I'm so happy with my feet on the ground.

Driving across the state last night was dreadful. Yes, we now have the technology to let us know that there is a TORNADO WARNING while we are in our cars on the open road ... but what then? Pull over? With no safe cover available? Might as well keep driving.

Distance: 4 miles

Duration: 36:20
Pace: 9:05

Route: Hocking River Bike Path

Temperature: 82°
Climate: sunny & hot

Mood: good

It was cool and beautiful when I rose this morning, but held out to see if anyone wanted to join me. Not today. So I took a hot noontime run -- which is fine with me.

I live in the past. I live in the present and the future, too. I'm like a god, or isn't it nice to think so.

College Run Playlist

Buddy (Native Tongue Decision) - De La Soul ft. Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, Monie Love, Queen Latifah

Mirror People - Love & Rockets

Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order

She Drives Me Crazy - Fine Young Cannibals

The Gas Face - 3rd Bass ft. Zev Love

Earn Enough For Us - XTC

Roadrunner - Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

Drifting, Falling - The Ocean Blue

Pump It Up (Lean On Me Reprise) - Club Nouveau

Birth, School, Work, Death - The Godfathers

 
Stretches: yes

Sit-Ups: 20
Planks: 90 sec. 

Water: yes

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, Swedish fish

Lunch: Reuben, fries, OJ, coffee

Happy Hour: Pepsi

Dinner: spaghetti & sausage meatballs, salad

Dessert: peach cobbler & ice cream 

Alcohol? GLBC Dortmunder

Reading (30 min.): yes (Bechdel, A.)

What do you want to be?

What a day. Teaching classes, attending meetings, drawing cartoons, reading fcition, completing assignments, taking a short nap and even gettin a run in before taking an evening class.

What does it all amount to, I am no longer sure. But at least I am too busy to question.

Distance: 2 miles
Duration: 18:53
Pace: 9:27
Route: Two times around the block
Temperature: 72°
Climate: bright & breezy

Mood: anxious

Weight: 188.5 lbs. (-0-)

The weather is so windy these days. Extreme gusts, and all the time. It is distressing, and it makes me not want to open the door, which sucks, because the temperature is good. Anyway, brisk run. Into the wind.

1978 Playlist

Le Freak - Chic

I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones

My Best Friend's Girl - The Cars

Hanging On the Telephone - Blondie

Y.M.C.A. - The Village People

The air outside will make our cells divide at an alarming rate.

USA! USA!

Several days of indulgence, including buckets of popcorn and fried items. There's a great deal of green produce in our house (thank you, City Fresh and Community Greenhouse Partners) but not enough fresh fruit.

Just last night I made Parmesan rigate with greens and seared lemony boy choy which was wildly appreciated at the table, but during the day I need to be able to grab an apple and I keep forgetting to prepare for that. Or a peach. Anything. I eat handfuls of nuts. Lots of handfuls of nuts.

Distance: 3 miles
Duration: 26:23
Pace: 8:47
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 71°
Climate: overcast & very humid
Mood: coming together
Stretches: yes
Water: not enough

Last night, a freak and brief torrential downpour. Another expected in about an hour. This is the new normal, devastating heat and wild rain and wind.

This morning I rose at six, as I am compelled to, but there is a different between rising because an alarm tells you to and doing so because your body say enough. I could have slept more. Perhaps later I will.

Nice run, though. The lower bpm made me feel as though I was going slower than I would otherwise choose to, but I am still breaking a nine minute mile.

The girl and I are making plans to run Bay Village on Thursday. I know, I said I never would again, but that was alone.

155 - 164 BPM Playlist
Hello City - Barenaked Ladies
You're Beautiful - James Blunt
Numb - Portishead
I Don't Want To Fall In Love - She Wants Revenge
Mexican Radio  - Wall of Voodoo
Don't Box Me In - Stewart Copeland ft. Stan Ridgway
We Will Become Silhouettes - The Postal Service

Stanard Ridgway two-fer!

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 166.5 lbs. (-2.0)
Goal: 165 lbs.

