Another Race, This One with Epic Oedipal Implications

My relationship with son #1 has been significantly defined by competition.  Starting with Ken Griffey Jr.'s Homerun on the SNES, we've really enjoyed playing games against each other.  Faithful readers of this blog will recall several posts about this, like when he first beat me at chess (here), when he first beat me running a mile (here), and when I beat him in the first annual CrossFit triathlon--though not out of superior athletic ability (here).  Well, today was the next significant installment of our father-son rivalry at the Grand Rapids Half-Marathon.

I've written before that I have substantially changed from running as my primary form of exercise to CrossFit.  That actually led to my best result in a half marathon last June (recounted here).  So, the plan was to continue that training through the summer and see what it might lead to in a full marathon this fall.  Well, I discovered that it was more difficult for a regimen of pull-ups, burpees, and kettlebell swings to prepare you for 26.2 miles.  I did start building up to some longer runs on the weekends, and two weeks ago thought I might still give the full marathon a try because I ran a pretty good 16 miler.  But son #1 convinced me to stick with the half marathon because he had been doing a little running at college this fall and he wanted to race me.

My good wife had also been preparing for the half, so the three of us got up at 4:30 this morning and drove the two hours up to Grand Rapids.  We've run this several times in previous years, and it is a very well done event.  It was a bit on the brisk side at 8:00am (39 degrees), but it was gorgeous running as the sun rose and shined through the fog on the colorful trees along the river.  My son and I decided to go out with the 8 minute mile group (identified with Billy Baldwin), in order to keep our pace under control at the beginning.  But I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to out-kick him at the end if we were still together, so I thought I'd better push the pace during the middle miles.  So after five miles of 7:45 - 7:55 minutes, I surged and put down several in the 7:20s.  At the time, Casey appeared to be sticking with me just fine, though later he admitted that he was dying and only his loathing of losing to me kept him going.  If I had known that, I might have pushed a little harder, because I felt pretty good... until mile 10.  Then the pace took its toll on me.  We were still together at mile marker 12, but that last mile I could only run a 7:35 while he had a 7:20 left in him.  As he started leaving me behind that last mile, my only hope was that he might take a wrong turn somewhere.  No such luck for me this time.  Youth beats experience.

It was really an epic race.  I'm sure that neither of us would have run close to the times we did on our own.  I was trying hard to beat him, but unlike his feelings on the matter, I don't really mind losing to him all that much.  I feel a certain amount of pride at seeing him win.  I suppose that's the non-symmetric nature of a father-son relationship that gives rise to things like the Oedipus complex.

Speaking of the third member of the Oedipal triangle (though I can't really see how the complex fits here), my aforementioned good wife completed her fifth half-marathon.  She wasn't thrilled with her time, and probably should have stayed with the Oprah pace group rather trying the P-Diddy group (they define their pace groups by celebrities who have run a marathon at that pace).  But she made it, and we're very proud of
her.  Now it is time to eat some ice cream.

1st Annual Pilot CrossFit Triathlon

Today was the big day for which the Pilot CrossFit group had been planning for well over three or four days.  Since we are now pretty adept at situps, burpees, and sumo deadlift high pulls, we figured that a triathlon should be a piece of cake.  So we borrowed some bikes and spandex from people who know about such things, and most of our regulars (plus a couple of extras) convened down at the Lightfoot Ranch this morning at 8am to see what would happen.

Despite the chill in the air and the ominous dark clouds to the west, it was just the kind of weather you hope for when you're about to punish your body.  We pumped some air in the bike tires (and some learned how to shift gears for the first time) and laid out our running gear in the transition zone (a.k.a. the garage for males, inside the house for the female).  The commissioner gave us some final directions (which evidently were not heard by all) and prayed fervently that we'd have a good time and that Lightfoot's liability insurance was paid up.  Then my good wife, who gave up her Saturday morning ritual of sleeping in and being served breakfast in bed (OK, I made up that last part) to be our official timekeeper said "Go!"

The first leg was a swim of four laps around the Mountain Dew bottles that coach had anchored in his pond. Megan the ex-swim team member and Casey the lifeguard made it look easy with their smooth freestyle strokes.  The rest of us doggie-paddled, floated, and even walked where it was shallow enough (though still moving our arms so others would think we were swimming).  Since I had borrowed a nifty triathlon suit that worked for all the events, I was able to pass Ben and Megan in the transition to the bike.  Only Casey was in front of me.  I pumped the pedals as hard as could, hoping to catch him and slipstream behind him going into the wind.  But he was pumping hard too, and evidently his hard pumping is faster than mine.  It was an out-and-back course on County Road 1, so we all got to greet each other either coming or going.  John G. rode along for encouragement to us and entertainment for himself.  Those rolling hills that modern automobiles hardly notice are a bit more significant on a bike.  Clair's wide mountain bike tires didn't serve him too well, and neither did the fact that Mike had his brake on the whole way.  The Matteson men moved up some places on that leg, while Casey and Aaron didn't fare so well.  I could hardly see Casey ahead of me by the last mile, and then when I pulled up to the house to transition to the run I asked, "How far ahead is Casey?"  My question was met with some confusion as the timekeeper answered, "You're the first one here."  Uh oh.  That meant Casey took a wrong turn somewhere.  Since there was only one turn on the whole course, it wasn't too difficult to figure out where.  He added two extra miles to his bike ride, which left me all alone on the run.  Aaron did the same thing, but even after the extra two miles, he wasn't sure where he was and so added some more for good measure.  Wes made the biggest move on the run, perhaps realizing that he may have missed his true calling as a long distance runner.

