A velvet sweat.

It has been rainy and cool. I am happy
with this. The kids make trips into town to get groceries and ice cream, while we lounge around the cabin.

I am working on Metropolis. I am reading the text again, and creating a synopsis. Of course, I could just feed the text (which is available online) into ChatGPT and have a synopsis of whatever length I dictate, and immediately. I could stick my head in the oven. 

Distance: 3.5 miles

Duration: 33:02
Pace: 9:26

This is a summer playlist I can depend upon:

Sweeping Up at Grebe's

Little Red Corvette (Special Dance Mix) - Prince & the Revolution

Don't Change - INXS

Da Da Da I Don't Love You You Don't Love Me - Trio

Saved By Zero - The Fixx

Whenever You're On My Mind - Marshall Crenshaw

Our House - Madness

Is There Something I Should Know? (Monster Mix) - Duran Duran

See link to hear Amir "Questlove" Thompson talk about why the Special Dance Mix of Little Red Corvette is his number one song by Prince.

Route: Martin Point Run
Temperature: 69°
Climate: sunny & bright
Mood: all right

The other day I learned that Duncan Bowen Black, author of Eschaton, is a runner. He wrote a short piece (they're all short pieces) about how AI summaries have been forced onto his running app, and how they are all non-specific but always super positive, which is not only useless but terribly unhelpful. 

"I'm always doing the right thing, somehow. Long and fast? Smashed it! Short and slow? Perfect recovery run! It never says, That was a shit run, pal."

Stretches: yes

Water: yes

Total bummer, however ... the eldest and their partner have had their flights canceled not once (Tuesday) but twice (today). They have decided to cut their losses and are making no new arrangements. This is due to global climate change (see: Canadian wild fire smoke, tornados and flooding in NYC) and the fact that airlines are horrible.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: TBA

Valdez: Day One

First: Take a sixteen hour plane journey to Valdez, including extended layovers at O'Hare and in Anchorage, with very little rest and terrible ear pressure.

Second: Arrive with a headache, check into your dorm and take an amazing, uninterrupted, one hour power nap.

Third: Go for a run with no idea where you are.

Distance: 3.25 miles
Avg Pace: 7:52
Duration: 25:37

Did a Google Earth investigation before I arrived, running down the virtual streets of Valdez. I saw a lot of pre-fab houses and shops, and very wide streets.

From that vantage point I missed out how this town is entirely boxed in by breathtakingly beautiful, snow-swept mountains. Every street I turned, bam. New mountain.

Even though we are approaching the longest day of the year, it has already been pointed out to me that there is far less snow for June than there was, for example, when my wife and I honeymooned in Alaska seventeen years ago.

Many thanks to whoever mapped this run. As I was approaching the two and a half mile mark, I ran past the conference center with its banner reading, Welcome Last Frontier Theatre Conference. Perhaps they who logged this run two years ago was also attending the conference.

Temperature: 48°
Climate: cool with very light rain
Mood: apprehensive

Good three mile run. If I can stay awake through the entire proceedings this evening, and get to sleep without undue interruption for from ten roommates (more on that as it develops) I should be okay!

The fear is falling away.

Many years ago I asked for something, a solo trip to Chicago. The wife was pursing her Masters at Goddard College, and I had had a few solo weeks with the children (aged 4 and 2) and wanted some time on my own in the summer, before residency rehearsals began.

The Lakeview Cemetery
Photographs from Cleveland's Historic Landmark
By Barney Taxel

I took one bag and caught a bus to the rapid to work, and then the rapid to the airport. I took a plane to my destination, and another train to the neighborhood where I would be staying. Never drove, never took a taxi. I was proud of that. It's not like me to be out there without a car, not alone.

Today I walked my son to the bus, and walked from there to the Little Italy RTA stop. Perhaps more of a walk than I was prepared for, it really did take about an hour, which surprised me. Then the train downtown.

Throughout the day my right thigh, which had been a little pained that morning, started feeling more and more uncomfortable. That has since died down. The only thing I can compare it to is the meralgia parasthetica I occasionally suffer from, though it feels quite different.

End of the day I took the rapid to the airport, It is at times like these that I notice the solitude, even in crowded settings. How long I go without speaking to anyone, or communicating in any fashion. It can feel calming, not to have anyone to speak to. It can be melancholy.

Trying to find a place to be, or at least a satisfying place to wander before my flight, I came across an exhibit of beautiful photographs of Lakeview Cemetery, taken by Barney Taxel. You can find them between concourse A & B at Cleveland Hokpins. I have spent many runs this year, since the summer, training for this race by taking turns through the cemetery. It felt auspicious to linger over these images on my way to the starting line.

My loving wife with a great deal of forethought had gotten us rewards credit cards, and so I was able to make the trip with frequent flyer miles. And as long as these are imaginary dollars we don't really have that we are playing with, why not go first class? This was new to me. Having so much leg room will be particularly helpful on the way home, when who knows what shape I will be in.

