Chicago - the most painful marathon I've ever run

Exactly a month plus a day ago, on Oct 7, I ran - or, rather, hobbled - the Chicago marathon. It was my most painful running experience to date, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I have experienced my share of pain in my running days so far. The race could not have been better organized, the hotel could not have been closer to the start, the weather could not have been more perfect. And yet...

There's a lesson to be learned from this experience. Maybe the cliche about the fragility of the body and the triumph of the spirit? Or, maybe, a lesson about perseverance? But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me step back.

Our hotel - Congress Plaza - was overlooking the start and finish area. I took a leisurely stroll in the morning to get to the start. It was the usual hype all around me - excited people of all shapes and colors swarming the baggage area, skipping, running, stretching. As usual, one can distinguish two types: chatters and observers. I was in the second category, standing on the side and watching people chattering endlessly to calm the excitement. Then the call came, we squeezed to our pre-assigned starting corals, the anthem was sang and the siren marked the start.

It was chilly, but sunny day, neither too hot nor too cold, ideal for running. The course was flat, the crowds cheerful, and thousands of runners flowed through the streets of Windy City like a giant river of humanity. It was festive, amazing, inspiring. I forgot the pain in left hamstring which kept me practically immobile for the last 2 weeks. I let the atmosphere inflate my chest and let the legs carry me. I felt like flying, carried along in that current of bodies. It was so effortless that I had to consciously slow myself down. I had no time goal - the injury made me aim to finish, regardless of the time.

Around 16 km mark it happened without warning - my muscle snapped. You know how it usually happens in stories - there's a warning pain which the hero (that would be me) ignores, and the pain grows slowly, until all the hero can do is grind his teeth and continue with superhuman effort... well, that's all bullshit. It doesn't happen like that. One moment I was flying forward, the next there was a knife - no, a bayonet - in the back side of my thigh, the pain so sudden, so crippling that I stumbled and had to hold onto the fence to keep from falling. It all happened next to a medical tent, so in I went. The fantastically helpful first aid staff stretched me, gave me Biofreeze lotion which was supposed to freeze the area and dull the pain, and sent me on my way.

I limped a little. Then I tried to run. The pain was back in a flash, only this time the knife felt double the size. I may have whimpered, I'm certain I moaned. And stopped. And stretched. And limped to the next first aid tent a mile away.

From there, I mostly walked. The pain in the left leg was constant. Not any longer sharp stabbing of a knife, but more a ball of ember searing through the muscle. As I passed the half-way point and realized that I'm at least three hours away from the end, my heart sank. My spirit followed. I looked for the vehicle that can take me to the finish, to take my clothes, lay in bed and pull the cover over the head. I saw another medical tent - they had golf carts there for the quitters - and directed my hobbling self toward it. Then something happened.

All the fast runners were long gone, but a constant tide of slower pokes was streaming by. A man shuffled by me. Bent. Old. He could have been in his 70s. His run was barely faster than my walk - and I was really slow. On the back of his shirt was written in huge letters: "Pain is temporary, quitting is forever." I read it once. Scoffed. Then read it again. The man was so slow, it gave me enough time for the message to sink in. I looked around. There were people big and small, old and young; an amputee with a carbon-prosthetic leg, a blind man with two guides, a guy in a wheelchair. All of them slowly progressed toward the finish line. The man with a sign was almost gone by now. And I thought how nice it would be to get that finisher's medal hung around my neck. I'd like to say that the pain lessened, that a surge of energy carried me on - but that, again, happens only in stories. I, however, found much needed determination, grit my teeth and limped on.

Along the way a priest dressed in the race crew's reflective vest offered me help when I stopped to stretch. When I declined, he asked me if I need a prayer. Thinking I am talking to a race official, I joked that I need all the prayers I can summon to get to the finish line. Then he asked my name, leaned his forehead on my shoulder and prayed to Thy Father to give me strength to finish strong. Oh, dear...

For the rest of the race the pain stayed constant. Blessedly, it didn't worsen. As the finish gate drew close, I tried once more for a few running steps, and paid with pain so amplified I almost vomited. Again, I clung to the side fence and, after a few deep breaths, drag myself over the line. Unceremoniously, I finished Chicago marathon.

As for the lesson - it was about reaching deeper than I thought is possible and finding strength to go on.

Good morning all you crazy marathon runners!

Niagara Falls International Marathon, October 21, 2012

Strange, I remembered, in my sleep, that I had to run a marathon the next morning. And I was not dreaming. So I waited, in my unconscious state, for the hours to pass. None the less, I had a great sleep. An unusually-peaceful night at a hotel without disturbance.

