Filed under: Members
NBR Profile No. 3
Rodrigo Toscano talks with MICHAEL ESSIG
Michael Essig first saw flyers posted by NBR in the icy winter of 2009, but he didn’t feel like running outside just yet. He first met up with the Thursday night speed work group that April, and started running with the group in June. To this day, you can catch up with Mike at the Turkey’s Nest (NBR’s go-to dive bar) on Thursday nights. His first NBR affiliated race was the NYYR Team Championships that August. For Mike, the shorter (faster) run, the better. His best Age Graded performances are in the 400 to Mile range. This year, he’s run 1 1M (4.52!), 2 5Ks, 5 4M, 1 5M, and 1 10K. He’s been placing between 5th and 15th in his age group this year for 8 of the 9 NYRR runs he’s done. He’s also placed 1st in his age group in the Greenpoint 5K. Mike has lived in North Williamsburg (right next to the McCarren Park track) for the last 3 years.
RT: Michael, I feel that the club as a whole has come a long way in understanding and appreciating what it means to be a Masters Runner (“masters” generally denotes runners “over 40”, but more specifically runners between 40-50, while the 50-60 age group are called “Grand Masters division”, and so forth), so it’s great to be openly talking shop here – as ultimately (hopefully!) everybody on this team is heading towards this division.
And I think it’s worth saying this straight out, that we’re not interested in “whoopin’ youngin’s butts” (not all the time at least 
), what most often concerns us is what strategies do we employ, pure and simply, to maintain the ability to keep running at all. And added to that, is that we want to get faster! But here’s the kicker. The “ceiling”, so to speak (maximum heart-rate, lactate threshold, VO2 max, etc, not to mention tissue healing ability) is “coming down.”
Now, the reason that I put “coming down” in quotes, is that we honestly and firmly believe that we have wiggle room to “reach up” – and we do (our entire masters division has gotten faster over the last year), but still, right? We know this is going to be a struggle that’s going to require a great amount of patience and acceptance. And still, we revel – like everyone else, we stress, absorb, and expend.
So my question is…Michael Essig! How goes it, brother? What’s up with you and running these days?
ME: Well, running has taken on a new life for me the last few years. I’ve been running since I was a kid, but since HS it’s mostly been running 2-3 times a week for a fast tempo 5K – I’d call it the running with the wolves style! Recently, I’ve actually been upping the mileage and diversifying the workouts – last quarter I averaged 25 miles/week. Not much for a marathoner but a big step up from where I was.
There are a few drivers that got me back into running more seriously. NBR has been a big influence – both the camaraderie of running with others and the breadth of experience teammates offer. My eyes have been opened. When someone like Owen says I can win races if I run 80 miles a week, it starts you thinking about possibilities. I’ll probably never run 80 miles a week, but maybe I can hit 35-40 miles and get a lot faster. That would be fun!
I think another key driver getting me back to running was an accident I had in late 2007. Two cabs collided in front of me at Canal and Broadway on a rainy night and made a beeline for me. I tried to outrun them but the next thing I knew I was on the ground and scaffolding was collapsing down on top of me. For real, this is how I’m going out!? But I was lucky – my calf was pretty beaten up and had a huge tear in the muscle but all my joints were unscathed. And I was alive. But the event drove home the realization that you can’t take anything for granted. And barely hobbling with a cane – well I desperately wanted to get my leg back up to speed and run with the wolves again.
So my most recent running binge has definitely emerged from the ether of aging and mortality that just is not there for the invincible twentysomethings. I want to be able to run fast while I still can! But to be honest I’m a little leery of all the masters talk. In some ways it feels like making excuses. Yes, the body loses capability as it ages, recovers less quickly, etc. But I would dare to suggest that the bigger component is what we believe is possible and how we take care of our bodies. Let me give an example. My sister was working on a sleep study at MIT where they were going to test John Glenn on a shuttle mission. I think he was 77 at the time. My sister was there as they instrumented him up – she said he was in tremendous condition and more ripped than anyone she knew. At 77! Of course this is John Glenn, but the point is that the body does not have to degenerate into the average weak- overweight- American physique.
It’s actually a lot of fun once you realize how malleable the body is and how you can transform it over time – the body as laboratory. Before my accident, I was actually on a weight lifting binge – probably lifting every other day but trying to build strength. Hell I could bench press over 280 lbs! And I only weighed maybe 175 lbs! That’s lifting over 160% of my body weight. But getting back to running, I knew I had to shed some weight if I was going to run fast. So experimenting with the body again, I cranked up the running, cut back the lifting, and shed over 10 lbs. It took some time, but the physique just moves around to where you push it to, within reason. I’m not sure I’d want to do it, but if I could lose another 5-10 lbs I’d be competing with some of the faster guys on the team, regardless of age. So I take the masters thing with a grain of salt. Let’s do a running/lifting biathlon – I doubt too many are going to beat this “Master!”
