North Brooklyn Runners: A Community Running Group Serving Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Beyond!

NBR Profile No. 10

Rodrigo Toscano talks with Kate Maxwell

Kate Maxwell technically joined NBR just before the Marathon in late October 2010 after seeing a flyer at the Turkey’s Nest. Lurking the NBR googlegroups for eight months (fascinated by posts from the likes of “The Boisterous One,” “The Smartalec,” “The Sarcastic One,” “The Wise One,” “The Arguer,” and “The Encourager”) she finally pulled the trigger and was soon sporting a crisp, new white NBR singlet. She discovered she had been missing the thrill of occasional competition (“it’s a fire inside me that I can’t suppress for too long”). As a winning 400 meter hurdler for Central Michigan University (running a 62 second 400 meter hurdles!) she was just beginning to explore longer distances.

After an initial setback (ITB / knife-to-the-knee jobber), she went out on her first run—the Bridge and Coffee run. That’s where she met Linda Daniels, Allison Malecki, Misha Bittleston and Mike Finelli, later mixing up at El Beit. In the summer, she was a regular at the “HellKats” Thursday morning track run; since then, she’s shifted towards the Thursday evening track workout. Her favorite regular run, however, is the monthly “Salmon Run” (led by Charlie Radin). Kate has also been toying around with the idea of starting either a Monday 8 a.m. run or a Friday pre-happy hour run (someone lend her a hand!)

It’s hard to believe but, before starting to race this past summer (2011), the only distance she had ever competed in longer than 800 meters was the 5k, which she did in high school cross country. Since then she’s run nearly the whole spectrum of NYRR races: Fifth Avenue Mile – 10th in age group, 5:25; Join the Voices 5M – 9th in age group, 32:35; Joe Kleinerman 10k – 3rd in age group, 41:00; NYC Triathlon – 6th in age group, 2:41:52; Coogan’s 5k, 18:54; NYC Half Marathon, 1:26:10. Her first marathon will be in Berlin in September. Into this mix she adds weight circuits twice a week, bikram yoga once a week, plus cycling, as well as hiking or rock climbing whenever possible. Gymnastics was her first love / sport obsession (“vaulting—I can’t think of anything much more fun than sprinting up to a giant platform and flipping around in the air before landing back on your feet”).

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, raised in a suburb between Detroit and Ann Arbor, Kate now lives in Williamsburg, some four blocks from the track. If at some point she takes a Polaroid of you it’s because at some point she’s just taken a Polaroid of you.

RT: Hurdling. Talk about raw! Viewing hurdlers from a front angle, coming straight at you—is primordial in the extreme, like furies erupting out of the earth. One of the things I love about track events is when athletes, if only for a split second, defy gravity. Elite marathoners can do this too; in slow motion, you can see them tear away whole inches of turf with every stride. But Hurdlers—they literally fly then crash down with a frightening shock that’s instantly catapulted forward. Wow.

Kate, you were totally committed to that event while in college, and now we see on the NBR “upcoming races” spreadsheet that your first marathon will be this September, in Berlin. That’s quite the journey from fiery fury to patient gazelle stalker. What are some early middle/long running career lessons that you’ve learned so far? And have you developed a strategy for not splattering like a hothouse tomato against a titanium wall of limits?

KM: It’s interesting you mentioned the catapulting forward and defying gravity. The two dynamics, although technically opposite to each other, work in tandem—it’s a literal art form. The runner’s momentum is going forward, but they need to jump over an obstacle and continue moving forward whilst keeping that same speed. The key to hurdling is that as soon as you figure out the fact that you can use the extra dimension to your advantage—literally unleashing the potential energy that is generated from the jump to propel you faster. When the hurdler figures that out, beautiful things happen on the track. The rhythm generated is like a drug. There were many meets in college where I would run the 400m hurdles and then later be on the 4×400 team. Everyone knows you are supposed to run a flat 400 faster than with hurdles, right? Especially going from a running handoff. Not in my case. It was a regular occurrence for my 400m split to be slower than my hurdles split.

