How wonderful life is while you're in the world.

Good times at Larry's Dawg House

Twenty-two every-other-day runs. Consistency. I won't have the opportunity to run again until Wednesday, but if everything goes smoothly, it will be so worth it.

Distance: 4 miles

Duration: 35:36
Pace: 8:54

Visiting Athens, the elder commenced this weekend. So many emotions. They have always been a work of art unto themself, this weekend they received recognition for all this great work. Now it is time to move into the larger world.

What will happen?

Route: Hocking River Bike Path
Temperature: 56°
Climate: overcast & humid
Mood: good
Stretches: yes
Water: yes

1970 Playlist

We Can Work It Out - Stevie Wonder

I Think I Love You/Come On Get Happy - Th Partridge Family

Who Loves the Sun - Velvet Underground

Your Song - Elton John

Cracklin' Rosie - Neil Diamond

Domino/Everyone - Van Morrison

ABC - Jackson 5

Instant Karma (We All Shine On) - John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Thank you (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) - Sly & the Family Stone

Super Bad Pts. 1 & 2 - James Brown & the JBs

I'm just glad to be here.

An extended weekend in Athens, Ohio. I don’t wanna go into the details of why we’re here on a Tuesday, except to say that our eldest is moving into their first off-campus housing.

Tell you this, though. All of this joyful celebration has meant eating in restaurants or carry out for practically every single meal. It’s a lot.

But it’s beautiful overcast day, and we came prepared to run by the river.

Distance: 4 miles

Duration: 37:56
Pace: 9:29 

Route: Hocking River Bike Path

Temperature: 63°
Climate: overcast and cool

Mood: very, very good

College Playlist (1986-1990)

Sledgehammer (Dance Mix) - Peter Gabriel

End of the Line * - Traveling Wilburys

Left of Center - Suzanne Vega ft. Joe Jackson

Gigantic - Pixies

Dreamworld * - Midnight Oil

You Can Leave Your Hat On - Joe Cocker

I Touch Roses - Book of Love

The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul * - XTC

All She Wants Is (US Master Mix) - Duran Duran

 
Stretches: yes
Abdominals: 90 sec. (2x)

Upper body: 10 reps. (2x)
Water: yes

It's Dare!

Beautiful run with the kids down the South Green bike path, and then onto the campus, weaving our way through Old South and through a new(ish) park on West Green. I called it the Hammock Park, Zelda says that's what everybody else calls it.

Distance: 2 miles

Duration: 20:31
Pace: 10:07

Route: Emeriti Loop

Temperature: 63°
Climate: gorgeous

Mood: wonderful

2005 Playlist

DARE - Gorillaz

Every Day is Exactly The Same - Nine Inch Nails

Don't Fear the Reaper - Caesars

Marvo Ging - The Chemical Brothers

Love Will Tear Us Apart - Fall Out Boy

What was 2005? Our son was born, he who lived. Broke my foot. Merry Wives of Windsor. Officiated my first wedding.

 
Stretches: yes
Abdominals: 90 sec. (2x)

Upper body: 5 (2x)
Water: yes

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, Easter chocolate (2 pc.)

Lunch: cold BBQ ribs, more candy

Post-Run Brew: Christmas Ale

Dinner: popcorn, Dr. Pepper

Nightcap: red wine

You gotta be cool. You gotta be calm. You gotta stay together.

Squatting on the floor of the dorm.

It's Parents Weekend at Ohio University! We aren't engaging in any of the collective university activities, just happy to spend time with the elder one and hang around the Wolf Homestead.

Last night they took us the a drag show at the Union, so that was cool. Later some other Heights parents with Bobcats are coming by.

I took a run past Peden Stadium, and the football game. Usually I park there, but for obvious reasons not today, starting instead out by Union Street. Beautiful day.

Distance: 4 miles
Duration: 36:52
Pace: 9:13
Route: Hocking River Bike Path
Temperature: 79°
Climate: little fluffy clouds
Mood: good

Daily Mix Playlist

Beating of Hearts - XTC

Freedom! '90 (Back To Reality Mix) - George Michael

My Antarctica - Duran Duran

Can't Get There From Here - R.E.M.

Rasputin - Boney M.

You Gotta be - Des'ree

Down In the Cockpit * - XTC

Up All Night - Boomtown Rats

Read My Lips - Duran Duran

What are you running from?

