Hope for Aging Hipsters, er, Runners

Global warming: Whew. It's snowing in Washington, but you'd never know it here in SoCal. We just returned to our hotel after eating brunch and walking briskly around Old Pasadena for several hours. I thought I'd never say this in mid-February, but, dudes: It's too hot.

It's 81 degrees in the shade and everyone - from the valet attendants to the suspiciously glamorous-looking homeless people lounging on Colorado Avenue - is wearing sunglasses. Living on the east coast has toughened me for winter weather, but I am now unused to these sub-Saharan climes.

Schoolin' the Young'uns: Get your hands on this weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal and read the front page story, titled, "Older But Better." [subscription required] It's about 35-year-old U.S. Olympic ski team member and cross-country skier Carl Swenson.

Even though he's wading in the shallow waters of middle age, Swenson keeps getting better, and has a real shot for an Olympic medal, something the U.S. hasn't received in x-country since 1976. But what's more important is that he may not be an anamoly. Experts say that maturity could lead us to better race performance. And perhaps even better cardiovascular health than when we were callow youth.

Here's part of the story, written by WSJ reporter Kevin Helliker:

"Evidence is mounting that age isn't the dream killer it once was. While it unquestionably slows the reflexes needed to hit a 100-mile-an-hour fastball, it can give endurance athletes such as marathoners, triathletes [emphasis mine] and cross-country skiers a host of advantages - improved judgment, tactical strategies, discipline, perhaps even enhanced cardiovascular capacity.

"Triathletes in America teem with 20-somethings. Yet of the countless women who aspired to represent the U.S. at the Summer Olympics in Athens in 2004, the three who prevailed were each 35 - and they lost to a 35-year-old Austrian. Sarah Konrad, a biathlete and cross-country skier, just made the U.S. Olympics team for the first time at the age of 38."

And one more excerpt:

"Scientists increasingly recognize that genes matter as much as age when a 35-year-old is pitted against a 25-year-old. But why a 35-year-old would surpass his performances a decade earlier remains something of a mystery. Scientists talk mostly about the psychological benefits of experience and maturity.

"But Mr. Swenson [who turns 36 in two months] insists that a physiological component is also at work. Cross-country skiing is a series of grueling mountain climbs that eventually wear athletes down. Mr. Swenson says that his resting heart rate has remained at about 36 beats per minute - about half the average rate for males - and his weight at about 150 pounds since college. His maximum heart rate has remained above 190 beats per minute.

'Everybody tells you that that's supposed to decline with age, but fortunately, that hasn't happened to me," he says.

"When he entered his mid-30's, Mr. Swenson found that he often had greater reserves of cardiovascular strength than he'd ever had before, even though his trainig regimen hadn't changed. Increasingly, coaches of endurance sports say that the physiological benefits of cardiovascular training appear to accrue over years."

Okay, one more:

"For endurance athletes, drive almost always weakens before the body does, says Stephen Seiler, an exercise physiologist at Agder University College in Kristiansand, Norway. 'The mental demands of pushing, sacrificing and chasing peak performance year after year becomes too much before [these athletes] are actually 'too old' physically,' he says.

"If true, this bodes well for Mr. Swenson. Everyone who knows him says he has an astonishing tolerance for the grind ...."

If that's the case, and if 40 is the new 30 (I read that somewhere), then I'm still a wee babe ....

Still in California

Just call me freeway girl. I was in Huntington Beach (Orange County) on Sunday. On Monday, I drove further inland to Irvine - still in Republican-heavy, flag-waving Orange County (not that that's a bad thing) to interview folks. That evening, I drove my white Pontiac G6 rental car (why are rental cars always white, tan or gray?) on a tangle of freeways south for 2+ hours to northern San Diego County.

Stayed put Tuesday and Wednesday in inland San Diego, with a quick foray on Wednesday afternoon after work to see baby seals doze and play in the waves in La Jolla. The pups looked like fat little sausages with flippers. I resisted the urge to jump the protective barriers and squeeze them.

