For regular readers of this blog, you are used to only descriptions of my races in this space. Rarely do I open up and let you into some of the more deep and intense thoughts in my beady little head about this addiction I call running. This entry is one such diatribe, a little more cerebral, a little more deep. I implore you to suffer through it. It will put all future posts into perspective.

In the fall of 2005 (the beginning of what I affectionately refer to as ‘the modern era’. Hey, how about ‘epoch’ instead? Hmmm….) I started running again after a ~17 year hiatus. Originally I did it to get in shape only, loose some pounds so I could keep up the bad-for-you diet I had come to enjoy and love in my youth and perpetuated into my adulthood. (’Adulthood’ my arse. I am an wiseguy punk who is 37 and has yet to grow up, let be honest here, eh?) At that time I was going through a lot of self realization about my life, what truly made me happy, why I was here, what I was good at (not much!) and what I was not good at (lots!). In my younger days, I was never that great at anything, even running. I never made higher than runner #4 on my high school cross country team, never won a damn thing. That all changed when I started running marathons. A Boston qualifying time my first ever marathon. A marathon win (my first EVER) ~2 years later and three more wins after that. My first ‘double’ (defined as two marathon races in one weekend) was rough, but I have done it twice more with excellent results. I finally found something I could call my self ‘pretty damn good’ at. It only took me 35+ years. So I keep running, jacking up my frequency, running 3:00-3:10 marathons >1/month with no problems whatsoever. When I reach 50 states, I will be one of less than 10 souls to ever do it before age 40. That little fact barely gets a rise out of me. I must be cracked or something.

So here I sit at not quite at a crossroads, but at the sign that says ‘ crossroads ahead’. I now have 34 states of my 50-state-marathon-quest done and unfortunately at this point I just want to get the last 16 over with so I can move on with my next goal, whatever that may be. Because the marathon distance is now ‘easy’ for me, I have to change things up just make it mean more to ME, make them more of a challenge, which is why I do doubles (2 marathons in one weekend). The joy of completely a marathon is now almost minor. I get more out of the fact I knocked off an additional state that the actual completion of a marathon. Is this a step of the addiction process? Once I grow bored with this addiction (plain old marathons) I need something new, a designer drug, so to speak. The last states cannot come fast enough for me and I need to figure out what to do ‘next’.

While I was hanging out in Phoenix on a flight layover, I spend some time looking at those last 16 states, trying to figure out how fast (and cheap) I can knock them off, and I found back-to-back (consecutive weekend)  doubles (two marathons in one weekend) NH and ME the first weekend of October, then UT and OR the second weekend of October. Four states (none of which I have) in 8 days. That is a challenge, and one that I gladly embrace. I know my body could handle it, the mental preparation being the hardest part, so why not do it? It would be a challenge, be prestigious, and I knock out 4 states! Maybe that is what I need to focus on. I now need to try to think outside the box to give me a challenge, something more unique. Sure, this year I am expanding my horizons, running a 24 hour race in April and my first 100 miler in July, but what else? I have thought about attempting to break the world record for ‘fastest marathon while dribbling a basketball’. That would be cool. Other ideas include running across the state of Michigan in 2-4 days. All I know is that a 26.2 mile run is no longer something that brings me great joy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool, and I appreciate that to do that feat is something to be proud of (They say that 0.001% of Americans will ever run a marathon), but I guess I just want more now.

Whoever thought that running 1 or 2 marathons a month, every month just wouldn’t be enough? Who needs a coach. I push myself more than anyone has ever been able to push me. Ever. Now if you excuse me, I need to go get another run in. >:)

My bride-to-be told me about ultra-marathoners who have their toenails permanently removed and I ran accross this nice ESPN.com article.

Ultra Marathoners Loses Toenails on Purposes

I am no going to lie, I am seriously considering this…

UPDATE!!! I now only have 7 toenails. I’m just sayin’..

     So most times when you run a marathon, you get a medal for finishing, no matter what your place. Marathon freaks like me then tend to have quite a collection. People do many different things with theirs, like hanging them on the antlers of a mounted deer head, hang them on a door knob, or even worse, put them in a drawer, but no, not me. See, I am proud of my marathon running. Is not the whole PR tattoo thing telling of that?

    Well, meet Murphy the marathon finisher medal holding sculpture. Murphy ( Marathon Running PHinishers medal) has all my finishers medals epoxy’d to his wood body (3/4″ plywood with alumnimum bar bracing on the back) and my age group awards are epoxy’d to the base. When I built him earlier this fall, I used the finishers medals I had to judge how big I would have to make him. With my huge dreams, I had to make him rather tall (see second picture for size reference)

     In case you were curious, I do think about where to put each medal. The ‘head’ location is very precious. The 4 that are currently there are all significant, including 2 of my marathon wins, Boston, and my very first marathon.

     Let me know what you think!

