Yesterday’s blog was a bit of a complaint about the crazed zoning here in Florida. So we took the antidote today by going for a run in Starkey Wilderness Park east of New Port Richey.
Sue had a scheduled 1-hour run, but I had run an hour in the heat yesterday and wanted to birdwatch as well. So I packed my binoculars in a backpack and jogged with her for two miles into the woods. While she continued running toward the sun, I slowed to walk and jogged as opportunities to see and hear birds or other creatures came along.
As if on cue, an armadillo popped out of the scrub and sat there looking me in his (or her) armadillo way. But the photo opp was not that inspiring because he was huddled next to a set of gas lines that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.
Sue disappeared up the trail into the rising sun. The woods are beautifully Floridian in Starkey Wilderness, tall pines with low slung palms on the forest floor. The croaking calls of limpkins emerged from the wetlands along the forest floor. Frogs called from the palms 
and a white-tailed kite flew overhead. The small birds got active too. White-eyed vireos and tufted titmouse.
Meanwhile, the trail got busy with runners and cyclists galore. The trail is flat like most of Florida, but the trail is smooth. Triathletes and road cyclists along hummed along through the woods. I picked up jogging again and reached two miles out. That’s where I decided to wait for Sue to come back.
Exactly why I need these natural connections I have never known. But from the time I was a child the woods and waters of this 
world have called me, and I come listen. I’m no longer rabid about it like I once was, but I still love seeing and hearing birds in different environments. I take just as much joy observing a white-eyed vireo singing in the Spanish moss as I do when watching the same species, with a slightly different song inflection, singing in the berry bushes of Illinois. It gives me context to feel these subtle differences, to know I’m in a unique and wild place.
The combination run and bird hike was about my speed. My small set of Vortex binoculars was easy enough to carry inside by backpack buffered by a shirt in the event that mosquitoes were a problem. But it shocked me there were no mosquitoes at all. No insects in fact, were a problem. I could walk 
along listening to the croaking creaking cricketing calls of Virginia rails singing from the black water swamps on both sides of the trail.
Sue arrived back in good stead, accompanied by a pack of chatty runners. We let them pass us by and trotted the last two miles back to the parking lot. But we both really needed a bathroom and I ran ahead because I really, really needed a bathroom.
And once we’d both taken care of that business, we went to find our car on the mile-long loop around the park edge. There we met a woman with her American bulldogs and a pair of Pomeranians. They gave us a nice greeting, and the dogs were so well-behaved I could not resist 
bending down into Dogland to get some doghugs.
Often you go for one experience and wind up with a bonus of some sort. That’s what I’ve always loved about running and riding. Getting out into the wilderness for a run is just the best.
And the day was just beginning.
It’s a 2.5 hour flight from Chicago to Tampa. Far shorter than the drive through Kentucky and all parts in between. My fiance and her family drove the distance. I waited until Wednesday to fly. That’s called the Rosie Ruiz. Look it up.
The Hulkster can relax. He fits right in with Surf Life clutter that includes the worst commercial zoning practices invented by the human race. Drive any main strip in Florida and you’ll find what amounts to a low-slung apocalypse of retail and service businesses. The mind grows easily confused in such circumstances. Drive-through liposuction centers give way to Adult Bookstores selling crab cakes and fireworks. It’s all an ugly mix of human enterprise framed by an angry background of thunderheads in the distance.
On the drive back to our rental house I tried to pick our the real Florida peeking out between the retail chaos the state seems to adore. There were lines of palm trees and pine plantations. A Parula warbler sang from the tree next to our pools. Fish crows and boat-tailed grackles argued over palm fruits. And come evening we drove to Green Key Preserve to watch the sun set. Beneath the boardwalk, a herd of crabs was wandering over the mangrove and palm little. A Tricolored heron fished near shore. The sun sank in its westerly way and we all smacked n0-see-ums until it was time to go home.
Perhaps that is why so many people feel at home in Florida. Surrounded by ocean on all side but one, Florida is a geological anomaly, flat and not very high above sea level. The Everglades used to be one wide, shallow river delivering rains froms interior to the sea. Hurricanes occasionally rip across the state leveling trees and houses alike. It seems as if nature is perpetually trying to cleanse the state.
