Bad Juju

Karen’s post about race shirt rules reminded me of an article I wrote for our running club about how marathon runners should avoid bad juju on race day.

Juju is a term that is adopted from African culture and has various meanings.

It is not exactly superstition. It can be a charm or object with magical powers, or any ritual act that influences the forces of nature for better or worse.

As it relates to running, juju is a specific behavior that really shouldn’t have any affect on race performance, but inevitably does.

Acts that directly affect physical performance, such as inadequate training, improper race preparation or foolish strategy, do not count. For example, wearing a new pair of shoes on race day or eating something unfamiliar before the race isn’t bad juju, it’s just stupidity.

Experienced marathon runners are careful to avoid bad juju before and during their event. The following are the most common examples:

Rule #1: predicting your own race time is bad juju. This is the “pride goeth before the fall” postulate of juju. On race day, there are too many variables that can conspire against you, to assume that they will all come down in your favor.

Nevertheless, runners of all speeds frequently break this rule. As soon as you state “I will run in x amount of time”, you are almost guaranteeing yourself a finish time that is much slower.

Try this experiment: ask a veteran marathoner how fast they are going to run an upcoming race. If they know anything about juju, they will hem and haw and be more evasive than Mark McGwire in giving you a specific answer.

To avoid bad juju, never forecast a specific time. It’s much safer to say, “I’m hoping to run x time,” or “My goal is to run it in x time”; statements that don’t tempt fate nearly as much.

Rule #2: wearing the shirt of the exact race you are running is bad juju. This falls under the “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” category of juju. It’s never acceptable to wear the t-shirt for the race until after you have actually completed it.

Just because you show up at the marathon expo and pick up your packet doesn’t guarantee that you’ll finish the race the next morning. Unforeseen injuries, stomach cramps, blisters, or a myriad of other problems can quickly lead to a DNF, and there you’ll be at the side of the road, advertising the event that just kicked your butt.

It would be like the losing team deciding to go ahead and wear those “Super Bowl Champs” hats that are printed in advance for each team, but only given to the winners. How ridiculous would that look? That’s the risk you run by wearing the race shirt during the actual event.

(By the way, what happens to all of those unusable hats and t-shirts? Hopefully they are sent to impoverished villages that don’t have TV or Internet access. There must be a whole society somewhere in a remote corner of the world that thinks the Buffalo Bills won four Super Bowls).

Rule #3: wearing the shirt from one race while racing in another is bad juju. The worst mistake a runner can make is underestimating or disrespecting any given course.

In order to race well, you have to focus all of your energy on the challenge at hand, and not look ahead to the next race, or dwell excessively on a past event.

Wearing the shirt from another marathon demonstrates conflicting interests and loyalties.

It’s the equivalent of going out to a special dinner with your girlfriend, while wearing a sweater that was an anniversary gift from a previous lover, and having your current girlfriend recognize it. This is the “how can you be committed to me when you’re thinking of another girl?” tenet of juju.

The only exception to this rule that may be considered is if the race distance of the shirt you are wearing is longer than the distance you are currently racing. Some people do this to psych themselves up during rough stretches, saying, “If I finished that race, I can finish this one.”

However, this is a pretty unreliable argument, as I have passed many people wearing Ironman singlets or Western States 100-mile race shirts who looked desperately exhausted while racing at the Big Sur Marathon.

Rule #4: Telling your finish line posse that you’ll be done at a certain time is bad juju. This is a more severe variant of Rule #1. It could be called contagious juju because it affects not just you, but everyone who is awaiting your arrival at the finish line as well.

Imagine the worry and embarrassment inflicted on your spouse and friends when they are looking for you, but you are nowhere to be found. Progressively bad thoughts cross their minds for every minute you are over your predicted arrival time.

When you finally arrive, instead of finding people who are sympathetic to your bad day, you’ll be facing an angry or stressed-out mob. Instead of being a hero, you are merely late, and a bearer of bad juju.

To avoid this plight, give your loved ones an “approximate window” of arrival times.

These are the most obvious cases of bad juju in action, but I’m really just scratching the surface with these examples. While there is no rational explanation for these phenomena, I have had enough experiences and observations to believe in the power of juju.

As race day approaches, don’t ruin all of your hard training with foolhardy behaviors that can tip the scales of karma against you. After all, running a marathon is hard enough on its own.

