A quick trip to Copenhagen…to run a marathon!
“Would you like to run the Copenhagen Marathon? We’ll pay all expenses and give you a little something for your time.” My long-time prosthetics sponsor, Össur, posed this question to me six weeks ago. My immediate reply: “I’d love to, but I’ve got plans that weekend: on Thursday my 45-year old sister graduates from nursing school back in Boston and I’m bringing my mother back with me to Colorado on Saturday. And most importantly, I’ve got great U2 tickets for their Denver show on Saturday night!”
I tell my wife, Sharon, of the offer and she immediately has the solution (I’m ever-so-thankful that she always does!): “You go run your marathon, I’ll pick up your mother from the airport…and I’ll go to the show with Cathy!”
Other than missing what would be sure to be one of the greatest shows I’d ever get a chance to experience, the plan had no holes.
At seven the next morning I ran a 12-miler before joining the family at Jack’s 9am Saturday morning soccer game. Had they kept score, it would’ve been like 10-1.
The following Saturday I knocked off a 14-miler (between long runs were managed one 50-minute treadmill run, one lunchtime pick-up game of hockey, one late-night league game, and one 75-minute bike ride with Hawk and Luke asleep in the Burley), ending at the soccer field to witness Jack’s 10 o’clock team schooling.
Saturday #3 witnessed a relatively successful 17-mile run en route to soccer (maybe a total of three goals in three games). The next day I had the beginnings of a boil on Stumpy.
MRSA (known as “mersa”)—that haunting SOB who’s taken up residence in my immune system for the last five years—decided to make another showing atop my fibular head (the bony prominence at the top of the fibula, just below the knee to the outside). In my case, MRSA manifests itself as boils. These topical infections of this skin are extremely tender and when you are forced to bear 162 pounds on them with every step, they’re simply agonizing. I walked for the next few days since the nastiness wasn’t full blown nasty just yet, and even managed to play hockey Wednesday night with the help of a couple pain killers. Then I spent some days on crutches.
What? You advise that maybe I should’ve taken up the crutches earlier? Save it. I’m really, truly not interested in your opinion. (Is it obvious that nearly 20 years of unwarranted advice has worn on me?)
I was cool with crutching it for a few days before the weekend’s long run. Saturday came and I was still on crutches. Sunday, no crutch, but no can run either. Moving right along, I couldn’t manage more that 30 minutes on the treadmill, nor the road, nor the itty-bitty indoor track at the gym for the next three weeks. The boil didn’t hang out for too long but the residual hole took much longer than anticipated to heal and even when the skin completely covered it, I was left with a needling sensation that just wouldn’t quit. Six days before the race I had to bail after a quarter mile…
When I first accepted the offer, I figured with five or six long runs and some good mid-week training I’d be able to muster a 3:45 marathon, maybe a 3:30 if the stars aligned. Due to the lack of training I resolved to a hopeful sub-four—that is, if that needle was gone. Assuringly, one thing I’ve learned racing for the last 17 years: Stumpy always comes through on Race Day!
(I should note that cycling was still quite painful, but hockey only hurt mildly when I sat on the bench! I maintained some level of fitness by skating my ass off twice a week.)
Yesterday, May 22, 2011, Stumpy shined once again!
I’ll give just a bit more backstory before moving on. Last Tuesday I flew to Boston and due to a delay in Dallas got to bed around 2am…in a hotel room that had yet to be serviced since the last visitor. The only room available, of course. Luckily this was a double and the other bed hadn’t been touched. Just bring me a clean towel!
Up at seven for a 9am presentation at The Bostonian Group, a sizable insurance brokerage just steps away from the Boston Marathon finish line. The CEO claimed it a successful delivery which left me feeling back on track. I delivered another talk that night to the employees of Athol Savings Bank, a small bank in North Central Mass.
The next day was my sister’s graduation ceremony and she had by far the biggest smile of the three hundred plus graduates in attendance! So proud of you, Elaine Woodward!!!! 
