Show me the money!

In 2012, the Red Sox famously shipped Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez, and Carl Crawford off to Los Angeles, shedding more than $250 million in future salary obligations in the process.

While the Sox held on to the big salaries of fan favorites such as David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia, they didn't take on any new big salaries; instead, filled the gaps with a ragtag group of journeymen.  And as a result, absolutely nobody expected them to contend.  (Just as an example, when over 40 "experts" at ESPN were polled before the 2013 season, only two predicted that the Sox would even make the playoffs, in each case as a wildcard.)

But contend the Sox did, and suddenly team owners and management looked like the smartest guys in the room.  They could win without spending money!

And indeed, that seems to have been the mantra for 2014.  (Ellsbury, who needs him?)  Thus, whenever there has been a hole to fill, all the Sox have done is called up one minor leaguer after another.  It doesn't even matter if they play the position that needs filling.  (Is the outfield still not producing?  Try Mookie Betts!)

Already, the Sox are one of only four defending World Series champions ever, and the first since 1998 to have three or more rookies start 40 or more games in a season.  And we're not even to the midway point yet!  By the end of the season, Betts and perhaps some others will be added to the list as well.

It's no wonder the Red Sox offense is foundering, despite the obvious passion of Pedroia and the other team leaders.  But in the meantime, what's been overlooked is what an impressive display of pitching the Sox arms have been putting on.  So, here's a nice stat: between May 28 and tonight, the Sox have held their opponents to three runs or fewer in every home game, the longest such streak in team history. But what do they have to show for it?  The Sox are either losing games by a single run (18 so far, the most in the AL), or they are having to send Uehara out in the 9th yet again.  And Uehara is starting to fall apart under the workload, even if Farrell won't admit it.

What is the solution?  Offense.  For starters, put someone in the outfield who can hit, finally.  Find a real replacement for Ellsbury, someone who is proven at the big league level.  In other words, John Henry, show me the money.

Running to the Empire State

The itch is getting scratched! I just committed to lacing up for the Empire State Marathon in Syracuse, NY on October, 19th. I've wanted to give 26.2 another go ever since my first attempt ended with a knee injury and a 12.5 min/mi pace.

So my training cycle is starting anew. I’m starting off with a solid base, having averaged 4 runs and ~23 miles a week since the MPP half in March. The goal now is to start ramping up the mileage, mainly through longer runs on the weekend. It will be challenging as I’m in the process of moving my family to a new house, but I can't think of better motivation to get out the door.

My initial thinking is that i'd like to finish between 3:45 and 4:00 but we'll see how I feel in a few months. Regardless, look for some posts in the future as I determine what my training plan will be and how my experience of training for this race will be different than training for the KBVCM.

Related Posts:

Running as Practice

Race Report: Vermont City Marathon

Book Review: Sergei Lukyanenko’s "Night Watch"

My attempts of describing of the plot of Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch would take a carefully crafted world and crudely distill it down to an artless pulp, so you can read what it's about on Amazon. Lukyanenko doesn't  help matters by calling his agents of the Light and the Dark “the Others,” an unfortunate phrasing bringing to mind 50s B-movies and overwrought Nicole Kidman movies. But Lukyanenko infuses his struggle of good and evil with refreshingly liberal doses of Russian-tinged ambivalence and philosophy which, to this American reader, lifted the story above other countless fantasies superficially like it.

Anton Gorodetsky, the narrator for the large majority of the book, is a human with extraordinary magical powers. However, these powers don’t make him happy; rather, they're a burden that separates him from the rest of humanity and whose responsibilities weigh down his soul. This isn't helped by the fact that the collections of good and evil are divided into overtly complex and shadowy bureaucracies whose rules and structures provide an ironic blue collar contrast to the story. For instance, after a particularly rough experience, Anton’s team goes on holiday to the country and as a drunken bender, leading to this delicious observation:

“…now he understood what real Russian drunkenness was all about. … It’s all about waking up in the morning with everything around you looking grey. Grey sky, gray sun, grey city, gray people, gray thoughts. And the only way out is to have another drink. Then you feel better. Then the colors come back.” p.398

Anton drinks and desponds because this is heavy stuff. When things like the fate of the world and a keeping a millennium-long truce between good and evil hang on what you can accomplish, you might need a drink. And Lykyanenko does not take it easy on Anton – in the world of the Night Watch, the best you can hope is to not fuck up. To wit:

“Sveta, we’re not given the chance to choose absolute truth. Truth’s always two-faced. The only thing we have is the right to reject the lie that we find most repugnant. Do you know what I tell novices about the Twilight the first time? We enter it in order to acquire strength. And as the price for entering it we give up the part of the truth that we don’t want to accept.” p. 24

Another rehashing of Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, this is not. It's a dark book with a sensitively ambivalent heart. Anton wallows in for most of the book in Russian cynicism, but this only makes occasional flights into romanticism that much more powerful, partly because of the lack of irony. Lukyanenko’s writes as if the struggle is not only ongoing right now but also the most urgent thing in the world. All of this in an entertaining story that sprinkles its adventure and mysticism with a variety of interesting dilemmas. It kept me solid company for two solid weeks and I miss it's view of the world. I'll have to try one of its many sequels one of these days.