However, what truly got me was the convenience of not having to pay for drinks, of receiving drinks on the ground before we took off - and another in the air - and that these drinks were served in glass.

Not just the alcohol. Water ... in a glass. I felt like a person.

Brothers at O'Gara's

The book I have brought with me is Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. Within the first few pages I feared I had made a terrible mistake, due to the subject matter. Adolescence has swept through on our home, sweeping personal items clear of every surface and crashing furniture through walls and I could go on with Hulk Smash devastation metaphor point being this tale of tragedy that befalls a suburban family might not be a good fit for someone in my mental state at the moment.

By the time I had finally arrived in Saint Paul, I'd read half of it. It's really good.

Distance: 5 miles
Duration: 40:43
Avg Pace: 8:11
Route: Summit Avenue to the Mississippi

Temperature: 63°
Climate: idyllic
Hydration: yes
Water Stop: yes

Beautiful fall day in St. Paul, clear and cool and bright. Took a run down the wide, grassy median of Summit Avenue, because people do that. It's a path, and an uneven one, but it's more fun than the sidewalks. Also more dangerous, wen it comes time to cross side streets and not at the crosswalk. But people do. I did.

Today we went to the Expo. More on today tomorrow.

What's That Lyric?
Jump In The Pool - Friendly Fires

Good morning, New York. Please don't hurt me.

Calvin Harris my boy. This is the best song ever.

International tourists are sick as pigs - I am the greatest traveler ever! Honestly, however, credit is also due to my wife, who made my reservation at the Vanderbilt YMCA, and to the Transportation Security Administration. It took the most heinous terrorist attack on American soil to get the people of this great nation to learn to plan ahead and organize their shit.

I opened my carry-on (because really, if you need to check a bag for a four day trip, you are filthy rich or a total slob) and everything was plainly visible including 1. my plastic bag filled with tiny bottles (because really, did you need to lug the entire gallon jug of Head & Shoulders with you?) and 2. my plastic bag filled with cables and chargers.

Yeah, there was a two-hour delay in Philly but I got in before midnight, the room is tiny by the a/c works, I brought my white noise generator and slept ... for less than six hours.

The past several days I have had a low-grade crud, makes me dizzy and cough. It's, you know, a cold or something. Allergies. I should rest, but I can't. So I set out for a seven-miler around the park at 6 AM.

Vanderbilt YMCA Circle
Distance: 7 miles
Temperature: 74º
Weather: warm

Heading back I saw all the people waiting in line for previews of The Merchant of Venice with Al Pachino. Long line. I would like to see that, only I will be seeing a lot of other things while I am here. Then I got a stitch in a strange place, in my back, on the left side, not the right side, and in the center. I tried breathing through it as I ran but it wouldn't stop, and then I began to feel it in my left arm.

...

So I stopped running, and the pain went away. So after a hundred yards of walking I started running again.

Hmn.

If I collapsed right here ... well, there's my iPod, that has a serial number. Oh, even better - I had my phone with me. And my key to my room. Yeah, I could die right here, they'd figure out who I am.

Lace up your shoes

The airlines are just awful. A 55 minute flight, which was delayed almost two hours, then we had to circle Queens and the Bronx before we could land, and even then we sat on the tarmac for ages until we could pull into the gate.

The boy was going insane, and the whole experience left the girl feeling a little airsick - though I believe all the talk about her grandfathers' fear of flying (yes, plural - they are both stupid that way) fed into that anxiety.

We had dinner, checked in - and went to bed. Made it easier for me to do the one thing I really wanted to do here - run Central Park.

Central Park Loop

Run Stats:
Distance: Roughly 5 miles
Start Time: 5:55 AM

We are a few blocks south of Colmbus circle off 8th, so it was a short trot up to the park, just near dawn. Yes, it felt a little creepy, until I started seeing others braving the pre-dawn air. Honestly, I would feel more nervous running my own neighborhood at that hour, I would prefer to be mugged and have my iPod swiped than be hit by a motorist on their cellphone.

In spite of my familiarity with the area, I was still surprised that a trip from the southwest tip of the park, up around the Jackie O. Reservoir and back is short five miles. And I have already gotten so much sightseeing in, the Boathouse, Cleopatra's Needle, the Met, the Delacourt ... I don't need to go in places, I just need to see the outsides of them, remember what the insides look like, and I'm happy.

Playlist:
Psyché Rock (Fatboy Slim Malpaso Mix) - Fatboy Slim
Gett Off (Urge Single Edit) - Prince
Compterlove - Kraftwerk
Check Yes Juliet - We the Kings
Rush - Bug Audio Dynamite II
Laura - Scissor Sisters
Informer - Snow
11h30 - Danger
24 Hour Party People Happy Mondays
Strength - Sister Soleil