You came like a comet.

So, we have been doing the every other day thing for more than a year. Pretty incredible. I am proud of me.

There are things that I have had on my schedule for months which have been brought to a kind of conclusion. The reunion. The commission. I should feel a sense of relief, and in a way, I do.

I'm also really tired. So is the wife. I guess this is what life is now. Maybe it always has been.

Distance: 3 miles

Duration: 26:04
Route: rec center
Temperature: 25°
Climate: snowy
Mood: okay!

2019 Playlist

(We Don't Need) This Fascist Groove Thang (151 bpm) - LCD Soundsystem

I Feel Love - Sam Smith

Wars - Of Monsters and Men

No One's Easy to Love (167 bpm) - Sharon Van Etten

Boys - Lizzo

Don’t Start Now - Dua Lipa

The Whole of the Moon - Kirin J Callinan

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 162 lbs. (-3.0)

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

Feel the floor.

David Finch

And now, as many runs as I made in all of 2016. And that was a big running year. No marathon, but there was a lot going on. It has been an above-average year, thanks to the rec center, for sure. I would not have gone for a run on Saturday without it. Also, my consistency. There are times when I push myself to run every day. and I have decided that's not good. Not anymore. Maybe it never was.

Distance: 3 miles

Duration: 25:28

And yet. Consistency. Work, writing, reading, sleeping. Days missed. Days hit.

Route: rec center
Temperature: 18
Climate: frozen
Mood: very busy, but maintaining 

Totally 80s

The Big Sky (Meteorological Mix) - Kate Bush

Favourite Shirt (Boy Meets Girl) 12" Version - Haircut 100 

Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do?) - Wham!

Optimo - Liquid Liquid

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 165 lbs. (-0-)

Speaking of consistency ... 

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: yes

You’re running around. You know better, daddy.

Ten runs, every other day. Consistency. Dedication. Anxiety. Commitment. Today I ran as many runs as I did in 2012, a marathon year -- no literally, I ran a marathon -- these are the numbers I rack up training for a marathon. And there are two more months in the year.

Consistency. Dedication. Commitment. And anxiety.

Distance: 3 miles

Duration: 24:49

Men need twice as much exercise as women to lower heart disease risk, study finds by Ian Sample, Science Editor, The Guardian 10/27/2025

"Under NHS guidelines, men and women aged 16 to 64 should take at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, each week, combined with muscle-strengthening activities at least twice a week."

Route: Rec Center
Temperature: 52°
Climate: cloudy and cool
Mood: very anxious

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 161 lbs.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

What’s That Lyric?

I Put a Spell on You - Sonique

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

Moves? I make them.

The vast majority of Zombies, Run fan art features a female presenting Runner 5. I am entirely okay with this.

Eavesdropping 0118

Distance: 3.2 miles
Duration: 29:21
Pace: 9:02

No, I can't seem to run every other day. This won't always be the case, but I have been busy, busy, busy.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 76°
Climate: clear & warm
Mood: angsty

I seem to be gaining weight. Either that, or I have been standing on the scale wrong and if that's the case, I just need to be wiser with my diet.

I didn't think it was an out-of-control weekend. In fact, I skipped lunch on Saturday, without even intending to. As we head into sugar season, I must be mindful.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 164 lbs.

My right knee had been in pain for over a week, even waking me up at night, but that has subsided.

Now my left knee hurts. What the actual.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

Upbeat Mix

360 - Charlie XCX

Now That We Found Love - Heavy D & the Boyz

Block Rockin' Beats - Chemical Bros.

DARE - Gorillaz ft. Shaun Ryder & Roses Gabor

One Girl/One Boy - !!!

Whip It - Devo

Alright - Janet Jackson

Got to keep my foot right down.

Eight consistent every-other-day runs. More runs than in 2022, when eye surgery took me off the road. Today, as many runs as I got in last month.

Distance: 3.25 miles
Duration: 30:30
Pace: 9:22

Leaves turn. The weather cools. I must make myself mentally prepared to return to the recreation center, if the weather is disagreeable. Strange, if you had asked me when I last renewed my membership I would have thought last October or something, but it was December.

