, and they receive food from the USDA for free or very nominal amounts.
And this is for real food, food that addresses nutritional and hunger needs. They don’t need your dusty cans of chili sauce or Rotel. Or your expired food. Or really anything else but your money.
If you simply must give food rather than money, then at least don’t use it as an excuse to clean out your pantry. Go buy new cans, and buy “meal-in-a-can” items. Things like Chef Boyardee products, Campbell’s Chunky Soups, or other items that can be a single meal are the best, because they are the easiest and the least likely to sit and spoil. Think about it this way – if you have no home, and no money for food, how are you going to cook spaghetti and sauce? That’s not how you’ll think. Instead, you’ll take a can of Chef Boyardee Raviolis and put them in a sink full of hot water at the mall, or the Home Depot, or anywhere you can. And then you’ll get something resembling a hot meal, at least.
That’s sad, that people are heating cans of raviolis in public sinks. But it is reality. And we should work with the reality we’re given.
Give, and give generously.
But if we’re smarter about it, we can do more with it.
A Constant State of Hunger 