Interesting day yesterday, spent the afternoon on my own, cleaning house for guests who will arrive today, old friends from college. Spent some time editing the play. It's hard, moving from oblique to obvious, such a fine line. Fine, wide line. I wrote something angry. I think it's entirely pointless. I put it down so I could take it away. It's that line I mentioned yesterday. Maybe it's just the right line. Right now I can't be sure.

Distance: 3.6 miles
Route: Forest Hill Loop

It has truly been an existential morning, picking up, sweeping, mopping. Alone.

In the old days we would labor to clean the house only to invite in thirty or so of our closest friends, spill food and drink and cloud the entire house with smoke. The next morning it was like we hadn't cleaned at all.

God. Did that really happen? I know it did. There are pictures. Pictures not for social media. Alcohol and smoke and ridiculous acts. Desperate play. I am glad those days are past. Not because I don't miss those people, I do. I don't miss the person I was.

Temperature: 70°
Climate: overcast and Humid
Weight: 163.5 lbs.
Mood: good

I have eaten a lot of ground beef this week.

College Music Playlist
Rise - Public Image Limited
Starfish & Coffee - Prince
She's Got a New Spell - Billy Bragg
Don't Believe the Hype - Public Enemy
The Pleasure Principle - Janet Jackson
Sleeping With Your Devil Mask - Robyn Hitchcock
All Night Long - Peter Murphy

Homecoming 2015

Just a beautiful weekend with friends and family in Athens, Ohio. We did this two years ago, three Yogamomz families taking over the back 40 of the Wolf homestead for some late nights of food and beverage and pool and vinyl and last night practically the entire crew was in and out of the kitchen, contributing to an amazing dinner of locally everything.

Yesterday, following the Homecoming parade (which is generally the extent of my alumni involvement) I had the chance to give our visitors a brief tour of the campus. We were fortunate to skulk the RTV building at just the right time that a generous faculty member invited us into the Patio theater where they were having tech for The Penelopiad which opens next weekend. I spent a lot of time in that theater once. An awful lot of time.

This morning my wife and I went out to the bike path for a partner run. We have never had the chance to run together, ever, really. Earlier in our relationship she might come with me, but she couldn't run so far and I wouldn't stop. Now she can run further, and I don't need to go so far nor fast.

We will head out in our own good time, time enough to get home and prepare for a normal week of school and week. Are any of them them truly normal?

Brian Blessed: I delivered a baby in a park, bit the umbilical cord and licked the infant's face 
The larger-than-life actor speaks for the first time about delivering a baby girl under a tree in Richmond Park while he was out running.
- The Telegraph, 10/7/2015

Wait ... Brian Blessed was a runner?

Walk/Run: 2.15 miles
Avg Pace: 13:38
Route: Hocking River Bike Path

Temperature: 54
Climate: cool and clear
Mood: calm and happy

You Were a Pretty Queen of New York City

This holiday season I have been thinking a lot about Nineteen Eighty-Seven. That's a quarter century ago. Maybe it's because that's when I bought the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack, and listened to it until my mother was driven to distraction. Or when my father first turned me onto Brubeck's Time Out. Or the first Very Special Christmas Album.

Nineteen Eighty-Seven was my first full year as an adult. It was an emotional trajectory from low to high, all year long. My first serious dating relationship broke up during the holidays in 1986 ... okay, that's not fair to the girls I dated in high school. What I mean is this was the first time she broke up with me.

I took Accutane to stanch hideous, scarring acne. In that year I had sex with more different people than in any other. I do not think those two facts are unrelated.

The year began with a mullet. By the mid-summer my hair was dyed black. I learned how to actually dance. I started clubbing. My first mosh pit. There were drugs. I began work on my first daily comic strip. There was freedom. There was a complete lack of personal responsibility. It was also the fall when I first met my wife.

Yes, things were carefree and crazy in 1987. I had a near nervous breakdown less than a year later, but that goes without saying.

Temperature: 37°
Distance: 3.25 miles

1987 Holiday Playlist
Fairytale of New York - The Pouges ft. Kirsty MacColl
It's A Wonderful Life (Gonna Have A Good Time) - Fishbone
Winter Wonderland - Eurythmics
Vanishing Girl - The Dukes of Stratosphear
Gabriel's Message - Sting
The Way You Make Me Feel - Michael Jackson
Got My Mind Set On You - George Harrison
Pump Up The Volume - M/A/R/R/S

A key in the door. A step on the floor.

Daddy Runs Fast
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Running, like walking, is an act of controlled falling. My movement coach told me that at school. As bipeds, humans intentionally throw themselves off their balance, safe in the knowledge that they will swing the other leg out to catch their fall. However, when this process is sped up, as with running, you want to be sure you know where you are going to land.

