what's the big deal about a BQ?

i confess that for me the superbowl of running is to qualify and be accepted for the boston marathon.  it's what propels me to sign up for races and train when everyone else is sleeping.

but is it such a big deal?  will i have a sense of "is that all there is?" once (and it is inevitable folks, mark my word!) i achieve it?

qualifying for the boston marathon has a mythical aura about it within north american running culture that i'm not sure can be explained.  for sure there's the impulse for me to strive to be among the 10% or so of all marathoners on the continent who are able to qualify for this race (especially significant when you consider that less than 1% of the population ever completes a marathon).  and then given that it's one of the world marathon majors - to be able to say that i competed in one of the world's elite athletic competitions, well that crosses one item off of my bucket list.

but accomplishing and following through on a BQ certainly finish the list of running goals for me.  at the very least, i have committed to a friend in south africa to complete the comrades marathon with him - the world's oldest and largest ultramarathon.  depending on who you reference, it's 87-90km of roadrunning between pietermaritzburg and durban.  just the opportunity to visit south africa is a dream in and of itself - but to run the comrades will probably be the motivation that i will need to get there.

what are your running goals (big or small)?  share them here - i'd love to know about them and cheer you on.

what's the big deal about a BQ?

what are you, nuts or somethin'? - an insight into winter running

over the past seven days, we've had mornings where it's hit -32 degrees celsius (with the windchill factor).  other mornings have been near-zero visibility because of snow streamers and gusts up to 70 kph.  and other times i've woken up to 12 cm of overnight snow accumulation, or 5-10 cm of thick, damp slush, or a flash-freeze ice rink on all the local roads.

each time i've stuck to my outdoor running schedule.

most of the people who know me ask if i'd run on any given day, knowing full well that i did but still reacting to the answer with a sense of disbelief.  

just what exactly would possess someone to run in bone-chilling, frost-biting, ice-blasting, traction-reducing, sidewalk-avoiding conditions such as those encountered in south-central ontario between december-march?

well, let me share just a few that keep me rolling out of bed before the sun comes up:

1. the training plan - as you can see by the widget at the side of my blog, my next race is coming up in may, and i'm following a structured training plan (courtesy of the hanson brothers of east michigan) that has me out six days a week.  i'm not the kind of guy who loves to run - i'm motivated by a goal, in this case qualifying for the boston marathon.  even though i've only been running since 2010, i was just 3m15s away from making the requirement for my age group back in november at the hamilton road2hope marathon.  i strongly believe that sticking to the training plan will take me a long way to getting to 3h15m on race day in mississauga.
2. perseverance/character - yeah, on those days that it's tough to be out there - because no one else is, or cars are honking at you, or the sleep was too short and the day before too strenuous - i feel like i'm going to look back on these winter runs as helping me through those "i should just give up" moments during the race.  if i can make it through the elements of a canadian winter, ain't nothing going to stop me over the 42.195k.
3. core and stability development - it can be really uneven out there during the winter.  i remember running one morning with my friend trevor in snow so deep that he couldn't get his car out of the driveway to meet up at our starting point.  having to lift your legs up to waist level just to propel yourself one step forward has got to be building some kind of strength in your core.  add to that the days (like yesterday) where running in an inch or two of soft, wet snow was like trudging through the mud, and other days where the snow landscape is more like frozen tundra forcing you to adjust to a shorter, quicker stride - it all presses you to pay attention to technique and refine the machine.
4. pride - now that doesn't sound right.  it's not pride that causes me to turn off the clock radio and lumber into the washroom with running gear in hand.  pride doesn't get me out the door - but i always return with a sense of pride (maybe better put, accomplishment) when it seems that everyone else is just rousing from sleep and i can toss my perspiration-laden running gear into the laundry pile having just completed a speedwork run or 10k @ marathon pace.  it's sick, i'm sure, but in my head i often think "and what have you done with your day so far?"
5. stories that live on in personal running lore - all i can say is that my buddy mike and i still chuckle about the day that we were out running and passed by police cars that had shut down a road because of downed trees and powerlines from the winter storm that morning.  