I slipped into my running armor I had prepared the night before. One piece at a time, they were all accounted for. It was 5:30 a.m. We heard a slight stir of activities in the hotel hallway. People were getting ready for the long day of races ahead, be it 5k, 10k, half or full marathon. A woman runner was already in her garbage bag, a known disposable piece of equipment to keep her warm before the race. Since there were still 5 more hours to go, it was far too early for us to put on our garbage bags. Beside, being steaming wet inside the plastic is not a very good idea before a race.

Little by little, the hotel lobby and the dark street were filled with throng of runners waiting to board the shuttles to the marathon start in Buffalo. The yellow school buses arrived and runners filed in orderly. We settled in our seats just behind the driver. The good spirit was reinforced when a runner said, "Good morning all you crazy marathon runners! But you all know the reason why when you cross the finish line!" Laughter erupted. It felt great. The transportation coordinator wished us good luck and off we were, down Queen Elizabeth Way to cross the Canada/US border at Peace Bridge, to the start.

The custom officer collected all our passports and went into the office to scan each of them. About 15-20 minutes later, a different officer came back and called two runners in for interviews. So we waited for another 10 minutes or so. It was nice to see them walking out of the office. We welcomed them back to the bus. The officer handed us back the passports like a stack of pancakes, and asked us to distribute them among ourselves. Now you can imagine the mess. The four of us sitting on the front row splitted the stack and started calling names. After a moment of air space competition, name pronunciation struggle, and arm-waving detection, all passports floated down to the lawful owners among the sea of hands. It was a nice pre-race teamwork exercise.

Our 45-minute bus ride ended at the local Albright-Knox Art Gallery, where we would keep ourselves warm until the start time. It was a neat little gallery with some famous painters' work like Paul Cézanne and Salvador Dali. However, putting marathon runners in an art gallery was proven, at least this time by us, to be not a very bright idea. A place where runners couldn't eat and drink, which was so important for pre-race hydration and fuel-up, where they were being chased out to the court yard or front door for their carb and fluid intake. They should consider putting runners in a regular gym instead of an art gallery next time, nowhere near the building patrolled by food and drink security.

Our clear bags with passports in were loaded into the secured trucks for safe storage and transportation to the Canadian side while we ran. There were close to 1,300 marathon participants. A small number, to keep everything well controlled and organized.

The American and Canadian anthems were sang and we readied our GPS tracking app on our iPhones. Then the race started in a joyful atmosphere. Zoran and I followed the crowd and occasionally pulled ourselves back a little when we realized we were running faster then we should have. We were all very excited. But I paid for it big time later in the race and regretted not running even slower in the first half.

It was 6.5k from the start to the Peace Bridge where we crossed the border from the States back to Canada. The loop we ran at Fort Erie felt very long. It was added intentionally to lengthen the route so we would finish exactly at the Niagara Horseshoe Fall. After the winding roads, we were back on the route that lead us straight to the finish. But this stretch would last for the next gruelling 30k.

The volunteers were amazing and the water stations were sufficiently placed along the route. We were running a 6-min per kilometre pace, and often well under 6min/k. Without a watch to pace ourselves, it was hard to control our pace to maintain the pre-planned 6:20 min/k. It was sunny, not a single cloud, the wind was refreshing, and it was exciting, but I was too excited. A group of runner/walkers was following us and using us to gage their pace. Every time they resumed running, they would catch up with us. It was getting annoying and stressful, so Zoran and I sped up a little just so they wouldn't be able to catch us on their approximately 10th running interval. We lost them, successfully at 25k, but that was the point when the pain in my left knee started to flare up.

I had to slow walk at 30k, but when I started again, the knee was so stiff and painful that it took good 20 shuffling steps to regain the jogging form, and I was not even running. We were jogging slowly with walking intervals for the next 10k. Every switch from walk into jog was hell for me. Then a woman called out, "2 more miles! You can do it!" So 2 more miles is a round 3.5k. I couldn't do a painful switch anymore, so I told Zoran I would rather jog through to the finish without stopping for the walk. It wasn't easy.

During those last 3.5k, I saw people who were running along side with us just moments earlier, now standing on the grass watching the runners passing by. I knew how they felt and I gave them my silent wish to come back to finish the course. My left knee was giving out, and for a moment I saw myself not finishing the race. I felt disappointed in myself. I was in a lot of pain. My battle had turned from physical to mental. Then I remembered what Zoran told me during his agony at the Chicago Mararthon. He was with the medic who was bandaging his torn hamstring at 16k, when he saw a senior runner passing by and his t-shirt read, "Pain is temporary, quitting is forever." My mind was set.

