Found a fascinating piece (at Dubious Quality… thanks Bill!) in the New York Times — written in 2006 but new to me — about a Slovenian ultra-endurance cyclist. Jure Robic wins ultra-endurance cycling events like RAAM and Le Tour Direct. He’s won them for years. These are multi-week, non-stop events. He also has the world record for the longest distance covered in 24 consecutive hours: 518.7 miles. By every measure he’s likely the greatest living ultra-endurance athlete. I’ve labeled this “inspiration” and it is in some ways, but it could also be construed as a cautionary tale as well. You see, he’s a bit crazy.

The craziness is methodical, however, and Robic and his crew know its pattern by heart. Around Day 2 of a typical weeklong race, his speech goes staccato. By Day 3, he is belligerent and sometimes paranoid. His short-term memory vanishes, and he weeps uncontrollably. The last days are marked by hallucinations: bears, wolves and aliens prowl the roadside; asphalt cracks rearrange themselves into coded messages. Occasionally, Robic leaps from his bike to square off with shadowy figures that turn out to be mailboxes. In a 2004 race, he turned to see himself pursued by a howling band of black-bearded men on horseback.

‘‘Mujahedeen, shooting at me,’’ he explains. ‘‘So I ride faster.’’

I recently mentioned that I needed to find a way to keep going when my body tells me I shouldn’t.

It’ll require me to rethink my own limits of pain and the amount of effort I’m willing to exert. It’ll mean convincing myself not to give in when everything is screaming that I should. In short, I have to find someone inside myself that I’ve never found.

Maybe I need to find a little bit of Jure Robic in me. Not much; I don’t personally desire to be chased by Mujahedeen. But I know when my mind is telling me to quit I’m nowhere near my body’s limits.

Time to start fresh. This new destination is an offshoot from my personal site. Recently it seems all I’ve been doing is talking about running and fitness. That might not appeal to everyone and I feel like getting more in-depth so why not branch it off into it’s own place?

That’s what this place is. A place for all the fitness discussions I feel like making. Hopefully it’ll be of some use.

8 months ago I wrote this.

Yeah, it’s time for a marathon. I strongly considered training for the City of Oaks Marathon last year but got sidetracked when we got sent to Canada for two months over the summer for my job. I don’t anticipate that happening this year and even if I do get sent it should just mean I’ll get to train in cooler weather with a bigger set of hills.

So this year I do the City of Oaks Marathon in Raleigh. My desires are three fold.

Then I signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon.

So, I’m running the 2009 Marine Corps Marathon! I couldn’t imagine a better first marathon. We love DC and running through all of the landmarks should be fantastic. I like to think that my dad had a hand in this given the fateful nature of things. He was a marine and, frankly, it was sort of a defining characteristic. My mom bought a memorial brick for him at the National Museum of the Marine Corps south of DC so we’ll almost certainly stop off there afterwards to find him.

And now the race is here. It feels like a long time ago that I wrote those words. I’ve seen many ups and downs in my training. I worked through a foot injury, I fought off two illnesses in the final month of training, and I’ve put in more miles running while training for this event — over 420 since I got my Garmin on my birthday, so roughly 500-550 total — than I ran during the rest of my life. I started at an average of 207 pounds and tip the scales this week at an average of 190, plus or minus given I’m now carbo loading. My long runs have been both painful and rewarding, often in the same run. I found some things out about myself during those 3 and 4 hour training runs, and I like the way my running self is.

Now I just have to finish. I’ve lowered my expectations for the race considerably given my illnesses. Since signing up I’ve been driven to do a 4 hour marathon. Don’t know why, that number just stuck out. However, I don’t think I have the miles built up nor do I think my plan necessarily was appropriate for reaching that milestone. I switched to a less aggressive plan mid-stream when I injured my foot and I also bonked on a long run following my sinus infection so I just don’t think I’ve got a 4 hour marathon in me this year. I’ll be content to merely finish and try to enjoy the experience as much as possible instead of stressing about maintaining a 9:09 pace consistently.

