The Unity of Existence

War is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. *

- The character of The Judge, Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

To experience the endocrine soup of emotion and adrenaline and fear and acute nausea during competition is to live inside for just a few moments a controlled pantomime of something like war.  Survival and victory bring with them sweet and addictive feelings that tempt although the risk is defeat and its punishment is the lowest pit imaginable.  Running is a special sport because death and contact are pruned away and raw instinct unfolds on a well defined stage with simple rules.  Running challenges: it bullies normalcy; roughs a sure footed path up.  Come failure or come victory, you lived.

Getting pulled off the start line of a 1500 seconds before the gun because of weather doesn't feel good.  I'll call it blue shoes. (I was in fact wearing blue Reebok spikes) Just before section one of the Hoka One One middle distance classic 1500 began, lightning struck to the west of Occidental College's track.  The race started anyway and as my section trotted and did strides and cantered around like unbroken horses fat drops of water started plunking on the track and then hail began bouncing.  The officials lined us up then said "two minutes" which means go be horses again.  After another shakeout stride they called it off and began a 30 minute meet delay.

The game during a delay is to maintain emotional and physical preparedness across a series of observed lightning strikes unknown in number without wasting energy.  The irony of this storm quenching southern California's thirst in the exact moment we needed Los Angeles to make it just one more hour without a drink was not lost on me and gave me some solace as I wondered how much positive karma this was worth.  It was like a grade school tornado drill, everyone lounging in the gym and basement waiting for word.  The word came a few times and it was additional delay.  The guys in my heat once began re-warming up but were stopped in our tracks when another delay was handed down.  Like simon says at a roller skating rink in middle school, except they just said go race without the simon says part.

Eventually the entire remainder of the meet was cancelled about 75 minutes after I was originally scheduled to race. My first thought was an expletive and my second was lets go unofficially time trial.  I didn't build myself up for battle only to be denied.  That would be like laying siege for two weeks until my next race.  I was feeling incredible and knew I was ready rip a good 1500.  But asking around there wasn't a lot of interest and we weren't even sure if they'd let us on the track, which proved true.

A couple minutes after I started running on one of the treadmills in the Oxy fitness center next to the track Donn Cabral joined me and we started scheming a workout that would at least temper what we called our bloodlust.  We both have similar attitudes when it comes to working out and we were both on board for some work together like times at Princeton.  Outside the rain had lessened but sporadic lightning lit the sky up electric blue and illuminated the clouds menacing.  There was standing water in lanes one and two on the backstretch that would have been great for skim boarding, but the rain had lessened to a drizzle.

Donn and I made it through a 1200 in 3:11 with meet management hollering at us to leave the track for our safety the whole time.  We had to cut our plan short but props to them for doing their job and keeping things safe.  We went back inside and joined Tony Jordanek on the treadmills and decided on a tempo run.  This whole time, still on edge and the race nerves rattling.  It was about ten o'clock. Two miles into the tempo meet volunteers told us they were closing the place for the night in ten minutes.  The running gods might have been trying to tell us something.  Or maybe testing us.  We did 5:45, 5:15, 4:57, 4:45 miles on our treadmill tempo, burning away the pent up energy.

When Donn and I left the trackside facilities, walked to the car and did a short cool down, the LA night was still and clear and resting as if from some great exertion had left it breathing evenly and slowly and relieved.

The Judge might agree that running unifies us in the test of our will against our spiked counterparts.  Training and racing and living running have brought us all to our current existence. All of these meets are an undulating topography of highs and lows: in the anticipation and buildup of race day to the glances and silence and nods between men and women about to spill their hearts and plunge their lungs in blackness against one another, to the soaring high post race with its relief and smiles and chatter and communal cool downs in which everyone comes back to ground level and bonds are made.  It's a curve that takes some bravery to venture up onto but there is reward emotionally and physically fulfilling on its backside, sometimes even when you don't get to race.

*I should say that in Blood Meridian the Judge is one of the most dark characters I've ever met and he may represent the devil or (McCarthy's opinion!) worse the true nature of mankind, so take everything he says (and I say) with a grain of sodium chloride, as you should to keep your electrolyte intake up anyway.

-  -  -

John and I rolling some speed work last week - 600, 3 x 300, 500, 2 x 300, 400, 1 x 300, 800
all at under under mile pace.

It's back to Zap for two weeks of training and spring in the high country.  (Here is my account of a recent rainstorm that is too long to include.) Everything is green and adult running camps are beginning soon and this time of year is always exciting around the Zap campus.  In two weeks I'll end the siege with a well set up 1500 in Greenville, SC with Furman Elite and other studs.