I hunched, my arms tight against my body. I tried swinging them with the biggest efforts I could make to propel my legs, but it was trivial. It felt like my feet were dragging two car-tires. My knees, quads and calves were burning and cramping. The painful steps took away my awareness to the surroundings. The thoughts of failure came on like heavy raindrops hitting the ground, "Am I going to make it?", "Will I have a heart attack?", "I think I'm going to die and will never cross the finish line.", "May be I should stop..."

The agony and disappointment overwhelmed me. Zoran said, "No, no, no. No stopping now! You'll finish it!" I choked and fought back tears. I whispered to myself, "Ok, ok..." I was miserable, but I wanted to get it done. "I can see the Falls! Come on, you can do it!" Zoran exclaimed. I didn't believe it at first. I thought the finish couldn't be that close. But I was wrong. I could really see the finish arch just hiding behind the curve. I wanted to speed up, but I couldn't. My joints were in flame and the pain was excruciating. I was moving like a snail, but glad I was still able to.

When we finally reached the finish, I heard the DJ calling our names. But nothing else went through my ears. Later I found out from Zoran that he said, "Zoran, you better let her finish first or you'll never get the end of it!" So he paused just before the time sensor and let me pass the finish first. I stumbled across, accompanied by a swell of tears from what I had just accomplished. "Way to go! Nicely done! Congratulations!" the DJ concluded.

In my delirious state of mind, I realized I have to walk over to one of the medics, so he can put a thermal blanket on me, and a little further down a volunteer hung the finisher's medal around my neck. I sat down on the curb to switch off my running tracker. And there I saw my brother and sister's comments during the race. I knew they would be cheering for me in cyber space. Zoran, who was there with me, for me, despite his hamstring injury, congratulated me. He is my coach, my kick in the rear end. He was running with me to make sure I was ok and that I finish the race.

The Niagara Falls International Marathon marked my journey and now I can proudly call myself a marathoner. But the medal and title aside, the most important thing I've come to learn is to respect the distance. Running 42.2 kilometres is no easy challenge and should not be taken lightly. It involves a lot of time, training, sweat, injuries and healing to prepare your body and mind to tackle the distance on race day. The journey was long and hard. It was a valuable experience not about how much you can run, but how much you can endure when you can no longer run.

Lance Armstrong is (still) a champion

an essay

Stripped--On Monday, Oct 22, International Cycling Union - UCI - stripped Lance Armstrong of his 7 Tour de France Titles. "Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling," said Pat McQuaid, the president said of the UCI. "This is a landmark day for cycling." (Image borrowed from this blog)

Lance Armstrong is the seven-times Tour de France winner!

Many of us witnessed that super-human feat, curtesy of detailed TV broadcasts. I remember rushing home to watch the highlights of some of the more intense stages. Sometimes Lance seemed so cocky, so untouchable that I cheered for anyone but him. Yet at the end, seeing him hoisting the trophy seemed right. He was the greatest. He made cycling sexy.

I remember a conversation I had with a colleague during his seventh triumphant le Tour. He asked if I thought Armstrong was doping. I said without hesitation that yes, I believed he was. Did it make his victories any less amazing? Not for me!

I believe everyone on that level was taking something. It was not only the race of strength, grit and stamina, it was also the behind-the-curtain chemistry contest. The team with the best dope-lab stood the best chance to win. And, since I think that everyone was doping, the field was level. Armstrong was simply the man with the best legs and the best chemist.

Time and time over, the names in the closest competition with Armstrong were banned for using forbidden substances. The most recently remembered one is the man who was supposed to take the winning torch from Armstrong - Alberto Contador. It only proves my reasoning right.

As an amateur marathon runner - admittedly non-competitive, but no stranger to exhaustion and grueling pain of an endurance sport - I could only try to imagine how much work goes into the making of an elite cyclist. It isn't enough to sit on the couch and inject something with capitalized letters into your vein to make you an instant champion. Especially not when the other guys are doing exactly the same thing. You still need to pedal thousands of miles, sweat and bleed to earn the crown.

At the end, unless Armstrong's alchemist discovered an extremely potent and unique formula to be injected into Lance's system, it must have been a combination of strength, experience, tactics and probably most of all determination that took him over the other, lesser cheats.