The next night (after a relatively painless 30-minute run) was Elaine’s “pinning ceremony” and with her last name falling alphabetically where it does, she was second to last in this ritual. I stayed right up until the big moment, 7:30pm, then promptly leapt into the rented Suburban for my hasty trek back to Logan Airport. I arrived at the gate of my 10:55pm flight to Copenhagen 10 minutes before boarding. Slept an hour, maybe, on the flight to Denmark, via Paris. Arrived at 3pm and would be back on a plane in 34 hours! Bedded by 10pm Copenhagen time, Skyped my family and talked with my mom who was now in Colorado holding Hawk, our youngest, before getting a solid seven hours.
The Race: the plan was to go out easy—maybe 9:00-9:30 pace and see how it goes. (Let me add here that Scout Bassett, an above knee amp, was also brought in to run. She’s the coolest 4′8”, 74 pound 22-yr old UCLA Anthropology major I know! She and I started together at the gun as she set out to set a new PR.)
By Mile 8 I was still feeling well in Body, Mind, and Stump. At the half-marathon point I felt I could pick it up some. By then I had stopped two, maybe three times to reboot and a couple times to dangle.
I checked my watch: elapsed time, 1:50.
It began to rain.
A few more miles, the rain had subsided, the clouds remained and the temps were back to high 60s/low 70s. A little sweat, but overall quite a comfortable conditions, on, as you may have presumed, a very flat course. Nary a hill in all of Denmark!
As is always the case, as the race progressed the dangles and reboots came with increasing frequency, but nothing terrible and nothing I haven’t experienced a thousand times (that might not be an exaggeration). With 7 miles to go I felt quite good, really started to pick it up and began passing more and more runners. With 4 miles to go I felt far better than expected and turned it up another notch. My Garmin 205 GPS noted a sub-seven minute pace, 6:45 at one glance. Couple more dangles/reboots…
Before I hit the finish line I started to fade a bit, yet I was all fired up knowing that my system could pull-off a respectable performance with such little training. As the line approached and I was about to notch a 3:49:55 marathon, I smiled and gave a little shout-out to the sweet spirit that allows such moments to transpire.
For years I put miles in the bank. Thankfully, I was able to withdraw a few on a rainy day in Denmark.
Challenged Athletes Foundation Triathlon Camp, sponsored by Dodge
I’ve just returned from Pensacola, FL, where the Challenged Athletes Foundation staged a camp for newbie paratriathletes. It was an honor to be invited as a mentor/coach along other seasoned vets like Amy Dodson, Scott Hollenbeck and Sarah Reinertsen.
Twenty or so men and women of various disabilities (many below-knee amps, aka trans-tibial or BK like me) took up the offer for the all-expense paid trip to the white sandy beaches to learn from certified triathlon coaches and several of us who have already put in thousands of miles. Several from the group were injured in the conflicts overseas, and, as I’ve mentioned before, that’s where the true reward is: being able to help those who’ve sacrificed so much for the rest of us. “Wounded Warriors” has become the popular moniker. (Can’t tell you how often I’m asked if I’m an injured vet!)
The accommodations couldn’t have been better than that of The Portofino at Pensacola Beach. My 14th floor condo overlooking the ocean was a real surprise—we’re typically housed on more of a budget, but I suppose these condos were sponsored to some degree by the management. A fabulous dinner started things off on Thursday night along with introductions of staff, mentors and campers. Breakfast was served 6am sharp and by 8am, after building our bikes and going over bike fitting and prosthetic issues, the BKs were on the treadmill for gate analysis and the other groups were either in the pool or on the bikes.
I was not there so much to coach as to be the example of how to it should be done, or as close to ideal as I could manage. Even my bad habits have improved over the years! One of the coaches, Sorgio Borges of X Training, put me on the treadmill first to demonstrate proper form: slight lean forward, not bent at waist; loose shoulders and arms, latter in tight; quick, light foot strikes; head looking 8-10 feet ahead; etc. Many of the others had great running strides already, some of whom were still running on walking legs—no Ossur Run-Flex feet (C-shaped carbon) most of us are now on. They still ran great and have nowhere to go but faster and smoother.
