Friday Ramble 01/01/21

Each week the Friday Ramble offers training thoughts along with whatever else is going on in my brain: This week: Time for a new direction, non-running goals for 2021, and a newsletter update.

The last time I had a running coach was in high school when I ran cross country. I’ll get into this at a later date, but I quit the team my sophomore year because I was a dumb teenager who did dumb things. I didn’t realize at the time how fortunate I was to have Bob O’Rourke as a coach. 

Mr. O’Rourke is a legend in New Jersey running circles. Not only did he lead our high school to eight state championships, he also mentored dozens of Division I runners including a national champion, and an Olympian. I’m happy to say he’s still going strong and provides daily training updates on his wonderful blog, plus70runner. 

Being a dumb teenager, I didn’t pick up nearly as much as I should have from Mr. O’Rourke, but I retained little bits and pieces that I applied to my running as an adult. Simple things like trying to peak for races and varying the intensity of training runs were staples of his program. Even though I sometimes struggle to apply them in practice, those concepts were ingrained in me from an early age. 

Just about everything else I’ve learned on my own, either through my experience or things I’ve read. I’m proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish, but it’s time to leave the comfort zone I’ve created and test my limits. So, I’ve decided to hire a coach. 

If you’ve been following my writing for a while, you may have heard of Avery Collins. I wrote two separate features about him (you can read those here and here) and detailed the day he took me up my first Colorado mountain peak. He’s not only an elite ultra runner and badass backcountry snowboarder, he’s also a wonderful guy with a huge heart who’s been more than generous with his time and insight over the years. 

The Devil’s Causeway.

Ever since I met him in the summer of 2017 when that photo was taken, I’ve been absorbing his wit and wisdom through what I call Averyisms. Among the many quotations I take with me on my runs. 

“Power hiking is vital. You’ve got to be really good at power hiking because you get to a point where running makes no sense.”

My first trail running lesson. It’s not walking, it’s power hiking, and that shit is vital! 

“We don’t know what it’s like to hurt. Really hurt. True pain. I want to know what’s possible.”

Avery said this years before running 200+ miles in the Alps on a broken body. That annoying ankle thing bothering me on a training run? Not that big a deal.

“You make your own reality. The more you decide to be positive and believe in that positivity, the better it goes.” 

That’s the one that sticks with me the most. It’s so simple and yet so deceptively difficult. 

I remember when that lesson clicked into place. It was during a 50K in the fall of 2019. At the moment of revelation, about 20ish miles into the race, I had absorbed a half dozen wasp stings and a face plant. This was traditionally the point in my races when negativity would take over. It had happened over and over and I was determined to break the pattern. 

I thought about what Avery had said about making my own reality and for some reason I remembered a line from the movie, Trading Places. 

Looking good, Louis! 

Feeling good, Billy Ray! 

For the rest of the race, I would repeat those lines to myself whenever I started to slide mentally and laugh. Yes, I was tired and sore and hot and my skin was getting mighty irritated from those stings, but I was living in a different universe in my head. I set a PR that day and finished with a smile on my face.

I don’t have a race plan for 2021 as yet, but my goal is still to run a 50-miler. There’s a lot that goes into running that kind of distance. Not just training, but maintenance issues like nutrition and hydration. I know Avery can help me with that part, but so can a lot of coaches. 

What I’m hoping to gain from our partnership is a deeper appreciation for what’s truly possible. I’ll be writing about this journey in the upcoming year, of course, and we’re working on a way to bring Avery’s unique voice and perspective to the newsletter. Stay tuned! 

I mentioned in a previous newsletter that I’m not a big fan of resolutions because the word feels too rigid to me. Don’t get me wrong, resolutions have their place, especially if you’re just getting started and need motivation. If that’s the case, then rock on. Glad to have you onboard. 

At this point, I prefer to set goals instead. They range from the specific -- run a 50-miler -- to the nebulous. Here’s a few non-running goals for 2021:

Goal: Read more books 

I don’t know what happened to me this year, but getting through books was a struggle. I think it was largely because at the end of a long day of zoom schooling, parenting, and trading off blocks of work time with my wife, I was basically a zombie. 

In a weird way, I have to relearn how to read. After spending so many years in digital media absorbing a lot of information quickly, I have to retrain my mind to let the words settle and absorb slowly. 

I’m going to start with Portis: True Grit and Dog of the South. I loved those books when I first read them and can’t remember a damn thing about them. From there, I’ll see where I want to go next but in the back of my mind, I’d really like to read Pynchon. My buddy Eric was kind enough to take the time to send me a Pynchon primer and the least I can do is give it a try. 

Goal: Learn to play guitar

I have a beautiful Martin acoustic that my mom bought for me when I was in college after I swore to her that I’d learn how to play. The guitar traveled with me from New Jersey to grad school in Boston and then to newspaper jobs in Oregon, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. It came with me when I moved back to the Boston area in the summer of 2006 and took up space in various Cambridge apartments. 

I’ve tried to learn to play a few times, but I’ve never been able to develop a consistent practice. So the guitar sits mostly idle in a corner of my office collecting equal parts dust and guilt, along with a broken string. 

I’ve kept it with me all these years in part because of the promise I made to my mother and in part because I’d really like to learn to play guitar. I’m not looking to shred like Yngwie Malmsteen. I just want to learn to strum some simple folk melodies. I’ve made this a goal for the last 25 years and I think it’s high time I get to it. 

Goal: Meditate daily 

Back in the Before Times, I had a meditation routine where I would do 10 minutes of morning mindfulness and another 20-30 minute session after my post-run stretch. I believe that routine helped build up enough mental strength to get through the early days of the pandemic. Nine months later, I can’t believe I used to have that much time. 

Trying to find space for quiet meditation in a house with two other full-time occupants has been one of my bigger COVID challenges. It’s not that they don’t provide the opportunity -- my son likes to close his eyes and say ommmmm whenever I get stressed -- it’s that there’s only so many hours in the day when I’m not engaged with either one of them. 

That’s an excuse, obviously, but I haven’t yet progressed as a meditator to the point where I can simply drop everything and say, ‘It’s time to meditate.’ I like things to be just exactly perfect, from the time of day to the set and setting for my practice. 

My life is better when I make time for meditation, so my goal for this year is to become more flexible with my practice and more open to seeing opportunities when they present themselves. If I only create time for 10 deep breaths, that’s 10 deeper breaths than I would have had otherwise. And if I have 15 minutes before dinner, taking time to meditate is 15 well-spent minutes. 

And finally: A brief update 

Speaking of nebulous goals, my plan when I started this newsletter was to write three times a week. Some weeks that feels easy and other weeks it feels like an impossible chore. For the next month or so I’m going to experiment with publishing twice a week, with a post on Tuesday and the Ramble on Friday. 

I do believe that when/if life returns to something like normalcy then writing three times a week will be the norm. If I’ve learned anything during the pandemic, it’s to take things as they come, so we’ll try twice a week for a while and see how it works.  

The goal for this month is to continue building the subscriber base. As such, the newsletter will continue to be free throughout January. My hope is we’ll attract some new runners who are just beginning their own journeys in the new year, and add some salty vets looking to take their running to another level. 

I love the mix of runners we have and the range of experiences found in the comments. The reaction has been beyond my wildest hopes. Thank you all.  If you know someone who’s into running or would appreciate this kind of community, please invite them to subscribe. 

Here’s to a better year forward for everyone. What are your goals for 2021?