15 Miles in Memory of Scott Boliver

I made it back to Los Angeles after an extended holiday vacation in the Bay Area with my family, and I made it just in time for the longest Team to End AIDS run yet – 15 miles. The day before had me driving all the way from Northern California which took longer to accomplish as a traffic accident cause traffic to slow down on the Grapevine. I ended up stopping at a Jack In The Box restaurant to have dinner, and I had a Chicken Club Sandwich on sourdough, some curly fries and an orange Fanta. It’s probably not the best meal you want to chow down on before a long run, but when you’re on the road your options in terms of eating can be somewhat limited. Either that or I was looking for an excuse to have some fast food.

After being subdued by reruns of the Batman TV show on IFC, I got out of my apartment and drove to Griffith Park. Today’s run was special because it was in memory of the late Scott Boliver, a man who coached many of us to successful marathon completions time and time again. Scott passed away on January 3, 2013 after battling two different types of cancer that he did in fact beat. I guess the various treatments he underwent took a heavier toll on his body than we realized. Hearing of his passing two years ago was absolutely devastating, and we still bemoan how he was taken away from us far too soon.

As a result, an invitation was sent out to veteran Team to End AIDS runners to join us in a run in memory of Scott. This allowed me to catch up with Jessica, Annette and Virginia, my fellow “13 The Sequel” pace group friends who I have missed these past few months. Right now they are running with a group known as the Pasadena Pacers, and Jessica said she has been running only 5 or 6 miles a week as she has been suffering from “runner’s knees.” As for my own knees, they gave up trying to reason with me a while ago, and they have created a song that’s a knock-off of “Thanks for the Memories” which they have entitled “Thank You for the Cartilage.” 

The temperature in Northern California went down to 30 degrees some nights, and I figured it would be slightly warmer when I got back to Los Angeles. If it was warmer, it was only slightly so and I prepared for the frigid weather accordingly. On top of dressing in layers, I also put my gloves on. I’ve been in very cold weather before where my hands became so numb that I couldn’t feel them. I don’t want to experience that ever again if I can help it. 

I have misplaced the running watch my parents gave me last Christmas, and my Ironman watch, the same one that is now without a strap, just died on me. However, one of my Christmas gifts this year was a new cellphone, or more specifically an Android phone. Compared to my prehistoric iPhone, this one has up to date technology which meant I now had a phone that could successfully download Runkeeper. That’s right, I have finally caught up with the 21^st century!

The run got off to a rough start as I was trying to figure out how to use Runkeeper. I had created a workout on it that had the 3:1 pace, but getting to the specific place where I could start it got a little complicated. In the end I just started it on a regular workout which meant I had to rely on someone else’s watch going beep, beep, beep when the time came. But once again, not everyone was on the same page.

There was another problem too; none of the Lucky 13 runners had a map at the start. We ended up missing a couple of turns, but some were able to figure that out before our 15 mile run became a full marathon by accident. 

For me, this run turned out to be more of a struggle than I anticipated. If Runkeeper was correct, I was running faster than I should have been, and I found myself getting winded rather quickly. This was probably the result of me getting hammered on New Year’s Eve by myself as I rung in 2015 by catching up on articles I needed to finish. I also got to enjoy a lot of red wine throughout the week when I should have spent a lot more time hydrating. I did bring along some energy gel blocks, but they only did so much for me.

When it came to running up that deceptive hill on Sonora, I found myself doing more speed walking than running. To be honest, I didn’t have any breakfast beforehand as I figured I still needed to run off that Jack In The Box value meal. While it may be low in price, it’s ridiculously high in calories which I hoped to dropkick on this 15 mile run. Did I succeed in doing so? God I hope so!

The Bolivers were on hand, and I don’t just mean Scott’s parents. The rest of the family was there as well to pay tribute to him as they know this is where he’d want them to be. One of his daughters is now a senior in high school and is hoping that the rest of the year goes by quickly. We assured her that it will and that everything after it will go by even faster. This led one woman to respond, “And then you’ll wake up and your 50!”