I know the challenge of that third dimension is what drew me to hurdling in the first place. At my first track meet in 8^th grade, I signed up for hurdles because hey—anyone can run, but I wanted to run and jump. The track coach had no idea who I was yet, but I hoped that by just getting on that starting line that he would after I got done (“long hurdles” in middle school in Michigan is 200m). Alas, I’m told I came around that curve leading by 25m and then Coach Howe threw his clipboard down and began asking everyone in sight who “that girl” was. I guess the rest was history, but the point is that you don’t need fancy training or drills—that can come later. Hurdling is raw, instinctual. Humans have been running and jumping over logs, rivers, and rocks since the beginning of time.

So what’s a hurdler doing running marathons then? I figured why stop at a 10k, or a half marathon—again it’s that competitive fire in me that wants to accomplish something seemingly above and beyond the normal realm of running. I’m truly having a love affair with running right now. I know it’s going to hurt out there. Even now, my longest run ever is 15 miles. I don’t think I need to run 60-mile weeks—I think my body might not hold up to that kind of mileage. I realized that I’ve been loosely following the FIRST (Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training) training plan—in short, you’ll get faster and have less injuries by running 3 times per week: the long run, the tempo run, and the speedwork. That’s it.

Like any runner, I’ll have a moment out on the racecourse cursing out loud and asking myself why I voluntarily choose to do this to myself. But I love the mental challenge of it just as much as the physical. That’s why we continue to run and race. I’m intrigued by this dark lady beckoning in the night; the marathon. Most people think it’s masochistic—but I want to experience the agony. I know that’s the only way to earn the euphoric reward of racing and pacing for 26 miles in a row. I’m glad that I strategically have the New York Marathon on the radar for a mere six weeks after Berlin—it forces me to give it another shot if I crash and burn in the first. Who knows, maybe I’ll hate it and vow to never run anything over thirteen again. But then again, maybe I’ll become an ultra runner. I have to find these things out!

RT: Do you perhaps think that there exists an entity from a completely different universe (a universe who’s energy constant comprises just a “slice” of “the bulk” that makes up all universes) that has completely taken over your mind, but that your body (being its own brain—this is key) is attempting to run away from this entity, and do you think this essentially blind body intelligence of yours is relentlessly attracted to other bodies in similar predicaments (partial take-over, complete take-over) and like a deep-soil worm drawn to specific concentrations of seeped-in ultraviolet waves (as adaptation to darkness plus mineral solids / barriers to movement) have learned to enjoy the whole process?

KM: Mind-body lives for that process—is perpetually on high alert, tuned to the attraction or distraction of others; mind-body strives constantly to be stronger than the mind and uses and learns from such predicaments, and, as you say, Rodrigo, it relentlessly “attracts” as we’re slathered by “others.”

RT: Yeah?

KM: Yeah.

RT: Alright, so, which team others are currently lighting up your mitochondria these days?

KM: I’m constantly inspired and intrigued by so many other mind-bodies of this team. This is not just to say the people, specifically, but the collective mind-body of the group, the situations, events, feelings that a particular moment in time creates. The ingredients are the personalities, the individual energies, the sounds heard, the temperatures felt, the very mood of the room, the atmosphere that is concocted. Sometimes this has an effect on me mentally, emotionally—in the form of a bond formed with another. At other times, it’s the sheer physicality of it in the form of a fantastic run, workout, or race when everything just lines up and simply works. NBR is special because it fosters these kinds of reactions.

I’ve never achieved the kind of entranced mental state on a long run enough to really feel why it is that people can say they enjoy running long distances until I did a recent one with Fernando. I’ve never had as much fun picking up garbage and cleaning up a street until I did so with Carla Clifford whilst volunteering for the NYC Marathon.

I’ve never had such a smooth, natural run until I went out for a cool-down mile after the Fifth Avenue Mile with Owen Kendall. The run turned into an easy breezy five miles—I barely even noticed the added distance. I’ve never felt such glowing pre-race nervous confidence for other people as I did when I was invited to Just South’s pre-Marathon dinner gathering. Brian Calavan once brought me a piece of pie to the Runners Mixer; Sayo and I are now bikram yoga buddies; Chantel Antonietti still gives the best hugs. There are silly splices of memories—eating macaroni & cheese with Linda at the gala after-party; running my first speed workout alongside Emma; eating salmon on an East River Park picnic table on a freezing cold December morning with Charlie and the rest of the group—these stick to my ribs and build on each other. There are moments that involve everyone and no one at the same time. I felt a glowing happiness when standing off to the side at the Gala looking onto the dance floor and seeing everyone smiling and moving. I felt welcomed and like I belonged when people from my first run remembered my name on only my second. I felt like my heart might burst of pride watching the marathon.

