This race is all but run.

The weather has finally, truly turned. Depressing headache yesterday, as the clouds came in and the temperature dropped. It's rained for about a day, we're bringing the plants inside, I'm starting to close the windows, the heat is on.

And it is time to hit the rec center.

Distance: 3 miles 

Duration: 25:42

A few years ago, when I was having trouble turning a small idea into a big idea, I started to go on longer and longer runs. The urge was to make a metaphorical idea come true; by tracing a bigger area with my feet, perhaps I could trace a bigger idea with my mind.

-  by Ben Ratliff, "Run the Song"

Route: rec center
Temperature: 45°
Climate: rain
Mood: irritated

Just a few days ago, it was my Noomaversary. Surprised they didn't let me know, but that might run counter to their programming, drawing attention to the passage of time. Or maybe a lot of people quit after one year.

My recreation center membership renews in December. That's how late I signed up, how long I ran in the cold and rain before taking that step. Now, I just need to prepare in the morning, and I go. It's not a big deal.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 170 lbs. (+10)

How do you jump ten pounds in two days? It was surprising to me, but not too surprising. The fact is, the past two days, yesterday especially, were not "mindful." They were, in fact, ordinary. The headache compounded my desire, I sat in a classroom in Aurora, miserable, taking notes, and thinking how much better life would be with sugar and caffeine. I made a beeline to the nearest Starb*cks and got not only a PSL, my first, and hopefully only of the season, and why not, a slice of banana bread.

That banana bread is 380 calories, all by itself. This was after having had my traditional breakfast.

Lunch was packed, which was good. But it is sugar season and there is candy all over the office, I had one, two, I mean, they're so small, three pieces of candy. Two of them were chocolate.

Last night I was on my own and I made dinner. Leftover mac and cheese, but I did not measure it, and so it was closer to two cups, not just one. In that way I could just empty the container. Why not? And I grazed on pretzel sticks as I air fried sweet potatoes.

Later, watching TV eating dinner and having a beer, I decided not to let the honey mustard I made go to waste and fetched two unmeasured handfuls of pretzel sticks, but also made additional honey mustard to go with it.

Unregulated, unmeasured, unrecorded, unmindful. This describes what used to be a normal day for me. Just, eating whatever.

There is a lot of produce in the fridge, but I could not be bothered to make something good for just me, which is unfortunate. But there you go, ten pounds in two days. A lot of that weight is probably just working its way through me, waiting to get out. But some will remain.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: TBA

What’s That Lyric?

It’s Not Over (‘Til It’s over and Done) - Bleu McAuley

How weak you must feel.

Good lord, tripped on a cat on my way upstairs in the dark last night and it feels like I sprained my toes.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:50
Pace: 9:18

As many runs as I completed in both 2019 and 2021. And in 2019 I was training for a marathon. Of course, that was also the year I was losing my mother and basically didn't run the last two months of the year.

Then again, after Chicago, I am surprised I ever ran again.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 58°
Climate: partly cloudy & cool
Mood: all right

Fall quarter, freshman year. I was eighteen. This was thirty-nine years ago. For context, thirty-nine years before that was 1947, when my parents were only twelve. Don't know how that is relevant, but it seems important to me to appreciate just how long thirty-nine years is. I digress. 

Fall quarter, freshman year. It was 1986. I did not know yet how to take care of myself. I remember I was ill that semester, and in the middle of the night I was hungry and had some milk (don't ask, it's gross, adults who drink milk are monsters) and was surprised to learn it had gone sour. I was grateful that one of the water fountains on the floor was right outside my dorm and was able to spit it up there.

The point is, I was eighteen and had never had bad milk before, because I had a mother who would never let anything go bad in her refrigerator. I had never thought to check the expiration date, of anything. It had been taken care of. I had been taken care of.

