3/31: 16 miles, team walk at Ridgewood “Duck Pond”;

4/7: 20 miles, another team walk at Ridgewood

Of all the team runs and walks I’ve been too since I began training with Team in Training, probably half have been at the site we call the “Duck Pond”. It’s so-called because there’s a duck pond in the part of the park where we meet and start from, but the route we take is a 6-mile path through the Saddle River County Park. Besides being easy on the eye, a nice perk of walking or running there is that it’s a park path, so there is no car traffic to contend with - just pedestrians, runners, bikers, occasional in-line skaters, and once in a blue moon, a guy on some weirdly oscillating scooter thing. Perhaps the most important perk is that the path has mileage markers every tenth of a mile, which comes in very handy for people like us marathoners (cough) who are persnickety about keeping track of exact mileage.

During the 16-miler a couple weekends ago, I noticed that Alison still hasn’t figured out that there are no cars on the path at Ridgewood. The dead giveaway was that she always walked on the far left part of the path, just like a safety-conscious pedestrian or runner who has logged hundreds of miles training with traffic, and knows that the safe way to do that is to walk or run opposite to traffic. It’s a great rule, but when opposing traffic is other walkers instead of cars, it means a lot of swerving. You’d think after swerving right a few times to get out of the way, you’d notice the lack of cars and just stay right, but Alison would drift back to the left after every swerve, even though everyone else kept right except when passing, just like the many posted signs suggested.

When I noticed it - which was inevitable because walking next to her meant I had to swerve, too - I tried to see if I could get her over to the right without saying anything. When we swerved over to the right to get out of the way of someone coming the other way, I’d stay on the right hugging the edge of the path, thinking maybe she’d stay toward that side to stay next to me. Nope. She’d just drift left again and talk across the whole width of the path if I didn’t follow her over. I told her what she was doing and called her “Lefty” a few times when she’d do it, but she couldn’t break the habit. After a while, I just swung over to her left side and physically herded her over to the right. We did a lot less swerving to avoid people after that.

The 16-mile walk was tiring, but the first time I really suffered enough to feel intimidated by the full marathon distance that’s still to come was last weekend’s 20-mile walk. It got off to a painful start with my shins just killing me for the first couple of miles. It’s not the first time it has happened, but it was probably the worst I’ve had it. I think the problem comes from starting off pretty much at pace right away, and never having a chance to stop and stretch those shin muscles, so it can take quite a while for them to warm up and stop hurting. I know I could just stop and stretch, or slow down, but the whole reason for going to team walks is to have company, and I’m not about to let my company go on ahead for a few minutes of stretching that may or may not help. The shins started improving after a couple miles, but they didn’t completely stop hurting until about five miles or so into it. Once the shins settled down, I had several miles of comfortable walking.

The Ridgewood path is not a loop, so if you walk the whole thing out and back, that’s 12 miles. I walked most of that first dozen with Alison (who had gone back to walking on the left since I wasn’t herding her) and Joanne, and then Alison wussed out and abandoned us. (Okay, she had visiting parents to attend to, but I assured her I would give her some hell in my blog for coming up short on the longest training walk in our schedule.) A lot of the NJ Marathon walkers are training for the Half Marathon, but Joanne is one of the few besides me who is walking the full. We were the only two putting in the full twenty, so after a brief snack and beverage break, we headed back out to go to the 4-mile marker and back.

I knew I was a in a little trouble already because once we started on the last eight, I could feel the beginnings of blisters on both feet from the first twelve miles. I knew those would probably get worse, and they did. Worse than the blisters, though, was that for at least the last six miles, if not more, I was suffering from “intestinal discomfort”. I know I’m not the only one to encounter this problem, but it’s not a topic I’ve heard any TNT’ers discuss yet. Since the mileage has gotten over 10 miles on the long walks, it seems inevitable that eventually, all that sustained moving around will cause other things to want to move. (I’m trying to be as euphemistic in my descriptions as possible.) When I’m lucky, it’s just gas wanting to pass, but when you’re holding that in because you’re trying to be a gentlemen in the presence of the company you’re walking with, the discomfort builds. (A couple weeks ago on a muddy trail with Alison, we briefly had a few yards separating us as we chose opposite sides of an especially muddy section to find more secure footing, and when we got past that part and joined up again, I said, “I’m glad we picked opposite sides because it gave me a chance to finally pass that gas I’ve been holding in for five miles.” The fact that I would ever hold it in probably comes as a shocker to Kat, around whom I long ago stopped being self-conscious enough to hold it in. You’d think she’d take that as a compliment, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.)

The more I walked, the more I could feel that pent-up wind wasn’t my only problem, and my main thought for the last four miles was, “There’s a bathroom at the end. There’s a bathroom at the end.” I was anxiously counting down those mile markers every tenth of a mile, and I’m sorry to say, wasn’t much of a conversationalist for Joanne during that time. There was a bathroom 2 miles out from the starting point, and I seriously considered stopping at it both times we passed it for the 8-mile out and back, but I was very concerned that if I stopped for a few minutes, not only would I lose my walking company, but it would be much harder to get going again than it would be to just keep going at pace. I don’t keep track of pace as much now that I’m walking instead of runnig, but I think we were maintaining roughly a 15min/mi. pace, which is a pretty brisk walk for long distances.

The coaches don’t like (or maybe aren’t allowed) to leave before all the participants are back and accounted for, so Coach Lynne had stuck around even though she did fewer miles because of her recently-injured knee. (I think “fewer” ended up being something like 16 miles, which I doubt is what her doctor had in mind) She walked out to join us for the last couple of miles. I had mile marker tunnel vision toward the end because of my blisters and gastric condition, and even if they didn’t know it, Joanne and Lynne basically pulled me down the homestretch, because my feet and gut were done. When we finally finished, it was the most relieved I’ve been to reach the end of a walk. I managed to delay just long enough to have a sip of Gatorade and a few pretzels while we said our goodbyes, and then I made a beeline for the park bathroom.

There were no mile markers between the parking lot and the bathroom, but I’m convinced it was at least another tenth of a mile to get there. If anyone had been walking next to me over that tenth, they would have witnessed an unpleasant windstorm that was no longer under my control. Thankfully, it was only wind, and I got to the bathroom before anything worse happened. Also thankfully, the facilities were pretty clean considering they were at a public park. That was fortunate because they didn’t have toilet seat covers, but I wasn’t in a condition to really care.

After having my few minutes of precious relief and washing my hands (which I mention to satisfy you hygiene nuts out there), I had to walk back to my car. It was at this time that I confirmed my earlier fear that if I stopped walking for a few minutes, starting again would be difficult. My blisters were killing me, and now that my gut wasn’t drawing most of my focus, I became aware that my legs were a little rubbery and my hips hurt. It was a slow, tender hobble back to my car, where I had a parking ticket waiting for me. The regular lot was full when I arrived in the morning, so I improvised a spot like I saw someone else had done and apparently broke a rule.

I can look at those 20 miles and think, “My shins were screaming for the first few miles, I got blisters that hurt, it sucked having to hold in bathroom needs for several miles, and I got a parking ticket,” and be bitter about the day. To be honest, it’s a very tempting perspective to take. However, I think about what my honored teammate Reilly has to put up with every day (painful arthritis, asthma, blood disorders); and about the fact that I don’t have cancer or chemotherapy to endure like the so many people TNT is raising funds to help; and that I’m healthy enough to be able to walk 20 miles on a day when I didn’t feel very motivated to do it; and it turns out… I had a fantastic day.