The fact that these are my moments but also a part of everyone’s moments, all swirling up into each other and tornadoeing around creating a NBR greater than itself, well, is just beautiful.

RT: Yes. And can you write us a hymnal for eight voices based on this tornadoeing?

KM: Of course!

I hereby claim today / ♪ mitochondria culture day ♫ / a day to celebrate and honor all past / present and future mitochondrial visitors of other mind-bodies in ways to enhance relationships among all citizens of the cosmos / known and unknown ♫

♫ ♪ a day where we are but not friends across the wrinkles of time but brothers on the straight and narrow / ♪ where we learn in fortitude and without futile attempts to cherish these beings of time ♫

RT: Bravo!

And speaking of metabolic processes, have you found any particular foods to be “good burners” before a training session or race? Are there some foods that don’t agree with you in terms of running? And what do you prefer to eat afterwards, what works, what restores you? Also (and this surely is a club-wide quandary) how much alcohol consumption can you indulge in and still remain an effective club runner?

KM: Nutrition has had a huge effect on both my running and racing this year. I’ll lead off by saying that I can eat. My claim to fame is that I ate a four-pound burrito in college; it was called the Big Juan. A crowd of about 15 teammates and friends came to cheer me on and I ate it in about 30 minutes no problem and was hungry again about 2 hours later.

However, remembering to curb what I shovel into my face before trying to race makes every difference in the world with how I perform. Exhibit A: Last November, the night before the Van Courtlandt Cross Country race, my roommates were hosting “friendsgiving dinner,” which is exactly what it sounds like. I figured if I ate at 7 p.m., I’d be good to go for a race 14 hours later. Wrong. Sitting on the starting line, I could feel that turkey, mashed potatoes, and second helping of stuffing just sitting in my stomach. It was awful. I felt terrible the entire race, slow and heavy. Never again! Or so I thought. I made another mistake recently of having Greek food before the Cherry Tree relay. I thought, a nice light veggie pita with hummus, right? Eh, not so light: same pit-of-stomach, hunched-over-when-running feeling. I got so mad at myself during these food blunders because they could so easily have been avoided and the race wouldn’t have been “wasted.”

What I’ve started doing instead is hosting a dinner party the night before races with a small group of friends. It gives me a chance to see them on a night that I wouldn’t normally because they are going out and drinking, and I get to practice cooking new dishes and don’t have to go out spending money anywhere. They bring their own booze while I chug water. Before Coogan’s 5k, I had friends over and made this deep-red beet pasta along with a cheese plate, garam masala-spiced roasted chickpeas, and roasted red pepper boats with lemon/arugula/goat cheese salad in them. I plan the dinner to be served around 12 hours before the start of the race, and make a conscious effort to stop eating when I feel the slightest bit full so that I feel light and powerful in the morning. I wake up 2 hours before start time regardless of the meetup to have a small bowl of cereal, one banana, and make coffee. This is what has worked for me when I’ve run my best races this year, so now that I have found something that works, I’m not going to mess with it!

Eating is just one part of the trifecta of running impact activities, the other two being sleep and, as you goaded me to talk about—in person—drinking.

First of all, I am a tried and true, textbook example of the three-hour sleep cycle. I’ve tried to prove myself wrong with this, but it just doesn’t happen. I will feel absolutely awful—I’m talking zombie-like, absolute shit dread when the alarm goes off—if I get five, seven, or eight hours of sleep. If I get six, I wake up fresh as a daisy ready to take on the day, no matter what time it was that I fell into bed. I can even function on three hours as long as I don’t try and do that too frequently. Most of the time, I wake up at the 6-hour mark without an alarm. Medically trained friends of mine tell me that the optimum effective cycle for regeneration is 90 minutes, so that I should be functioning the same at 7.5 as I do at 6.