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The Voice of Reason

Knowing that it will be a long process to develop my "speed legs" again, I figured I might as well get started at the track today to see how I felt, and establish a point of comparison for the future.

I decided on my marathon-training staple, 1600m repeats.

When I'm in fighting shape, I can click off six or seven of these in the 5:50s or better. For today's workout, I gave myself a guideline that whenever I topped 6 minutes for a repeat, that would be the end of the workout.

1st 1600m: 5:56, at approximately 85% of max effort. So far, so good, although I have a feeling the other shoe is about to drop, so to speak.

2nd 1600M: 5:58, at 90-95% effort. A very quick transition from "comfortable fast pace" to "My gosh, this is harder than I remember" by the final lap.

3rd 1600m: 5:59, but only after an all-out race effort during the last lap to make up for drifting gradually off the pace during the first three laps.

A very old woman is bundled up in a jacket and hood, walking laps very slowly in the outside lane. Our paths merge as I'm walking to recover from my 3rd repeat. I'm panting, moaning, gasping for breath, and weaving across the lanes. Which leads to the following exchange:

Old lady: "It looks like you've done enough already."

Me: "Um...yeah, probably."

But as I slowly jog into the recovery lap, I think maybe I have a bit left in me. So I try another 1600, which becomes...

800m: 3:05. There was no way I was going to break 6 minutes, and I was completely out of gas. Workout over.

2 very humble cool down laps later, I give a wave of acknowledgement to the old woman, and head for my car.

She was right. I should have stopped sooner.

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November Rain

I woke this morning to the sound of rain on my roof, which was good news for two reasons:

First, I love running in the rain. It rains so infrequently around here that the occasional showers don't become depressing. And in the character-building sense, I feel like mileage run in the rain deserves extra credit in some regard.

The main reason I got excited is that this weekend several of my running partners are joining me on a 2-hr trail run here in Carmel Valley. It's an annual event to celebrate the autumn season.

Towards the end of the run, the trail leads down to the Carmel River, and the runners have to cross without benefit of a bridge. The river is about 40' wide at this time of year, and when the water level is low in the summer, its fairly easy to hop from stone to stone and stay dry all the way across.

During the winter, the rocks will be completely submerged, and the river becomes impassable unless you wade in up to waist or chest level.

I like the crossing best during the transitional period of autumn, when the tops of the rocks peek out over the current, and you're never sure if the next crossing will be your last for the season.

That's when I invite my friends to run the trails with me. Occasionally some of them topple into the water, but the river is still shallow and the failed attempts are received with more applause then laughter.

The run instantly becomes more memorable when several people get their feet wet. But this year, the water level seems lower than usual, so I've been hoping for some rain to make the crossing more of a challenge.

And this morning it happened. So I went outside and did my 5 miles, and looked forward to celebrating the season again this weekend at the Carmel River crossing.

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Not quite ready

Despite significant soreness in my legs, I was planning on getting out of bed this morning to run. But a couple things happened along the way...

Last night, I sat down with The Rule of Four, a novel I had been pecking at for the last couple of weeks. Before long, I was two-thirds of the way into the book, and found myself sucked into the vortex of the story, unwilling to set the book down again as the hours grew late.

The problem is, it's not a real fast read. The plot is convoluted and complicated, drawing heavily from obscure 15th century literature, intertwined with modern-day academia. Cross The DaVinci Code with Ivy League esoteria, and you get the idea.

And yet, it's a great book. And I'm a sucker for great books. So I didn't get to sleep until the book was finished, a few hours past my usual drop-dead bedtime.

So when the alarm went off this morning, and I was sleep deprived, and it was dark outside, and I could still feel the pain in my legs from Sunday's race just by stretching my legs...well, I didn't have a chance, really.

I actually don't feel too bad about it. Unfortunately, it's a pretty rare book that hooks me and carries me along into the night at the expense of sleep and running. When those moments occur, they are definitely worth missing a morning's run to savor them.

But tomorrow, I'll be back on the road.

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Lessons Learned

Today was the Big Sur Half-Marathon on Monterey Bay. I certainly wasn't expecting greatness after a summer of ultramarathon training. A few of the lessons I learned...

Training for several months on steep trails averaging 12-15 minutes per mile apparently doesn't prepare you well for running sub-7 minute miles on the road.

Running for several hours below 75% max HR has no residual benefit when your heart rate hits 90% max during mile 2 of a road race.

