‘Carry the Load’ a 50-mile weighted *wog

Day one kickoff of the Carry the Load walk

This Memorial Day — Sunday through Monday — I participated in the Carry the Load event, an overnight walk in support of men and women who have made great sacrifices for community and country.

(A version of this post also was published on Advocatemag.com Monday, May 28.) *Wog, if you didn’t know, is a walk/jog or a jog that is the same pace as a walk.

The ‘Vietnam’ couple at the top of flag hill

A couple of Navy SEALS from Dallas started Carry the Load three years ago. The event, which lasts from afternoon Sunday through noon Memorial Day, began as symbolic effort — a 20-plus hour walk while carrying a weighted pack — to show solidarity with and gratitude for military members and veterans, police, firefighters and their families who have sacrificed lives, body parts, years, etcetera in order to save lives and serve country.

Stephen Holley, co-founder of Carry the Load, flanked by Lake Highlands Exchange Club members Jon Alspaw, Justin Bono, addressed the philanthropic club a few weeks ago about Carry the Load.

The inaugural 2011 walk took place at White Rock Lake, in conjunction with the White Rock Lake Centennial celebrations, and was attended by maybe a hundred people. Attendees could choose to walk any distance during any portion of the 20 hours, or spend the whole 20 hours out there. They may carry a heavy pack or a tiny flag — whatever they wish. Participants this year were encouraged (and rewarded with parking passes, camping access, etc.) for raising $200 or more, but anyone could register for free.

The Young Marines group treks the Katy Trail

By its second year, the event had gained popularity, moved to Reverchon Park and the Katy Trail and secured more money for various worthy organizations.

This year, I contemplated participating, because I have several family members who are military vets, cops and firefighters.

After interviewing, for a story, Mark Barnett of Lake Highlands CrossFit who was putting a White Rock area team together, I became even more interested. But I had recently suffered a running injury and wasn’t confident about walking a long distance.

Then, my grandfather Tom Hughes, a WWII veteran — who served with the elite Carlson’s Raiders, who came so close to death on Guadalcanal that he was dropped onto a pile of dead bodies, and who received the Purple Heart Award — died, a few weeks ago, at age 89.

Remembrance wall at Reverchon park, courtesy Facebook/Carrytheload

The next week, we held a military internment at the National Cemetery and I saw how much the ceremony with the color guard, gun salute and bugle-rendition of Taps meant to my pops — a Vietnam veteran — so I decided I needed to Carry the Load this year. The gesture, I felt, would mean a lot to my dad my family.

I signed up a week before the event and raised $401 dollars from friends (my running buddies, of course) and relatives. I promised on my ‘fundraising page’ that I would traverse a mile for every ten dollars raised. That meant I had to walk 40 miles (on an injured foot and no training in more than a month). I was not prepared for that. But I would do my best.

When I arrived at Reverchon Park in Turtle Creek Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t believe the crowd. There were thousands of people here: Soldiers dressed in full long-sleeved fatigues and combat boots carrying huge backpacks (it was 90 degrees), firefighters carrying massive hoses and heavy gear, people with obvious injuries from IEDs and fire (one man walked hours painfully slowly on crutches), parents with children, a sweet-but-tough couple with matching “Vietnam Vet”/”Vietnam Wife” T-shirts (they covered the first seven-mile loop while stopping for cigarette break or two) — a vast array of people came, and it was beyond the sort of attendance this event has seen in years past.  Funds raised this year totaled $1,073, 390.

Marathoners: a ‘very special breed’

When several of my running buddies were racing the Boston Marathon on Patriots Day, I was holed up in my office following and writing about a breaking local story — a car chase through Dallas. Earlier in the day I had been curt to Lauren, our marketing director, who wanted to discuss a dozen things for which I didn’t have time. I told her about my pressing deadlines and asked her to shut my door on her way out (code for don’t come back; I don’t have time). A little after lunch Lauren knocked and peeked inside my door. “I know you are busy. But there was a bomb at the Boston marathon. Did you know? I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

What.

What was she saying. A bomb scare, probably. A bomb threat, I thought. Probably.

O my god. Thank you, Lauren, for telling me. And I meant it.

I open Facebook. I see one of my running friends James and his wife Jenny. They are smiling and he is wearing the yellow lanyard, a finisher medal resting on his chest. Maybe it’s not real. They look fine.

I go to my running group’s page.

 

Andre: News just said explosions at Boston marathon. Conflicting reports of what is going on. Is everyone ok??

Meredith: Kristi and Haakon are ok. Waiting to hear from the others.

Meredith: Brally is ok.

Julie: Spareribs LaMothe hasn’t crossed the finish yet … looks like the finish line is shut down.

Meredith: Ann Marie is ok.

Stephanie: Little brent and his mom are ok

Kevin: Steve is fine. Just texted.

This goes on for hours.