Good times were had by all.  Mike won the over 55 age division, and Megan dominated the female division. The real fun began with the post-race breakfast of champions (donuts and Jackie's s'more bars), and everyone's rehearsal of all the funny moments.  Being the one of our group who is (only slightly) obsessive about keeping track of the numbers, I reprint here the official timekeeper's ledger for posterity:

                   Swim          Bike          Run           Total
Jim              8:23           41:24        19:06         68:53
Bryce         10:07          42:00        19:14         71:21
Wes            9:08           44:44        17:44         71:36
Steve         10:11           42:20        19:52        72:23
Ben             8:16           44:56        21:08         74:20
Casey          7:15           48:57*      19:54        76:06**
Mike          12:15           48:31       22:42         83:28
Clair           10:19          51:55        23:18         85:32
Megan         6:57           53:23        27:26         87:46
Aaron        12:12           68:30*      DNF          DNF***
John            DNF          46:21        DNF          DNF****

* Wrong turn on the bike, added 2+ miles to the total.
**  Undoubtedly would have been the fastest overall time if not for *, but as we often say in our house: "woulda, coulda, shoulda... didn't."
***After several extra miles on the bike, he jogged out to meet some of the others and turned around with them.
**** John fancies himself more of a mono-athlete and so only rode the bike.

CrossFit for Runners

On Wednesday last week I decided to run the half-marathon in the Sunburst race this weekend in South Bend.  It's a fun race, with about 1500 runners starting at the College Football Hall of Fame downtown and finishing on the 50 yard line of the Notre Dame football field.  Originally I thought I was going to be out of town for son #2's soccer tournament in Indianapolis, but when the schedule came out, it turned out that we didn't need to leave our northern latitude until after noon.  So on Wednesday I went out to run 10 miles to see if I might be ready for a 13.1 mile race.  It felt OK, so I anted up the $65 fee, not really knowing how it would go.  As it turned out, I ran the fastest half-marathon of my life, finishing 12th out of 91 runners in my age group.

Now, this is interesting.  I'm not an elite athlete.  I ran cross country in high school and was nothing spectacular on mediocre teams.  I was an occasional runner for most of my adult years, but then about four or five years ago I started running more seriously as a way to fend off middle age.  I've finished two marathons (crashing pretty bad at the end of both), but I've started training for six of them.  In the other four, my body didn't hold up through the training.  Which brings me to my main topic for the day.  Last October I got injured two weeks before the marathon I had signed up for.  It was a calf injury that came on after a twenty miler, and I had to bail out of the marathon.  In the wake of that experience, I joined the group of guys at Bethel doing CrossFit.  Since then, I've been pretty faithful at doing CrossFit workouts (3 or 4 days per week) and not as faithful running (only 1 or 2 days per week).  I was curious to see how that would affect my running fitness.  Seems to have affected it pretty well.

Three years ago, I ran this same Sunburst half-marathon course in 1:43:03.  According to my running log (which I keep meticulously), in the six weeks leading up to that race, I had run 117 miles, including five runs of 8 miles or more (including two 10s and a 12).  This year I ran the course in 1:39:24, and in the six weeks leading up to it I ran only 71 miles, including only two above 8 miles.  But evidently the CrossFit workouts add something.  These are typically short (less than 15 minutes) workouts at a very high intensity.  There are lots of pushups, pullups, burpees (remember this post), box jumps, and medicine ball tosses (as well as a bunch of screwy things).  And we do Olympic lifts like dead lifts, clean and jerks, and snatches.  The overall philosophy is to emphasize core strength and overall body fitness.  We occasionally do some running as part of the workouts, but it is usually 400m intervals or less.  We did do a 5k a couple of weeks ago, which I gutted out in 21:30 on a fairly hilly course.

I think the core strength and overall fitness helped.  There is probably some benefit in these workouts similar to doing sprints, because we are always in anaerobic territory.  But I suspect that another big benefit has been the practice at pushing myself.  I am a solo runner, but CrossFit is done in community.  That encourages good-natured competition, and pride can often keep you going so that your comrades don't see you quit.  That sort of attitude helps develop the mental side of running.  In the race yesterday, I very consciously kept an easier pace at the beginning because I wanted to be able to push it at the end.  So my first few miles were at 7:50 pace.  But by midway I started pushing a bit more and just kept going.  Mile 13 was my fastest mile at 6:58.  Fun stuff.