Cross posted on Thought Ambience.

C&O Canal 100: Race Report and a Few Reflections

I ran my first 100-miler last weekend, on April 26-27. 

This was the second year of the C&O Canal 100.  Except for a few miles, the course is entirely along the C&O Canal towpath.  The 184.5 mile long canal was built in the 1820s, roughly paralleling the Potomac River, as a means to haul coal and other products.  The towpath alongside it --essentially a dirt road -- was intended for mules to pull barges along the C&O Canal.  The canal was largely abandoned after 1924, but the towpath remains as a popular route for walkers, hikers, and runners.  During the course of the race, I crossed paths with numerous boy scout troops, numerous Sierra Club members completing a one-day 100-km hike, residents of local towns engaged in their daily exercise, and a handful of lovebirds enjoying wide open views of the Potomac.

This race is held at the right time of year.  The director set us on our way at 7 AM, shortly after sunrise.   Depending on where on the towpath you were, the temperatures reached about 75 degrees in the late afternoon, and dipped down to to 37 degrees just before dawn on Sunday.  The bluebells were out in full force, the new leaves on the trees provided plenty of shade, and along the route I enjoyed the sounds of the songbirds in the morning, frogs in the evening, and the rustling of deer in the woods at night.

I didn't use a run/walk system, but I took walk breaks frequently.  Here, my race walk training served my well.  I traveled light, carrying only the essentials, but packing my drop bags with every conceivable thing I could think of, without exceeding the size limits.  After mile 27, I would have access to them approximately 10 miles.  My ovepreparedness served me well when, halfway through the race, I realized I had left my handheld water bottle at an aid station two miles back. Happily, I had spare one in my drop bag five miles up the road. 

The volunteers couldn't have been more amazing.  Every time I rolled into an aid station, I felt I had my own personal crew, bringing me food and ice cold towels, swapping out batteries in my headlamp, taping my blistered feet, and preparing bags of food for me to take before I left.  This is all the more important because there are only five points during the race where crew have access.  My family was able to come see me at two of them, and knowing they would be there was a huge boost.

I didn't spend much time training to run at night, and was curious how mind and spirits would react.  I found the dark hours to be peaceful, and the stars to be amazing.  Around mile 70 my legs suddenly loosened up and I found myself running freely.  My mind did play a few tricks me, making me think that I saw specters on the road up ahead, including the ghost of a woman around the Catoctin Creek crossing.  After the race, while researching the history of the canal, I read a lady ghost had been reported on that stretch of the canal during its operating days.  If she is still there, I like to think she is cheering on the runners.

The temperatures dropped continually through the night.  Though I've spent a lot of time running in much colder weather, I wasn't fully prepared for how my body react to near-freezing temperatures after running for nearly 24 hours. I spent a good chunk of time at an aid station in front of a heater with cup after cup of hot soup, shaking off some mild hypothermia. I saw several other runners at various times dealing with the same issue.

Fueling and hydration went totally fine, except for 30 minutes of indigestion after an aid station where I ate too much.  For shoes, I chose to wear the North Face Single-Track Hayasa II, which provided plenty of cushioning and support.  I saw others wearing everything from huaraches up to Hoka One Ones.

A week later, I am feeling good and ready to start running again.  My sense is that doing well in a 100-miler is half about fitness, and half about the ability to avoid or solve problems.  While I did pretty well, there are some potential issues that I still need to think about. 

Regardless, I got it done, and am happy.  For that, I am thankful to my friends for their advice and for joining me in long runs, and to my family for their confidence in me and their willingness to support my running schedule.  Splits and so on are available on Strava.

Red Sox: 2014 prediction post

So I look pretty foolish after predicting last year that the Sox would go 77-85. But as a long, longtime Sox fan, it was in my blood to be pessimistic. Still is. So, I'm going to double down and predict that in 2014 the Sox go ... 77-85.

