I guess you could say I have the bug. For the last five years, I’ve been getting up early lacing on the running shoes and hitting the road.
By Hank Kalet
I’m not maniacal about it — I run regularly, probably four or five times a week, but I shy away from rain and extreme heat, running inside on the treadmill when the weather is being less than cooperative.
Lately, however, my routine has changed. Where I generally would run a couple of mid-range runs — six or seven miles — and two or three shorter runs of three or four miles, I have made a point to really push the distance at least once a week.
That’s because I’ve committed to running in the 35th annual LBI Commemorative 18-Mile Run in Long Beach Island on Oct. 7. The race, which literally stretches from one end of the island to the other, raises money for the St. Francis Community Center in Brant Beach and attracts thousands of runners every year.
I’ve been threatening to run it for a couple of years now but haven’t, for a variety of reasons.
This year, though, I am running with some friends and they’re not going to let me bail out.
”I’m running this race to get you to run it,” my friend Mike Kokoska told me last week as we finished up our 10-mile training run. He’s run the Philadelphia Marathon in the past and had vowed never to do another run like this, but he’s running this year because he knows how helpful being part of a team can be.
Training on his own was difficult when he ran the marathon, so he wanted to give me a lift.
And it’s worked. Having someone to talk with on those long treks around town — some of them up to two hours in duration — and to drag me through those moments when I have little left in the tank has made a lot of difference. I’ll be honest, if it was just me doing this, I may have given up and gone back to my regular routine.
It will be the first time I participate in a race like this — I’ve done a few 5Ks, including the Cranbury Day 5K, the South Brunswick run last year and Saturday’s Buckelew 5K — but the longer distance is a different kind of challenge.
For instance, you can offset errors in pacing when you run a 5K (five kilometers, or about 3.1 miles). That’s what happened to me on Saturday during the Buckelew race at Thompson Park. I started too quickly and burned myself out a bit on the two hills that opened the race, had to slow up and find a second gear to get through the treacherous final mile — along a gravel path and through the woods on a rough trail that ended with a steep downhill sprint to the finish. It was a difficult course, more difficult that the mildly hilly roads I train on, but the distance meant that it was manageable.
In the end, I finished at 27:41 — or slightly better than a 9-minute mile — and felt pretty good about things.
My goals are different for the LBI race and my approach has to be different. I just want to finish it without walking — and raise some money on the side for local organizations that aid the hungry.
To that end, I’m asking readers to help by sending me donations, which I will then forward on to the various groups.
Readers who are interested in donating should send checks made to one of three organizations: the Presbyterian Board of Deacons for the Deacon’s Food Cupboard at the Jamesburg Presbyterian Church; to the First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury for Skeet’s Pantry; or the Friends of the Senior Center for the Monroe Township Food Pantry. Mail checks to The Cranbury Press, P.O. Box 309, Dayton, N.J. 08810, attn: Hank Kalet.
They not only will help local families in need, but will give me the extra motivation I may need to finish the race.
Hank Kalet is managing editor of the South Brunswick Post and The Cranbury Press. His e-mail is [email protected] and his blog, Channel Surfing, can be found at www.kaletblog.com.