Run On

With Thanksgiving upon us, what better time to talk about food?

Perhaps it’s a testament to the curative powers of running that despite being stricken with a vile case of food poisoning a week ago, I was able to run a full ten miles on Saturday.

I was not going to do it. I was feeling weak and weary. My husband told me not to, my friends told me not to. But then Steve, our pace group leader (meaning the guy who makes sure we all run at the proper speed) got sick with a 102 fever and I’m the backup. So I went. I was feeling pretty shaky at the start, but by the end I felt great. Giddy, really. I’d completed the longest run of my life. True, every Saturday run I’ve done so far has been the longest run of my life, but still, this one seems particularly noteworthy because I really didn’t think I’d be able to finish it at all. Very cool.

I’ve heard from real runners about the miraculous transformations that can occur over the course of a run. I’m sure that’s true. But I suspect it also have something to do with food. Not the poison kind, of course, which I hope never to encounter again. The good kind. Can good food cure you of bad food? Why not?

I love food. Love thinking about it, cooking it, eating it. Foodwise, fall is my favorite time of year. It’s all about the slow-cooked savories. Braises, roasts, stews. I’m the kind of person who, given the time (and even not given the time) will procure whole chickens (whole meaning with the head and feet and some feathers) from Chinatown to make the tastiest stock for pot roast, pork roast, braised ox tails and short ribs. I’ll get pigs’ feet from the carniceria to enrich the braise. Complement it with a green salad adorned with pomegranate, pear, pistachios and stilton and dressed with a home-made shallot vinaigrette. End with pineapple upside down cake made with buttermilk and fresh pineapple, and life is very, very good.

The world of marathoning, I've learned, exists in a parallel food universe. Instead of focusing on the goodness and home-made-ness of food, runners are all about its precise nutritional makeup. How many carbs? How many calories? How much potassium? Food as fuel. One sports nutrition book I consulted featured on its cover a photo of a jock dude, his teeth clenching a packet of energy gel. Yum.

One thing I know for certain, I am not now, nor will I ever be, that kind of runner.

Still, no matter what kind of runner you are, if you want to be any kind of runner at all you must, in anticipation of a long run, begin “fueling up” days in advance. Then during the run itself you must continue to keep the fuel flowing. If you let your fuel level get too low, Coach Scott has warned us repeatedly, you risk “breaking down,” and failing to complete a run. Coach Scott has urged us, from week one, to begin experimenting with different kinds of fuel so we find something we can tolerate. Apparently some fuels are so disgusting that runners react to them by throwing up.

Better to find that out on a five-mile run than a 25-mile sojourn. At my local running store I discovered an ample selection of fuel options: Watermelon-flavored Jelly Belly Extreme Sport Beans, Pomegranate Luna Moons, Strawberry Shot Blocks and Vanilla Orange Carb-Boom! (the exclamation point is part of the name). It all looked – and sounded-- suspiciously like candy. The salesclerk assured me that these Jelly Bellies were nothing like the plain old ordinary Jelly Bellies your six-year-old loves, and that the Luna Moons were not just glorified Jujubes. “Runners love this stuff,” he said. “It’s compact, easy to digest and it gives you a boost when you need it.” I took one of each and tried them out over the course of a few runs.

As I suspected, they tasted like candy, which isn’t such a terrible thing, and they did provide energy. But somehow it just seemed wrong, in the midst of an ostensibly healthy pursuit, to be fueling up on what seemed like junk.

My co-runner Andrea agrees and has settled on raisins as her road fuel. Rachel is experimenting with bagels. I haven’t figured out a solution for myself. I’m trying Clif bars at the moment (with names like “cool mint chocolate” and “black cherry almond” one can at least argue that there is something potentially healthful contained within), but they take a lot of chewing and swallowing, which, on a long run, can be more challenging than you might imagine.

In the meantime, I’m making sure I get as much pre-run, real-food fuel as I can. Today I might throw in a little turkey, and some stuffing. And maybe a slice of my sister’s Thanksgiving cheesecake. (Real) yum.

Posted by Sara Catania at 9:26 AM | Permalink

The ugly: Smoke and fire everywhere. By Saturday morning the Sayre fire was already so bad that the 5 Freeway was shut down and Steve, our pace group leader, was stuck at home on the other side. As the rest of us headed from Griffith Park into Burbank over the Riverside Drive bridge for our weekly group run, our delight at spotting a flock of egrets bathing in the LA River was soon eclipsed by alarm at the growing grey-black gob on the horizon. By the time we returned to the park mid-morning – about two hours later -- the air was heavy with heat and smoke.