This is the fifth time I have trained for the Los Angeles Marathon, but I came out of this run feeling a lot more battered than usual. I have a lot to be proud of, but my body got really sore in the process. In retrospect I should have seen this coming, but I figured I had this whole running thing figured out. Boy was I wrong! What’s wrong with me anyway?!

I do have to thank my fellow pace group runners for keeping an eye on me as I was the last one to cross the finish line, and by then I was limping. I had just enough energy to take the “15 Mile Award” certificate Coach JC was handing out to us. From there we stretched our sore legs out while partaking in a banquet of chocolate milk, bagels with cream cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and mini chocolate chip cookies. This is typically my day for pigging out, but I need to focus on losing weight before the day of the marathon arrives. It’s far too easy to pig out over the holidays, and now we have a lot of flab to rid ourselves of.

To be honest, I came out of this run disappointed in myself. While I did run 15 miles and burned hundreds of calories, I felt that I dropped the ball in some ways. I should have spent more time hydrating myself with water and Gatorade during the week. Instead I partied hard even though I didn’t bother going to a New Year’s Eve party. 

Floyd said we should all be proud of what we accomplished and that everybody did a fantastic job. I’m glad he said that, and I would have loved to feel the way he did after this run. I don’t know, maybe I’m at war with myself and beating myself up for no good reason. Running should be ridding me of bad vibes as well as calories. Oh well, at least I know what I need to work on.

It was great seeing Jessica, Annette and Virginia again. They ended up only running 5 miles as that was all the alums were expected to run. I tried to goad them into running the full 15, figuring that they would consume one too many peanut butter and pickle covered Ritz crackers at the Boliver rest stop. But anyway, they’re not training for the marathon this time around.

As I walked back to my car, I took the time to look at the tree that was planted in memory of Scott. It continues to grow tall, and it remains a wonderful sight to see. I look forward to seeing it grow even bigger as time goes by. 

When I got back to my apartment, I did take an ice bath as I really needed one. At the supermarket I found some bags of Halloween party ice where the cubes were green and orange, and that made the bath all the more entertaining. It’s good thing nobody saw me take this bath because, once the ice cubes melted, it looked like I peed in the tub. 

We miss you Scott. 

Did you get all those tax deductible donations taken care of before the end of 2014? Good for you. Now you can get a head start on them by donating to AIDS Project Los Angeles, a non-profit group that has done so much for those afflicted with this disease. You want to donate just $5 or $10? That’s perfectly fine because a little money can still go a long way.

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12 Miles and a Sexy Santa Suit!

The weather gets colder, but we Team to End AIDS runners are still more than willing to show up at Griffith Park at a ridiculously early hour Saturday mornings. This week had us running 12 miles with the promise of no hills, but as Spock said there are always possibilities.

I had trouble getting to sleep the night before, but I still managed to haul my ass out of bed at around 6:15 a.m. which in retrospect was amazing. This week’s movie which was showing on cable and delayed my departure from my bachelor pad was S.W.A.T., the movie version of the TV show starring Colin Farrell, Samuel L. Jackson, L.L. Cool J and Michelle Rodriguez. 

I was especially excited about this movie as it was directed by Clark Johnson, the man who played Meldrick Lewis on one of my all-time favorite TV shows Homicide: Life on the Street. The show may not have gotten great ratings during its run, but those involved with it continue to make their presence known in any and every medium out there.

So yes, I was a little late getting to Griffith Park, but I arrived just in time to see Coach JC unveil his beautiful Mrs. Santa Claus dress which looked just fabulous on him. Coach JC offered to wear this sexy looking dress (Mr. Santa Claus can only dream of looking this good) if all Team to End AIDS runners managed to raise $60,000 by the end of the week. Suffice to say we succeeded in making that a reality, and here we were marveling at our coach and taking pictures of him with our iPhones and cameras for posterity. It was especially brave of him to wear it for reasons I’m sure you’d understand… IT WAS BLOODY COLD OUTSIDE AND THE DRESS DIDN’T HAVE MUCH FABRIC TO WARM HIM UP! HIS SKIN WAS EXPOSED FOR PETE’S SAKE!!!