At a desk, computer, I know more about what is going on there than those at the marathon know. One friend messages that he heard there was a bomb. But he’s not sure. He hopes it’s just a rumor.

I already know it was. I saw some of the first photos posted online. Some of those photos have been removed now. Blood. Flesh. Tears. Limbs detached from bodies. Hell.

I sat mesmerized in front of the television most of that night. For years, any mention of the Boston Marathon or really any marathon had sent a surge of excitement through me. That night I head the word a hundred times and each churned my stomach.

Our friends who finished the race — some of whom had stellar, mind-blowing performances, didn’t even talk about such things for days, weeks. Instead they talked about the bizarre sight of runners sprinting away from the finish line. For a while, the things that normally are important didn’t matter.

By the next day the numbness turned to mobilization — our running club, White Rock Running Co-op (led by Chris Stratton), immediately raised $1,500 to send to the One Fund, and all the groups in Dallas joined together for moral support.

Runners around the world did the same.

I sat in my car the the next day and listened to the interfaith prayer service attended by President Obama. I don’t go to church and I do not subscribe to a religion. But like many, when plunged into despair or when I can’t make sense of things, I look to the supernatural. Call it God, or a higher power or the collective consciousness of good or whatever — the only way to treat senseless evil is with a power that, while illogical, I can feel. And then I know — as surely as I know there is misery —that there is good and that it is stronger.

Though our president, a great orator, addressed the crowds, the words that really touched me — the ones that alleviated that sinking feeling — came from a minister named Nancy S. Taylor.

It was a relatively short prayer and I thankfully found the transcript on CNN.com:

Located at the finish line of the Boston marathon, Old South Church in Boston has developed over the years a ministry to marathoners. And I’m here to tell you that they are a special – very special – breed. They are built of sturdy stuff. 
As we do every year on Marathon Sunday, the day before the marathon, we invite the athletes to worship. And they come in the hundreds. And during the service, we ask them to stand. And we raise a forest of arms in blessing over them. And in the words of the Prophet Isaiah, we supercharge them, saying “may you run and not grow weary, may you walk and not faint.” 

This year in the midst of it all, in the midst of a joy-filled, peace- filled, international competition unlike any other – explosions, chaos, terror. 

And from the church’s tower, this is what I saw that day. I saw people run toward, not away from, toward the explosions. Toward the chaos. The mayhem. Toward the danger. Making of their own bodies sacraments of mercy. 

In the minutes and hours that followed I saw with my own eyes good Samaritans taking off their coats and their shirts and wrapping them around athletes who were shivering, quaking with cold and whose limbs were stiffening. Good Samaritans who fed, clothed and sheltered runners and families, assisted families, shared their cell phones, opened homes and stores, and not least, guided strangers through Boston’s cow paths. 

Today, from our tower overlooking the finish line, we continue to fly our three marathon banners. Today we fly them first in memory of those whose lives were taken that day. And second, we fly them with prayers for those who were harmed and those who grieve, for there is still much, much pain in the world today. And we are very far from being healed. 

And we fly them also in thanksgiving for first responders who made of their own bodies sacraments of blessing. 

Here’s what I know today. We are shaken, but we are not forsaken. Another’s hate will not make of us haters. Another’s cruelty will only redouble our mercy. Amen. 

Book recommendation: “The Art of Fielding”

Some people will never know what it is like to fall in love with a sport. But those who have experienced it share a bond not unlike the bonds shared by men who have fought the same war. As in any love affair, sport love offers the potential for great joy and profound heartbreak.

“[This is what makes a] story so epic: the player, the hero, had to suffer mightily en route to his final triumph … people loved to suffer, as long as the suffering made sense. Everybody suffered. The key was to choose the form of your suffering. Most people couldn’t do this alone; they needed a coach. A good coach made you suffer in a way that suited you. A bad coach made everyone suffer in the same way, and so was more like a torturer.”

These are the thoughts of one of the characters in “The Art of Fielding” by Chad Harbach.

My husband, a baseball fan, received this book at Christmas from a fellow sports junkie. I let it sit on a shelf for months because I thought it was just some book about baseball, a sport with which I feel no remarkable connection.

Then one day I picked it up and read the back, which had praise from Jonathan Franzen, one of my favorite authors, and so I started reading.

I shortly realized I was consuming a jewel.

The story — while orbiting a college baseball team, its prodigy fielder and his mentor —is not about baseball. It’s about an athlete. It’s about love and friendship. It’s about exploration and coming of age at both young and old ages. It’s about being in a slump. It’s about when the performance means little to the world but everything to you …

“Baseball — what a boring game! One player threw the ball, another caught it, a third held a bat. Everyone else stood around.” (Another quote from the book).

Admittedly, I have felt this way. However, I have always sensed something special about baseball. The nostalgia. The ritual. I have compared someone who doesn’t appreciate baseball watching baseball to someone who is not Catholic watching Catholic mass.