Ten days later John Simons and I will have the opportunity to do something special.  We are coming home to Milwaukee and running a sub four mile attempt in the Wisco Mile at Wisconsin Lutheran high school.  The Wisconsin soil record of 3:56.38 set by Matt Tegenkamp in 2006 is in our sights and only two men have run under the barrier in Wisconsin's great 167 year history - Tegnekamp and Chris Solinsky in that same race in Madison in '06.  If you, your family, and/or friends are in Milwaukee on June 10th make sure to come out and witness history. Races begin at 6pm and the "Super Mile" is at 8:40.  More info at WiscoMile.com.

I view track season in two halves: everything up to and including the US Track and Field Championships in late June, and everything after that until late August.  The first half goal is to grab those pesky US "A" standards of 13:32 5k and 3:39.0 1500.  The opportunities we have set up are the Furman 1500 and the Portland Track Fest 5000 on June 14th.  The second half will most likely include July racing on the European circuit in Belgium and Ireland then domestic meets in August out west and here in North Carolina.  We plan to run this puppy all the way into September road racing before taking a major break.  Racing will (baring more storms) be heating up soon and there'll be many stories to tell.  Thanks for reading!

Upcoming Race Schedule

Date	Race Name	Location	Venue / Distance
May 30	SC Track Classic	Greenville, SC	Track 1500
June 10	Wisco Mile	Milwaukee, WI	Track Mile
June 14	Portland Track Fesitval	Portland, OR	Track 5000
June 28	US Track and Field Championships	Eugene, OR	Track 5000

Running Tech

Egyptian water clocks.  Romans roads and bridges.  Aboriginal long distance relay communication.  Waffle Irons.  Running has always advanced alongside technology, and in this age of Apples and Blackberries, opportunities are ripe for the picking.  What was once Aboriginal is now Abodigital. Here are some ideas for the future of running technology.*

The Virtual Reality Treadmill.

Imagine being able to run anywhere in the world without leaving your basement.  Surrounded by projections of Google street view as the wind rushes by, you smell the bakery you're running past in Paris, hear dockside clamor in Singapore and feel the burn as the incline changes automatically in downtown San Francisco.  Nano particles in the tread change the feel of the terrain from road to grass to dirt as you train in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx.  Of course by the time you've acquired this six-figure treadmill you might as well have bought some plane tickets.

Programmable (Wolverine) Spikes.

There's five minutes before the start of the cross country race, you're moving through your pre-race ritual, and suddenly coach tells you the mud is really thick in the third mile.  Uh oh, you only have quarter inch spikes in your shoes.  Relax, Don't Do It, no problem.  They are attached to programmable polymers inside the spike plates and a quick setting adjustment lengthens them to half-inch wolverine claws.  Just remember to retract before throwing em over your shoulder after the race...

Clockwise Tracks.

Runners (especially 10k people) have a risk of becoming ambi-turners if they continue to only turn left during track races.  Paint an additional set of lines and markers to allow for occasional meets in which all running events are held in the clockwise direction.  (Actually I have John Simons to thank for this idea).  The other way would be to put a massive mirror on one side of the track.  That would do it, right?

Downhill Tracks.

Imagine a track that turns clockwise and goes downhill....

While I'm on tracks, I was thinking we must be far along enough to make M.C. Escher's vision of a track that always goes downhill but somehow comes around to the same point reality.  World records and shins would come crashing down.

Permanently implanted timing chips.

This one is a bit Big Brother.  At an early age when you are indoctrinated into the cult that is running, they surgically implant a chip in your chest that will identify you at every race for the rest of your life.  No more pesky shoe chips or bib numbers you aren't supposed to fold.  The chip ID would be associated with an online database containing all you race results, splits, workout stats, 24/7 whereabouts... creepy.

Power Generating Training Shoes
Piezoelectric materials like lead zirconate titanate generate a voltage when they are compressed.  Put some in the soles of running shoes and you could charge your dead phone after running five miles right from your shoes.  Or they could power LEDs for safer nighttime running.  DARPA  is trying this in soldier's boots.

Facial Recognition Fan App.
How many times have you been watching a race and asked "who the hell is that guy taking it out like Diego Estrada?" or "wow, who is their fifth runner?  She is making the race for them."  With FaceTrack, simply point your mobile device at a pack of oncoming runners and it matches their faces with pre-loaded athlete profiles.  Then fans could view all results, media, and history for that athlete.  Don't forget to keep an eye on the race.  Doesn't work if all the runners in the frame have Derek Rubis' face.