So it’s very fitting that the Nite Owls run is one of my most frequented runs, because I really am a night owl. It’s very difficult for me to ever go to sleep before 2 a.m. I remember Fernando and I chatting online at 3 a.m. one night planning our meetup to run the Sunday Funday Runday together the next morning. We proceeded to not only make the meetup, but accidentally did the 13-mile long run at a faster pace than either of us had ever run a half marathon!

I tend to go very hard in whatever it is I’m doing in my life—a total work hard / play hard mentality. I only let myself play hard if I put the work in. The rewards, the fun, the good memories to be had, are what motivate me. Despite all that, I should say that am very controlled from the few days to a week before a race (depending on importance level of the race: club points = high importance), but after, at brunch or whatnot, once the work is over, I am very fond of celebrating. As Brian Calavan put it, “What about the balance between running more and more of ‘other life?’” Perhaps that’s the secret behind Maxwell’s speed!”

RT: Perhaps, indeed!

I think much like we “activate” or transfer the energy of one running “system” (aerobic base, anaerobic endurance, lactic acid threshold, etc) onto each other, Life (with a capital L) seems to require infusions of energy from distant locations. I say, Life, instead of “lives,” because “lives” we tend to over-manipulate in the “interest” of “ourselves.” You know what I mean? This constant “managing” of oneself—it’s such deep ideology these days.

Life, on the other hand, doesn’t care about the arrangement of energy just as long as it’s flowing. It seems to like spilling over; it wears down solid structures without a second thought. It can be dangerous too, Life, it messes with your “management” schemes, even when plans are “good” for your “life.”

But here’s the quandary: does running directly stem from Life? Or is it only an occasional, even occluded manifestation of Life? According to most running articles you read, it’s all settled, running is an activity, pure and simple, period, end-of-story, it can even be “improved,” even integrated into your lifestyle. But isn’t this helpless (erotic!) intoxication with this idol (running) powerful precisely because it resists being tamed (commercialized) into a “lifestyle choice?”

My gut tells me that this idol doesn’t give a damn if we “believe” it in or not, as it enjoys us—our crazy shuffling, willful agonies, and wakeful dreaming. This wily demon demands sacrifices!

Do you think we might be something like druids and witches in modern dress, making monuments, weaving legend? Kate, get your witch on! Flip the red switch—tell me something.

KM: Running-life is a series of passionate encounters. Running is passion emulated in physical form; it is attraction and desire, culminating in either the satisfaction of getting what you want (in which you then concentrate in making the “good” better), or unrequited pursuit. You can’t choose where or why or when attraction like that occurs, just like Life’s beautifully disastrous attraction-encounters.

Human attraction elicits the exact same response as when I’m on the starting line for a race. I like to call this nervous excitement. There have got to be research studies done on this, no? It’s an actual physical flare-up that I feel between my lungs and ribcage. You can just feel the endorphins getting ready. This running-attraction model—ergo, idol—not only resists being tamed, as you say, but it is burgeoning. It pushes the limits of what you think is possible to feel and, therefore, achieve. Your mind is sensible. It is the rational, overprotective force that tries to methodically guide you through what “makes sense.” The most intriguing and charismatic people, the finest personal relationships, the breakthrough races…when the ingredients are right these are the creations that are able to fight through and dig deep into the burn to catalyze and create otherworldly experiences. We may be this idol’s playthings, but I’m ready to see what it has in store. Or?

RT: Or fight it? And risk missing the hairpin turn, the dash back home? But whether that dash is “away from” or “towards” home—hell, what’s the catalyzing word we’re looking for?

KM: Go.

NBR Profile No. 9

Rodrigo Toscano talks with IMAN WILKERSON

Iman Wilkerson had an NBR encounter of the close kind sometime in June 2010 (at around the time of the going away party for Matt Decker and Owen Kendall), but she didn’t actually morph into the alien blob until December of that year. The running club she belonged to at the time was Urban Feet (“a club that used the excuse of running to get together and drink”). Todd Zino, it turns out, had blobbed into the goo some months before, a joyous liquefaction that would soon juice both Kurt Cavanaugh and Iman into the sacred soup.