In mass, the players are chanting, standing and kneeling and the congregation follows and understands the magnitude of the ceremony. You go to church every Sunday and holy day of obligation—no exceptions. You learn how to respond to the priest during a ceremony—when to sit, kneel or stand, receive the Eucharist … For those who get it, great miracles are occurring. But for the outsider, it is bland and confusing.

That’s me watching baseball. I am an uninvested outsider. Like it’s something I should have been born into appreciating, but since I wasn’t, I am doomed to feel like an outsider. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate that, to the sport’s aficionados, miracles are happening. And that is all one really needs to understand in order to appreciate The Art of Fielding.

All of those feelings devout Catholics have about mass and baseball lovers have about the game, I have about my sport. My recent stories of friendship, success and failure, adventure and exploration revolve around running.

I understand at my core about the strange need to suffer and hope against hope that all that suffering is en route to some triumph. It is likely that any athlete who loves any sport feels the same way. And that is one of the things that makes this book so gripping.

Henry, the young baseball prodigy — he goes through some things. Some mental torture. Some internal breakage. And when he’s feeling it, he runs and runs hard. Runs up and down bleachers. Runs sprint repeats. Runs until it hurts. Runs until he pukes.

I get that, Henry. I get it.

In the story, Henry’s love of the game, his mentor’s love of him, romantic love experienced among characters all are treated equally. I love that I loved this book.

Moving on: speed focus ends and marathon-training begins

Moving on: the good fun speed work and short race period is coming to an end and it’s time to ramp up the miles.

So, here’s the deal: following the White Rock Dallas Marathon I took a couple weeks very easy. Then I got the flu. Kept running. Got the flu — the for real flu and was in bed for a week. Things got off to a rough start, but sometime in January, I began my training for the May 5 Vancouver Marathon (which also is my spring break and summer vacation rolled into one).

Form Follows Fitness 5k

I started off, to put it simply, by training for a 5k and training for a 10k.

Until recently, I could not break 20 minutes in a 5k, early in the season I ran a 19:32 on a net downhill course. Two weeks ago I ran a 19:17 at the Form Follows Fitness 5k, which ended with a crazy uphill stretch. This, by the way, was a fun February race through downtown that ended at the aesthetically pleasing Woodall bridge park.

Trinity bridge opened for the Trinity Levee 10k.

Last season’s 10k PR, under this same type of training was a satisfying 41:49. Last weekend at the Trinity Levee 10k, my official time was 40:45. Either the course was a bit long or I did a bad job of running tangents, because by my Garmin, my slowest mile was 6:30 and all except one was 6:24-6:26.  Anyway, I plan to run another 10k in a couple of weeks to see if I can break 40, which is the goal.

Early on in this training, end of January, I ran a 1:29:04 at the 3M half marathon. Next month I hope to, and feel that with good weather I can, break 1:28 in the half.

I registered yesterday for the Fairview half marathon.

Here’s what my training looked like leading up to the 5 and 10ks:

Monday: Track — 12x400s or 12×800 or 6×1600, something like that. These are always very tough. Sometimes I don’t sleep Sundays just thinking about how much they hurt.  Like 5:50-minute miles or 82-second 400s. Often I could not hit the prescribed pace, but I tried my damnedest.

Tuesday-Wednesday: 1 hour at 156 heart rate (7:20-8:20 minute mile)

Thursday: speed play — 6 x 6 minutes at a 6:15 pace or something similar

Friday-Sat: 1 hour at 156 heart rate

Sunday: 1 hour at 138 heart rate, a very easy recovery run

No off days.

As I get closer to marathon day, the training will look more like this:

Monday: 1-hour run at 138 heart rate in the am/repeat at night

Tuesday: 1-hour run at 138 heart rate/rest or repeat at night

Wednesday: 15 minute warm up, 60-90 minutes at goal marathon pace (7:00-7:15), 15-minute cool down or a longer speed workout such as 3×12 minutes at a 6:10 pace

Thursday-Friday: 1-hour run at 138 heart rate/ repeat at night or rest

Saturday: 15 minute warm up, 60-90 minutes at goal marathon pace, 15 minute cool down

Sunday: 1-hour run at 138 heart rate/ repeat at night or rest

Note: the longest run I do all season is 2 hours I wrote a separate post to explain that.

My goal for the Vancouver Marathon is something like 3:10.

Marathon training: no traditional long run

The longest run I do all season is 2 hours. Very unconventional for marathon training. Last season many of my running buds were very concerned by my lack of 20-mile runs. But I totally trust The Coach who says that traditional long runs are unnecessary and possibly even counterproductive.

(My coach, Eric Rivas, who bases training in his extensive schooling and work in science and exercise physiology, ran the notoriously hot and hilly Big D marathon in 2:46 with no long runs over 15 miles).

