Training for My First Ultra: The Importance of Staying Busy

Week #3, still came back! (no guarantee on a regular schedule post-class start though ;) Priorities, man.)

I was going to just call this “Don’t just run. You need a life.” but decided to integrate my current training and life. The original title just didn’t fit anymore in my mind.

So, I’ve done this 12-hour race for the past four years starting in 2011 and I freekin love it. It’s like, no matter how much I just didn’t want to run anymore, this race got me off my butt and going again. I’ve run it off crummy training once and still had a ball and did well because it’s on my favorite trails ever! Mentally, it’s cake.

The past four rounds have been with my good running buddy. We take turns running 5K loops for 11.5 hours. Then, for the last half hour, we alternate 800m loops as fast as we can (He’s way faster than me and I totally blame him for me starting this ultra shindig ;) ). It’s a combination of dirt, gravel, asphalt and grass. So, it’s a pretty good balance for me since different muscles get used.

Last year, my running partner and I FINALLY got the course record for a two person team. It took four years of ups and downs at that race to get there. So, we’re finally tackling it on our own this year – 12 hours of straight running the 5K loop and then a half hour of those 800s. I can’t freekin wait.

In the meantime, I’m just upping the miles over the next month or so. I was hovering around 120/week before the breathing thing. Then dropped to zilch for two weeks to figure that out and fix it. Now I’m back up around 100 for this week aiming for a grand finally of legendary 140 before a short taper to the race. My speed work is basically going to be aimed at the last half hour of the ultra. So, I’m sticking to 800s on repeat forever right now with one track day and then a road/trail mix day due to the different terrains of the race. Yeah, the 800s may be totally on asphalt but I’ll need the balanced strength to get through.

On top of all this, I’m working 40 hours/week and trying to pick up some web dev stuff for some extra dough to cover all the conveniently planned race trips to friend and family locations ;). So, it’s a balance. The old Gmail calendar has stuff down to the minute.

The real kicker is going to be classes starting. I have an orientation and advising appointment on Thursday for summer session to start my second degree in Computer Science with a concentration in Software Engineering. It’s short but it will get everything in order and give me the class layout I’ll be taking over a few years. It will feel so much better to have that organized so it’s one less scheduling thing left undone. It’s all about advanced planning for the fall marathon season. I’ve got time off from work scheduled through September at this point!

I’m much happier being busy though. I thought I hated work for years but it turns out I was just doing the wrong thing. I should have never left engineering school because a crappy degree left me stuck in low-level, brainless work and it was killing me. I just wasn’t mature enough right out of high school to do engineering but I never forgot how much I loved math and programming. It’s a big reason I’m back with computers now in IT en route to engineering again. :) A year off after high school probably would have helped but coming from a city with like a dozen colleges, you’re considered crap if you don’t go right away. Pressure!

The worst job I took had to be web content writing. I was that person who wrote the eHow and Livestrong junk that pointlessly clogs up Google searches – think Runner’s World/Times or Competitor web-based stuff (any web portion of a magazine not requiring a subscription which makes money on ads through page clicks) a.k.a click bait focused on runners and fitness with a side of some tech stuff I did to supplement the running crap (seriously, don’t listen to this junk they make people write for clicks. It’s no bueno and hires anybody who speaks English.) The pay was awful and I think I lost a good number of brain cells and IQ points doing it. Lazy writers in that stuff rationalized it with saying they had been doing it for years and had some appointed title that made it legit. Nah, it was all bull for pennies (that “writers” thought was a lot of money) no matter what article you wrote or edited for the web. Needless to say, I took my name off all that junk. Ugh, if you see something, let me know so I can strip my name off it. SEO writing, random e-books and the like are all aimed at clicks, not quality content. I don’t consider myself “above” things typically, but man, that was a sad, poor, existence. If you want to be a writer, learn how to do it right so the pay and job is real, not the junk that especially one mooch I knew was doing. The writing fit an on/off sober life from what I saw. It wasn’t for those of us who wanted to be a part of society. As I opened with, I’m no writer, I just want to share thoughts. I have a day job and then some that pays better than that crap. Plus, it’s feeding uneducated information to the masses, and that’s not cool. These writer don’t have medical, bio or even exercise science degrees? No. They are just runners who ran..or “Coaches” looking to make some money off writing and people who will believe anything. So, stick to the real pros with actual education backing them up for your own health and safety.

Other than pseudo-writing, I hopped around some office jobs that contained about ten minutes of work in each 8 hour day. I went nuts with boredom for a bit but finally taught myself graphic design and some web dev while at one of them because answering a phone call every few hours was pretty much mental death for me. I HAD to do something and that self-taught knowledge has come in handy for side gigs.

The years of frustration lead to just not wanting to work for a bit. I thought I just wanted to run. The idea sounds great; run when you want, hang out the rest of the day.  Blah blah blah. No boss. No responsibility. Then, I actually got that chance on unemployment for a long time during the recession but it made me so incredibly bored and depressed. Turns out a boring job is better than no job and I learned that the hard way. I started to lose touch with people who had jobs. Instead, I somehow got more connected with a group of runners who basically lived on free handouts. It sucked.

