AREC Training With Train 4 Autism

I won’t be able to participate in the Wrigley River Run this year which falls on June 2 because I have to work on my birthday. Instead, this post is about last week’s run.

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you might have seen a post or two about my dizziness problems. If you haven’t, well that’s okay. I have labyrinthitis, an inner ear problem which causes dizziness and hits me from time to time for no apparent reason. Saturday morning was one of those days. I drove to the AREC run not knowing how that was going to affect my running later. Not only that, I was nursing a slight right calf discomfort which I was hoping wouldn’t get worse if I ran slowly enough. When I got to the location, I noticed that there were a lot more people than in previous weeks and that was because the athletes from Train 4 Autism (a fund raising group) had joined the fray. They sure had some nice looking baby blue uniforms. I hazard to guess that there were at least 150 runners that morning.

After a very brief talk by Nadine, we were off. I was really apprehensive about my dizziness so I just kept pace with the 12 minute milers hoping I wouldn’t topple over. Within the first half mile, I noticed that some of the mentors of Train 4 Autism were pretty speedy. They zipped past us in their baby blues. Their group was nice enough to mark the course with blue and yellow markers on traffic cones indicating which way the half marathoners or full marathoners have to go. I ran with Rosie and Tina up to the 3 mile water station and when we resumed, I got to talking with Mark F. I didn’t know that he had stopped running for a year and he recently just started again because of another mid life crisis. He did not elaborate and I did not probe. He suddenly asked me how long my every day running streak lasted before I had to quit. I didn’t even know he knew about that. He was guessing a thousand days and I told him it was actually 21 years and 8 days. He said, no wonder my ankle tendons were shot. We had a quick laugh about that. Incidentally, someone asked me this question the previous week:  What was the minimum number of miles you ran when you had your 21 year running every day streak? The requirement of the running streak association which I’m not a member of is one mile, so to simplify, that is what I would say my minimum was even though it was more like 1 ½ miles. Anyway, back to the run. Mark then regaled me with stories of his trail running races and how one time he and another friend of ours – Roberta, finished last at a very technical (i.e. rocky terrain) Colorado trail race. He pulled me for about a mile and a half, then for some reason, I pulled ahead and caught up with who I think were mother and daughter experimenting with the Galloway 5 minute run to 1 minute walk system. I asked them if they were with AREC and we ran together for the next mile. With half a mile left, I attempted to run with a full stride. Not my natural gait, mind you, to protect my ankle tendons, but at least a semblance of a full stride. And I resisted to do a full out sprint in the last 200 meters, also for ankle protection reasons. I hardly noticed that by the time I finished 6 miles or so, my dizziness had dissipated. Running had calmed my inner ear.

Hopefully in the coming weeks we could mingle with the Train 4 Autism runners and get to know them better instead of sticking to our packs and them in theirs during the run. They seem like a pretty good group. Thanks for running with us Train 4 Autism athletes J

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What It Took To Run Every Day For 21 Years

I know, I know, I keep on revisiting this defunct running streak even though it’s old news, except I haven’t really given the reason why I started it and how I was able to do it. I just wrote about how it ended. I might send it to Emmett (AREC secretary and newsletter editor) and see if he needs a space filler for the next newsletter since I haven’t contributed anything this year yet.

Not that I was trying to set any personal records. I just decided one day to try to run every day and soon it became routine just like brushing my teeth. Actually, before the 21 year streak, I already had a 3 year streak going which was broken because I twisted my ankle playing volleyball. I happened to step on the foot of an opposing player on the other side of the net while landing from a jump. That was an eight day break before I resumed running every day again.

Distances? Anywhere from a mile to a marathon. The requirements of the United States Running Streak Association (which I’m not a member of) are as follows: A running streak is defined by USRSA as running
at least one continuous mile within each calendar day under one's own body power. (The current record is 41 years and counting.)

So what does it take to do this seemingly insane task? The United States Postal Service has this motto: "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." The only thing I missed from that motto is the snow because I’ve never tried running in that. Everything else including tropical storm and earthquake, I’ve run through. One storm I remember was when I was running in the streets of Lawndale. It was already raining hard when I started but then in the middle of the run, gale force winds developed and I had to seek shelter in the eaves of a house. When the wind subsided, I continued running. Heck, I had run in the middle of a typhoon in the Philippines along Roxas Boulevard several years prior, so no gale force wind was going to stop me now!

Another time I didn’t know there was an earthquake, albeit a small one, until I got home from my run and hearing about it on the news. Speaking again of rain, I am reminded of a period of a whole week when I had to run indoors on my treadmill because of the constant daily downpour. The treadmill helped a lot during inclement weather, while waiting for a UPS delivery, or when I was injured and had to run on a softer surface.

Gloom of night didn’t stop me either. When I was working in Torrance a long time ago, I used to run during my break at 3 or 4 in the morning. The cops patrolling the area who saw me were probably wondering if I had escaped from the mental institution I was working in at the time. Run for three hours after working an eight hour midnight shift? Well, how can you say no to the hospital administrator who was training for his first marathon?At another hospital, I ran for as much as an hour back and forth on a long carpeted hallway. It took about one minute to run from one end to the other.

Going home to the Philippines with a stopover in Honolulu? No problem. Just change into running gear at the terminal in Hawaii and run through the corridors in the middle of the night. Fear of losing a day of running due to the time difference between the U.S. and the P.I.(Philippine Islands)? Just run amidst the jeepneys, buses, tricycles, pedestrians, and thick smog in the crowded streets near the Manila Domestic Terminal while waiting for the flight to Zamboanga City, then run a little bit more once you get to your final destination. Of course you have to find someone you can trust to watch over your luggage while you’re doing this especially if you are travelling alone. Feeling pain after going up and down the bleachers of the Long Beach City College Veterans Stadium? Keep running anyway despite the worsening pain. Well, actually that was the beginning of the end. I’m sure other people have run under more adverse conditions, but these were the ones that I experienced.

Do I wish I can still do it? Of course I do, but realistically, with my nagging posterior tibialis tendon injury I am unable to do so anymore. So I have to be content on being able to run just three times a week and cross train the other days. Speaking of which, I actually still have a streak going on - that of exercising every day. This one has been going on much longer than the already ended running streak. This streak may last forever.

See, it doesn’t take too much to start and maintain a streak. Just a wee bit of compulsiveness and bullheadedness and you’re well on your way.