You're a good man.

Maybe the regular running will resume soon. For now, an outdoor jog through what appears to be a deceptively pleasant morning. I am headed out into a sunny day in the mid-fifties. Forecast suggests madness is coming our way.

I have not been drinking enough water. My lips are horrible chapped and maimed.

2012 Playlist*
All Your Gold - Bat For Lashes
One Thing - One Direction
Take a Walk - Passion Pit

* Short list. When I meet up with Chris at the Rec Center I turn off the tunes, and today we were having such a good conversation he ran back to the house with me.

This is a good thing, because just as we were about to turn onto my street, the wind whipped up, it began to rain -- and then to hail.

"What is this?" he exclaimed, "The Half Marathon?"

"Yeah!" I said, "It is May?"

Distance: 4.78 miles
Pace: 10:03
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 55°
Climate: beautiful! then not beautiful!
Mood: good! and anxious. and stupid.

Visit my Team Challenge Crohn's & Colitis page and support my bid for the Chicago Marathon!

Keep on trucking.

Relaxing into the deep freeze. Yesterday it plunged to about four or five below, not further than that -- but OH! The wind chill.

I have no idea, actually, I went out side for about ninety seconds, total, and for the best of reasons. To have cocktails at Quinatna's Speakeasy (four dollar Old Fashioneds, a one-day, Polar Vortex special!) and the to get Chinese food because that's what the girl wanted for her sixteenth birthday dinner.

Sixteen years. Oh my. It took me a long time to realize the more they age, the more I do. But things are good. Feeling good. Life is good. Right? Isn't it? Even when nature is out there, waiting to rip your face off?

Distance: 3 miles
Route: Rec Center
Mood: all right
Exercises: yes!

Oops. Forgot to eat anything.

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 181.5 lbs. (+2.0)
Goal: 175 lbs.

Oh! Jesus!

1973 Playlist
Living For the City - Stevie Wonder
Live and Let Die - Paul McCartney & Wings
Skokian - Hot Butter
Keep On Truckin' (Part One) - Eddie Kendricks
Polk Salad Annie (Live) - Elvis Presley
Jungle Boogie  - Kool & the Gang
5.15 - The Who
Cindy Incidentally - The Faces

Visit my Team Challenge Crohn's & Colitis page and support my bid for the Chicago Marathon!

My footsteps made me crazy.

Thank you, Pete Shelley.

Can we run? Run in the subzero temperatures? I am grateful for the rec center membership, I have come to terms with the gym. This is what it takes, and I can cope with that. If it means being surrounded by senior walkers, those who remind me of my own limitations, so be it.

I see old people, and I winder ... how much older than I am they? Five years? Ten? Fifteen? That's not very many years. How soon will I be shuffling, bent over and slow? It would appear to be soon.

Or I'm full of shit.

Distance: 3 miles
Route: Rec Center
Mood: good, actually
Exercises: yes!

Weather has gone crazy. It rained yesterday, then the temperatures dropped and there is ice -- everywhere. It's pretty dangerous. Today temps are supposed to go down considerably, my friends are all freaking out. Does that help?

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 179.5 lbs. (+1.0)
Goal: 175 lbs.

And we're back.

1983 Playlist
Telephone Operator - Pete Shelley
Wonderin' - Neil Young & the Shocking Pinks
Young Guns (Go For It!) - Wham!
Safety Dance - Men Without Hats
Cool Places - Sparks
Taxman - Stevie Ray Vaughn & Double Trouble
New York New York - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
Prove My Love - Violent Femmes
Don't Change - INXS

This mile, two machines, mile, two machines, mile and out regimen is working out very well. Increasing strength and duration. Keep going! Going into the deep freeze!

Visit my Team Challenge Crohn's & Colitis page and support my bid for the Chicago Marathon!

Run with the creeps.

Something just broke Sunday night. It began when I was in father's office, accounting of his things. In the week following his death we sorted his clothes, because that was what mom asked us to do first, to get those out. But when it came to the several and varied items in his dresser and desk (Swiss army knife, a watch) I thought it would be best to leave those, to write them down and then decide their fate later.