On Thursday, I drove up the exhaust-choked I-15 ("The 15" as we call it. In California, freeways are not merely roads, but entities with their own personalities and so deserve definite articles) to the Inland Empire. Note the hubris of the name. Not so long ago, the hundred of miles of desert, mountains, and flatland north, east and south of Los Angeles was the province of orange and lemon groves, cows, armadillos, vineyards, and squinty-eyed men in dungarees and sun-blasted pickups.

Now the land is called the Inland Empire. Earth-movers are ripping up the green hills and laying fresh asphalt and row upon row of identical, huge, terra-cotta roofed houses (Billboard: "Up to 7 Bedrooms! From $500,000!") for the families priced out of Los Angeles, Orange, or San Diego counties. Big-box stores and outlet malls mar the foothills of the massive San Gorgonio and San Jacinto mountains.

I grew up in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, in what was then near the perimeter of metropolitan Los Angeles, 30 miles north and east of downtown. I walked through orange groves on the way home from jr. high. My friends and I would pick a handful of sweet oranges, then eat them while leaning on the low stonewall in front of the local firehouse, which thoughtfully provided us water.

Go east, young woman: On Friday, I drove further east, where development is making its first encroachment. The temperature hovered in the low 80's. Sunny and no clouds. Severe clear. In February. Usually, it's cooler. Going to be a bad fire season later this year, when the Santa Anas blow through.

It was Mad Max country out there. Yellow and brown rolling landscape with the mountains to my left. Desolate and scrubby and ugly. No trees. But blessedly clear of civilization. A fine layer of dust coated the cars and semi-trucks roaring down the highway. I drove through what the locals call "The Badlands," a 10-mile stretch of hairpin curves amongst baked brown hills, to get to my interviews.

It's now Saturday morning. I'm back in Los Angeles County, in Pasadena. I lived just a few miles north of here from ages 3-8. Back on home turf. Lots of chi-chi boutiques, restaurants and museums. But it's still got some small-town charm.

Winter Storm: It's 65 degrees at 8:10 a.m. Back east, Washington is hunkering down for its first major storm. My flight tonight has been cancelled. I've been re-booked on the last flight out of Southern California tomorrow night. There are worse places to be stranded.

Will give my running update later today or tomorrow. This post is waaay too long already.

Bethesda Punks

I drove 2+ hours on Monday afternoon to northern San Diego, where I'll be until tomorrow morning. While I was interviewing sources and visiting sites for several articles yesterday, E. hiked up Torrey Pines, then went down to La Jolla to watch baby seals swim and sun themselves (it's birthing season).

Oh, the unfairness of it all.

After work yesterday, I hightailed it to the nearest place I could run that wasn't choked with traffic: Lake Miramar. I ran out and back 7 miles as the sun was setting, with 10 minutes to spare before they closed the park gates. It took me 59:25, or about an 8:26/mile pace.

Okay, I have 10 minutes before I have to get ready for work. Forthwith, one story I promised, entitled, "Empty Heads, Full Bladders."

Last week on a beautiful if cold afternoon, I ducked out of work for an 8-mile run on the Capital Crescent Trail. The trail, which goes through several upper middle-class to middle class neighborhoods in Bethesda and upper Northwest D.C., is heavily wooded in many parts.

On Mile 2, I noticed one teenage boy (about 14-15 years old) straddling a bike on a small hill above me to my left. He looked at me. "Hey Ethan," he called to a friend, who I could not see. I ran on.

I turned around at Mile 4, and started pushing it. I was aiming for negative splits on the run back, and by the time I got to Mile 7, or about the same place I saw the boy, I was breathing pretty heavily. I stopped briefly to catch my breath.

That's when I noticed two boys ahead of me, about 50 feet away. It was the same boy on his bike, and his friend, the aforementioned Ethan. They were on either side of the trail. I didn't really pay attention to them, although I noticed that they kept talking to each other quietly, then look back at me.

