Michael: LSD

There are no fat dogs
In Panama, perhaps that’s
Why they bark so much.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Here I am at 57 about to try LSD for the first time.

Why? For two reasons: One I don’t feel I can avoid it and expect to do well in the 100k trail race I’ve set as one of my new challenges for next year, and two, I’ve never trained that way before and am curious what the results will be.

I had a high school cross country coach, Coach Johannes, that wore a “Try LSD” t-shirt after school to our practices, but I wasn’t ever sure he really meant it. The longest runs he ever sent us out on were 10 milers and those were more like mini-races than LSD training. I’d always finish those runs right around an hour, and even in my prime, I’d consider that pushing it along instead of taking it easy.

Once in my high school years, I challenged myself to run around the local Marine base. That was 14 miles. That’s the longest I’ve ever run on the road.
After college I started competing in short course duathlons where the longest run was a 10k and once I turned to trail running, outside of duathlons and road races of a half-marathon or less, I started doing my speed work and tempo runs exclusively on the treadmill. All my long runs were done on the trails.

But the trails here, as beautiful as they are, are not very conducive to LSD training. They’re just too difficult for that. So I’m turning to the roads and LSD training for the first time in my life; very exciting stuff.

As far as the other type of LSD goes…I’ve always enjoyed the philosophy espoused by Alan Arkin’s character in Little Miss Sunshine. He plays a grumpy old grandfather who figures when you’re older, why not? What’ve you got to lose? That’s the time to experiment. I don’t feel I’ve reached that point yet. But I am willing to give that “Try LSD” approach printed on my coach’s shirt a go.