After running my first 50K last year, I decided to try another this year–partially to keep my motivation for running longer long runs and partially to prep for the Chicago Marathon this year.  Last year’s race was during the day, hot, partially over trail and with one big hill.  This year I decided to do the inaugural Christmas in July put on by Runners4Wellness.  This was an overnight six hour timed run, on pavement and for the most part flat, from what I’d heard.  However, there was one big thing I was concerned about and that was that this race was over a one mile loop (see map below).   The reaction from everyone I spoke with was “ugh, a one mile loop?”  But I was running it with two friends and hoped that it wouldn’t be that bad.   One thing tough, I figured there would always be someone running close by, so there wouldn’t be long periods of running by myself if I separated from the two people I was running it with.

The 6 hour run started at midnight.  The 12 and 24 hours runners had started earlier so there were already runners on the path.  For the 6-hour, there were about 50 people who were at the starting line.  The loop was a little less than a mile.  On the map to the right, the run started at point A.  There was a slight elevation near the beginning and then a slow downhill.  At point B was the major hill of the course (15 – 20 feet elevation).  At point C there as a sharp right turn that continued a small elevation and then after that, for the most part, it was either downhill or flat.   I don’t recall the exact temperature but it was probably in the 70’s.

I ran the first  7 loops before taking a short gel/water break.  To my surprise the first 7 loops didn’t seem as arduous as I had imagined.  In fact they went by rather quickly.  As did the next 7 loops.  Around the 15^th or 16^th loop, I ended up separating from my friends, but as I had initially thought, there weren’t too many times that I was running by myself and the nice thing about the one mile loop ended up being that during the rest of the race, I was able to group back up with my friends periodically.  However, at the times when I was running by myself, it was really nice to have the supports there.  There was a gentleman near the beginning, and another near the sharp curve at point C, however, my hat goes off to the woman who was half way up the hill at point B.  She was there at least for the six hours that I ran and the whole time she was standing up and cheering.  At times, I think that may have been a more difficult thing to do that actually run.

At mile 21, my left knee started to hurt.  This was most likely due to the sharp turn at point C and the constant run in a clockwise direction.  We were supposed to switch directions after two hours but there was glitch in the sensors I believe and we weren’t able to.  I was glad I had brought a knee support with me though I hadn’t used it in the last four years.  It definitely helped me continue with running.  Also, after this, I made sure to walk up the hill as well at the turn at point C.  I finished my 26^th loop at around 4:40.  This was also the time that the sun slowly began to come up.  It was around loop 29 that I really started to lose my energy and motivation.  I’m not sure it was just the mileage or whether it was the fact that the sun was out and I could much better gauge the distance I had left in each loop but it seemed for the next two loops it was really one foot in front of the other.  Fortunately on my last loop, another runner started talking to me.  I can’t recall her name, but she was from Naperville and doing the 12 hour run.  Her energy and conversation really made the last loop bearable, and luckily for me, I caught up with one of my partners in crime and we were able to finish the last loop together.

At the end of this, I had completed 32 loops in 6 hours for a total of 31.04 miles.  About 0.03 miles less than a 50K, but at that point, I wasn’t really counting.  I had a great run.  The race was surprising well organized and the swag was great (a hoodie, a shirt and a medal), the runners were a great bunch of people to be a part of and the volunteers and supporters rocked!

I definitely plan on running this race again next year.

Being a family of four, I’m amazed at how much garbage we produce during the week.  I don’t think it’s anything more than the average family, two to four 13 gallon bags, and that amount is in addition to about the same amount of recycling.   If you were to ask me what the contents of the garbage are, I would be clueless.  It could be food, it could be materials that should be recycled, or it could just be we’re not compacting/crushing things we’re throwing out, so that mass isn’t that great, just the volume.

One of my goals for this year was to reduce my contribution to landfills and Earth day seems the right day to start this goal.  Being a consultant, of course the approach that I want to take for this is the same approach I would take with a client who wants to reduce waste or make improve efficiency, etc, but taking this project through the phases of analysis, plan, implement and repeat the cycle until the desired goal is met.