Our coach, Scott Boliver, who schleps from Brea every week, returned home on Saturday (after 2 ½ hours of detours and delays) to find the houses across the street being evacuated. By Sunday his own home was full of ash. It was still standing, though, so he wasn’t complaining.

In my 19 years as a Californian, I’ve witnessed many horrible fires, from the massive Oakland Fire of 1991, which took 25 lives and wiped out more than a 2,000 homes, to the many Malibu fires, to the Griffith Park Fire, to this. As with all disasters, fires bring out the perverse nature of reporting. The bigger the fire and the accompanying devastation, the bigger the story. Hence the bigger the opportunity for a hungry journalist. These days, thankfully, I’m not out there sucking smoke for a shot at page one. As a marathoner wanna-be, I can worry about my friends and family and fret about the air quality like everyone else. It would be hard to imagine worse running weather.

The bad: Absorbing the news that the marathon will, indeed, be held on Memorial Day-- more than three months later than previously scheduled. Linda Francisco, a fund raising coodinator for AIDS Project Los Angeles, told the runners gathered at Griffith Park on Saturday that at a meeting the day before, the marathon folks were apologetic. “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission,” she told us, and encouraged us to use to delay to raise more money for the cause. Linda also said that contrary to reports, APLA was not in on the date change and learned about it like everybody else, from the press release.

For those of us committed to training with APLA, the new date means not only three-plus additional months of training, but those same three-plus months of Saturdays given over to running and taken away from our families and/or non-running lives. My husband and kids are making a big sacrifice for me to do the training. No mom on Saturdays. They’ve been incredibly supportive, but I know as the months add up it’s going to get old.

On Saturday there was a fair amount of grumbling from the group, especially from those who already have other plans for Memorial Day weekend. What’s the point of all that training if you miss the payoff? Dwayne, a documentary filmmaker, will be out of town for a film shoot, and Mae is scheduled to give her father a partial liver transplant.

Eun, who is an acupuncturist, was philosophical about the date change. The training is too long now, she said. She will probably quit at some point, though when, exactly, she isn’t sure. “I will run,” she said, “until I stop.”

For me, the new date obliterates my plan to run a marathon by the time I’m 40. By May I’ll be 41, which doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. My friend Sara also turns a year older in March. “By May I’ll be in a whole new demographic,” she moaned.

For the APLA fundraising organization, it’s a potential disaster. Participation among runners in AIDS fundraising in the recent races in Honolulu and Amsterdam was disappointing, organizers told me. The coaches, the fundraising staff, the supplies and equipment all cost money, and fundraisers trimmed three weeks off the training schedule in LA (before the owners made the first date change, to February) as a cost-saving measure. Now the owners have gone and added in another three months, and the fundraisers have to find a way to make enough additional money to cover the added expenses.

One guy wondered: "Can we get the address of the marathon owner so we can send him a big pile of poop?"

The good: Not everyone is unhappy. A runner named Diane could not be more pleased. For her, the marathon training is part of a larger life change she’s been working on for a while and plans to continue, including diet and exercise. So a few extra months of training is gravy.

Coach Scott told us, in his typical understated way, that he’d actually been quite worried about our ability to be ready for a marathon come February 16 (the previously scheduled marathon date). (Him and me both!) Now, he says, he’s sure we’ll all be in fine form.

And for those of us who are still a bit poky on marathon day, my co-runner Andrea points out that by May, Daylight Savings will be in full swing, so, while it may be hot, none of us will be left to run in the dark.

Posted by Sara Catania at 10:55 AM | Permalink

I haven’t written much about the actual experience of running lately because when it comes down to it, there’s not a whole lot to say. You put one foot in front of the other and move forward until it’s time to stop.

It’s not all that exciting, really. What makes it interesting is what goes on in my head and inside the heads of the people around me. How we interact, how we react to the running experience, and what we think about how we’re reacting.

I was going to get to all that, but I was waiting for something momentous, like mile ten.

Then mile eight happened, and it felt more like mile 18. True, I can’t talk about running 18 miles with any authority, having never in my seven weeks as a runner attempted anything close to that. But that’s the comparison Coach Scott made, though he didn’t get around to mentioning it until we were done.

I’m coming to learn that Scott Boliver is a pretty understated guy with a high tolerance for pain. Not a surprise, I guess, for someone who works as a prison psychologist, and whose dad, Ray -- who volunteers at the site every Saturday along with his mom-- showed up a couple of weeks ago in the pouring rain attached to a portable drip bag because he had undergone some sort of intense medical procedure.

Not a problem, he assured us, as he urged us to help ourselves to more of the pretzels and orange slices and candy corns he and Scott’s mom, Pat, supply for us along our running route every week. Then there’s Scott’s son, Alec, who also volunteers every week and who was back at the site a week after undergoing brain surgery, shaved head and all. Strong stock, the Boliver clan.