When you're accustomed to taking walking breaks every 15-20 minutes, an hour and a half seems like an awfully long time to run without stopping.

Just because you used to be fast doesn't mean you're always fast.

Road racing hurts a lot more than long distance trail running. Or, maybe it's the same total amount of pain, just intensified to compress into a smaller time frame.

It's frustrating running a race several minutes slower than in previous years, but sometimes your finishing time isn't the most important thing about a race.

And finally...

I really enjoy long distance road racing. Today's race reminded me of what great rewards can be achieved at these events, and inspired me to train hard this winter to make my body more accustomed to the demands of racing.

So for now, it's back to a gradual mileage buildup over the next 3 months, and then hit the marathon circuit with a vengeance in the spring.

I can run fast again. I just have to earn it.

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Central California Seasons

I've mentioned earlier that the Monterey Peninsula has a microclimate unlike most of the rest of the country. It's generally mild all year long, with moderate temperature fluctuations, and without the dramatic weather events that characterize other areas.

We're also a bit out of rotation. During what everyone else calls summertime, we experience foggy mornings, overcast skies, and high temperatures in the 60s. This is the season when tourists who come to Carmel thinking they will soak up the rays realize they should have brought jeans and a sweatshirt with them instead.

September and October are our summer months, when coastal fog recedes early in the morning, and the sun has all day to bring our temperatures into the 80s. This is also when everyone returns to school and the tourist season ends, leaving the most beautiful days for those of us lucky enough to live here.

By November, a chill gradually fills the air as the days grow shorter. Carmel Valley vineyards take on red and yellow hues, while leaves slowly turn colors and break from the trees through December. It's not uncommon for fall colors to still be visible at Christmas.

January and February are the coldest months, with morning temps in the 20s. It's also our only rainy season of the year, with slow, steady downpours sometimes lasting several days at a time. Fortunately, it's a short-lived winter (if it can truly be called a winter by Midwest or East Coast standards), as March usually brings signs of warmth and renewal.

By March, blossoms are seen on trees and flowers, wildflowers bloom, and mornings are warm again. It's an unpredictable time, though, as cold mornings and rainy days still assert themselves from time to time.

Usually by May, the rains have stopped and we we have a few nice weeks of typical springtime before the grey fog of summer rolls in.

All things considered, it's an ideal running climate almost all year long.

I'm explaining all this as a preface to the manner in which I gauge the seasons: by the clothes I need to wear when heading out the door for a run. In our unorthodox climate, it's a much simpler way to mark the passage of time than looking at the calendar.

I'll detail this further in another post. But for now, just consider it the beginning of pants season.

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Back in the Saddle (Sort Of)

Against my better judgment, last week I decided to sign up for this weekend’s Big Sur Half-Marathon on Monterey Bay. Normally, this is right up my alley – a long distance road race through spectacular scenery, testing the limits of my fitness.

This year, however, will be different. I’m not nearly in good enough shape to attempt this race.

My two primary races of the year were August’s Pikes Peak Marathon, which took me 6 hours to complete, and October’s Firetrails 50, my first 50-miler, which took almost 9 hours. Training for these races entailed a lot of long, steady distance running, but almost no speed work.

As a result, my body is very accustomed to a slow pace, multiple walking breaks, and negotiating steep hills over treacherous terrain. On the other hand, my fast twitch muscle fibers have long since gone into hibernation.

So last week, I tried to wake them up.

On Thursday I showed up for my first track workout in months, and ran 5x1000m. On Saturday, I did a 4-mile tempo run as close to my lactate threshold as I could tolerate.

Both workouts felt miserable. But as I was laboring through them, I had a similar thought each day: I missed this.

There’s an entirely different dynamic to running when you are pushing the limits of your engine, struggling to keep pace with fellow runners when your natural inclination is to slow down. Compared to training for ultras, it’s really a whole different sport.

Although I love the ultras, I’m not quite ready to give up the road racing yet.

Sunday’s race will definitely be difficult and painful – both in a physical sense (dealing with the shortness of breath in my chest and lactic acid in my legs) and an emotional one (watching countless runners that I beat last year pass me by).

But despite the difficulty, I already know what my overriding sentiment for the day will be: I missed this.

Then I’ll spend the winter on the roads, building up to the high mileage weeks, and come back ready to roar in the springtime.

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