8 year old girl for size reference:

So a while ago I realized that I seem to be a marathoner. I enjoy the distance much more so than shorter 5 and 10K’s. The mistique of the marathon is what draws me to it I think. People respect the distance and I am good at it so…

Last year I decided to be creative in my personal quest and got a ‘PR’ (personal record) tattoo. Putting my ever diminishing marathon PR on my ankle. To add to it, the words ‘Rejoice! We Conquer! is placed below the numbers. This is in reference to the man whom the marathon is in honor of, Pheidippides, who said those words right before he died.

I set a new PR back in April at the Kentucky Derby Fesitival Marathon and thought about getting my new tattoo then, but I got cocky. I felt great that day and had not really trained specifically for that race. It was just good weather, nice pacers, and me feeling well that resulted in such a great race. I decided to wait a few months to see if I could beat that new PR before I got the tattoo to save me some time and $$ at the tattoo parlor. Well, I still have not broken it, and it was time to get it done.

See, for the first time in 1.5 years, I am actually focusing on a future race. In December, I am running the Rocket City marathon in Alabama. I am actually training for it, following a training schedule and everything. Yes, I am running 4 other marathons between now and then, but those will be treated as long training runs only. December is the attempt. I figured I am not going to break my PR until I get the darn thing put on my ankle, so that is why I finally broke down and did it. As you can see the ‘Rejoice! We Conquer!’ portion looks new, but it is not. When I got the new time placed on, my tattoo guy went over it again as it was starting to fade. We decided to leave the old time to fade, because that was a cool effect. As my PR’s slowly grow up my ankle, the older times fade into the past. Cool symbolism there, eh?

      So here I am, in the middle of a three week span between my 11th and 12th career marathons and I find myself in a strange sort of of identity crisis. (too strong a word, but it seems to fit) You see, I am marathoner.
   Yeah yeah, so is everyone else who runs marathons, what’s the big deal. Well, my running has taken over my life, or at least a good chunk of it. Let’s look at some facts:
  - I have run 11 marathons between June of 2006 and January of 2008, a time of roughly 18 months. 

  - I run 5K races as often as I can, just for the speed training. Of all the work I need to do to become a better marathoner, I detest the ’speed’ work the most. So to properly motivate myself, I run 5K’s because my competiveness will get me through it as a hard ‘fast’ workout. A t-shirt for my speed training? Cool!
  - Here in early February I have registered from my February marathon, my March one, and one in April. I know which marathon I am running in May as well and have a good idea what marathons I am running in June, July and August. If you pressed me, I could tell you what I am running in September, October, November, and December. Remember, this is early February when I write this.
  - I run 50-60 miles a week, every week. At ~8 miles an hour, my running is a 6-8 hour/week part time job. I plan my days around my running. I will run at crazy hours, getting it whenever I can. I have never missed a run because I didn’t have time. I find the time, every day.
- As I pen this blog entry, I have 6 pairs of running shoes, each with some amount of effective ‘life’ left on them.
  - Halfway through writing this blog entry I went and got my bucket of ice water to soak my feet, a ritual I do to cut down on inflammation. I decided to look at my toenails, and in that evaluation, I decided to remove the toenail on the big toe of my right foot. It did not hurt as it had ‘died’ a little while ago. I have lost the toe nail of every one of my ten toes at least twice, each. This fact does not bother me at all. People talk about marathon runners having blackened toenails. I remove the toenails long before they ever get black. I am a trained professional.
  - I will talk about running with anyone who wants to talk about it. It fact, when I tell people that I am a marathoner, they are more impressed with me as a person than when I tell them I am have a Ph.D. in chemistry (I say ‘molecular spectroscopy’ when I want to sound high and mighty) and am currently a college professor. This used to bother me as I busted my arse getting that Ph.D. I left society for the entire 1990’s (graduated High School in 1990, awarded Ph.D. in 1999) to get that title. Anyone can be a marathoner, it just takes some time and dedication, and every marathon has someone who used to be a couch potato and decided to change their life and finish a marathon. Getting a Ph.D. is very hard work, and not everyone could do it, I know that. Yet, people are more ‘wowed’ by my running than by my education. I believe it is an evolutionary construct. For millennia, the human race has praised the physically fit and strong because those individuals are beneficial for perpetuating the species. (You are attracted to the strong and fast because then your kids will be strong and fast, and your kids will be able to go kill the mastodon, etc.)
       Am I obsessed? Addicted? Cracked? I am not sure. My running is not coming between me and my loved ones, they always take precedence. It is one of the healthiest addictions a person could have. I have seen how much I have improved as a runner over the last 2+ years and so my competitive streak feeds on my running. I do well at races, I want to do better, I train harder and run more races. It is a good thing that my ankles can only handle ~60 miles a week (although I am trying to fix that, thank you very much) otherwise I would be running more.
 It is such a good thing that I am a college professor, as it is a flexible enough job that I can plan marathons long in advance because I know my ‘work schedule’ from essentially now until the day I retire.
      You see, I think from now on when someone asks me what I ‘do’, my first response will not be ‘college professor’, it will be ‘marathoner’. After some light conversation I might add that I am not good enough to get endorsements, so I am Ph.D. college Professor so I can pay the bills. But that’s just my day job.