We runners all gathered at 8 a.m. on Saturday to gear up for our eight-mile run, feeling pretty good. Seven miles last week was a cinch, so we didn’t pay much mind when Coach Scott started talking about hills and hydration and special running form for steep inclines.

We should have.

Saturday’s run took us up and over the formidable rise known as the Cahuenga Pass. It’s not the real Cahuenga Pass, which extends through the Santa Monica Mountains from the Los Angeles Basin to the San Fernando Valley. Runners and bikers seem to have bestowed that honorific upon this particular long and steep incline, which runs from Travel Town past the golf course and the old zoo, to accord it the respect it deserves.

On the (real) Cahuenga Pass two major land battles were fought, the first, the Battle of Cahuenga Pass, in 1831 between settlers and the Mexican-appointed governor’s squad and the second, the Battle of La Providencia, 14 years later between settlers over possible secession from Mexico.

On our pseudo-Cahuenga Pass we soon found ourselves in the midst of a struggle of our own: the Battle to Stay Upright and in Motion. According to Coach Scott, we would best achieve this by avoiding the temptation to lean forward, by maintaining our rhythm but slowing our pace, and by taking short steps and keeping our feet low to the ground.

That was all well and good, but we were still straining to move forward.

We’re typically a fun-loving group, and everyone was feeling particularly cheerful at the beginning of the run, buoyed by the Obama victory and a bright, sunny morning. When we all realized that the “hill” we were on was more like a never-ending incline, up and up and up, then down a bit and up and up some more, the strain of staying in motion sent us all into silence.

I won’t bore you with the gory details, the pinches, the strains, the cries of agony and the blinding sweat. Suffice to say that two hours later, all nine of us managed to make it to the end, in varying states of physical distress. The bananas and peanut butter sandwiches on the snack table were a revelation.

Was this my future for the next three (make that six) months? Was the reality of training for a marathon catching up to me? I needed the insight of a veteran runner to put things in perspective.

Fortunately, my friend Sara Stein, a real runner, is also training with APLA for the marathon. I hardly ever see her because she is in a fleet-footed group that is dispatched early (so they don’t have to run past all us slow-pokes) and long gone by the time we finish. Sara is an even-tempered person. As the proprietor of a public relations business in the fashion industry, she has to be. I called her as soon as I got home, but I barely had time to say hello before she launched into an uncharacteristic tirade.

The run was “terrible,” she said. “Horrible,” “humiliating, unnecessary and wrong, just wrong.” Sara, it turns out, had a hard time keeping up with her co-runners. She’s one of the few women in her pace group and the only one who’s given birth --twice. Back in her pre-kid days she used to take the hill on her weekend runs, but only one side, not both, and even then it was a big challenge, she told me, and she and her husband would come and gaze at it afterward and marvel at her strength and stamina. She hadn’t attempted it lately, and hadn’t intended to. But here she was, being left behind, only to be regaled by one of her running mates with tales of struggling runners losing control of their bowels. “Oh. My. God!” she shrieked into the phone. “The horror!” Then she added: “Congratulations! It’s great that you made it.”

I was left feeling both proud of finishing a hard run and sheepish at having to be told the magnitude of what I’d accomplished. It reminded me of my second day in California, in the fall of 1989. I’d moved to San Francisco fresh out of college and was unpacking my boxes when the radio went dead and my third-floor flat began to quiver. I grew up in Chicago and didn’t know from earthquakes. It was freaky to feel the earth move, but after a quarter of a minute it was done and it seemed there was nothing to do but go back to unpacking. That was Loma Prieta. By the time of the Northridge quake in ’94 I was living in Southern California, and when the shaking began I knew enough to feel the requisite, involuntary dread.

According to Coach Scott, we’ll be taking Cahuenga at least two more times during our training. I can only hope to keep the dread at bay.

Posted by Sara Catania at 3:23 PM | Permalink

The date for the 2009 LA Marathon had been changed -- again-- by the Frank McCourt team. The first change pushed it back, from early March to Presidents' Day, Monday, February 16. The latest change was reportedly made to accommodate runners who don't get Presidents' Day off. The new new date is Memorial Day, Monday, May 25.

Here's an excerpt from the evolving LA Times story:

"We think the Memorial Day date does two things," [Russ] Pillar said during a phone interview with The Times. "It lets us honor the city’s wishes that we have the race on a holiday Monday, and it lets us create a better runner’s experience than we could have on President’s Day. We've spent a lot of time talking to all of our constituencies -– runners, charities, volunteers –- and while there's never a good time to be changing race dates, the fact is that this will give us enough time to put on a great event."