On my return journey Saturday, running on the sidewalk across the highway from Gordon Park, I had a bit of an accident. I stepped on a crack, an uneven coming together of two sections of sidewalk, causing overextension at the ball of my foot.

The pain was immediate, and I felt a contraction in the ball of my foot. I thought, "oh, damn." But I kept going, and it was not a problem, the pain subsided, and I finished in good time. The rest of the day went by all right, sore in all the usual places, but that went down. Even performed a ninety-minute play.

Sunday morning, I woke to find both my feet felt like tender, puffy sacks of shit. And the ball of my foot, where I'd hit it, felt bruised, or pulled, or something. Hmn. A little worried about that. The wife ran me a in nice epsom salt footbath yesterday morning, and she had suggested soaking it in a tincture of Arnica. Today it feels all right.

Distance: 4 miles
Route: Neighborhood loop

Temperature: 72º
Climate: balmy
Weight: 167 lbs.
Snack: banana
Hydration? not enough - humidity will kill you
Stretches? yes

150-154 BPM Playlist
Concealed Weapons [12" Version] - J. Geils Band
Shoe Box - Barenaked Ladies
Just Like Heaven - The Cure
Dance This Mess Around - The B-52's
Chelsea Dagger - The Fratellis
Outer Bongolia - Stereolab
Iris - Goo Goo Dolls
Radio Free Europe - R.E.M.

Slow morning.


"It All Starts With A Dream"
Stephanie Danelson
Ohio University Art 114 Stop Motion Project

(Thanks, Con.)

Don't ever fade away.

Good Lord, I am a tub of goo. My scalp aches, my blood is weary, I am stuffed with salt and fat and sugar and msg and caffeine and alcohol and I do not want to go running, no I don't.

Distance: 3.3 miles
Temperature: 63º
Weight: 174 lbs.
Weather: more humider.

Tremendous feeling. Felt better the minute I began moving. Must always stretch after a run. Must drink more water. Must stop putting everything in my mouth.

That's Good Genius Mix
Radio Free Europe (154 bpm) - R.E.M.
Head Over Heels (157 bpm) - The Go-Go's
Man In A Suitcase (Live) (159 bpm) - The Police
Sugar On My Tongue - Talking Heads
The Fanatic - Felony
Digital (169 bpm) - Joy Division
Contact - The Police
Let's Go - The Cars
Blind - Talking Heads

Apparently R.E.M. broke up. I also learned recently that Elvis is dead. Okay, enough with the jokes. They did make a good album.

But seriously, like most dudes my age I appreciated that they made the mid-80s considerably sugar-free.


Pop Song '89
Karl Dee & Hogg

Everybody's free ... to feel good.

When you are strapped for cash, and are straining to tale good care of every physical object which contributes to your daily emotional and physical well-being, may I remind you not to cavalierly toss your sport headphones into your everything bag.

I mean, when I put phones in my bag (which carries a laptop, folders and paper ... but also sometimes keys) I col them carefully and place them in. But some time late last week I pulled out my N*ke Flight phones and it looked like a cat had been at them. I mean, was I keeping knives in my bag? There was a book in there sure, but wtf? I mean, they were ruined, all but cut entirely through in one spot.

It is disheartening to think I only run when I have muic available. I mean, look, I run Half Marathons without them, did so a few weeks ago. Listening to my breathing and my body. But you aren't alone in a marathon - not even in Cleveland - and the distractions and excitement are plentiful. Not so treading over the ground several times a week.

So I got new phones, because we are in Athens and I wanted to run. It is an informal "reunion" weekend, I will be meeting half a dozen former alum from the School of Theater here in a about a half-hour. I had invited them to join me this morning for the run, but, well, you know.

I took photos of the Hocking River run I always take, the shorter one. Expect to see those soon.

Pump Up the Volume Genius Mix
Pump Up the Volume - M/A/R/R/S
Mexican Radio - Wall of Voodoo
We Close Our Eyes - Go West
Can You Feel It - The Jacksons
Dance Hall Days - Wang Chung
Just Can't Get Enough - De[eche Mode
One Thing Leads To Another - The Fixx
A Little Respect - Erasure
Everybody's Free (To Feel Good) - Rozalla
Girls On Film (Night Version) - Duran Duran

Distance: 4.25 miles
Temperature: 78º
Weather: hot & sunny