i know, i'm not right in the head.  but that's my love-hate-love affair with winter running.

what are you, nuts or somethin'? - an insight into winter running

and now - onto running

i did say that i would probably write more about running than anything.

as i plugged through 10-12cm of mushy snow this morning, i thought that i'd just drop a few lines about my running shoes - partly because i'm obsessed with trying to run smarter and faster, and partly because fashion is always in my view.

i currently have four different pairs of running shoes in my weekly training rotation.  

why four pairs you ask?  because (a) giving each pair of shoes a rest after a run helps extend the life of the shoes (it's reported that it takes 24-48 hours for the midsole of a shoe to return to shape after running compression); and (b) running in different footwear models forces me to pay attention to my stride pattern and posture more, in order to keep it consistent.

at this time, my weapons of choice are (in order of preference):

• merrell road glove
• saucony kinvara
• nike flex 2012 run (courtesy the local Goodwill)
• asics gel galaxy 4 (courtesy the local Value Village)

as someone who has a minimalist/barefoot style (note that i don't confess to being a truly barefoot runner) i've raced two marathons in the kinvaras, and one marathon (my current PB of 3:18:15) in the road gloves.  i'm due to run the mississauga marathon this may, and will either put the road gloves to work again or succumb to my passion for shoes and try out the skechers gobionic.

if you're looking for some solid reviews of running footwear, or excellent running reading in general, i highly recommend my friend stan who has a great blog at www.9run.ca.  he's smart, insightful, interesting, and a hard working runner who has plenty of good stuff to share.

in the meantime, if you have any questions about running footwear, minimalism or general fashion, please drop me a line!  and get out there ...

and now - onto running

time to reboot

i'm not a good blogger.  

i'm not a good writer.  heck, i'm not even a clear thinker.

but i do like mixing things up.

so i figured that it was time for a change here in the blogosphere ... and maybe that if i focused my writing on the things that capture most of my time and attention, maybe it would stay lively around here.

what are those things?

(in no particular order)

• theatre 
• family
• faith community
• running
• tennis canada
• Voxtropolis
• fashion

that's still a lot - and i probably will end up writing more about running than anything.  but here's to a fresh start.
 

time to reboot

what you see is not always what you get

i think magic is pretty cool.


of all the magicians who are in the public eye these days, i really dig david blaine. maybe because he seems so ... unremarkable. what you see is what you get. my life is an open book.
and there, in the middle of the street or the restaurant or your front porch, he'll pull off the amazing.


he wrote a book once called Mysterious Stranger: A Book of Magic. besides being autobiographical and a backstage pass to some great performances in the magic industry, it happened to be something else too.
 
a cryptic treasure hunt.


i wonder if sometimes our lives aren't like that too. now some of us are naturally shy, private, introverted (yours truly, for example). we are tough to get to know - at least thoroughly speaking. so it would make sense that we don't disclose our darkest secrets, our sins, our fears and failures and latent hopes and dreams indiscriminantly.
but some of us are wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve kind of people. i'll tell you as much about myself as you can handle. the open book.
still, there are secrets.


you're a human being, and you're complex. you'll manage your image so that it appears to different people the way that best serves your purposes or the needs of the context. and those needs might include self-preservation, affection, attention, domination, distance, congeniality.
 
but at the core of the human condition there is a need to be understood, appreciated, loved, accepted - even forgiven. God has designed us that way, and almost all of us can recognize that as natural. in fact, when someone demonstrates no need for or an aversion to being understood, appreciated, loved, accepted and forgiven, we usually consider that person a sociopath ... or worse, a psychopath.
so who are you letting into your life? who are you giving a fair shot at deciphering the code of your life? who are you actually doing the deciphering for? to have at least one person with whom you can be relationally naked with helps you anchor yourself in the universe. i think that one of the key searches in our lifetimes is to find - or maybe better put, develop - that relationship that allows you to be unabashedly real.


when you can connect with that person, now that's magic.

what you see is not always what you get