There’s one fact about the anole this description does not address specifically. Anoles are cold-blooded. That means they love hot weather, bask in the sun for energy and thrive on days when people who run and ride are forced inside to avoid sweating to death. It’s fascinating to realize how opposite the anole is from a human being. We assume that we own and rule this place called Florida. Yet we can swim and run and ride and never be as well-adapted, agile and evolved as a simply little green anole.
Most of us in this world do not work like that. The results of our labors are typically deferred somehow. In the field of marketing where I work, you can sometimes wait weeks for your work to appear on a new website, or for results to come in from your A/B email testing.
Yet there’s one place in this world where people really do live in the moment. When we run, ride or swim, there is a direct connection with the world. We can feel our footsteps. Hear our breathing. Witness the roll of tires on road. Feel the water.
When the event is done and you wind down from the pressing fatigue and breathlessness of hard effort, your mind takes on a different chemical makeup. This is true in both training and racing. Our minds crave this kind of engagement. It strokes away depression and anxiety even while it challenges our ability to tolerate physical and even emotional pain. This is the yin and yang of everyday existence, compressed. This is your moment.
At the age of ten years old, I was determined to learn the art of spinning a basketball on my finger. My hero was Pistol Pete Maravich and I wanted to do everything he could do. So I spent a few hours experimenting how to get the ball up and spinning. At first, it would teeter and fall off right away. But within a couple hours, there was progress.
I was a runner before Runner’s World existed. We welcomed the magazine, which long ago joined the likes of Track&Field News, the “Bible of the Sport”, which offered no training tips or advice. Runner’s World rushed into that niche along with early coverage of road races and even publication of local results.
oup of talented (29:00 to 30:30 in the 10K distance runners) showed how the faster guys get stronger and faster. We ran 20-milers at a slow rate, from 7:30 to 8:30 per mile for 17 miles, and then ran the last three miles at 5:00 – 5:30 pace. Talk about teaching your body how to respond when tired! More runners should do workouts in that structure, and triathletes too. Forget about those stupid brick runs you do. Go long and slow, and then finish hard. Race pace hard. Running slow brick runs at the end of a long bike ride doesn’t really help you either. Better to get off your bike and do two miles all out than plod along until you feel better. That’s just self-congratulatory. It tells you nothing and does even less for your ability to perform in a race.
class runners to back-of-the-packers sees a steady decline in race times after the age of 40 means you do have to adjust your expectations to some degree. The only exception to this rule is people who don’t start running until the age of 40. Then you might expect improvement for a few years. And then the inevitable starts to happen. You hold your own a year or two, and then it gets tougher and tougher to do workouts you once did, or match the times you once ran or did in triathlon. But don’t beat yourself up about this stuff.
If you’ve ever owned a home or a car, be it new or old, then you know there is no such thing as a house that stays fixed or a car that runs without maintenance. But you can get the impression from all those glossy magazine articles that if you do your strength work and stretching, your body will transform into this Temple of Fitness. But that would be very wrong.
For $160, your shoes should last all year, right? Well sadly, that’s not the case. More money does not lead to shoe longevity. As runners in the 70s, we made a science out of making our shoes last longer than any runner today. We used athletic tape on the heels to keep them from wearing down. We alternated shoes quite frequently too. Having two pairs makes complete sense. But with running shoes priced at $160, it’s too expensive for most runners to use this common sense approach to shoes. So we wear out one pair at a time, and you need to replace them every three months or so.
During a 20-mile ride yesterday I snaked toward the biggest hill in the county through a strong westerly wind. My vow this year is to not worry when the wind is blowing. Stop thinking about speed and concentrate on good pedal stroke. No stomping. No mashing. Smooth round cycles and complete engagement. Ride right through it.
When I got home yesterday to look at the Strava results from that uphill segment, it showed that I’d beaten my previous best time by 10 full seconds up that hill. That’s not insignificant. That segment showed up perhaps 12 times on the app (though I’ve ridden it many more times). My previous best was 1:22, which I’d managed several times, often while climbing in company with other riders.
All of us experience setbacks in training sooner or later. Any number of problems can cause you to miss workouts. That leads to a loss of fitness. Then a drop in performance.
We left from Batavia at 5:00 a.m. to run the Rockford 10k.The drive from Batavia takes about an hour. Of course, we did not anticipate that the entire exit ramp to I-39 into Rockford would be closed for repairs. Nor did we figure that the entire the south side of downtown Rockford would be blocked for construction.
I’m going to say it: this month’s Runner’s World article on the relationship between Nike and Pre felt too much like an advertisement to be ultimately inspiring.