And yet, there I was. Living, in a way, on my own. Someone still made my meals for me, that is what a dining plan is for. And I was warm and safe, presumably so that I could concentrate on my studies which was why I was there. I was still like a high school student, but in many ways, on my own. Still a pampered child, only now I drank beer, smoked cigarettes, and screwed.

My girlfriend had a roommate who did not care for me, and I do not blame anyone who did not care for me when I was below the age of thirty-five. When I think of the room they shared I see the bed, the cinderblock walls, the naked, tile floor. It was a room like the other rooms. We did not sleep over at each others' rooms, that may have had as much to do with our own feelings of discomfort (sleeping in the same bed as someone else is a skill, especially a narrow dormitory bed) as it did with our roommate situations. Better not to make things weird.

Also, I think it wasn't allowed. That makes more sense, too. But people did it, of course. We did not.

"You have this, too? I have this."

Her roommate had a copy of Suzanne Vega's first album, and the girlfriend developed an affinity for it. So did I, though even at that time I felt that she, and by she I mean Vega, was criticizing me. Or maybe, more to the point, that she had my number. Or that she had ours.

I want to be clear, I was never physically abusive to her, my girlfriend. But that does not mean I was always kind, or smart. I was a fool. Several of the songs on this album (others of hers, too) allude to domestic violence, even as she serenely sings and elegantly plays her guitar. The song Marlene On the Wall, more than any other song on that album, reminds me of that time, of that place, and of that young woman. 

An old black and white poster, it may have been that one that every female college student had at that time, "Kiss by the Hôtel De Ville" by Robert Doisneau, the one Campbell Scott shows us in Singles (if you know, you know) but in the song it is Marlene Dietrich, witnessing the uneducated fumblings of a couple who are soon to come apart, a poster blu-tacked to the painted cement, a romantic image that attempts to add warmth and style to a utilitarian domicile with cold walls and a cool floor.

Other evidence has shown that

You and I are still alone

We skirt around the danger zone

And don't talk about it later

Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega (1985)

Cracking

Marlene On the Wall

Small Blue Thing

Straight Lines

Undertow

The Queen & The Soldier

Knight Moves

Neighborhood Girls 

But the only one here now is me

I'm fighting things I cannot see

I think it's called my destiny

That I am changing

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 160 lbs.

Got my kit on this morning, stepped outside and it was raining. I'm not in training, there is no reason to deal with that. Not cold, not wet. Time to transition to the rec center.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

Running on the fumes that I gaslit.

Interesting fan art (right) which forgets that Runner 5 is a runner. Even if we are in the zombie apocalypse, and Under Armour is no longer a thing, those jeans would still be cut-offs. 

Siege 0121

Distance: 3.2 miles

Duration: 29:36
Pace: 9:14

Big day in the streets yesterday. The problem is that, for the people we need to reach, reality exists on the screen. And yet, we march. 

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 66°
Climate: light rain & mist 
Mood: maintaining

Following several nights of sleep interrupted by a rangy old cat, I have been unmolested in bed the past two nights and I have slept, big sleeps. Ten, eleven hour sleeps.

It has been an anxiety inducing month. I am grateful for this moment of rest.

Stretches: not enough
Water: not enough
Weight: 164 lbs.

Okay, that’s weird.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

Rushed it, hope I don't regret it. No idea how hard it would rain, put on the jacket (too warm) and took it easy. Feel good. Slight head pain now, where did that come from?

Fall '25 Workout

Cha-Cha - Sophie Hunter

Vogue - Noizu

No Broke Boys - Disco Lines ft. Tinashe

Cops & Robbers - Sammy Virji ft. Skepta

Diamonds On My Mind - Eli Brown

Gimme That Bounce - Mau P

Counting (Sammy Virji Remix) - Hamdi

Modelizer - The Dare

Abracadabra - Lady Gaga

Thank you, Ms. Sun. That playlist is a banger.

I hear you're mad about Brubeck.

Will you be there?