Alternate Alter-G.

Definitely the best editing job I've ever done.

There has to be a better way to simulate lower gravity during rehab training than a sweaty plastic bubble that forces you to run like a T-rex.  I'm sure someone could figure out how to locally block the gravitons interacting between your body's and the Earth's matter... or maybe some kind of magnetic levitation suit?  An attractive option.  Wait, no, a repulsive one.

Holographic Pacers

I've heard that Harvard's indoor track used to have lights in the rail around the oval that could be set to a pace for workouts or races.  The "Hare-o-Gram" would take it a step further: project a hologram of a runner on the track for competitors to follow at a certain pace.  No more "what pace is the rabbit going?" "58 through the quarter" and then the guy runs a 61.5.  Hare-o-Gram would hit 58.00.  You could even pick the pacer's image, bringing back Matt Scherer from retirement or drafting off Big Bird.  Unfortunately, holograms can't provide a wind shadow so this is mainly for psychological pacemaking.  Puts people out of jobs too.

"Track Casual" Trainer-Dress Shoes.

This is actually possible, I think.  Have you ever had to squeeze a double run in between a flight and your friend's wedding, a first date, or a job interview?  Just because a training shoe has to withstand hundreds of miles, rain, snow, mud, and vomit during its lifetime doesn't mean it can't look like an Oxford.  Saves packing space, but probably not worth the smell at more formal events.

Real Time Form Analysis.
In-lab form analysis with the little Velcro ping pong balls and wire frame modeling already exists, but there's no way to get scientific stride or posture feedback on the roads and trails.  Let's say you are trying to improve your arm carriage or your rearward leg extension.  Gyro and accelerometer sensors inside bracelets and anklets measure the angles, rates, positions, and distances your limbs are swinging in.  They wirelessly update your watch, reminding you to focus on desired improvements.

Autonomous Meet Coverage.
Cover track and cross country meets with teams of drones.  They fly around with cameras getting aerial and trackside views.  Commentators work from a central control station and can cover multiple meets simultaneously all over the country without having to travel.

Prolonged careers with time travel.

I always have to include relativity in these more serious blog posts.  Let's say you want to dodge a rival doing particularly well this year or you want your career to last ten Olympic cycles instead of only two or three.  Just board a spaceship going close to the speed of light and time will move faster for you relative to Earth's, and when you come back you'll have "traveled into the future."  Though it might be hard to train on the spaceship since your relativistic mass would be at least... three times bigger.

Tear Away Short Shorts.

We love running in nice short shorts with big splits, but what if you get challenged to a game of HORSE (or ZAP) on the way to the run?  You'd be wearing the wrong equipment.  I envision a pair of basketball or lounging shorts that tear away to running shorts.  Man would you get made fun of.

But when it's all said and done, running is a gritty and visceral sport.  At a certain point, automation takes away from its purity.  Really the only thing that matters is getting results quickly after races.

*I do not claim to actually know anything about any of this.

**I know I know, I totally just botched special relativity.

Payton Jordan Invite

Stanford University,  The Ivy of the West.  I've always loved coming to this sprawling land grant campus with its palm trees, spanish colonial architecture, open spaces, and proximity to some of the coolest tech companies in the world (Google, Facebook, Lockheed Martin). This weekend, runners from all over the country and world are descending on the Angel Cobb track stadium for the dependably consistent weather and great fields at the Payton Jordan Invitational.

The 5000 is Sunday night at dusk.  I land at San Francisco International Airport around noon on Friday, giving myself plenty of time to relax and adjust before the race.  The BART train takes me to Millbrae for a transfer onto Caltrain, which takes me on nice ride down to Palo Alto.  Californians love to talk about their mundane travel arrangements so I thought I'd throw that in there.

I'm staying with a buddy on campus, which turns out to be an enormous asset.  I can jog to the track in about five minutes, eat at the dining hall, and pretend to be a Stanford student for the weekend.  I even have a bike to ride.  On Friday night my friend and I went with some of his buddies to see Michael Bay's new flick Pain and Gain with Mark Wahlberg and the Rock.  What a ridiculous movie.  It provided some inspiration for my race though -  Marky Mark has some good lines.  "My name is Daniel Lugo, and I believe in fitness." "be a doer, not a don't er."  It was a hilarious movie that you should see if you don't mind losing a few IQ points.

All this was a nice break from the typical experience I'm used to at meets.  Hotels make me mildly anxious because I can't help but associate them with races.  Being on a campus around libraries and sunbathing chicks makes me feel at home and coming into Sunday I'm feeling pretty good.