It didn’t take long to take a liking to Kent Solheim, an Army Green Beret who lost his lower leg to a close-quartered fire-fight in Iraq. I hope I am at liberty to quote him: “I’d shot one guy from about 10 ft, then stood over him and capped him, just then his buddy came from another room and put four bullets though my legs.” Man…hard to even comprehend.
Later that day were in the pool for swim-stroke analysis. This was good stuff for me too. As of late, with a return to the water after not spending much time at all in there in the past few years, one of the Boulder YMCA coaches has been helping me to slow down my stroke and stretch out a little more. In the pool this week was Mike Garlan from Asphalt Green in NYC and Coach John Murray from the Multisport Performance Institute in Pensacola. Each were fabulous instructors whose tips will surely benefit my future competitions. Mike put my middle fingers “on rails” (unbeknownst to me I’ve been S-stroking) and John got me “reaching over the barrel” to grab more water. Each of these theories of proper technique I am familiar with, but little did I know I wasn’t executing them properly. These faults were proven in the underwater video clips they provided me on DVD, which I watched earlier on this flight back to Denver. (And my single leg kick has been grossly inefficient, bending nearly 30 degrees creating massive drag!)
That night myself and Eric Averill, a Boston resident, fellow Boston Bruins fan, and VP at USA Triathlon headed down to the local sports bar with a gazillion TVs to watch the Bs complete their sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals! GO Bs!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our training grounds at Pensacola Beach were a 200 meter wide strip of land that extends east of Pensacola with the Gulf of Mexico to the south and Pensacola Bay to the north. On Saturday morning we were on the bay side practicing open water swim technique. Several of the campers had never swam in open water. One camper, Earl Barnes, a firefighter who’d lost his leg on a murdercycle, is a former college swimmer and showed me the line around the buoys and back. I later found out he could ride a bike too!
From there we went straight to a local middle school track to work on run form drills and knock off descending 200s. My first track workout in forever! Felt good. Loyal Pyczynski, A 25ish-year old congenital hand amputee—built like a runner—ran away with the “fastest guy at camp” award.
After the Subway sponsored lunch and some lectures from the MPI staff, we headed out for out ride, broken up into groups based on ability. The more experienced guys and gals rode 13.5 miles out to the end of the peninsula and back. Things had started to wind up toward the half way point and it was soon made clear that Kent had also ridden before. Turns out before joint the army, putting on lots of muscle mass and becoming a member of the Special Forces, he was a Cat 1 cyclist!
On the return trip, into the wind, two of the guys—understandably, the two above-knee amputees—had gotten dropped from the pace. Since I was there as a mentor, I wouldn’t have been much of one had I left them out to dry, so I hung back and began pulling them back to the hotel. Soon thereafter Coach John came back and helped with the work. Then the bottomless pit of energy and chatter known as Peter Harsch—prosthetist at the San Diego Navy Medical facility, builder of several of these boys’ legs, and tremendously talented Ironman athlete—came back to us along with Coach Mike Sortino of MPI to help get everyone home. Shortly thereafter Peter, Mike and John lit it up off the back and began hammering it home. I hesitated, feeling I must hang with the other two, then it occurred to me that these two grown men behind me could ride a few miles home by themselves; I took off on chase. I’d waited too long and couldn’t catch them (as much as assumed I would!) but did get in 12 minutes of max time trial training!
That was pretty much the end of the program for me but one matter remained: I had to get to the beach mere steps away from my hotel and swim in the gulf. After an unexpected cat-nap, I crossed the road and was both reminded and amazed at how clear and beautiful and perfect the water is there! I swam for spell, then hurried back to grab a quick shower and catch the boat to dinner.
Up at 4:30 on Sunday morning for my return to Colorado and Mother’s Day brunch at the fabulous Green Briar Restaurant at the bottom of Left hand Canyon, a few miles north of Boulder, just down the road from where my dad built a house in 1972.
I think you might agree, life is what you make of it.