I wasted so much time sitting online talking to other jobless runners that I’ve mentioned in other posts. Only thing was, of that group, I was the only one laid off from a job. The others just chose not to work or couldn’t work due to a criminal history or strange stuff  like self-diagnosed mental illnesses or even worse real untreated mental stuff where they rationalized substance abuse if they couldn’t run it off. They used these things and past running successes as excuses to not have to work and it was very self-entitled. I mean, it was bizarre. I could write a book. As previously mentioned, I let myself be coached by a member of this crowd and took advice from the others too. Last I heard about that one was that this person was picked up by cops and medics while passed out on booze and pills in a national coffee chain within a supermarket way too close to where I live. It hurts to see that such a once smart person and talented runner could quit so hard and not want legit help. I was so down on my jobless self, that that seemed like a good idea at the time to get advice from these types on how to not have to do anything but run. mmmkay. And then the faster I got at running, the more I justified being a bum. Total suckfest.

Finding office work was difficult during the recession, and I just felt like a worthless person struggling to find SOMETHING. I totally understand why people with careers would lose connection with me at that point. I turned into one of the bottom feeder crowd members on unemployment where I didn’t want to make something of my life and used running as a way  to identify who I was. Being encouraged by “runners” who were using Food Stamps, family members, “friends”, and “relationships” to get a free ride was totally unhealthy. I even know a runner woman who was hit and her dog was kicked but she is now still on/off dating and living with with the alcoholic male runner who is the abuser…because he needs her support to survive. I wish she would see that she’s just part of a 20 year cycle of abuse of women. It’s nothing new…but she dropped charges. :/ Alcoholics are the ultimate manipulators. I can’t begin to understand what I was so close to for a bit…in the running world! I thought I was one of them due to my frustration with crummy jobs for so long but I’m not even close. It’s like I was coached by and socializing with Jerry Springer guests – yeah, funny on TV but sad in reality. There’s no reason to take advice from people who have nothing in their lives but still think highly of themselves for some reason – like they’ve got it all figured out and they’ve beat the system. They are not how functional people work. They just learned how to abuse the system.

Now, I understand people who choose to live in the elite running camps or have huge shoe deals needing to spend all their time running but these were people who barely ran – or ran for awhile until substance abuse or injury from eating disorders (both, really) won in their cycle of living well and not-so-well that spans decades. They lived on memories of past race times from years ago or thought their current times warranted not having a job and qualified them to coach others. That’s not fair to the people who are paying to support these runners and feeding them. While one is still getting picked up for passing out on meds and booze in public (seriously) and the rest mooch off family and friends, I left and rebuilt my life after the lay off.

I think I needed to see how bad my life could be if I chose their route so I would know that it’s not for me. It was a wake up call and a huge red flag that I listened to. Before that, I was frustrated and all for  hitting the unemployment “jackpot” so I could just run.  I needed to learn that for some people, it’s easier to blame the world for their problems and use that to rationalize sponging off others. I was in a crowd that wouldn’t take any responsibility for their own actions or place in life and that’s not OK.

Since cutting them off, there’s still been issues, which is scary after finding out some violent history among them due to substance abuse. Needless to say, I avoid it all like the plague now. Thank God for access to locked tracks on some days ;) #collegeperks #itswhoyaknow – Sorry, hashtags; but they really do sum up a thought!

I still find it hard to believe a group like that exists among runners though. I started with great teammates and coaches throughout junior high, high school and college. The short unemployment detour was just sad. I wish I didn’t know how it  was for fallen runners like the ones I found while jobless. What makes some turn so dark and not want to help themselves the right way or get help so they don’t relapse into serious problems again? The coach I had goes months to trick people in to being a financial safety net via coaching or relationships only to relapse into an alcoholic, pill induced dungeon a million times worse. It’s a long cycle that has captured many innocent people…or attracts those in similar states. I’m glad I was smart enough to get out. He wanted to move in with me at one point when he was homeless again but I knew from mutual friends about his history of trashing hotels and apartments he crashed at – including some nasty stuff I don’t want to mention..but….I…should…to …spare…others who know him (ugh, intoxicated urination on conodo carpets, k, I said it). I wish the tricked folks would see it after decades of the same cycle. Life has rough spots, it’s no reason to quit and blame the world…or lash out.

Now I’m back with runners who always had a lot going on in their lives. Running is a hard balance and they mastered it! They have careers and families with kids(!), tons of positive friends; all things that other world hated because they couldn’t have it or didn’t want to work for it. Heck, that group made me think I didn’t want it all…but I totally do! After moving on to good folks, it’s no longer a world of narcissism and deluded thoughts on running skills or life in general. Narcissism is created when you only surround yourself with people who encourage your every thought, good or bad, and that’s what that awful running group was. Now, for me, it is a happy reality with amazing runners. I’m back with the type that got me started in the right direction years ago.

I can’t not work and I especially realized that when I saw what life would be like if I did just the minimum to get by. I love academia too and I can’t wait to get back and pick the cobwebs out of my brain. I need a lot going on in life to make running a real challenge for me.  Almost anybody can run endless miles with no other responsibility in the world if they want to. The real challenge comes with balance and reaching multiple goals in various aspects of life.

So conclusion: Don’t end up a homeless, criminal, mooching fallen runner just because you think you should just be like the self-entitled “running” crowd I bumped into. You can both run and have a normal life full-time; no need to choose one or the other. Live a real life and make running a good part of it.  Do lots of good stuff and keep on being busy! On to ultra #1 of many I hope :D

Run happy. :D