During his speech to us, Coach JC reminded everyone of how hard concrete can be on our feet. This is why you see us running on the streets instead of the sidewalks because the asphalt is much better to run on, and that’s what we all will be running on when the day of the marathon arrives. Of course, there are always police officers on our tails ordering us to get our asses back on the sidewalk, but we can jump back onto the asphalt once they’re out of sight. 

This run once again took us outside of Griffith Park, and we took the usual route over the freeway and into Burbank and then Glendale. As we ran past a park, we all were all treated to the grisly image of a dead skunk on the side of the road. He (or she) looked like they didn’t know what hit them. Perhaps the skunk was there to remind us to look both ways when we cross the street. Surely none of us want to end up (or smell anything) like him!

On this run the big conversation we all had was over Sony Pictures’ decision to not release The Interview in movie theaters. We were all in agreement that they should have just released it as this set a very dangerous precedent, but we also had to remind ourselves that Sony made the decision after numerous theater chains announced that they wouldn’t screen it due to terror threats made. In short, they didn’t want to be held liable for anything that happened at their establishments. It is true what they say: money is the corrupter. Hopefully Sony will change their mind and release The Interview on Christmas Day like they originally planned to.

The biggest obstacle we encountered this time around was staying on pace. Just when I thought we all started our timers at the same time, it soon turned out that we didn’t. Some decided to pause their timers upon arriving at the rest stops, and that threw us off to where we kept starting and restarting our watches on a regular basis. I ended up losing count of how many times I restarted my watch as it seemed to be increasingly impossible to be on the same page with everybody else. The fact that we were able to figure out our pace before we crossed the finish line was nothing short of a miracle.

At one point we reached that familiar street which was divided into two sides of traffic and had a bike and walking path down the middle which stretched for miles. I’ve ran down this road before, and there’s something about running in what seems like the middle of the road that feels both defiant and freeing. Damn the traffic! Damn the bicyclists coming in front and behind me! Nothing’s going to stop me now… except of course for the occasional street crossings and stop signs. 

It was at this point that the hit song by The Pretenders, “Middle of the Road,” started to play inside my head. I’m pretty sure the title of the song isn’t meant to be taken literally, but that didn’t matter to me in the slightest.

Actually, many ended up running on the streets instead of the middle road as, once again, the asphalt is much kinder to the feet. While I knew the middle road was made of concrete, I was still compelled to run on it regardless. But after a bit I decided it might be better to run on the street even as the roads got increasingly narrow to where we had to run in a single file run. Of course, I later found myself getting back onto the middle road just because I was drawn to it or something stupid like that. It also got me to meet up with Coach JC who drove ahead of us to check in and make sure we were doing okay. JC, still wearing his beautiful Mrs. Santa Claus dress, ended up saying to me, “I am not looking forward to your next blog.”

One of the sites I came across on this run was a speed limit sign that indicated the speed you were going at. My brother loves to race through them to see if they will overload and send sparks flying. As we approached it, it read 15 miles an hour. For a moment I thought it was measuring the speed we were running at, but it turns out there were a number of bicycles behind that were coming up a lot sooner than we realized. As we ran past it, I was hoping it show us going at breakneck speed. Then again, we have been constantly reminded that our marathon training has not been about speed but instead endurance.

We made it back to Griffith Park in one piece, and the most frightening thing of all was that we made it look like running 12 miles was not that hard. What’s wrong with us anyway? 

We should also take the time to congratulate those who completed those first time marathon runners as this run marked the farthest they have run in one day to date. Way to go y’all!