Iman hails from a small town in North Carolina. She went to college in Raleigh, transferring to NYC about nine years ago.  From her elementary school until her sophomore year in High School, she played basketball. She placed 1st in several high school 400-meter meets. Since running with NBR, she’s PR’d no less than five times (in the 4 mile, 10k, 10 mile, half marathon, and full marathon). She placed 1st in the PPTC 5k (earning her not a Van Cortland Park 5k tasty carrot cake, but a PPTC brushed aluminum medal) and got a 2nd place (6th overall female) in the Queens Half Marathon. She also had it seriously out for the 5th Avenue Mile – and dropped a 5:21 PR!

Iman usually tries to attend the Thursday night speed workouts (“hurdling over tots, dodging soccer balls falling from the sky”), but, for the moment, she’s chosen to forego other North Brooklyn runs that require gliding over underground oil spill plumes while inhaling polyurethane off-gassing breezes; instead, she runs with the JSONB (“Just South of North Brooklyn”) crew in Prospect Park, delectating in the oxygen-rich fog of the last remaining primeval forest on Long Island.

RT: Greetings Iman! Your race times have been advancing by leaps and bounds in all sorts of races—the mile, 5k, 10k, half and full marathons. You’ve been on a PR-busting upswing for some time now. I’ve been really wanting to ask you, what kinds of workouts do you think have rocketed your steady advance? Is there one workout in particular that has really paid off for you?

IW:  You know, I came into this group totally inspired by the fast women who run with NBR (as well as those running under NYAC and Athena). 2011 was the year I wanted to prove to myself that if I actually trained then maybe I could turn into a decent runner. In the past years since I’ve run NYRR races, I trained very little and pretty haphazardly (impressing myself with what I could do if I didn’t try!) But 2011 year was different. I was curious to know in what way I could succeed if I pushed myself to train towards something.

I am still (for my ideal, at least) too inconsistent with my training. The only constant in my workout routine has been speed work on Thursdays. I try not to miss it. The speedy runners that attend really push me, and of course, the evil twin coaches (Jen and Linda) who come up with the evil twin workouts, motivate (scare) me past my comfort zone. And that’s what I can attribute to my upswing in performance.

RT: I was recently reading an interview with an elite runner from Ethiopia, and he was saying that when he does his hill workout (what he described as his hardest), he “thanks” the hills over and over for their sheer existence, for their mass, their steepness, for their “gifts” in making him a strong runner. And I really found that attitude quite inspiring. I thought, yeah! Reverse the “dread.” Thank the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg Bridge on the way up!

You know, even some of our most experienced racers go to the “track workout” (notice it used to be called “speed work” on the webpage—smart switch, eh) with some dread. It’s like they hope a light aircraft might suddenly have to make an emergency landing on the track, thus bringing the night’s planned activities to a swift conclusion. This, though our track leaders have said time and time again, “run at your own pace, challenge yourself as much as you need to.” In reality, nobody gives a turkey’s dropping as to what you’re doing, nobody is going to question or criticize you in any way.

But I have a theory as to the origins of this dread. In order to complete the set workout one has to choose paces that are achievable. For example, what’s the point of a sequence like this: 4 * mile; 1st mile 5:45 / 2nd 5:45 – bonk at 800 / sit out for 5 minutes / 3rd mile 5:55 / 4th 6:10.  You get what I am saying? Maybe this runner should have settled for 6:05’s. Maybe the dread is having one’s vanity reeled back in by one’s actual ability. So I really love your dedicated (thankful) attitude towards the track.

When you say, “becoming a decent runner,” do you have particular benchmarks in mind?  Like, going over 70% in your age group can be considered an achievement already; hitting the mid 70’s even more so; and in some races, approaching 80%—spectacular. Are you competitive with just yourself, or against others? Or both?

IW: I wish I read that interview before running the NYC Marathon, because I would have praised the hell out of the Queensboro Bridge! Certainly one of my least favorite parts of the marathon, it is probably one of the most challenging bridges to run on.

I still consider myself somewhat of a novice when it comes to mid-long distance running, and when I decided to become “decent,” I had no concept of how fast is fast (for me). At the Central Park races I just studied the divided corrals at the starting line, each indicating who was competitively faster than the corral directly behind them. But in terms of times for a non-professional competitive arena—I had no idea. So I guess my initial benchmark was to move up in corrals and lower my pace times.