The mornings start later, the mornings get cooler. It is supposed to be a beautiful, warm day tomorrow, and then the rains come.

Running out of doors, feeling the air, watching the leaves turn. Giving the geese a wide berth. It's a lovely park.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:28
Pace: 9:11

Most days I had to start thinking about my writing task from the moment I got up ... so I felt obliged to take with me into the park whatever music I was writing about. As I ran, finding an alertness parallel to whatever I was listening to, I would form an idea of a way to start an essay or description of a sound as I felt it through moving limbs and whizzing atmosphere, sometimes an idea so crazy I had to dare myself to type it out.
-  by Ben Ratliff, "Run the Song"

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 42°
Climate: clear & cool
Mood: better

Sophisti-pop 80s Workout Playlist

Tinseltown In the Rain - Blue Nile

New Frontier - Donald Fagen

These Early Days - Everything But the Girl

Appetite - Prefab Sprout

The Love Parade - Dream Academy

Mermaids - Andy Pawlak

If You Don't Love Me - Prefab Sprout

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 160 lbs.

Wore shorts, but with a hoodie. That was ideal. A lovely fall day, cool but not windy. The air, the sky, the pavement, the trees. Deer in yards.

The Sophisti-pop thing ... we didn't call it that in the 1980s, the term came later. But we were in it, wearing ties and blazers, saddle shoes and concerned about our hair (I could never do anything with my hair, anyway, no loss) smoking cigarettes and sniffing glue.

Then, nearly ten years after, Toni and I were courting and we were lost and I was married to someone else, and she showed me Washington Heights and she showed me her room and we listened to vinyl records from our teen years and fantasized about an adolescence together we never had.

And then and then, some six or eight years ago, I discovered the Blue Nile. How could I have never heard of the Blue Nile? And it took me back to 1994 and to 1986, and I got all confused. And I was happy in my confusion. 

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: TBA

Standing with our feet on the ground.

Temperatures and precipitation remain pleasant. Every day we can go before having to seek refuge at the recreation center is a good day.

Blogger is trying to do stupid things to blogs now. An "AI" assistant will automatically at "google search links" to your post. Apparently this means making each word in your post searchable. 

What? Why? With a click I can now do a Google search of the words Distance, Duration, Pace, Route ... but why the fuck is that in any way useful?

The manners in which they are trying to incorporate AI into our lives aren't just pointless, they're dull.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:16
Pace: 9:07

Good evening at the Dark Room last night. Had a piece read, a comic vignette. Seemed to go over.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 55°
Climate: partly cloudy & cool
Mood: all right

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

Sophisti-Pop Workout Playlist

Me Ship Came In! - Style Council

Walk Out to Winter - Aztec Camera

Pale Shelter (2nd Single Version) - Tears for Fears

Thinking of You - The Colourfield

Imagination - Belouis Some

The King of Wishful Thinking - Go West

Blow the House Down - Living in a Box

Love Resurrection - Alison Moyet

What can I say? It's a mood. A fall mood.

Tears run rings around my eyes

There are, like, ten people who regularly follow this blog. Or maybe, just ten people randomly access blog posts the moment they drop. I get ten or twelve hits, and then it just sits there.

Which is fine. People don't need to see this, unless they are also weird about running or need ideas for workout playlists.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:17
Pace: 9:07

Though music has no tangible form, it has a physical form, and can enter a body. Moving with it -- running with it, as I run round my neighborhood -- can make it a memento or marker for a present and a past experience. Running with it can also reveal music as a disposition, as a philosophy, or as an open system, even if you don't own the music as a physical document.
-  by Ben Ratliff, "Run the Song"

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 51°
Climate: clear & cool
Mood: better

A bit chilly. Wore the jacket.

Reading about the way others run is akin to learning how others have sex. It's shocking. Really? You do it like that? In the case of Ben Ratliff (this is in regards to running) I was shocked to read that he stretches for fifteen minutes before running, and that he runs every day, and that he runs between four and twelve miles. Every day.

And he is Mr. Ratliff significantly younger than I am? Or in some bizarre way, older? Why no, he was born in 1968, and so was I. Jesus.

I wonder how he fucks.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 160 lbs.

We don't "noom" as responsibly anymore, these things happen. I keep track of meals early in the day, which gives me a better idea of how to manage the rest of my day, so I don' need to record that. My weight, which was constant, has these little jumps which I clock and behave accordingly. I just want to maintain. This is not obsessive. No, really. It's not. It's not obsessive.

Sophisti-Pop 80s Workout Playlist

Shattered Dreams (12" Extended Mix) - Johnny Hates Jazz

Tears Run Rings - Marc Almond

True - Spandau Ballet

Mirror Man - Human League

Every Day I Wrote the Book - Elvis Costello & the Attractions

When It Started to Begin - Nick Heyward

I Confess - The Beat

This playlist is currently nine and a half hours long.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

Do you read this blog regularly? Leave a comment.

Your heart is racing.

Fall continues. This should be the breathing space, but it's not. There are responsibilities. There are also post-responsibility drinks, and that part is nice.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 27:19
Pace: 8:48

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 60°
Climate: bright & cool
Mood: better

Listen In 0120
Stretches: yes
Water: not really
Weight: 161 lbs.

Six episodes this season. The beginning appeared to lead somewhere but then they got a bit silly. We're back into some kind of ongoing narrative, but it doesn't matter. I like the voices. Breaks up the run.

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA
Sit-Ups: TBA

This episode, however, was surprisingly relevant, dealing as it does with those people who believe they can do your job better than you do and talk behind your back to recent recruits about what you're doing wrong. We've all been though that, haven't we?

Fall '25 Workout

TGIF - GloRilla

I Know You'd Kill (The Blessed Madonna's Godsquad Mix) - Joy Crookes

Feeling Good (Austin Millz Remix) - Nina Simone 

Sex  - The Dare

The Beast - Lady Gaga

Different - Lady Can't Swim

I Can't Escape Myself - The Dare

Heaven Scent - Soulwax ft. Chloe Sevigny

This playlist keep giving.

The sweet, sweet songs that cloud your eyes.

Now reading:
Run the Song
(Writing about Running about Listening)
by Ben Ratliff

Monday was a very unhappy day, following a seriously anxiety ridden weekend. I cannot tell you how many ways I fucked it over the past several days, it has been difficult, difficult, difficult.

Monday night I had something like a nightmare, but not a scary one. A very, very sad one. I was in love with a very special person, and they did not love me. We talked, we flirted, we understood each other. I wasn't so fond of her at first but she was for me, but as our relationship grew I was just her very special person, but it was not to be. I woke many times that night and each time, no matter what else I had been dreaming of, I felt the heartbreak.

If I could put that into writing, I would have a very successful play, but maybe I've already written it and it didn't work. That's another kind of heartbreak.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:18
Pace: 9:07

Sophisti-pop Workout Playlist

Slave to Love - Bryan Ferry

World Machine - Level 42

My Ever Changing Moods - Style Council

Kiss and Tell - Bryan Ferry

Cue Fanfare - Prefab Sprout

Temptation (Extended Mix) - Heaven 17

Up the Junction - Squeeze

This playlist is a work-in-progress.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 61°
Climate: clear & cool
Mood: very anxious

God damn, what a day. Didn't sleep well Monday night, slept worse last night. Things keep not getting better. Family is good, health is good, friends are good. I need to be writing, then at least I could say, at least I'm writing.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 162 lbs.

Good run, though. Beautiful weather. The leaves are turning. Reminds me of falling in love, all the times I fell in love ... and out again.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

My friends run the game.

Sick poster. Zombies, Run has been around since 2012, and there are hundreds of episodes. I usually do around four or five each spooky season, so I will probably never run out so long as they app doesn't disappear.

This is my fifth run for the year, fifth run for Runner Number Five. If I do another mission, that will be some kind of record. I think I may. 

An Unimportant Mission 0119

Distance: 3.1 miles
Duration: 28:37
Pace: 9:13

Today we have completed as many runs as in all of 2013, and that was a good running year.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 60°
Climate: clear & cool
Mood: anxious

Fall '25 Workout

RATATA - Skrillex ft. Missy Elliott & Mr. Oizoi

Power - Ye

DJ Turn It Up - Yellow Claw

All the Way Up (Remix) - Fat Joe ft. Remy Ma, Jay-Z, French Montana & Infrared

Brand New Bitch - Cobrah

it boy - bbno$

Chroma 001 Helium - Bicep

Bon Bon - Fcukers

Stretches: Yes
Water: Yes
Weight: 160 lbs.

How are we at the start of this massive week? Well-rested, I am glad to say. I received vaccinations for both the flu and Covid (so fuck you, RFKJ) and while I was feeling it last night, I took a Benadryl and got nine hours of sleep and today I feel great. Except for, you know, the anxiety. 

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

Well, I'm dressed up so nice and I'm doing my best.

On the most recent installment of the Dear Hank and John podcast, John Green recounts an episode in which he was at a party and his friend said he'd like to leave in ten minutes or so and John announced, I will have one last beer, then.

His friend said to him, "No one has ever regretted not having that last beer." So John did not grab another beer, and he did not regret that decision. Sometimes, I am entirely in tune with that vibe. In fact, I had already though something like that last Monday at a company function. I had had one beer, I thought of having another but instead grabbed a seltzer. I do not regret that decision.

Now, if I can only make it through a long evening at home savoring one drink instead of having two, just because I can, I would really be onto something.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 29:39
Pace: 9:34

Big weekend. Lots of different places to be. Hope to make them all.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 83°
Climate: sunny & hot
Mood: very anxious

Hot, midday run. I will miss these days and they will be gone soon. Kink in my right knee, just walking hurts today. Feeling the age. Also, attending an induction ceremony for my high school, I felt at once very old and also that I hadn't gained any self-confience at all since 1984.

High School Run (1982-1985)

Miami Vice Theme - Jan Hammer

Cruel Summer - Bananarama

What a Day That Was (Live) - Talking Heads

I Ran (So Far Away) - Flock of Seagulls

Flashdance ... What a Feeling - Irene Cara

Conga! - Miami Sound Machine

Back of Love - Echo & the Bunnymen

Couldn't Stand the Weather - Stevie Ray Vaughn

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 160 lbs.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: TBA

Our bodies displayed through the dance.

Fourteen runs in September, best since June. Time was, I would get into these bursts where I'd run every day, like I was in training or something, and it would get to me. That was doing all this running -- every single day -- but not for any reason. Just to rack up runs.

Running every other day just feels normal. A day off feels good, but so does running again, after a day's rest. 

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:01
Pace: 9:02

DID YOU KNOW ..? Infatuation is an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone or something.

Life In a Spanish Disco
Let the Music Play (Remix) - Shannon

Blue Light - David Gilmour

Infatuation - Rod Stewart

To France - Mike Oldfield

Ghostbusters - Ray Parker Jr.

Relax (New York Mix) - Frankie Goes to Hollywood

One of my Lugo compatriots just recently posted photos from a return trip, forty-one years later. They mentioned the playlist, I am glad to put this together, back in 2009 (it was a twenty-fifth anniversary inspiration) because I'm not sure I would remember them all now.

I always wondered if we would have a reunion but I don't believe that is in the stars. Goodness, we were all so very very young then. 

Route: Forest Hill Loop

Temperature: 57° 
Climate: clear & cool
Mood: good

Stretches: yes 
Water: yes
Weight: 160 lbs.

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: TBA