Now, when the man has retired, and the cleanup of the sport of cycling is under way, some smart bureaucrat decided to make him an example. Armstrong's grip on the sport he dominated for a good decade has lessened and the minions who doped along with him found the courage of the pack to break the vow of silence.

What did it all do to the sport of cycling? It forever tainted it in the eyes of many fans.

See, Armstrong was a hero! He won that race seven times! He was never caught doping. That doesn't mean he was clean, but it means he outsmarted everybody trying to get him. In that matching of grits and wits he won - seven times! Stripping him of the titles is ridiculous.

Today, he is being vilified in the media around the globe. The same reporters who praised him to heaven are kicking him in the groin, now that he'd been brought down. Hypocrites decided to destroy the legend in the name of the "fair play", while already a new cheat must be laughing behind their backs.

You will notice that I haven't mentioned Armstrong as a cancer survivor and his accomplishments for his cancer-fighting cause, which are also halted by the action of the righteous bunch. Even focusing on the sports and cheating aspect only, I can argue that the right is actually wrong this time.

In conclusion, stripping Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles, doesn't build the trust in the fairness of the sport of cycling. It's a pathetic effort to show that something is being done to clean the sport, but the cleaning should go forward in time, not backward.

To all of you who participate in this crucifixion of Armstrong, I congratulate your newfound, if hypocritical, sense of right. I may be just a sentimental fool, but I'd rather have a tainted hero than no hero at all.

Book: The Road

by Cormac McCarthy

Finally a post-apocalyptic novel without monsters - no vampires, zombies or other men-eaters, except men themselves. Who really needs fictitious demons when humans are more than capable of monstrosities beyond imagination?

The whole story happens on the road, in the world burned to ashes, where a man and a boy travel scavenging the deserted houses for food and looking for "good guys". They avoid hordes of cannibals, looters and thieves. All along, the man is coughing, the ashes taking his breath little by little, until the end.

Very dark story, extremely detailed in surviving ingenuity and unfortunately very possible. It leaves no hope at the end, except the hope in survival itself. There's no promised land or miraculous healing. It also leaves no illusions about people - all of them are monsters, with a very few exceptions. Prosaic and deeply disturbing.

Book: A Dance With Dragons

Going through this one was quite a slog. Martin wrote about the last two books: "The last one was a bitch. This one was three bitches and a bastard." It really felt that way reading through it. When an author doesn't enjoy writing a book, how could we enjoy reading it? I wish I found those two sentences in the foreword, not the afterword, maybe it would save me from wasting time.

GRR Martin, it seems, is too busy with the production of HBO's TV series based on the first three books, which were fabulous. Or, he simply lost the flare for action, and is given to politics. Maybe he simply let too much time pass since the first books, and can't re-create the atmosphere he had there. Whatever the reason, this one was a bitch, slow and expansive, with (too many) new characters entering the story, while the old characters are trapped in place and the author can't think of a creative way to get them going again. Imagine a (very simple) video game in which your character is driven to the wall, and it keeps walking in place and pushing without going anywhere - that's how it felt with many of the old heroes we followed from previous books - Daenerys, Jon Snow, Arya, Tyrion, Jamie...no one is going anywhere, or doing anything of interest and essence, yet the book grew to 1,200 pages.

One thing I have to give Martin credit for - with his writing, raw and gritty, he keeps the promise of suspense going through the book, so you keep reading expecting something to happen. When nothing does, you feel betrayed.

When the next book comes out, I think I'll wait to see how readers like it, before deciding whether to read it or not.

Why did Bolt monkey around after winning 200 m gold?

Are you watching the Olympics? I am stealing every moment I can to watch. There's something special about the Games, something that makes me wait in suspense for sports I would never follow otherwise. Partly it's cheering for Canada - the Games, like nothing else in life, make me feel Canadian. And partly it's the atmosphere, and all the sports packed together in the same place and on tight schedule in just over two weeks. You get bored with diving, just switch the channel. There's track - still the queen of all sports - or boxing, or soccer, judo, wrestling, basketball, you name it.

With all the video available online, you can catch every action, from Usain Bolt bolting for gold, to the most bizarre sports like BMX downhill races where, as my colleague put it, "grown up men ride children's bikes over speed-bumps."

There's one thing that bothers me, though. Well, if truth be told, there are quite a few things, but this one is getting more obvious with every games: the weird behavior of elite athletes. Yahoo! sports pegged it on the "Ugly Americans" in this article, and I agree that they may have started the whole "I am the greatest" attitude, but it seems to be highly contageous.