This is our last run before Christmas and many of us were getting ready to leave town to spend it with our families. As we departed, we all wished one another a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah or Chanukah if you prefer to spell it that way. Since there were a number of holidays coming our way in the next few weeks, I made sure to wish my fellow runners a Happy Kwanza and a Happy Boxing Day to make sure everyone was covered. We’ve got to be equal folks.

I’ll be out of town next week for the 5 mile run, but I will make sure to run it when next Saturday comes. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a ridiculously Happy New Year. Be safe.

FUNDRAISING UPDATE: For those of you tuning into this blog for the first time, I am training for the 2015 Los Angeles Marathon in support of AIDS Project Los Angeles. They are a non-profit organization that has spent years helping those afflicted by this disease we have yet to eradicate. I encourage you to donate to this organization, and together we can put an end to AIDS for once and for all.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO MAKE ATAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION BEFORE THE END OF 2014.

5 Miles After the Storm

The past few days have had California drenched in massive rainstorms to where even tornados were reported in South Los Angeles. The winds were blow and the rain came pouring down in a way we’ve been waiting for it too. And yet, when the heavy clouds went away and the sun slowly started to peak its way out of the clouds, none of this was enough to end California’s most serious drought in years! What gives anyway?!

Well, by the time Saturday, December 13, 2014 (12/13/14) came around, the clouds were nowhere as heavy as they were before, and the Team to End AIDS runners ended up having a rain-free day as they did their 5 mile run through the streets of Burbank. 

I ended up having a lot of trouble getting to sleep the night before and couldn’t get myself to fall into a deep slumber before 1 a.m. which sucked because I had to get up at 6. Now this may have had to do with me going to Pink’s in Hollywood last night and having The Hollywood Walk of Fame Dog, a 9 inch stretch dog topped with coleslaw and chopped tomatoes. On yeah, I also had that with a side order of onion rings and a Mexican Coca-Cola. I don’t know, I guess I was feeling a big naughty last night and felt the need to eat at a historic Hollywood landmark. Plus, the line at Pink’s was a lot shorter than usual.

Look on the bright side; my hot dog was covered with diced tomatoes.

The other thing was that I had just seen Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice and was still trying to figure what the hell it was all about. The movie was so densely layered and had so many things on its mind that it became impossible to keep up with all that was going on. The acting was great and Anderson has not lost any of his ability as a filmmaker, but I could never get on the same wavelength with his latest movie and I desperately wanted to.

So Inherent Vice was still playing in my head as I tried to get some shut-eye, but my mind was still racing to where my body kept saying, “No let’s stay up a little while longer.” Then my next door neighbors started making out, and hearing them climax at the same time made more envious than usual. As a result, Rod Stewart’s “Some Guys Have All The Luck” started playing in my head, a reminder of how much luck I have with women these days (which is to say, none).

Anyway, my alarm did wake me up at the tender hour of 6 a.m. and I hauled my ass out of bed for another day of marathon training. But of course, I did get seduced by cable TV which was showing John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China, one of the most entertaining movies ever made. If you can, see it with an audience as few experiences in a movie theater will be anywhere as much fun as that one is.

The Team to End AIDS runners meet in Griffith Park at 7 a.m., but we typically don’t start running until about 7:20 or 7:30. As I was running a bit behind, I figured I would arrive just as everyone was heading over to the starting line. But once I got there, I discovered that everyone had already left which led to me kicking myself literally and figuratively speaking. How dare I get to Griffith Park after everyone has left! Who do I think I am anyway? I’d tell you who, but that would require me naming a manager I once had who I really need to stop thinking about altogether.

But fortunately Coach JC was there and offered to give me ride to where the Lucky 13 pace group was at in their run. Meanwhile, Coach Dene was keeping a close eye on the key bucket which everyone leaves their car keys in. Heaven forbid we put them in our pockets during our run and end up losing them in the process. That bucket is there to ensure that such a tragedy never happens. But with the way Dene was looking at those keys, both JC and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to trade in a car for one of ours. 