I am very competitive. When I’m on the starting line, I size people up, I look for someone who might give me a good race; but at the same time, I keep going back to Janet “Mittsy” Turley’s quote, “my main rival is becoming my ability.” When I run, I envision that I am chasing a faster version of myself who is only a few strides ahead of what I’ll never catch up to. So at the end of the race, it’s about me against my goals, regardless of whom I pit myself up against at the start.

RT: I like that. Hot on the heels of one’s double. But who among our esteemed colleagues do you most want to escort to the woodshed?

Which brings up a point—an off-point, to be exact. Given that most of our club is made up of sub sub-elite runners (awesome runners to be sure, compared to your typical weekend runner), where nobody is dedicating their entire lives solely to the pursuit of running, the question then becomes how do people integrate this physically and psychologically demanding activity into their varied lives? We often talk about what we do for running, but what does running do for us? What does running do for you?

IW: I’m not going to point to one person in particular, but I respect the leading women on our team and I look at their success as a guide for my own. I mean, Jen ran a 1:24:20 in the NYC half and Anna ran a 3:04:10 in the NYC marathon! I aspire to run as fast and along side these ladies one day. I hope in the upcoming running season, as we all get faster we can all push each other to run great races.

Life without running was getting to be pretty uneventful. As adults who work long hours, there are few opportunities that allow us to set goals and push ourselves outside our mundane routine of waking up, going to work, maybe post-work happy hour, and then sleep. I needed a change and I wanted to be challenged outside of that routine, and to test my limits of what great things I could personally accomplish. We, as runners, do extraordinary things on the road, trail, and track that most people wouldn’t even attempt to do. We are determined individuals who preservere through the stress of training and set backs despite the pain we may have endured, but we find strength through all that to continue. I think that’s a characteristic that ties us together as runners.

The other day I was riding the subway and an orthodox Jewish man was sitting next to me and admired some of my sketches of a runner in my notebook, and from there we talked the entire ride about running, past races, training, routes, and injuries. I loved that it was our common love of running that had become the bridge to connect our different cultures.

New York is made up of so many serendipitous events where one seemingly insignificant moment leads to a life-changing event. Actually, it’s the way I got into organized running. I briefly met someone at a business-networking event who introduced me to my first 5k race at Van Cortlandt Park. I hadn’t trained for a 5k, I didn’t know how many miles a 5k was. I didn’t know how hilly VC was going to be. The result was that it sucked; I shuffled in at around 30 minutes. I was winded, and I felt so unprepared. I felt like I could do better. The next year I did, I lowered my time and came in top 3 a few times and won my age category. This lead me to research local running clubs, and eventually lead me to run my first marathon, the 2010 NYC marathon, which I never in a million years thought I could do.

But running has also given me injuries, frustrations and disappointments. In 2009, I DNF’d (“did not finish”) the Brooklyn Half because I tripped and hyper-extended my knee on mile 7 that sidelined me for 5 months. I was devastated. I was on my way to completing my first 9+1 for the 2010 NYC marathon, and I was the strongest I had been since high school so I was afraid that all that hard work leading up to that moment would be wasted. But the upside of running is that it’s given me a new perspective on how I see myself and how I deal with life. As a whole it’s made me a better, stronger and much more patient person.

RT:  It’s interesting how running affects people in different ways. The “patience and strength” benefit I hear a lot. I’ve also on occasion heard how it makes some people acutely more impatient, both physically (like plowing through slow moving walkers, grumbling) and mentally (like feeling bestially intolerant towards conversationalists who meander).

Sometime back I discovered an unexpected benefit from running: articulation. I always try and throw in a good brisk run before any speaking engagement because by the time I get up on the microphone, I intone things so much better breath-wise, plus I seem to access tonalities I wouldn’t otherwise. I patiently play with those tonalities, and people are like, “did you rehearse that?” I answer “no,” which is the truth, but I should maybe also add that since I had just spent an hour or so being attentive to the flow of my mind & body, I’m feeling extremely in the moment.