Yesterday, golden boy Bolt easily won his second gold, adding 200 m to the 100 m one of a few days ago. That's an amazing feat! I tried to imagine how would I celebrate that moment, crossing the finish line way ahead of the pack, cameras swarming me instantly...and I couldn't. My imagination, as wonderful as it is, doesn't reach that high; I simply can't comprehend how is it being a class on its own, way above even the other fastest humans on earth. I somehow know that I would be humbled by the experience - I always am humbled with great success, of my own or the others - and I wouldn't cross the line with the index finger on my mouth, quieting the crowd who came to cheer me on. No, I'd rejoice in every voice raised in my honor, and wallow in the noise I caused. I'd probably raise my arms in triumph, and maybe point index fingers to the sky, as I sometimes do when I cross the finish line of my own marathon races. I know for certain I wouldn't drop to the ground to do push-ups. If I am extremely emotional, I could drop down to kiss the track, or some such nonsense. But, push-ups? Really, Usain?

Did he really feel the urge to complete his workout with some upper-body exercises, just as he finished the gold-medal Olympic race? Or was that showing his supremacy, saying "look at me, didn't even break a sweat, now I have to do some push-ups to look tired for the cameras?" What are we, regular Joes and Janes watching from around the world, supposed to think? That in the euphoria of victory he doesn't really think? That he ran so fast, his brain was still catching up while the body kept itself busy, doing some exercising while waiting? What does it say about his respect for the competition? What happened to the humility of a great champion, someone the kids can look up to? Because, the kids will emulate everything, as they aped the American sports champs for decades. They seem to learn silly things much faster than true and humble ones.

It may truly be just a momentary silliness, but a great champion knows he is being watched in every moment, ESPECIALLY in the moment of his triumph. And so, applying brain before acting would seem like a good idea.

I can't not admire Usain Bolt for everything he is and all he's accomplished. I am really grateful for being able to witness him running and winning. I just wish that, in the time of other great victories he will most certainly achieve, he would return to the innocence of the Beijing days and those cocked arms pointing skyward in the dancing pose we remember.

Post Scriptum:

While I was typing this blog post, the news reports from Usain Bolt's press conference proved that the only thing bigger than his ego is his mouth. Thanks for the ride, Usain, it will be interesting to watch your descent (because, once you're on top, there's no place to go but down)!

De-socializing my life

I've tried hard to be socially active. I was on Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Tumblr, Google plus, Blogger, Goodreads, DailyMile, and a few now-defunct services which disintegrated under my fingertips into digital dust (Excite.com, AOL blogs, Yahoo 360, MySpace, etc.).

Yes, I know, it was insane thinking I could maintain all of them. I guess I was craving social interaction with like-minded people, something to fill in the void of the friendless place we live in. What a folly!

What I got is a bunch of childhood friends on Facebook, curious to find out what I'm up to, with nothing in common to keep the interaction going after three exchanges. I also found out that the digital social scene is brimming with egocentrics who are more than ready to offer their opinions and utterly unable to empathize with mine. (The only exception to all this is Daily Mile, a network for fitness enthusiasts, with the most polite and supportive crowd you'll ever find anywhere, not limited to the net only.)

In the pit of my stomach I constantly felt mild anxiety for neglecting one or the other of those social tools. Finally I paused to think about that constantly present feeling that I'm missing something, and traced it to its roots. It was almost laughable how trapped I was in the social net I weaved myself. As it usually happens with complicated knots, the easiest way to deal with them was - to cut them. One by one I closed all accounts, until eventually there were left only the two I use for work: Twitter and Google+. And this blog, which is a diary of sort, and a place where my thoughts can roam to untangle and de-stress.

My social experiment didn't resolve friendlessness, and cutting it away actually gave me new freedom. I'm free of obligation to check and respond to real or perceived communication. I truly don't miss digital "friends".

Being by ourselves - my life always involves Meg, our hearts are conjoined twins beating like one - no longer means loneliness. We learned to love our time alone, involved in things we like to do, or enjoying the familiar silence.

As for the social experience - I never felt lonelier than when I was on social networks.

A Pic A Day: Sketch of an atrium

A glass ceiling of the atrium at work - looks better as a sketch than a picture. (Z)

A Pic A Day: Dandelions invasion

Dandelions take over the neighborhood (Z)

A Pic A Day: Painting on the wall

Painting on the wall. Phoenix restaurant, Markham. (photo: Z)