Fortunately, the Lucky 13 pace group (which remains the largest of all the T2EA pace groups) was only a few yards away, so we didn’t have to travel far after all. JC assured me that I would still be doing a 5 mile run as he realized that the run actually measured out to 5.1 miles. Well, that was still good to know. 

I figured my fellow runners would give me a hard time about being late, but for the most part they were glad to see me. One of them said I was getting special treatment with Coach JC driving me to them. I’m not sure I deserve special treatment, so I was a little modest about that. I also informed everyone that I did make my interviews with the cast and director of Predestination and that Ethan Hawke was a lot of fun to talk to.

It turns out that everyone left for their run earlier than usual because it was really cold. That’s right, colder temperatures have finally arrived in Southern California after a rather lengthy delay and just in time for Christmas. As I was getting out of my car, I kept wondering if I should put on my black Nike jacket or not. It’s a good thing I decided to wear it as even the first mile or so of this run did not warm up as quickly other training runs have. If nothing else, this is a clear sign that winter will be here before we know it.

I’ve been noticing how the muscles in my lower legs keep getting this burning sensation, and it makes me wonder if I’m doing something wrong. The sensation does go away, but it feels a little more painful than it should. Maybe I should have someone look into it more.

For us, the big thing to look out for was all the wet leaves and broken tree branches strewn all over the road. The leaves may be dead, but they are still very easy to slip on. As for the tree branches, they were just sitting there on the road as if to tell us, “Go ahead, come here and trip on us. You’re too busy running anyway so how can you even notice us?” Well we did notice them and nobody tripped and fell down thank goodness.

Once again, I kept checking myself to make sure I was running with my back straight and not hunching over. I’m all about the perfect running form these days, and I think I might be getting a little closer to achieving it. Of course, I may be just fooling myself as I have quite the talent for that.

The one thing the Lucky 13 pace group were unlucky in this week was staying on pace. Eventually we had to realize that we were running too fast and had to slow down a bit. I could certainly sense that I was running faster than usual, and I didn’t have to worry about being at a press junket on time either. I don’t know, maybe I was trying to rid myself of whatever negative thoughts were buzzing around in my head so I could make room for all those endorphins which come in handy for those dealing with anxiety and depression. That’s the danger of not exercising on a regular basis; you forget how good they make you feel.

The Bolivers were on hand once again to treat us to all the snacks, water and Gatorade we needed for the rest of our run. It doesn’t matter what the weather’s like because this married couple continues to drive all the way from Covina to Burbank to give us the fuel and the support we need to help us run just a few more miles. Those peanut butter and pickle covered Ritz crackers remain as addictive as ever, and I soon lost track of how many I had while I was at the Boliver rest stop. It got to where my stomach started telling me, “I thought we were going to free up some space here and thin things out.” As for my knees, they have long since given up complaining with me and are now just saying, “I’m going to miss all the cartilage.”

When we made the final turn towards the finish line, it was so nice to feel that gust of wind come in our direction as the sun had finally arisen and things were beginning to warm up. As we approached the end, we threw our 3:1 pace out the window so that we could cross the finish line running instead of walking. Somehow the thought of just walking across it felt all wrong. 

So that concludes another 5 mile run, and we managed to escape the pouring rain in the process which was nice. Next Saturday our mileage increases to 12 miles, and my guess is we might have a hill or two to climb over. If we don’t, then something might be seriously wrong with our training

As the sun came up over the hills in Griffith Park, it shone down brightly over the late Scott Boliver’s tree which continues to grow there. Scott may be gone, but he’s always with us in spirit.

FUNDRAISING UPDATE: As you know I have reached my fundraising goal for AIDS Project Los Angeles, but people are still donating regardless of that fact. To date I have raised $1,086, and I encourage you to keep donating to this non-profit company that has done so much for so many people over the years. One of these we will deal the death blow to the AIDS virus, but there’s still a lot we can do in the meantime before that happens. 

CLICK HERE TO MAKE A TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION.