Remember me to one who lives there.

July 2, 2006: Four our seventh anniversary (wool) my wife got me five albums that had the word "wool" in them, either the artist or album title. She got me the "TOCA Race Driver 3: Official Soundtrack" It's the soundtrack to a video game, composed by Plastic Man & the Wool One. Pretty sweet.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 29:58
Pace: 9:39

Music From the Big Love (1994-2024)

Bandits (Live) - Josh Ritter

Doctor Who Theme (2005) - Murray Gold

Old Town Road - Lil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus

Wise Up - Aimee Mann

Girl From the North Country - Rachel Stern & Company 

Devil Doll - Roy Orbison

Hips Don't Lie - Shakira ft. Wyclef Jean

Dead Sea - Lumineers

This Land is Your Land - Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings

Brimful of Asha - Cornershop

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 81°
Climate: sunny & hot
Mood: coping

• Tucson (2023)
• Clearwater (2000)
• Memphis (2000)
• Chicago (2017)

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

Pain on the top of my right foot, around my right calf, in my right glute. All down my right leg.

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: TBA

Run and hide.

Old friends.

Brother in town, he loves the side porch. So di I. Later the two of us are going to the game.

Taking part of the day off to escort my beloved to a medical consultation.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:30
Pace: 9:11

Fifteen runs in June. Consistency.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 75°
Climate: clear & sunny
Mood: working on it

Sophisti-pop 80s Workout Playlist

It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back) - Eurythmics

Blow the House Down - Living in a Box

Mothers Talk - Tears for Fears

Above the Clouds - Paul Weller

Cars & Girls - Prefab Sprout

Tinseltown in the Rain - Blue Nile

Get Back Together - Everything But the Girl

This is my happy place. And I need a happy place right now.

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

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

No, seriously.

Showing out, showing out, hit and run.

Cleveland!

Twenty years ago today, June 27, 2006, marathon training officially began. I happened to be in Vermont, looking after the kids while the wife took classes, pursuant to her MFA.

"Out on RT 2, lush trees and mountains ... and the occasional semi. I'd try to find a path through the woods, but it rained for a day solid yesterday, I can't imagine any of them are at all dry."

A three mile run at 5:00 am in Vermont. Nice.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:37
Pace: 9:13

Brother comes into town this weekend. Time to clean up the house a little. Or at least the spare room.

Sophisti-pop 80s Workout Playlist

Cue Fanfare - Prefab Sprout

Mercy Mercy Me/I Want You - Robert Palmer

What Have I Done to Deserve This? - Pet Shop Boys ft. Dusty Springfield

Love Changes (Everything) - Climie Fisher

Home Town (Live at the Roundabout Theatre) * - Joe Jackson

Robert DeNiro's Waiting - Bananarama

Love Is the Drug - Roxy Music

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 68°
Climate: sunny & warm
Mood: good

Beautiful day, beautiful run. No pain. So much to do, I didn't want to tax myself with a six miler. Maybe next week. Maybe Monday.

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

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: TBA

Keep up with the exercises, man.

I think I'm done with the sofa.

The peaceful days. We take the bus. We take the stairs. We watch the games.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:59
Pace: 9:20

I try to avoid eye contact, but this guy really wanted to use my phone to call his woman (that's what he calls her) and I let him, but then my bus arrived and I had to just take the phone out of his hands.

This is a true story.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 74°
Climate: after the rain, perfect
Mood: good!

Outside Playlist

Outside

Spinning the Wheel (Forthright Edit)

Soul Free (Special Radio Edit)

Monkey (Extra Beats)

Careless Whisper (Tonight The Music Seems So Loud) sped up

I Want Your Sex (Rhythm 1)

Too Funky

Happy birthday, Yog.

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

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: TBA

I'm saturated.

So, I have developed another bout of sciatica. Alas. It's on the right side, just above the glute, and goes all the way down through my calf. If I didn't know any better, I'd think that's also why it feels like I pulled a string in my right big toe. Or maybe that is why I feel that. 

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:37
Pace: 9:13

"He looked at his friends. He saw these beings who never wearied, unless from sport -- who never sweated, unless for sport -- who were never out of breath, unless from sport. Beings requiring their joyous games in order that their food and drink might agree with them, in order to be able to sleep well and digest easily."

- "Metropolis" by Thea von Harbou

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 62°
Climate: lovely
Mood: good

Lovely day off yesterday. Much personal work accomplished. Return to my desk for the first time in three weeks, all of June. Imagine working.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 165 lbs. (+2.0)

Okay, working on a period accurate summer mixtape for the year 1988, and by that I mean tracks I was actually listening to at that time -- and recently released. Which begs the question ... should I include a song from Joy Division? A CD collection called Substance (also the title of New Order's greatest hits collection, released the previous fall) dropped in July 1988, exposing myself and countless others to the band.

This is is why, amongst Never Tear Us Apart by INXS and The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen, it makes sense that Love Will Tear Us Apart is in Donnie Darko.

I think I just answered my own question.

Summer 1988 Mixtape (in progress)

Guns In the Sky (Kick Ass Mix) - INXS

Monkey (Jam & Lewis Remix) - George Michael

Spark (acoustic) - The Church

Fast Car - Tracy Chapman

Suedehead - Morrissey

(Nothing But) Flowers - Talking Heads

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: TBA

Incidental highs.

Gabriel & Dresden's eponymous debut album was released twenty years ago, on June 1, 2006. My first record of having run to any of its tracks was Tracking Treasure Down, in February 2007.

The first time I ran to the entire album was on April 28 of that year. 

"I have been waiting some time to attempt a run listening to the entire Gabriel and Dresden album. That's my record of the year. I picked up a track on iTunes a few weeks back and really liked it, and then they started the "complete your album" promotion and so I got the whole thing — which includes the entire album mixed as one, uninterrupted track. Except for this Pink Floyd-esque thing right in the middle, the entire record makes for a dynamite run."

Distance: 5.9 miles

Duration: 55:35
Pace: 9:25

A few downbeat tracks are a bit of a drag, and the whole thing is one hour thirteen. Today, I have chosen a mix which suits my recent summer weekend loop. It's one of the only albums I have returned to (and more than twice) as part of Albums For Running.

Gabriel & Dresden - Gabriel & Dresden (2006)

Let Go

Enemy

Dust In the Wind

Mass Repeat

Closer

Sydney

Dangerous Power

Tracking Treasure Down

 

Route: Forest Hill-Cain Park Loop 
Temperature: 69°
Climate: nice
Mood: mostly good

So, no. It was not something I listened to while training for New York in 2006. But it was a major inspiration while I was writing And Then You Die. It is my mid-life crisis soundtrack. Regret, yearning, aspiration, doubt, determination, guilt, and on and on. 

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 163 lbs. (-3.0)

Heading out I had pain in two points in the back of my right knee. Unpleasant, not debilitating, and it subsided soon enough.

Around mile five, I got a sharp pain on the inside of my left knee cap, and that was debilitating. I stretched, I hobbled, I endured. It, too, subsided. Oof.

Anyway, here's Father's Day.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: tba

Sit-Ups: yes

Girl, indeed. I can run it.

Camp has closed for the year. And a perfectly wonderful Bunbury it was.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:43
Pace: 9:15

Managing the rest of the season should (should) be a breeze. A more flexible schedule, and the opportunity to cross-train. To maintain. There are also vacation moments, which should not necessarily be taken as a chance to pack fried food stuffs.

I also hope to get a lot of reading in.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 61°
Climate: clear skies
Mood: good

"I didn't know much about Shakespeare before I came here" Arif said. "I'm learning so much about him and his work everyday. Each time I read something that Shakespeare has written, I get the feeling that I understand everything that he is saying. The next day, though I discover something else in those same words that I didn't know the day before. And the next day, one more thing."

- "Shakespeare in Kabul" by Stephen Landrigan and Qais Akbar Omar

I’m enjoying this book. I was an arrogant young man, and I have found the only way forward is to learn humility. It is a hard lesson.

And it's Juneteenth, white man. Atone.

Clean Juneteenth Party Playlist (up tempo)

Can You Feel It - The Jacksons

Golden - Jill Scott

Good Times - Chic

Run it! - Chris Brown ft. Juelz Santana

Bustin' Loose - Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 165 lbs. (+2.0)

Last night, to celebrate the end of camp, I packed myself with fried food stuffs.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes