Running
The Chicago Marathon:
Reflections of an insomniac marathoner |
Challenges That Never Materialize | What I Learned
At The Boston Marathon |
The Twin Cities
Marathon | Running and Surviving the
Casablanca 16-km Race | Marrakech
Marathon |
Tataragi Dam Half Marathon |
The Shanghai International Half Marathon
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Photo Coming Soon |
The Chicago Marathon
Reflections of an insomniac marathoner
October 22, 2006
The night before the 29th
Chicago Marathon, I am sitting on a wooden bench with my brother Brian at
a restaurant called Max and Erma’s in the town of Gurnee (an hour north of
the city). Brian finds a server and drops the shocking news that we’ll
require a table of 23 while I impatiently browse through a magazine of
marathon info, waiting for Brian’s wife’s family—all 18 of them—to join us
for a 7 pm dinner. Gurnee is one giant, unimaginative chain store, and the
restaurant, situated in its garish, blinding epicenter was difficult to
locate due to the drizzling rain and homogenous landscape of retail
outlets. But the place is nevertheless a convenient spot for a family
rendez-vous—a halfway point between Chicago and Milwaukee, perfect for
those making the trip north or south in a show of pre-race support and
solidarity.
As a group of servers pushes abandoned tables together into a chain long
enough for royalty, I return to the magazine. A list of tips for a
successful marathon catches my eye. Among the suggestions: 1) eat a large
lunch and small dinner the night before the race for better sleep and to
avoid stomach trouble during the marathon. 2) Attend the pre-race expo on
Friday instead of Saturday in order to properly rest your legs the day
before the Sunday race. 3) Prior to the marathon, run the last three miles
of the course to gain a psychological advantage as you tire at the end of
the actual race. And, finally, 4) arrive at the marathon at least two
hours before start time for obvious reasons. I show the article to Brian
with a sigh: “Well, I’ll be violating every one of those.”
(for the entire story) |
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 Challenges
That Never Materialize
Cross Des Képis 15-16K
November 25, 2005 - Syria
Believe it or not,
the world’s oldest continually inhabited city has no marathon of its
own. It’s not really that surprising once you consider two
undeniable realities: Damascus is far too polluted for regular
training and most Syrians don’t really understand the concept of
running for exercise. Thus, shortly after arrival, I assumed my
racing season was over.
However, in early November, my roommate Romain told me the French
Embassy was sponsoring a race at a military barracks near the
Damascus airport in three weeks time. I’d been limiting my running
to nightly jogs in Tishrin Park three times a week—nocturnal
exercise is a necessity if one intends to avoid the crowds and the
ridicule bare legs inspire in the perpetually pants-wearing
populace—but I jumped at the opportunity to race again. Romain was
sketchy on details, like the race distance and the registration
fees, but we made plans on our narrow apartment balcony as he smoked
Gauloises cigarettes and I stared at the twinkling lights of the
Damascus skyline. But Romain’s sweet words of encouragement finally
closed the deal. “If you race,” he assured me, “I will support you.”
(for entire story)
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Photo Courtesy of
Romain Pingannaud |
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Joel (3rd from right)
Struggling Up Heartbreak Hill at Mile 21 (Photo courtesy of Brage
Anderson) |
What I Learned at the 109th Boston Marathon
Boston Public Garden
Patriot's Day, April 18, 2005, 9 am - Boston, MA
A line of marathoners a quarter mile long waits apprehensively to board a
chain of orange school buses that will shuttle them to the starting line
in the bucolic town of Hopkinton three hours before the start of the 109th
Boston Marathon. "It looks like we're going off to war," a fellow runner
and 10-minute friend named Craig observes as athletes are sectioned off
into groups of 40 and disappear into the buses, never to be seen again.
Craig's wearing a green mugger's cap, white sweats and, like the 21,000
other participants, carrying a dark blue plastic bag filled with clean
clothes he'll wear after the race is over. "Yeah," I reply, "but there are
no wives or children to see them off. No tearful goodbyes." Craig may have
a penchant for hyperbole-we're not going off to fight an actual war with
some media-hyped but imaginary American enemy-but he's right about one
thing: a battle is about to take place and the mood is somber this
morning, as each runner makes a mental note of the rising temperatures and
cloudless sky and lapses into respectful silence, brooding about the
unknowns of the task ahead.
(for entire story) |
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Photo:
Copyright ©
Bradley Hanson |
The Twin Cities Marathon
October 3, 2004 - Minneapolis, MN
I have a question for the more experienced runners in the group: What’s
the secret to running smoothly and efficiently during the last four miles
of a marathon? More weekly mileage? More hill training? Proper fueling
before and during the race? Luck? A combination of the four? Any answer
besides “slow down” is acceptable. Last weekend’s Twin Cities Marathon was
just the third 42-km race of my short running career with a result similar
to the first two: my realistic performance goal of 2:50 was undermined by
a painfully lethargic last few miles.
I was certainly jetlagged after returning from Morocco 10 days earlier and
weakened by a sinus infection I developed in Seattle shortly afterward.
But neither of those minor problems can satisfactorily explain why my
calves suddenly tightened around mile 22 and I was forced to abandon the
6:30-pace I’d maintained until that point.
I know what some of the four-hour plus marathoners in the group are
thinking right now: “Quit whining, rookie! You still ran a personal best
of 2:53:55, finished in 121st place out of 10,300 runners, and qualified
for The Boston Marathon next April. What more do you want?” To which I
would reply: “It is useless to compare myself with other
runners—especially when the best in the world will finish at least 40
minutes ahead of me; I only compete with myself. Every runner simply wants
to know how fast he/she is capable of going, and I feel like I haven’t yet
tapped my full long-distance potential.”
(for entire story) |
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Photo:
Copyright ©
Bradley Hanson |
Running and
Surviving the Casablanca 16-km Race
March 14, 2004 - Morocco
Last month’s 7th Annual Casablanca Marathon and 16km race turned out to be
only 14 kilometers. But this was merely the most innocuous surprise in a
series of surprises that would have been humorous if they hadn’t been so
potentially dangerous.
Registration, however, was far easier than the race itself. I walked to a
dusty 400-meter track near The American Language Center, feeling like an
ant cooking beneath a magnifying glass in the scorching North African sun.
I signed my name on a sheet of paper attached to a brown clipboard, paid
the 20-dirham entrance fee (about $2), and received my number minus the
safety pins needed to attach it to my shirt. Then, I asked for a course
map. The man at registration told me he didn’t have any but that I could
pick one up near the Hotel Suisse—the start of the race, roughly 10
kilometers from where I was standing at that moment. I looked
incredulously at my friend Hind, who had agreed to accompany me just in
case I required a translator. Hind began to complain to the man in French
with an observation: “La competition est très mal organisé” and a lengthy
discussion in Arabic ensued. Eventually, the man turned over a blue folder
he was carrying and drew a map on the back of it to explain the course. I
couldn’t really follow the twists and turns of his pen or the detours of
his speech that frequently wandered between Arabic and French. But I
already knew where the race would begin so I waited impatiently for them
to finish. “Puis-je emprunter ton dessin?” (Can I borrow your drawing?) I
attempted some feeble humor with the artist. He merely shook his head,
misunderstanding the joke—or my French—and Hind and I shared a laugh over
his stiff-lipped seriousness. (for entire story) |
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 Marrakech Marathon
January 18, 2004 - Morocco
A three-hour journey through the night from Casablanca to Marrakech in a
crowded but quiet train car. I try to sleep on a padded orange booth-like
seat discarded from a 1950’s Midwestern diner, my head vibrating against
the glass with the gentle rocking of the train. I’m too sleepy to read.
I’m too sleepy to think. I’m too sleepy to polish the rust off my grade
school French with my trilingual passengers. The train car is warmer than
a womb. I step out into the corridor and stand in front of a large window,
dividing my attention between the reflected movements of the people behind
me and the toy train set lighting of the passing platforms. It’s cooler
and less lonely here. Outside my window, an occasional group of weary
passengers gathers beneath a solitary streetlight. But the stillness of
the night and the absence of human movement are what I find most
captivating. I keep imagining, as I walk up and down the corridor of the
train, that I’ll see a familiar face—a friend I met on one of my travels
and lost again just as easily. I’m alone when I’d like to be among
friends. Tomorrow, in their absence, I will give a three-hour,
42-kilometer performance to an anonymous audience. (for entire story)
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 Tataragi Dam Half
Marathon
July 5, 2003 - Japan
June 1 - Japan in June
is wet-weathered swamp, uncomfortable to those of us with an aversion to
sweating without exercise. So what was I doing running a half marathon at
the beginning of the humid, rainy season? The truth of the matter is that
I found out about all of Japan's temperate spring races-including the
famed Kyoto Half Marathon-at least a week after they happened. I also
discovered, after unsuccessfully registering for an earlier race, the
mystifying rule whereby race registration closes five to six weeks before
race day, discouraging any last-minute spontaneity and no doubt depriving
the race organizers of some much-needed revenue.
I'm a terrible runner in the heat, my body feels sluggish and slow-like a
worm baking on the sidewalk the morning after a downpour-and each training
run feels like my first. But I had worked myself into good shape and was
willing to take my chances in the summer heat in order to experience a
half marathon, Japanese-style. With my American friend Chris helping me
decipher the cryptic katakana on the race form (Japanese has three
different written languages), I registered for the Tataragi Dam Half
Marathon on the second to last day in April, parted with a \3,000 (about
$25), and hoped for favorable weather. (for entire story)
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Photo: Copyright © Bradley Hanson |
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The Shanghai
International Half Marathon
December 11, 2001 - China
The dog days of winter have finally reached Shanghai. For the past 10
days, the city has taken a much needed bath beneath a sky that seems
reluctant to release its rain. In fact, the rain falls so slowly and
quietly that when I look from my apartment window and notice the large
pools of muddy water on the uneven pavement, it appears as though the
water was bubbling up from the ground instead of falling from the sky.
Seattle has stretches of misty rain like this. But the colorless apartment
buildings, the half-finished houses, and people bent beneath their
umbrellas as though shouldering invisible burdens and milling about the
streets with nothing to do and all day to do it give Shanghai rainstorms a
depressing quality I've never felt in Seattle. Rain, however, has never
depressed me, probably because most of the activities I love can be
enjoyed indoors: reading, writing, playing cello or dulcimer, and
listening to music. And the "shamanic rain that feeds the imagination," as
Tom Robbins wrote in
Still Life with Woodpecker, creates an ever-changing inspirational
backdrop for these activities.
However, there's one activity I like to do outdoors during soft
rainstorms: run races. (for entire story)
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