Oh, sure, it would be easy to jump on the bandwagon and declare them favorites to win the World Series. But consider, from Mike Carp and Shane Victorino all the way up to Big Papi, this was a group that greatly overperformed last year. It was awesome and it would be awesome if they would do it again. But more likely, they'll return to something closer to their historical statistical averages.

Given that, what have the Sox done to make themselves better? Well, they went out and got Grady Sizemore. I loved the deal, and still do, given the price tag. But there's a good chance he's going to get hurt. Beyond that, the Sox lost Jacoby Ellsbury, they replaced Jarrod Saltalamacchia with a catcher twice his age, they turned the all-important right side of the infield over to a couple of guys with less than a year of experience between the two of them combined, and they let their aging starting rotation get a year older without any infusion of young blood.

Meanwhile, the Yankees and the Orioles have both gotten better. And the Rays still have the best pitching staff in the division, not to mention a scary lineup that inclues Evan Longoria and Rookie of the Year Wil Myers.

So, think back to the 2005 Red Sox, who looked a lot like the 2004 Red Sox, but only managed to capture the Wild Card before being swept in the ALDS. Or the 2008 Red Sox, who at least managed to get as far as game 7 in the ALCS. The truth is, its very, very hard to repeat in the big leagues, even when your team is stacked. And the 2014 Sox ain't stacked.

So, my gut and my mind both say 77-85. I hope I'm wrong.

Gonna Have to Face It...

The Dish recently posted some thoughts on being addicted to running. I think that anyone that runs even moderately seriously has either felt this way or can easily see it happening. James McWilliams tells us that

An estimated three percent of the general population suffers from exercise dependency. The more endurance-oriented the sport—ultra-marathoning, Iron Man competitions—the better the chances there are for some sort of addiction to set in. Exercise addiction overlaps with other disorders—most notably eating disorders, but also drug and alcohol abuse—about 25 percent of the time. ...

He details the varying stages of the addition and concludes:

It’s hard to see how—given the tendency of the high to diminish for the exercise freak—the temptation to add one more mile could be resisted, especially when acute negative consequences do not result. It’s hard to imagine ever effectively treating this “disorder.”

While I find this interesting, I have a hard time seeing running or endurance exercise as an addition on par with a chemical addition. Despite what he says, its seems to me that there's a world of difference between not wanting to stop something and being unable to stop something (e.g., as in the case of a meth addict). Glibly, I note that our bodies also have a built-in way of treating this type of disorder: it's called injury. I know more that one person who has over-trained or over-raced themselves into an injury that could have been easily avoided if only they had rested now and again.

Regardless, I think any person who doesn't recognize that any endurance athlete gets off of endorphins is fooling themselves. I've always looked at it as similar to people that get hooked on spicy food. McWilliams describes it this way:

My own experience of needing increasingly more miles to feed the seductive opiate rush of a workout speaks to the insidious impact of this possible chemical rationing. The body and mind recall all too vividly what it’s like to exist (blissfully, mind you) in post-exercise equilibrium and will do what it must do to rediscover that balance. 

Andrew astutely brings in Stanton Peele, who points out that

“People can become addicted to anything, whether drugs, alcohol, food, shopping, gambling, love, or sex, if it is the focus of an encapsulating experience that alleviates bad feelings and buttresses their self-esteem”

Which seems to me to get more to the point. I feel that "addictions" of these kinds aren't so much a change  in body chemistry leading to loss of decision-making ability as they are a positive feedback loop gone awry. The trick to to realize that and put it in perspective. Easier said than done, but to my mind a better way of treating the condition than like you would a normal addiction.

Interestingly enough, McWilliams concludes his article by flipping the whole premise on its head:

Contemplating the mysterious nature of this pleasure, something occurred to me that led to rethinking the whole idea of exercise addiction: Those we classify as exercise addicts might be a rare sort who are honoring what their bodies are designed to do and, historically, have done.
...
What if the real addicts are those who seek to be sedentary—which could be just as unnatural as seeking to be drunk or high—while the crazed athletes are the ones who are seeking the deeper wisdom and capacity of the human body?

Now that's a theory I can get behind!

Cross Posted on Thought Ambience

Running Maps

Now this is cool. Flowing data has gathered a number of activity logs and mapped out the most popular routes of major metropolitan areas. These maps are from RunKeeper, so the routes from your humble Strava-using bloggers are't included, but it's still interesting to see. His conclusion:

If there's one quick (and expected) takeaway, it's that people like to run by the water and in parks, probably to get away from cars and the scenery. In the smaller inland cities, there seem to be a few high-traffic roads with less running elsewhere.

Of particular interest for us is the Boston and the Washington DC maps.