And so there I was, a month and a half later, doing that. I was making notes of items, lacquer college society pins, penknives, and so on, and I just felt like there was so much nothing. It didn't feel worth writing down, just cart it all up and take it to a junk shop or something. Good Lord, what the hell am I keeping in my dresser?

That night was "Second Easter". We hadn't been with mom for Easter, we had been in Athens. It was important to anyone at the table, Easter, not anymore, anyway. The absence at the head of the table was suddenly very strong to me, and I found that hard to take.

Distance: 3 miles
Avg Pace: 7:07
Duration: 21:22
Route: Boulevard Loop

I am continuing to avoid Facebook. It is apparent to me the extent to which I can use it to avoid doing others things. The boy plays Minecraft, I used Facebook. I have gotten much more done in the past week, and I do not miss the negativity, but I realize there is also a lot of positive energy there, too. I feel very alone without it.

Hail.

Temperature: 55°
Climate: WIND, man.
Weight: 163 lbs. (-1.0)
Mood: so much better

Weather this afternoon and evening has been absurd. The boy got off the bus, walked a few steps, and suddenly he was being pelted by hail. That lasted for about fifteen seconds as he ran down the street, then it just stopped, and turned into light rain.

I kept checking the temperature, it remained in the mid-fifties, but the wind was crazy, I was sure snow was going to blow in any second. But it didn't. Hard run, and by that I mean I was hard. Fast and fierce for three miles. It was a blessing.

The Message Playlist
The Message - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
King of Rock - Run-D.M.C.
All the Lifestyles - Beastie Boys
Witness (1 Hope) - Roots Manuva
The WildStyle - Time Zone

Talking like a jerk.

2006 - 2015

Seasons used to change, that's how we would put it. Watch the seasons change. Today seasons rip into each other, the new seasons laying waste to the previous season and taking down a lot of tree branches in a process, or making your pipes burst. (Not ours, fortunately, but those of several people we know.)

Yesterday I walked up the street to the grocery store and it was bright and sunny. When I stepped back out onto Euclid Avenue with my bags, it was pissing downright, sheets of rain sweeping down through downtown. These things happen, but rarely with such anger.

Temperature: 48°
Distance: 3.38 miles
Avg Pace: 7.52
Climate: breezy & cool

A few days without a three-miler, a bit hard going into the wind. But it was at my back all the way down Taylor Road. Feels good.

Baseline: 178.5 lbs.
Today: 160 lbs.
Goal: 160 lbs.

Oh, uh ... I'm sorry. That wasn't supposed to happen. Seriously, I need to manage my diet better.

Sunday Alcohol Units: 1.0
Monday Alcohol Units: -0-

Playlist: LCD Soundsystem Radio on Spotify.

Yes, I have gone there. And they are correct, I will never pay for music again.

Today was the first day I used the new phone exclusively. For a couple weeks I have been using the old iPod and holding the phone, because I am lazy that way. I haven't figured out how to load music into my phone yet, and I am not sure I wish to. I guess I do not need to.

The strap pictured above is as old as the iPod itself, almost nine years old. Nine years on the road, I can't imagine how miles that is. It has been across the Atlantic, and at various points on its western shore. It has managed two marathons and several other races (admittedly not many of those.)

Now I have this big, heavy, stupid thing on my arm ... like my very first iPod strap, or carrying a Walkman. This to me is not progress.

But I do like the MapMyRun lady whispering in my ear. Ah, well.

I'm in at the deep freeze.

These days afford little time to run. I can deal with cold. What I cannot deal with are these terrible
sleep patterns. I am not tired, actually, surprisingly, but the evenings have been challenging, with diffuse, disparate family, work and personal responsibilities occupying my forebrain. Makes it difficult to consider braving the cold.

Just a few moments outside, walking in this weather, can be wearying. After a few hours out in it, walking streets bundled up, getting groceries and other errands, I found by the mid afternoon I was listless and spent, almost dazed. No, I do not wish to run. Except that I do, very much.