I’m quite nervous but the excitement is building, too. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Looks like I really am running a marathon this year, barring disaster. I had previously mentioned that I was going to enter the City of Oaks Marathon here in Raleigh and that was my intention. But… in the back of my head I kept thinking about the Marine Corps Marathon. However, I really thought the MCM was in March or April for some reason (I actually know why: I was getting it confused with the Raleigh Rocks Half Marathon in March). So I discounted it because the timing didn’t work out right. I certainly wasn’t ready this March and I don’t relish training through the winter for a marathon in the Spring.

But I still thought about the Marine Corps Marathon. So, on Wednesday I decided to take a look at the site for it just to see when it was. Oh! It’s on October 25th! That’s only a week before the marathon I was considering. It seems fate was taking an interest as well. Registration for it opened on, yes, Wednesday April 1st. That was a bit too perfect for me so I registered immediately after checking with Cat about her triathlon schedule.

So, I’m running the 2009 Marine Corps Marathon! I couldn’t imagine a better first marathon. We love DC and running through all of the landmarks should be fantastic. I like to think that my dad had a hand in this given the fateful nature of things. He was a marine and, frankly, it was sort of a defining characteristic. My mom bought a memorial brick for him at the National Museum of the Marine Corps south of DC so we’ll almost certainly stop off there afterwards to find him.

I couldn’t be more excited. Or scared, frankly .

I recently tweeted about motivation as I had a random thought about it. It strikes me that motivation and, similarly, despair, are often self generating once a certain level of either is reached. The old adage “when it rains it pours” emphasizes the negative aspect of it that I’m sure we’ve all felt at one time or another. I remember when we sold our house 4 years ago it seemed like things would never stop going wrong. The air conditioner failed the day I listed the house, the crawlspace suddenly developed a river, and a cut floor joist was discovered that (of course) passed the inspection when we were buying but at sell time had to be fixed lest the house collapse in the next 10 minutes.

Strangely, it seems to work in a positive fashion as well. My running since making the commitment to train for the marathon has been better than I can ever remember it being. Before Julia was born Cat and I trained pretty heavily for overall fitness and I would do some running for it, but my pace even now for my base runs is better than my pace for fast running back then. I’m also trying hard to simply not allow myself to quit. I’m not talking about quitting running overall, just stopping during a run because “it’s too hard.” Unless I’m dying or injuring myself, why should I allow myself to quit? It’s tiring and it’s effort and it’s not necessarily easy but there’s no reason to stop. I haven’t been able to do that before. My brain would start defeating me as I pictured the end of the run. I’d allow myself to feel how tired I was and I’d begin to make excuses which would inevitably follow with walking. Now, I just run. Save the drama.

I think it’s the new shoes.

Yeah, it’s time for a marathon. I strongly considered training for the City of Oaks Marathon last year but got sidetracked when we got sent to Canada for two months over the summer for my job. I don’t anticipate that happening this year and even if I do get sent it should just mean I’ll get to train in cooler weather with a bigger set of hills.

So this year I do the City of Oaks Marathon in Raleigh. My desires are three fold.

• Complete a marathon. Cat did a sprint triathlon last year and plans to do it again this year. Triathlons could be fun but I’m not fond of swimming.
• Get in shape. When I was doing kung fu and MMA I was at my fighting weight of 195. That’s a good weight for me. I’m 10 pounds over that and wouldn’t mind seeing 190.
• Improve my hockey. Marathon training seems a strange way to improve my hockey playing, but one of my biggest problems is endurance. While hockey is more anaerobic in nature, a good aerobic base can’t but help.

I have about 8 months to train which should be about right given my base. Time to start packing on some miles during the week. Luckily I can pretty easily fit in a run at lunch given my reasonably flexible work schedule so it won’t cut into family time during the week, though once the long runs hit I’ll have to sacrifice a bit on the weekend. I’ll likely wake earlier on Sundays and hit the bricks near sunrise.

I’m nervous. I’ve done several 10k races in my life but it’s been a while and I’ve never done farther. I know I’m capable of it, but a marathon is quite a test. Hopefully it can be the start of something good.