Race Day

Usually when I wake up on race day, the coming experience flashes though my thoughts, followed by an acute surge of nervousness and excitement.  I lay there on the air mattress on the floor of my friend's apartment, feeling the adrenaline course through my veins until it ebbs away.  There's no falling back asleep after that.  Now the body knows something big's about to hit it.  It's part of my preparation.

The 5000 entries for tonight are so deep that my 13:38 seed did not make the fast heat.  The Schumacher clan, Oregon Track club crew, World Cross Country sixth place finisher Ben True, and collegians Diego Estrada, Eric Jenkins and Maverick Darling headline a 5000 field that surely every American distance running fan is drooling over thanks to Flotrack's coverage.  Hanging around on the grass before my warm up I'm surrounded by the who's who of American distance running. (Derek Rubis, if you're reading this, I know you'd love being there)

I'm confident going into this race.  Workouts have been going very well, I've been healthy for a long time, and eight days ago I soloed a 3:44.1 1500 back in Austin.  I haven't raced much lately, especially over longer distances and I'm wondering what going past 3k will feel like.  But I push any questions I have out of my mind and get to the line focused.

Two laps in the pace has settled at 65 seconds per lap, right at 13:32 rhythm.  There's a rabbit leading Nouredine Smail of France and Mitch Goose of Iona.  I'm sitting third.  At the beginning of a 5k, tiny changes in pace are very obvious when the body is still fresh and perceptive.  Even a one second per lap change feels like a lot.  Over the third and fourth laps I feel the tempo slack ever so slightly, prompting Smail  to drop a 63 after we pass one mile in 4:21 and the rabbit steps off.  Goose lets a gap form and I quickly go around and get in Smail's wake as we pull away from the rest of the field.  Going with him is a gamble, but it's the only way of giving myself a chance to run fast.  On the homestretch Smail gestures for me to go around him and lead.  I decide to do so, partially since it's polite, and partially because I might be putting money in the bank for later when I'll need him.

Video of the Race

I lead for about 800 and with a look over my shoulder, Smail re-passes me.  This time I won't be starting another round of lead exchanges because as we approach the 3k, I'm starting to feel the hurt. I come though in 8:07 and pass two miles in 8:40 (technically a 3200 PR) slightly off of Smail, and from there I begin to slowly fade.  I'm quickly in no man's land (Luckily it's no man's land in front of the race and not behind it) and all I can think about is finishing.  In situations like this, runners either grind it out or they die really hard.  I say to myself, "you didn't come here for the first two miles, you came here for the last one."  I'm running 67 second laps, not on pace but not terrible.  You think about the weirdest things in that situation.  Whole wheat pancakes, volleyball nets, spanish class in 6th grade.  You don't hear anything.  The pain tries to suck your thoughts towards it like a tractor beam.  You go through pulses of focus and loss of focus.  I think about my form as it erodes, trying to switch backup systems on, finding anything I can in my legs and body.

Finally the bell is ringing and it's supper time.  I gather myself, consciously relaxing my face and hands, and take a few quick steps as I head into the final 400.  People told me I 'closed hard' after the race, but any kind of kick must have looked fast compared to my strugglefest coming into the bell.  The final 100 I'm hoping to God the rest of the field that I haven't seen for 2 miles isn't running me down as my elbows are flying everywhere, knees are knocking, and face is grimacing.  I cross the line in 13:40.04, the second fastest 5k time of my life, having run a 61 second final lap.

Back on Earth as I cool down, I sort out how I feel about the race and decide I'm pretty happy.  1. I'm very close to my PR 2. I'm proud of how hard I fought 3. It feels SO good to race again.  I realize that I absolutely want to race the five again this season.  The original plan was to switch focus to the 1500 if this race didn't produce 13:30, but I know that next time that last 2k will get done the way it needs to be done.  A hard race effort like this works wonders mentally and physically for the next go.  There's a rule I think every runner should follow: if you absolutely have a desire to race, race.  You never know when the next time you'll be able to comes around.  So next up it's the 5k at Oxy High Performance in L.A. in 17 days.

After the meet John Simons, an old high school rival who now runs for Minnesota and I hit up Pizza My Heart in downtown Palo Alto.  We had the right idea because as we sat eating some nice greasy pizza, what seemed like the whole meet patronized the place. (again Rubis, you would have loved it)  People asking each other how their races went, coaches bullshitting with each other, and the kids working the Sunday night late shift wondering why their place was suddenly so full - it just makes me love the running community.  It also remands me that I probably take the whole thing too seriously.  Nah.

Post Race Interview