There is one other possibility that could account for the good run: my music playlist.  My family thinks it is (more than) a little funny that I often listen to lectures while I run.  But for this one I decided to put together a custom playlist.  It worked pretty well.  I pulled some songs that had a running-themed message, and some worship songs, and some that were just audio assaults that made my legs keep moving.  Here's the list:

Awake my Soul - Mumford and Sons
Here is our King - David Crowder Band
Forget and not Slow Down - Relient K
Farther Along - Josh Garrels
Run for the Prize - Petra
Afterlife - Switchfoot
Carousel - Paper Route
Rawkfist - Thousand Foot Krutch
Alive - P.O.D.
Meant to Live - Switchfoot
Other Side of the World - KT Tunstall
Names that Fell - Zach Williams
Magnificent - U2
O Praise Him - David Crowder Band
Your Love is a Song - Switchfoot
The Cave - Mumford and Sons
Viva la Vida - Coldplay
Mysterious Ways - U2
Smack Down - Thousand Foot Krutch
Comatose - Skillet
Second Wind - Petra
Fire it Up - Thousand Foot Krutch
Rebirthing - Skillet
The Messenjah - P.O.D.
You are my Joy - David Crowder Band
American Dream - Switchfoot

It played out pretty well.  I finished during the second to last song.

I'm already registered for a marathon in October because I was able to defer my entry from last year.  We'll see if this CrossFit and music combination can carry me twice the distance.

Pilot CrossFit Burpee Champ

Ever since I bailed out of running the marathon last October (which occurred during my blogging hiatus, so no account of that traumatic event was given), I've been doing this workout with some guys at school called CrossFit.  This a relatively new workout regimen that has you doing a whole bunch of high intensity exercises as fast as you can.  We do things like pullups and work with tossing a medicine ball; jump rope, kettlebells, situps, and olympic weightlifting (dead lift, cleans, snatch, etc.) are also standard fare.  Typical workouts are less than 15 minutes, but you're going all out, and you're exhausted by the end.  Since I've started doing this four days per week, I've actually gained about 15 pounds over my marathoning weight.  I've never felt stronger or more fit in my life.  There are six or seven different guys that show up to workout, but four of us are there almost every time:  two guys in their fifties, me in my forties, and a young buck in his twenties.

The national movement that is CrossFit has just started its open tryouts for the annual CrossFit Games, which bills itself as the search for the fittest humans on the planet.  The open tryouts consist of completing the workout of the day on video tape and registering your score on the national website.  Then there is some way of verifying it and the top 70 males and females get invited to the big shindig in Los Angeles this summer.  Our CrossFit commissioner thought it would fun for us to do these competition workouts just to see where we stack up.  So today's was to do as many burpees as you can in seven minutes.  A burpee is when you start standing up, drop to the pushup position and let your chest touch the ground, then get back up to a standing position with your arms straight up and jump at least six inches.  Doesn't sound like much, but try doing ten in a row as fast as you can and see how fast your heart is beating.

Anyway, the four regulars of us did these today in two heats, so each person would have a counter/judge to make sure we were doing them accurately (though we didn't have a measurement for the six inch jump and were satisfied with getting our feet off the ground anything over an inch or two).  The first heat went, and I was counting for the young buck.  He's about six foot five and has a physique like Michelangelo's David.  He knocked out 95 of those things in seven minutes.  Then it was my turn, and right beside me was the commissioner, whose favorite exercise is the burpee.  I was hoping that I could keep up with him through about seventy, but didn't have much hope for anything after that.  Well, we got going and stayed neck and neck.  We hit 50 at about three minutes and ten seconds, which was within a second or two of what the young buck had done.  So now I start thinking that maybe we'll make it close to his score.  With about a minute to go, we're at 85 but fading fast and my heart is pounding out of my chest.  I stop for just a few seconds to try to catch a little breath.  The commish keeps going and is now two ahead of me.  But he's slowing down, and with about 15 seconds to go, I catch him and we're on 93.  At the end, we've both finished 96, but I'm just jumping up for 97 while he's still down.  So I get crowned the king of the burpees today.  The young buck accepts defeat graciously, but inside is thinking that he wished he had been doing it at the same time as us, because with heated competition he probably could have summoned two or three more in that time to come out on top.

We were all feeling pretty good, but then later in checking the CrossFit site where people are logging their scores, we see that the leader did 158, and the top 50 are all over 125.  That is incomprehensible!  The Commish takes solace and deserved pride in the fact that among the 50-54 year old crowd, the leaders are at 101.  I hope once I'm in that age bracket that I'll still be able to get off the floor!