Iman, switching channels here for a bit, thinking about public health, do you think it might be a good idea to make running a required subject in either primary or secondary education? I mean it. Running (not just “Phys. Ed”) ranging from study of the physiology of the heart, to muscular-skeletal anatomy, to running technique, and finally, to the history of running. I feel strongly about this. I believe that we, as Homo sapiens, have been in a general slump for at least 5, 000 years now.

IW: I agree with you, we have been in a slump. When I look at people today and see the majority of the population is obese, I think our skeletal bodies are not meant to carry so much weight; we are not meant to be this sedentary and certainly diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease would be lowered/prevented if we incorporated and heavily promoted running in our lifestyles like some indigenous cultures in Africa and South America.

Not to be the cliché ‘Shit Runners Say’ runner, but have you read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall? I heard about it in passing early last year, but when I was cast to be in a photo shoot for his article in the NY Times, I was asked to run barefoot. I hadn’t run barefoot outside since I was a child. At the time I was struggling through an Achilles injury, but as soon as I pushed off to run, my feet adjusted to the surface and there was a lot less stress on my Achilles and I ran with ease. When the article came out I had to read what this author was preaching and then bought his book. I’m not trying to advocate barefoot running at all because I still run in shoes, but McDougall writes about the anthropology of running which makes you realize that with all this technology we may be counter-evolving and that we should apply a basic understanding of how we got to be great runners through technique and form.

RT: Last year, I saw McDougall standing outside of Word bookstore in Greenpoint across the street from where I live. He had just given a talk on his book, and I thought about walking up and engaging him on all things “sapiens.” But he was temporarily mobbed by a tight group of fawners who blocked my path. I hate elbowing people. But, I did catch a glimpse of the gentle giant wearing his humble huaraches. I wanted to add the factor of global degraded labor conditions to the equation of evolutionary setbacks.

Coming back to your injuries. You, my friend, are worrying more than a few people on this team, including me. Some weeks back you and I ran a Wednesday night road run (alongside NBR masters division’s Alun Williams and Ken Wieder) at more or less a 5-mile time trial speed (minus 5-10 seconds per mile). You were just coming off the NBR track meet; then shortly after our little heater you did Coogan’s 5k; then came the Red Hook Crit 5k; this weekend you’re doing the Cherry Tree 10-miler; and then—the Boston Marathon! And you tell me, “I’ll run some of these not all out.” Really? But won’t you—haven’t you run these races hard enough? What’s going on?

IM: I’m the sort of runner who runs low mileage weeks so I think this sort of regimen helps me keep loose for each race. I go by the mentality of “having my cake and eating it too.”  I sometimes want to do it all because I think I can—smartly though. Last year I ran the Brooklyn Half the week before the Vermont marathon; I didn’t think it was too much, if I ran each race well. And I did! I PR’d and time qualified for Local Competitive for the NYC marathon and I BQ’d (Boston marathon qualified) the next week, because I wasn’t trying to push my body past its limits and I gave myself realistic goals.

After the NYC marathon, I was in a lull with running. That marathon took everything that I loved about racing out of me and I lost motivation to train, even though these past months were the most ideal winter to train through. So I enrolled in a few races leading up to Boston to get back in the mindset for racing. I never ever expected that I would/ could run Boston, so I’m trying not to take this opportunity for granted.

RT:  Racing attitude is racing attitude; the guts for racing are best learned by racing. Got it! Honestly, I am suddenly pumped by your approach to running, and actually, it’s very NBR old skool.  There’s so many methods / philosophies / perspectives in this club, and not one of them has yet become any where near the official club approach to racing. Alley cats—is another way to put it!

So…now… that we’re on to cats, alleys, a thick 2-meter visibility fog, a mysterious chick in profile wearing a fedora hat under a dim yellow lamp sipping coconut juice at 5:30 a.m.—what’s the end result of all running?

IM: Gratification | pain.

Please fill out the annual NBR Member Survey!

In preparation for the upcoming Town Hall meeting, please take a minute to complete the NBR Member Survey. Let us know what you do and do not like about NBR, and how we can best serve our members moving forward. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been with NBR – everyone can and should complete the survey.

Results will be discussed at the Town Hall meeting on Sunday, April 8th. Please have your responses submitted by Friday, April 6th so that we have sufficient time to compile the data.

Click here to participate.

Thanks!