RT: Mike, I so enjoy this can-do side of you, this wolf tormentor of badgers (true friend to foxes) – however! I also know there’s the Sr. Michael of Essig side of you, the philosophic one that thinks deep about the reality of the human body and its limits. Can you please hit us with that?
ME: Sure! One thing age and masters status does bring is a bit of wisdom – knowledge that can be used by all runners but especially the young and invincible. I hate to break this to you all, but you are quite vincible – yes it’s a word and yes you are subject to it. Everyone deals with the same issues. Running is particularly challenging for type A’s who are used to being the best and believe that hard work can conquer anything. But running’s a funny mistress – she’ll tantalize you with the potentiality, show you how great you’re doing – just before smacking your ego back down to earth with some breakdown. It’s sort of a nasty game really. This highlights a fundamental truth about running – we can all train harder than our bodies can take. And we can get away with it for spurts – many overuse injuries are probably slow moving repetitive stress injuries. But once the final breakdown occurs, it’s game over for weeks to months. This is why I think the whole Marathon ramp-up everyone does violates a lot of common sense but produces great results over the short term. The key is to get to the Marathon before anything breaks.
RT: Intense … “a nasty game” “tantalized” “smacked down”– I love this (btw, I think I’m a type ‘B’ expressed through ‘A’ towards ‘C’). What, I wonder, are your thoughts on “longevity?” From your accumulated running experience, do you envision a way into longevity? Do you have a practical plan of any kind?
ME: Recently I was looking around to see what the lifetime limits of running are but I haven’t found anything interesting yet. The idea being that the joints are self-healing biomechanical systems that probably have some definable life cycle limits. But one concept I saw in the ether was the question of how old you are in running years – how many years have you been running? This was used to explain how some older athletes who just started running seriously were able to do great in the Marathon and other races – they were young and fresh in runners’ years. My take has always been to do maximal workouts with minimal distance. So my bread and butter workout has always been a hard tempo 5K with a kick at the end, 2-3 X week. With this, I can maintain a stable lactate threshold and VO2max – at a pretty high capability plateau. But think about it – that’s probably 400 miles a year! Some of you guys are doing that in 4-8 weeks! So I’m super young in cumulative mileage. I’m running more mileage now with this recent binge, but I really think I should return to that low mileage regimen as soon as I can. So my take on longevity is really – run like a wolf – but run as little mileage as you can to maintain a nice plateau – and do it forever!
But let’s get really practical. As I’ve upped the mileage, here are some guideline ideas that I try to keep in mind, especially as an aging athlete: 1) Have a plan in place that is reasonable, 2) Hard days are always followed by very easy recovery days, 3) Reduce volume if you are increasing intensity (more for sprinters), 4) Be careful with mileage increases (plan over multiple seasons versus all in one season), 5) Listen to your body and slack off when it hurts, 6) Put in periods of rest (2 weeks on, 1 week easier), and 7) put in periods off (2-4 weeks no running after a season). Taking some time off and letting the body fully recover after a hard training period is surprisingly valuable. I had a bad back sprain in the spring and couldn’t run for a couple of weeks. When I came back, I was surprised that a lot of little pains I had before were completely gone. Now I was set to do some hard training over the summer. Rest equals rejuvenation. And on the masters side, how you manage your rest and recovery is every bit as important as how you plan your running schedule.
RT: These guidelines make a lot of sense to me. The way I look at it is there’s only three basic things a runner is doing at any given time: 1) Running 2) Recovering from running 3) Doing something to support running. That’s it. Over-braising the Tofurkey while watching synchronized swimming for solely cultural critique purposes? Recovery. Stretching the glutes in the g-friend’s b-room during commercials? Support. Late night run to bodega for more Pork Slap Pale Ale ®? Speed work.
Question—on a different channel: Where do you see this club is heading? I say this, because we’ve grown by leaps and bounds over the last year and there’s no let up in sight. When I see a runner in the neighborhood, honestly, I now assume they’re NBR, until I find out otherwise. This creates several interesting scenarios.
Aja (Marsh), who started this club, calls it a community organization. I’ve thought a lot about that, as being an apt name, especially, for example, when Kerry (Roeder) is able to repeatedly scoop up bushelfulls of used running shoes to send abroad, or a crew of us can show up to a park and plant tubers in no time flat. This aside from the club’s increasing voice within the running community at large (i.e. through the governing structure of the NYYR). So then there’s this tremendous sheer human-effort potential bubbling up. On the one hand, if that potential gets too beaurocratized, it can lead to departmentalism, stifling spontaneity; and yet on the other hand, to not overtly harness organizational potential, can lead to getting overly distended lines of communication breaking off into a swirl of randomness (randomness with cool logos). I don’t have a solid take on all this, just these preliminary thoughts, so I’m wondering, what are your current thoughts on the club in general?
ME: Well, NBR really is an interesting hybrid that never could have existed before the advent of the internet and social networking sites. Obviously we bond through the group runs and races – the actual physical group interactions – but the online presence and Google groups enables us to interact in an ad hoc way that is fun and uncontrollable. Aja has done a great job setting up the framework and then letting things flow. The community decides what it wants to be. I was so impressed recently when a bunch of people expressed interest in running in Prospect Park. Within a day or two they pulled together and put in place a running schedule complete with group leaders. Now that’s the power of this hybrid organization. And it really is this centralized focal point – the Google groups with the discussion threads – that seems to be the glue. It gives everyone the ability to track the temperature of the group, see what people are interested in and what the current issues are. And it gives a very democratic platform for any member to address 500+ runners in North Brooklyn. The beauty is you just don’t know what’s coming next – who’s creative idea is going to spawn what new direction? So I don’t think you need to know what’s coming next or worry about a bunch of organizational stuff – just keep a clear structure in place for people to interact and let the community evolve. It’s a beautiful thing, really.
But the one thing I do expect over time is a little more NBR muscle flexing. Just think about how we’ve taken over the Mile 12 water station for the Marathon. I know we can use our size and potential cohesiveness to do other things if we so desire. I could see more negotiated group deals with stores and suppliers, coaching services, etc. For instance, for those who might want more personal coaching, maybe we negotiate a discounted fee through one of the online coaching services like Mcmillan. I could also see us sponsoring a fundraiser for a local running cause – maybe an NBR party with a $20 cover that goes towards painting the track or whatever. Want a track race? The Dashing Whippets showed us how easy it is to do an ad hoc race with no money, and we could pull this off just as easily using their model. And we could just have fun with our capability. Imagine targeting some second tier 5K, bringing out a couple dozen NBR big guns and just cleaning up! They’d never forget us! Maybe we want an NYRR 5K in Central Park? Let’s orchestrate an email campaign, inundate Wittenberg and see what happens!
RT: Discounts on anything these days, interests me. I haven’t as yet done a running-only expense tally (including socials) but I think it’s way more than I thought it would ever be. Just on the social side, if we fill an establishment with 50 + people, perhaps we should get some kind of “kick back” (lol – that sounds so gangland waterfront) for all the money we leave in their coffers. Our social committee has been awesome at every level, and I’m sure they’re thinking about things like this.
And yeah, I agree, this (as you call it) “hybrid organization” model we have shouldn’t be held up to standards that the club itself hasn’t directly been challenged by. But this outlook of restraint, as with running, requires lots of patience, and runners as you know are some of the most impatient people around! Actually, it just struck me that that’s one of the reasons I really like working on this profiles project, is to create reference points for the club in order to track the subtle changes that happen to us as we interact with each other over the years. You know … phew! It’s true (running widows and widowers will attest) we tend to be totally self involved – and yet – that tail-eating dragon trance cannot – will not sustain us. It’s a lesson we have to learn over and over.
Mike, I was thinking, one of the symptoms of any vibrant community seems to be the sheer ability to name things – lately, in terms of naming our runs, we have “night owls” and “sunday funday”, but it all started way back with “bridge & coffee”, “team Allison” and “Minty madness”. Do you think we’re ready for full on faux runs, abstract proposed runs that never actually happen, but that draw lots of planning and participation, and oodles of high five posts afterward?
ME: Maybe we’re all in some kind of Matrix world and none of this is really happening. Is our Fed really printing money to pump up asset prices? Does the Tea Party exist? You can’t make this stuff up! Firey Fridays – a 2-3 mile barefoot run over fire coals! We’d have to make sure to avoid setting the course too close to Newtown Creek lest the oil spill catches fire. People could legitimately complain about blisters for weeks. Or maybe Circular Saturdays – it’s a run that can only go in clockwise direction, must return to the starting point, and needs maybe 3600 degrees of turns. Think about how confusing the course maps could be. People could brag about how many degrees they completed. But maybe what we really need is a virtual running game – build your runner like a race car, picking muscle composition, running style, body type, etc. Maybe you have to include certain aspects of yourself – your weight and height perhaps. Then square off on various courses. Then we can eliminate all this silly running entirely!
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