The first step I will be taking is analyzing my garbage for the next few weeks to understand the content.  The result of this will directly impact the strategy to reduce waste and the outcome.  For example, if a majority of garbage is food, reducing the amount we cook or order will not only reduce waste, but can also lead to more savings.  Unfortunately we’re dealing with garbage and I have absolutely no plans to go through what we throw out in detail, but I do plan to make a visual record of what we’re throwing out.  This will consist of category and quantity.   My current plan is to record this on a daily basis, but knowing myself, it’ll probably happen more randomly than that.

The currently categories I have are: food, non-recyclable material, recyclable material and mixed items.  Currently I’m not sure what other categories our waste to consist of.  As I see patterns, I will add additional categories.  For each of these items I will also track large/small space to determine if the garbage bag gets full just because items being thrown out take up a large space, but don’t contain a log of material.

My next step after I collect this information will be to analyze ways to reduce the amount of items thrown out, either through decreasing consumption or converting garbage to recycling, etc.   For now, my next post on this subject will be after I have collected four weeks of data.

If you have taken on a similar endeavor, I’d love to hear from you

I’ve been reading a lot about martial arts and self-defense lately.  So much out there related to one martial arts being better for self-defense versus another.   Sometimes it seems like we’re back in the 60’s and 70’s when schools used to challenge each other over who is better, except that now we’re doing it over blog posts and videos.   But here’s the thing, I don’t practice martial arts for self-defense.   Self-defense is definitely a benefit, but at my age, I don’t plan on being in a situation where I would need to defend myself.  Even if I am, my first instinct is going to be to resolve it through talking, walk away or run if needed.Statistically, being in a situation where it is a life and death choice and I have no option but to defend myself, are fairly slim.  If self-defense is the only reason I’m taking martial arts, I’ve spent a lot of time and money on something that may never be utilized.   Odds are significantly more in the favor that I’ll die from heart disease or a car accident than I will from another person.

So why do I practice martial arts?  I still believe there are many benefits to martial arts besides self-defense.  It keeps your mind and body sharp.  Kind of like doing math for your brain, but this exercises both.   An incident last week underscores that.  I was running in the icy streets in my neighborhood and jumped over some piled show, landing on an icy spot with my right leg slipping sideways past my left.    I have heard horror stories about people breaking their hips from fall while running or suffering concussions.  I walked away with a skinned knee and finished the last 5 miles of my run.  Was I lucky?  Possible.  But I’d like to think that all those years of doing side-falls helped.

Another incident from a few years back also emphasizes the benefits of martial arts beyond self-defense.  I was walking home from the train past a woman with her dog.  As I walked past them, I felf sometime move and instinctively I moved my leg.  Her dog had lunged and ripped out the back of my pants at the knee.  Had I been even a second slower, that would have been the ligaments behind my knee in the dog’s mouth.  Again maybe I was just lucky, but I’d like to believe that my martials arts training had something to do with it.

That’s two incidences in the past few years, whereas since I started taking martial arts over 17 years ago, I’ve not been in one situation where I’ve had to defend myself using martial arts.  If I am ever in need to physically defend myself, what I have learned will definitely be a benefit.  But there are so many mind, body and possibly even socials benefits to martial arts that will impact your life more than just the self-defense aspect.

When executing a number 3 disarm, I’ve always told my students to snake around the hand to get it to the disarming position. In general terms, snaking usually refers to the twisting around an appendage, generally the arm/hand.  However, for the #3 disarm, snaking is perhaps the right term, but the traditional technique is perhaps not the optimal technique.  For this specific technique I want to differentiate between snaking and what I call pythoning.  Pythons coil and circle the appendages or their prey.  Snakes do this too, but they more often strike, moving straight in and straight out.    While coiling can be effective in executing the # 3 disarm, it is not an efficient movement.  In the video below I demonstrate “pythoning”.

You can see how the hand makes a big circle around my partner’s arm wasting a lot of movement and time.

The technique is more effective if pursued as a snake striking rather than a python coiling.  In the video below, the disarming hand goes straight out and then comes straight back in turning as it returns.

This is much more direct, effective and quicker.