I mostly have work to blame for my 10 month absence. I’ve been working a lot. To the point where I’m so out of shape that running two miles is a Herculean task. But it’s like Thom Yorke says :”you do it to yourself”. So now I begin the task of undoing it to myself… and that’s what really hurts.
The above pic is one on my home studio. I took most of yesterday to acquaint myself with the wonders of GarageBand…wow, great stuff. The fruit of my first attempt:
I only write from airport waiting areas now – it’s a shame that i don’t have a guitar with me. My flight leaves in an hour and it’s already delayed, but it’ll likely work out for the best. It’ll mean less time in Houston. Not that it’s necessarily a good thing (to have less time in Houston) – it’s kind of a hike between terminals/gates in Houston (or anywhere else) when you’re flying from Gulfport/Biloxi. There will be less waiting around though.
I leave Mississippi with a bag that weighs about 10 more pounds and a body that weighs at least half as many less – this is amazing for two reasons:
I’ve already shipped the majority of gifts/souvenirs via UPS
The food here is all deep fried – twice – and the guys at work know all the best places. (we only went to the same place once – or would that be twice – and that’s the place that bills itself as: “The Original Home of Pork Chop Wednesday”. And this is the battered, deep-fried variety of pork chop with sides like cabbage dressing, greens, field peas and rice and gravy – all of these, much tastier than their name might imply)
I’ve also probably run over 20 miles in the last two weeks, so maybe it all does make sense. I’ve run on roads and bay side boardwalks and hotel gyms and these two weeks that have seemed more like a paid vacation in spite of the mentally rigorous work.
In short, it’s all good and I’m very much on track to be very ready for my scheduled half-marathon in November. I feel strong and healthy and most rare of all, happy. If everything goes as planned, I should be in Texas by 10:30 and in my own apartment (and with my guitar) by 4PM. I can hardly wait, but I’ve seriously come to flat out love this part of Mississippi. It’s in the middle of a lot of cool stuff. 90 miles from New Orleans, less than that from Mobile and on average, less than a 6 hour drive from almost any interesting part of The South.
Well whatta you know, the flight is on time again. I wonder how that happens…but I’ll not complain. Also: This airport loves the hell out of A-Ha’s “Take on Me” – I’ve been here four times now and I’ve heard it every time. I would hate to work at a place that only had one CD. I’d either quit or perform harakiri in gate 3 – I can be a little dramatic some times.
Now they’re playing the Cure’s “Close to me” – that’s much better. It might be enough to keep me sane if I didn’t have an ipod with me.
I think I’ll leave you with the musical highlight of the latest run:
I’ve been busy, but I’ve not stopped running. Technically, I start a new job today – but I’ll mostly just be flying and landing through various parts of Texas and Mississippi. The hotel that I’m staying off for the next two weeks has a treadmill, so I’ll have little excuse for not running. There’s also a beach (a possibly oil-covered beach) and many roads that my nikes and I can get acquainted with.
I’m in San Antonio right now, at the airport, and I’m waiting for my flight to board. I’m enjoying the free wifi, but my audiobook will likely not download before 8:45 (darn).
Back to the running though – the runs have been good lately. I think that I’m pretty much acclimated to the summer. I’ve had a couple of 6 and 5 mile runs in sunny 90 degree (and higher) weather. Gulfport probably isn’t going to be much cooler than south Texas has been.
I began this year by running a lot and running often – nearly 200 miles so far. Now, I’m switching gears and running less often (about 3 times per week), but I’m going to run longer distances. I’m on day two of an actual half marathon training program and everything’s working well so far. The training program should last three months, but the half marathon that I’m signed up to run doesn’t happen for another 6 months. I plan to repeat the training program (albeit a more rigorous version of the same program) for the second three month period.
So I’m only running three days out of the week – Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. I plan to rest on Sundays and use a crappy (but effective) elliptical the other three days. I’ve been using the elliptical for the last week and a half and it gives me a great workout with little to no strain on my joints. I think that it’s making my runs better, but I’m only on day two – so what the hell do I know?
In general, time flies. Specifically, time files when you’re having fun or running hard. Or whatever.
Time is relative and so is pain and right now I have much too much of the latter and not enough of the former.
I’ve stuck to my plan: tomorrow it’ll be 16 runs in four weeks. By the end of the week, I will have completed my goal of running 2 miles, five times per week for a whole month. My legs are tired, my right hamstring (I think it’s my hamstring), my knees, my feet, the soles of my feet, my heels, my calves, my groin muscles, my toes and just about everything south of my belly button hurts or is sore or raw or chafing.
Advil only does so much and Advil’s best is not much when compared to the pressure of many pounds on cartilage, bones, tendons, flesh, and muscle. So why complain? Well, why the hell not? What’s the alternative? Quitting?