So they talked to charities? Okay, but apparently it was news to the AIDS Marathon folks, the group I'm training with on behalf of AIDS Project Los Angeles. My guess is this is going to further strain fund raising resources -- the training folks had already shortened the training season by a couple of weeks (to save money, I'm told) before the first date change was announced. With a limited fundraising budget that must now cover an additional three-plus months of work, this can't be good news.

Here's part of a memo to us, the runners, from the AIDS Marathon program director:

We've received some very surprising news today. The new operators of the Los Angeles Marathon are moving the annual race to Memorial Day, marking the second calendar change since September for the race that, for 23 years, has been run on a Sunday in early March. The new owners of the event have decided to change the date of the marathon to Monday, May 25, which is Memorial Day.

While this date change is completely unexpected, the good news is that we'll now have more time to train and more time to raise money for AIDS Project Los Angeles. To prepare you for the new race date, we have modified our training schedule. We'll be handing out the new schedule at the run site this weekend...

We have also extended the fundraising deadline to February 6. This means that you now have three full months, not only to reach the $1,600 fundraising requirement, but also to achieve your own personal fundraising goal. We hope you will take advantage of this extra time to raise even more money for people living with HIV/AIDS in the Los Angeles area.

Posted by Sara Catania at 12:27 PM | Permalink

Here I was, feeling mighty proud and proudly mighty for all my great goodness in training for the LA marathon with AIDS Project Los Angeles. I would run a marathon (as in one, and one only), raise a few bucks and be done with it.

But that was before I started talking to my fellow trainees.

Within my running group of ten or so the cup of goodness overflows. Gaby is on her second marathon with APLA and her tenth year of fundraising for the group (she's done the walkathon every year). Andrea volunteers at a homeless shelter teaching writing. She also donates time to School on Wheels, which brings tutors to kids living in LA’s homeless shelters. Sarah, who is a documentary film producer, volunteers at Streetlights, which promotes the inclusion of ethnic minorities and at-risk kids in the entertainment industry. She walks every year for the Alzheimer’s Association and has volunteered for the AIDS Research Alliance, contributing to their monthly magazine as well as producing and directing a nationwide public service announcement.

Monica is studying to become a nurse with the hope of going on missions with Doctors Without Borders. Rachel, who works as a labor and delivery nurse and is about to be married, is planning to spend her honeymoon in South America volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. Amy works at a non-profit that develops affordable housing and serves on the board at the Center for Nonviolent Education and Parenting. Steve, who is on his fourth marathon, first trained with APLA in 2000 and was so inspired by the experience that he decided to devote himself to non-profit work. He took a job with Covenant House California, a Hollywood-based agency helping homeless kids, where he is the web and publications coordinator.

It’s an impressive group, one in which everybody but me could up and quit the marathon training tomorrow and no one would think they were shirking their do-gooder duties. But raising money – and consciousness – through marathon running holds a particularly elevated spot within the realm of good works, and in particular within the realm of physical exertion for a cause. The extreme nature of the feat, the fact that it requires a degree of risk and pain most people are unwilling or unable to commit, makes those same folks sit up, take notice, and, often, donate.

In one particularly compelling instance from the annals of twentieth century world history, Stylianos Kyriakides, a bill collector from Athens, Greece, was heartbroken over the plight of his country, which had been ravaged by World War II and by civil war, with thousands still dying of hunger in the streets. A champion runner, he persuaded his boss to buy him a plane ticket to Boston in 1946. Though he was living on rations and faced starvation himself (he was 5’7” and weighed 130 pounds) he trained relentlessly.

Kyriakides vowed to win the marathon or die trying, and win he did, coming in at 2:29:47, a world record. More important to him, though, were the boatloads of food, clothing and medical supplies his victory inspired Americans to send back to his ailing nation. According Running With Pheidippides by Nick Tsiotos and Andy Dabilis, one reporter for the Boston Herald wrote, “There’s seldom been more drama behind any single human being’s athletic effort and none probably felt himself so truly obligated to give better than his best in an attempt to do something for others.”

Kyriakides managed to extract much-needed donations at a time when most Americans were themselves feeling the post-war pinch. Likewise, the generosity of my co-runners is particularly inspiring to me given the economic moment we’re in now, when most of us are making do with less and the natural inclination is invest every ounce of one’s energy in keeping one’s own head above water. Instead, Gaby gathers five-dollar donations toward her pledge goal from anyone who can spare it, Andrea foregoes fancy running wear, and everyone keeps running.

In helping others, as in running, I have some catching up to do.

Posted by Sara Catania at 3:54 PM | Permalink