Temperature: 10°
Distance: 1.75 miles

Yes, that was it. Thank you. A short run in the sub-freezing temps, I burn like furnace.

1969 Playlist
Your Good Thing (Is About To End) - Lou Rawls
Grits Ain't Groceries (All Around the World) - Little Milton
The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) - Simon & Garfunkel
Sally Simpson - The Who
Cold Turkey - John Lennon

This summer I be will directing some Shakespeare in the park. Last time, it was modern, corporate, everyone clinging smart phones. This time it will be 1970, collegiate and groovy.

I'm a genius, genius.

I do not know why we went to bed Friday night at midnight. I cannot tell you what happened that would have made that possible. What I can say is that I had to work yesterday (yes, a Saturday) and rising at six o'clock was a new, fresh hell, my face feeling as though a small, fat child were sitting on it, after having first hit it with a hammer.

And it only got better incrementally, and never entirely. Last night I begged off my family at 8 PM, or more accurately, said I wanted to go to bed but was finally ordered to. I really wanted to spend the evening with them, I wanted social time with my wife and kids. Not going to happen.

So I slept from 8 to 11, then couldn't sleep for an hour, and then stayed more or less at rest until 7 AM when she woke me and I thought WTF? Really? She let me sleep for another two hours.

My new year's resolutions are not coming to fruition, but then, I have been working pretty much since New Year's Day. Keep them in mind. However, if reports are correct. the earth has waited for the holidays and the arbitrary demarcation of the new year to pass before socking us with another winter of the Deep Death Freeze.

The annual runs will be few and far between this week, I can tell. I do not feel like running right now, but if not now, when? Again, I will keep it short. This is what we call paying it forward - to yourself.

Temperature: 46°
Distance: 2 miles

No rain at the moment, little wind. A breezy, cool, new day. One resolution this winter is to plot and execute more weight-bearing exercises. The wife noted how disciplined I was when training for the running play. When I think of that period, I do remember trying to make sure my lanky body (I weight thirty pounds less six years ago than I do now) looked sinewy and not all loose and flabby, but also that I was recovering from an operation on my knee - that came first. Late fall 2008 was spent rising very early in the morning to do physical therapy, at a clinic and also at home. Every morning.

Exercise, every morning. Not the year I have had so far.

As long as we are destined to be housebound in the foreseeable future, I intend to add free weights to the wii fit routine. A little will do a lot.

1968 Playlist
Let the Sunshine In - Hair Original Broadway Recording
You're Gonna Miss Me - 13th Floor Elevator
These Days - Nico
Daydream Believer - The Monkees
Girl Watcher - The O'Kaysions
Grazing In The Grass - Hugh Masekela
Astral Weeks - Van Morrison

Running in circles, chasing our tales.

NBC: Siberian man runs marathon in minus-36 degrees

Yes, yes. "Polar Vortex". Moving on. The past two days have been disappointing and difficult. Depressing, I have never felt so claustrophobic, working as hard as I could to remain cheery and helpful, feeling the temperature drop and drop while my children laze about, at home from school while I am at home from work ... trying to concentrate on that work I could do from home, without thinking of the cold, and failing.

We have returned to double-digit temperatures. A celebration is in order. Run we must.

Temperature: 21°
Pavement: patchy, snowy, icy & wet
Distance: 3.25 miles
Weight: 177.5 lbs.

There is an overlooked pocket in my year-old fleece with which I can easily access my iPod with having to entirely remove my jacket. Progress!

2003 Playlist
In The Winelight * - Kurt Elling
Angels In America (Main Theme) - Thomas Newman
Mainframe - Kaada
The Scientist - Coldplay
House Party Time - Dan Zanes & Friends
Toxic - Britney Spears
The Sound of Settling - Death Cab for Cutie
Expo '86 - Death Cab for Cutie
The Way You Move - OutKast ft. Sleepy Brown

...and we're back. WOW. My head is clearer, my body warmer. I am a new human being. Thank you.