Two bicyclists rode by. Then an inline skater and a slow jogger. After about 20 seconds, I started running again. I glanced at the two boys. They seemed to be waiting. Just as I passed the boy on the left, he pulled down his pants and started peeing on the trail. He was facing away from me, and peeing at a diagonal.

Yellow urine started trickling down the asphalt trail.

"Oh, brother," I thought, and rolled my eyes, amused and irritated.

I kept running, but started laughing maniacally. A few feet ahead of the boy, I turned around, still running, looked him square in the eye and down there, pointed, and kept laughing. Then I turned around again and hightailed it out of there.

A second later, I heard a boy (the pissing dude's friend?) laugh really loud, whether he was laughing at his friend or me, I don't know. I wondered if they were going to come after me since I laughed at them. I picked up my speed just a bit.

I told a few colleagues later what happened, and one said that I should have asked them who their moms were, and that I would call them. The men I talked to about it got upset and said I should call the police. What do you think?

Running on the Beach

California Dreamin':I'm back in my home state. I'm here on business for a week, and I'll be driving all over the Southland - Orange County (I refuse to call it "The O.C."), San Diego County, and the high desert, near Palm Springs. Whew.

When E. and I headed to our hotel Sunday after flying cross-country that morning, we noticed detour signs. Then we saw that the Pacific Shoreline Marathon was underway. Very cool. What wasn't was that we couldn't get to our beach hotel (which was the official hotel for the marathon) because of road closures. Ah, well. All for a good cause. We ate lunch and looked around downtown Huntington Beach (a.k.a. "Surf City"), then drove to our hotel after police re-opened the streets.

I was itchin' for a run myself - it was a balmy 72 degrees, sunny and not a cloud marred the sky - so I quickly changed into shorts and a singlet (the first time I didn't have to don long sleeves to run in for MONTHS), smeared on sunscreen, and headed out the door.

I passed by an exhausted-looking woman wrapped in a silver runner's blanket, huddled in the hotel lobby.

"Congratulations!" I said to her, smiling, as I quickly strode by her.

"Thanks," she said as I walked away. "Congrats to you too."

I stopped and turned around to explain that I didn't run the marathon. But she was already talking intently to someone else. I shrugged and walked down to the beach. It was after 1:30 p.m., more than six -and-a-half hours after the start of the marathon, but there were still one or two people shuffling down the street.

They looked sunburned and tired. But they were smiling. The race volunteers who were breaking down all of the booths, tables, etc., and loading them into huge trucks stopped and clapped. So did I.

Beach Run: Running along the beach (I was on a sidewalk), was sooo nice compared to the fast (avg pace 9:00/mile) 12.5 mile hilly run on broken glass, through the rain, in the 'hood the day before (that will be reported in my next post).

I headed south, with the ocean and a wide expanse of sand to my right, stopped briefly at the water's edge to gaze at some monster waves and surfers wiping out, then ran back at a brisk pace, dodging a few folks, one of whom I almost ran into as she abruptly stepped into my path while holding the hands of two kids.

("What a bitch!" said the woman, who badly needed another dye job, about me to her friend as I narrowly dodged her. "Huh?!" I thought and almost turned around and yelled at her. But I have more class. Plus I didn't want to cuss in front of the children. I kept running.)

Here's how the run, which was supposed to be a recovery run, went:

Mile 1: 8:46
Mile 2: 8:28
Mile 3: 7:39 (I pushed it here- felt good)
Mile 4: 8:30
Mile 5.2: 8:27

Okay, I thought this run was suspiciously fast. I'd kept track on my Forerunner, and while it's a bit off when I'm going around curves or down hills, it's accurate on flat straightaways, like the one I ran here. But I wanted to make sure, so I drove the distance as well.

The damn thing was accurate. I guess I'm (slowly) getting faster.

Next up: Idiot teenage boys who play pranks that backfire and running past shuttered liquor stores in gangland. Watch this space.