Basically, this idea that we need to run 20 came from elites peaking long runs at about two hours, he says. For them, two hours is 20 miles. My training is rooted in the the study, Hans Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome — for a little light reading, here it is. Hans was endocrinologist studying the hormonal response to stress, but the same principals are applied to exercise physiology, Eric says.

Essentially – the idea is simply to stress the body until it reaches fatigue and then the body adapts to the stress.

The 20-22 miler — especially that long run three weeks before the big race — has indeed become a ritual for marathon runners. So relied on is it that it probably provides psychological benefit, but that’s the extent of it. Physically, according to this theory, spreading the stress out across the bulk of training is the better way to adapt (get faster at long distances).

Importantly, not running the long run is by no means an easy way out, because I am adding those miles to every other day of the week. During the peak weeks of marathon training that’s about 80-90 miles a week. Before I do a “long run” of 90-120 minutes, I have 75+ miles on my legs so I am simulating a 20-miler with far less concentrated trauma to my muscles.

Here’s a bigger-picture post about this May 5 marathon training season.

 

For Dallas runners, circling White Rock Lake is a rite of passage

This is part of a full-feature story in the March Advocate magazine about the many wonders of East Dallas’ White Rock Lake:

Full circle

Completing the full circumference of White Rock Lake trail, on foot, is a rite of passage

 

Dave Dozier Photo by Can Türkyilmaz

Drive to the end of Winstead, a winding road west of White Rock Lake, any Saturday morning at about 5:30 and Dave Dozier will flag you down. He assumes you are there to join him for a run. On a dewy winter morning he dons a black tracksuit with reflective stripes and he invites early morning guests, runners and walkers, jovial folks he calls friends, into his home of 50 years — cozy quarters whose décor includes display cases full of medals from White Rock, St. George and Boston marathons, to name a few, hundreds, dating back as far as the 1970s, and collages containing magazine clippings and racing bibs.

An inconspicuous manila folder contains what we came for: certificates for completing, on foot, a full 9.2-mile loop of White Rock Lake.

In his early running days, Dozier says, running all the way around White Rock Lake was something only the most serious runners did.

“Once you ran the loop,” he says, “you were somebody.”

In the 1970s a gang of diehard runners including White Rock Marathon founder Tal Morrison challenged Dave to run all the way around, rather than the couple-mile out-and-back jaunts they had seen him performing at the lake. When he eventually took them up on it, the guys gave him a certificate of completion. It is a tradition Dozier continued, mostly under the radar, long after Morrison and the other old timers stopped running. Recently a local fitness magazine publicized the practice and Dozier got an unprecedented amount of takers. But he doesn’t give these certificates away to just anyone. “You really have to do it. I have to see you. I will run with you,” he says. “And you can’t have done it before.” The certificates are reserved for those running the loop and the distance for the first time ever.

And while the certificate is a neat token of achievement, it really isn’t about the paper. It’s about the camaraderie as runners gather at the starting point. Those who meet at Dozier’s place vary in pace — taking anywhere from 70 minutes to three hours to circle the pond. The wee moments before the jog are for catching up and laughing while Dozier tells everyone to “shut up. My wife is asleep.”

Voices fill the erstwhile silent neighborhood with stories of marathons past. Dozier’s friend Julie Stauble recalls a time Dozier stumbled at the finish line, knocking out his front teeth. Dozier teases the group’s fastest runner, a psychiatrist named Joe Gaspari who is preoccupied with qualifying for the Boston Marathon. “He’s always looking at that watch. Doesn’t he know we are here to have fun?”

It’s about the other lake goers. When Dozier ran the first of his 9,000-some lake loops, he says, there were about eight guys regularly running the lake. On a Saturday morning these days, there are hundreds, maybe a thousand. “I stop and talk a lot. I know everyone out there,” Dozier says.

It’s about the commitment and motivation one feels after hitting that 9.2-mile milestone, says Stauble, who ran a marathon after meeting Dozier and joining his informal running group. She says it changed her life.

“A lot of lives have changed out here,” Dozier says. “And we’ve had people that didn’t fit in in the world, fit in with us.”

It’s about the sense of completion. The circle represents wholeness, unity and infinite possibility, right? But Dozier scoffs at all that philosophical stuff. “It’s just fun. I love this. Running is my way of life.”

If you are interested in meeting Dozier for a run around the lake and, if you make it, a certificate, emaileditor@advocatemag.com.

 

Testing the Spira Stinger 2

Run testing the Spira Stinger 2. Normally run minimalist. Thought these were gimmicky. But I find myself wanting to put these back on day after day. They do indeed seem to put a bit o’ spring in my step.

I ran them by the sports chiro before wearing. He said go ahead and give them a try. I normally wear the Brooks Green Silence. Will post longer-term findings eventually.