Going to the gym is easy. It is important I remember that.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 58°
Climate: partly cloudy & cool
Mood: a bit sickly

Reggatta De Blanc - The Police (1979)

Message In a Bottle (151 bpm)

Regatta De Blanc (159 bpm - varies)

It's Alright For You

Bring On the Night

Deathwish

On Any Other Day (157 bpm)

The Bed's Too Big Without You

Contact

No Time This Time

This was always my favorite Police album, "Bring On the Night" was my favorite song during my Senior year in high school (which is a problem) and I will still say it is my favorite if only for the almost complete lack of bullshit. Every song is a banger ... except "Does Everyone Stare" which is goofy.

Goofy, but on point. "I'm gonna write you a sonnet but I don't know where to start." That was me. My wife says I just don't like Andy Summers and I said, maybe it's just that I don't like Andy Summers, and also that that song was written by Copeland. 

I also left "Walking On the Moon" off this play list because it's not good to run to. But, still. A classic.

My copy was a special release, two 10" vinyl records. Pretty cool. Wikipedia tells me Reggatta de Blanc (French for "Yacht Rock") is also Copeland's favorite of The Police records, so I feel validated. I don't really care which one Sting likes the best.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes 
Weight: 161 lbs. (+1.0) 

Now, allergies. Woke an hour earlier than my alarm, a tickle in my throat and in my eyes. Going to the doctor this afternoon, we'll she what she has to say about all this (gestures vaguely at his own form).

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

Man. Now, see, those guys knew how to close an album.

I can handle my shit.

My goal this year has been consistency. That, whatever else is happening, that I run every other day. Also, that I not run two days in a row. Take that break, even when I am desirous to move. Run, rest, repeat.

So far this year I have run as many times as I did in the entirety of 2017, which was a year that involved a lot of travel, and a lot of distraction. A wedding, a graduation, a fatal illness. Ninety-nine runs in 2025, as of today.

Many year I run between, let's say, one hundred and one hundred and ten times. Two years ago, in 2023, I ran almost two hundred times, which isn't normal at all. No idea why I did that.

At this rate, I hope to have run between 160 and 170 times by New Year's. That's a lot. But I think I can do that.

Distance: 2.34 miles
Duration: 27:09
Pace: 11:35

So, anyway. Had to take an extra day. These days are hot, and I am listening to my body. That's good, too. Take that break.

Also, we spent a day (and two nights) this past weekend at Cedar Point. Okay, so now summer is over. Just kidding, it's not. We have two baseball games to attend just this week. It's crazy.

My spouse encouraged me to ride more ride than I would have desired to, but I am all right. I have a real discomfort with heights, but there were some special moments. Daddy wanted to see all the young college students doing their dancing and their singing before they all return to college. Is that creepy? Of course it is. Totes creep.

Route: Forest Hill Run
Temperature: 75°
Climate: overcast & humid
Mood: all right

Eesh. Shooting pains in my left calf. Right heel still still. I'm a mess. A hot mess.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 162 lbs. (+2.0)

Portion control, yo.

Planks: yes
Pushups: yes

Running Summer Playlist

Walking On Sunshine - Katrina & the Waves ft. Carstn & Agent Zed

Ways to Go - Grouplove 

Coming Back to Me - Kasabian

Happy Customers - Two Door Cinema Club

American Pie (L'Tric Remix) - Don McLean

I Can Do It With a Broken Heart - Taylor Swift

Saving Up - Dom Dolla

Espresso (Mark Ronson x FNZ Working Later Remix) - Sabrina Carpenter

Nobody Else - The S.L.P.

I don't know. I think these playlists kinda suck.

You got me running through the turnstile.

Thursday morning I started getting this low-grade anger as I drove across town and I was like, nah. I'm getting that prescription back.

Distance: 3 miles

Duration: 25:05

For around twenty days I have been consistently 160 pounds -- and I mean consistently. Usually, my weight fluctuates from day to day. This consistency is, I believe, the result of not eating after dinner. That is where the matter comes into my system and stays overnight. It's never something particularly healthy, nothing "green" but always "orange."  

Route: Rec Center
Mood: maintaining
Stretches: yes
Water: yes

Weight: 160 lbs.

We're back on track (heh) running every other day. We are well again.

2022 Playlist

Power Station - Cory Wong

Here to Forever - Death Cab for Cutie

Wild Child - Black Keys

Postman - Toro y Moi

Welcome to My Island - That Freaky White Girl

Hi-Fidelity - Lava la Rue ft. Biig Piig 

Telluride - Jordan Conrath

Music for a Sushi Restaurant - Harry Styles

Shatter - Maggie Rogers