Failure is an option, quitting is not.
Musical highlight of the run:
Also: just read the book Jaws. Jaws is a great movie, but it’s a much better book (surprise, surprise). There’s a whole lot more sex in the book, but that alone doesn’t make it better than Jaws the movie… it’s just better, take my word for it.
I’ve run 12 out of the last 14 days. I came up with a new plan. I even came up with a marketing angle on the whole thing. My idea: 2 miles times 5, no excuses. It’s that simple.
Why? Because I had gotten out of the habit of running and because I was injuring myself by attempting to do too much too soon. I was doing it backwards. The plan now is to run 2 miles at least 5 times per week for a month. The second month then becomes: 3 miles times 4, no excuses. I’ll be running fewer days, but increasing the mileage. I’m not sure what I’m doing on the third month, but I’m leaning toward 4 miles times 4 or three miles times 5. I figure that after three months I’ll be:
very much in the habit of running again
in pretty decent shape (endurance-wise)
and at that point I’ll be ready to pursue some more advanced distance training program.
Many of the last two weeks’ miles have been run to the White Stripes’ new live album – I wholeheartedly recommend it:
It was a nice sunny day but there was no sun in the sky by the time I got to running. It was warm and I didn’t run too far, but it felt good and I enjoyed it – I had a lot of energy/frustration pent up.
In unrelated news: It’s the 13th anniversary of the death of the man most chiefly responsible for my xbox live gamertag (which gets infrequent use lately for some reason). Rest in peace Biggie. We should all be as smooth as underoos…
In equally unrelated news: I’ve begun ripping all my (older) CDs and so the variety of music available to my Ipod is growing quickly (and I’ve still got at least 100 CDs to go). Our musical highlight of the run springs forth from this new wealth of possibility:
I’m the sort of mofo who brags about running two days in a row and then disappears for like half a month (and runs about four times in that span of time). That, is the sort of mofo that I am.
I’m also the sort of mofo that reconsiders hasty judgments. Vampire Weekend’s Contra is a fine effort (and only 5 bucks at amazon). Very entertaining stuff when you mix the track order (I think the sequencing is what was messing with me). Ran three miles today and my musical highlight of the run is as follows:
In honor of cousins everywhere. Our research indicates that 98% of our readership is made up of cousins (in general, not necessarily my cousins).
My new recommended cool down: Walk (preferably) downhill for about a half mile while listening to Marvin Gaye. Anything off of What’s Going On works, but “Right On” seems to work particularly well. Be advised: you will unconsciously begin to swagger at some point. Be not afraid, go with it – it’s your inner mofo coming to the surface for a bit, oblige him! (to paraphrase an inglorious mofo)
Finally, a biology lesson. Nature often warns us when it decides to make one of its critters particularly awesome. Nature does this by giving a cobra its hood or a rattlesnake its rattles or a black widow its red markings or an old dude his powder-blue “I am a mofo” tee-shirt.
“I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.”
But sometimes I don’t even believe in that. I’m in a dark, dark mood kiddies. I’ve become a bit of a nihilist. I’m a mess and the world’s a mess and we have no hope of affecting each other for the better. There is no hope that we could have any effect on each other and even if we did, it would only add fuel to the fire of each other’s demise. It comes and it goes, so if we give it a month I might be back in the suburbs of Zen. Or maybe I’m there already.
It’s all about perspective and as of right now I’m completely cool with my nihilism, the world and myself.
I’m also about 8 miles and change away from completing my goal of running 150 miles in 2 months. I ran five miles yesterday and that helped. I could only muster two today – tired, woke up for work at 3:30AM (server updates) – but I can certainly run eight miles in 5 days (it’ll be two months on the 11th).
It’s supposed to get really freaking cold (for south Texas) this weekend – so we’ve got that to look forward to. Extreme cold or heat always makes the running more fun… makes it more of an experience/challenge.
Finished reading The Know-it-All and I loved that too. It’s fun, funny and fact-filled. It’s where I learned that “fanfuckingtastic” is one of the few examples of infixes in English.
I hope you’ll pardon the french – just trying to do my part to spread the knowledge.
Not “The Beginning”, but here we go. And there should be more context to this, but there isn’t.
I get my new iPod by the end of the week and I’m supposed to get my nike+ sensor thingy tomorrow – my birthday present to myself.
I tell you all that to tell you that you’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you that I ran 1.5 miles today. It’s not impressive, but it’s a start. I plan to do that again four more times this week and then increase the mileage every week for the next seven months. On February 14, 2010 I plan to do this.
So there it is. I can’t do it right now, but luckily I don’t have to. I can run a mile and a half very easily, in a week it’ll be two, in five weeks it’ll be 6 and so on. There are hundreds of miles and seven months between me and 02/14/2010, I’ll let you know how it goes.
