Who Is Switchfoot Anyway?

New York

I ran a half marathon last Sunday in Central Park. That requires basically two loops of the curvy perimeter of the hilly, 500+ acre park, and then a mile or so to make the 13.2 miles. The reward, so to speak, is that the race ends at the exact finish line of the upcoming ( November 5 ) New York Marathon. It was my first half marathon since January in Miami--and that route was flat, so I wasn't sure what to expect of my body. My body, just for the record, has been metaphorically offering me challenges to discern between serious ailments and plain, old setbacks in training for anything in life.

Let me explain. For the past month, I've been trying to up my weekly mileage so that my six decade old body can get ready for five hours ( or more ) of running required to complete five boroughs and 26.2 miles.
In August, while I was in Nantucket, my plan was to run, run, run. But the new shoes that I had bought just before coming to the island ( which is not exactly a sports shoe haven ) were too narrow. Everytime I ran more than three miles, my feet were blistered for three days. My son, Chris went up to my apartment and rummaged through the closet to find the "good" sneakers and brought them with him to Nantucket a few days later--along with two kids and all the acoutrements that that entails! God bless him for his help. That setback put my mileage ramp-up two weeks behind.

In September, I was competing in a triathlon, so while I tried to increase mileage, I was also doing alot of crosstraining. The week before the tri, I reached 27 total miles. Then, cut way back to prepare my body for the race.

The week after the tri, I was exhausted, and my right knee started aching after the race, so I rested all week.

Now, you're up to date. That was last week. The morning of the race, I resisted the temptation to go back to bed--mostly because from my apartment, the street is 15 floors below--and it didn't look so bad. When I got downstairs and realized that it was pouring rain, I did run back upstairs long enough to get a dry cleaning bag to slide over my body so that I wasn't soaked before the race even began.

But what does this have to do with Switchfoot? Let me explain. ( I'm practicing parallel structure. See above. :) )
A week ago, I emailed some friends who I knew loved music ( and were younger than me ) and asked each of them to send me five tunes to put in my new Nano Ipod while I ran these long runs. I was pleasantly surprised at the great response, and ended up with over 60 minutes of tunes.

Note, dear readers, that I either didn't know the name of the artist of most of the lists emailed back to me--or they were artists I would never have considered listening to, certainly not buying. But I loved the songs as I listened to 30 second cuts from each song, and downloaded them via ITunes. Everything from Alainis Morrisette to Madonna to Barry White to, yes, you guessed it---Switchfoot, an artist that my son, Ben, sent me as one of his picks for my Ipod. As I listened to each set, it was like having that friend with me on the run, encouraging me, telling me their "take" on life, love, challenge.

On the backstretch of the half marathon, I was getting pretty tired, and worrying about my knee's viability in the long haul until November 5. There's a big hill in Central Park over near the Metropolitan Museum of Art called the cat hill. It's a bitch to be blunt. It comes on mile 11 or so and I really wanted to run it, not walk it. And all of a sudden, the Ipod starts a new tune with a base downbeat that builds brilliantly to the first line of the song. " I Dare You To Move", the lead singer of Switchfoot screams. OK, I thought, I'm game. So I ran it. And, all the way to the finish line, ( which, by the way, is NOT flat but uphill ).

Thanks, Ben. And all of my other friends who might be reading this. ( And if any of you have great running tunes that you'd like to share--send them along to: belizemcb@aol.com

Oh, and the knee? Who knows what will happen in the next four weeks. But right now, I'm feeling ready for the scheduled long race tomorrow in Central Park. Do you think I might be a little obsessed? Maybe. But I'm quite sure this whole exercise is a mix of ego and ambition balanced against reason and common sense. Sounds like life to me!
M.C.