You have to do it running.

Marathon training won't necessarily lead to weight loss. On the contrary. https://t.co/8SoUDuzaWo pic.twitter.com/8eKDKAJ2Sk

— Runner's World (@runnersworld) April 12, 2016

WE KNOW.

Jesus, how many times am I going to see articles about this simple fact?

I will say, however, that if you run correctly, it helps keep your stomach flat.

Big, flat stomach.

Distance: 5 miles
Avg Pace: 7:46
Duration: 39:17
Route: Forest Hill Loop

My right foot has been bothering me. Aches in my arch, callouses I can't control. Feels like I have been splaying again, turning my foot to the outside as I run, or just running with my foot turned a little to the right. It affects my calf, too. I need to more consciously roll through my feet. Keep my toes straight.

Temperature: 39°
Climate: bright and cool
Weight: 162 lbs. (+1.0)
Mood: getting there

Bright morning, gorgeous. Tired of cold, tired of wind, really. At least the pavement is clear again. Appears as though the temperature is rising for the near future. I will drink that in.

One of These Things First Playlist
One of These Things First - Nick Drake
Sunset Soon Forgotten - Iron & Wine
Fair - Remy Zero
Save Me - Aimee Mann
The District Sleeps Tonight - The Postal Service
Mistaken For Strangers - The National
Mansard Roof * - Vampire Weekend
A Lack of Color - Death Cab for Cutie
Do You Realize? - The Flaming Lips
Expectations - Belle & Sebastian
Faust Arp - Radiohead

Mmmm.Mellow Gen X music. The lighter side of the 00's.

I empty a bottle and I feel a bit free.

This past weekend was an incredible, jam-packed indication of exactly how wild and exciting, and long and arduous this summer is going to be. And I didn't even get one run in.

Summer! We had a yard sale! Kids sold lemonade, we unloaded some old crap and I picked up a $20 someone had dropped who knows when and I had no idea who it belonged to. That was my biggest sale.

Baseball! The boy had baseball games Thursday and Saturday. It was at the evening game Saturday that I realized I had unwittingly scored a sunburn during the yard sale. Sunburn!

Fifth grade graduation - the girl is moving on to middle school! The boy will be moving to the elementary school she is leaving! Our actor-teachers are packing their things, some are moving away, and we just scored three amazing new hires!

And finally -- finally -- the kids have gotten into Doctor Who! I see marathon viewing all summer long!

Temperature: 78°
Route: Shaker Lakes :3 laps
Distance: 4.1 miles

Running Shaker Lakes can be treacherous. There's pavement, wood chips, worn dirt, tree roots, drops, inclines, other runners and fat, dog-walkers three abreast (plus the dog.)

Last night I notied cramps in both my feet. Would that be ... longing? The run itself felt much longer than four miles, but it felt good to be out in it again. Late 70s post-punk helps, too.

Sitting by the ball field, watching the boy practice. He's got a nice batting stance, he is learning to connect. Looks like it may be a baseball summer.

Radio Clash Playlist
This Is Radio Clash - The Clash
Save It For Later - The Beat
Shattered - The Rolling Stones
Lost In The Supermarket - The Clash
Rock the Casbah - The Clash
Beat On The Brat - The Ramones
Pretty Vacant - Sex Pistols
Substitute - The Who
Another Nail In My Heart - Squeeze
Come Dancing - The Kinks
Destroyer - The Kinks

Without this beat my life would fall apart.

What is up with my foot? Since Christmas, I have had pain in my right foot, in the vicinity of the medial cuneform and the navicular. My feet arch so high, in such a lovely way, that sometimes tying certain shoes can be painful if they are tied at all tightly. I had one pair of dress shoes which I just left untied because it aggravated my right foot.

I am thinking it is the boots, which I began wearing on a daily basis, starting around then. These are not new boots, but it is a new pain, in a new place. I have been worried that this is part of my interior metatarsal bending, and that perhaps it is causing stress where the toe begins.

This pain is not just to the touch, like a bruise (and there is no sign of bruising) but has an effect the way I walk, certainly how I run, even how I stand. Performing yoga poses, any in which I require standing on my right foot, I feel this pain by putting weight down on my leg.

However, now my ankle also hurts. I'm thinking it's the boots.

Temperature: 46°
Climate: Breezy ... when not horridly windy.
Distance: 3.25 miles
Weight: 175.5 lbs.

Ecch. Glad to get out now that we have emerged from the deep freeze. However, wind whips down Monticello, when it's windy, and it was unrelenting and horrible for my first mile. I was wearing a hanky, nothing to cover my ears, and though turning onto Lee was a great relief, my ears were aching and still do, a bit.

But, man. How good it feels to feel my feet on the pavement, and not a blanket of snow or ice. I feel truly aerobicized.

My brain has also thawed, from torpid, frozen sludge, uninspired and dire to actively frantic. This week has seen two plays running from pen onto paper into First Draft, and the news that I Hate This has been posted on Indie Theater Now. Today I met with a cabal of artists working a salon performance (more on that to come) and my wife and I are having an actual date night, with dinner at Rockefeller's followed by a movie at the Cedar-Lee.

Forward.

1983 Playlist
She's a Beauty - The Tubes
Think Too Much - Paul Simon
Maniac - Michael Sembello
Sex (I'm A...) - Berlin
Trommeltanz (Din Daa Daa) - George Kranz
A Ray of Sunshine - Wham!
The Invisible Man - Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Get busy, child.

For Christmas, my wife got me a very special present; a memory foam mattress. Our king-sized futon had intrenched divots, no matter how you turned it, it was like sleeping in a ditch. My knees, my shins, my back were aching, every night. I could not sleep the night through without waking to take pain reliever.

The new mattress has been very helpful with my legs. The pain there is gone. But not so for my back. My wife believes it is because I do not couple running with upper-body weight training, and about that she is correct. I think so much about doing sit-ups, and working out with weights, that I can make myself believe that I actually have, but it is not true. I need to spend time each evening with the free-weights, at at the very least, stretching.

And so, here were are in January, no less than fifteen pounds overweight, and without the musculature to keep myself from standing and sitting like some kind of old man. I think I can make my way out of this. I hope I can.

Temperature: 36°
Climate: cool & dry
Distance: 3.75 miles

This morning the ex-wife tagged me on this great list, 20 Things No One Tells You About Running from the awesomely titled Shut Up + Run blog. These things are true, with this one exception:

1. Your feet will look like crap. Actually my feet did look bad for a long while, but now I treat them like little princesses and they are pretty and you will love them.

1997 Playlist
Winter Ceremony (Howie B Left Foot Mix) - Sacred Spirit
Turn It On - Sleater-Kinney
Busy Child - The Crystal Method
Piku - Chemical Brothers
Dig Your Own Hole - Chemical Brothers
Paranoid Android (164 bpm) - Radiohead 

Gotta move ASAP.

Dockers Perspective Oxfords

Modern polish meets classic comfort with these smooth bike toe oxford men's dress shoes from Dockers, making them a smart addition to any guy's weekday routine.

• Leather upper; rubber sole
• Imported
• Soft burnished upper leathers
• Lightweight, outsole for extreme flexibility and comfort
• Overflows with hate and sadness
• Full-length cushioned footbed with gel heel pad for all-day comfort
• Combined with Antichrist

Not long ago I went to a Famous Footwear to get decent-looking, cheap dress shoes. I picked up two variety of Docker Oxfords. They felt great, looked all right, and were deceptively spongy. All-day comfort! This wasn't terribly long ago, maybe a year and a half.

Well. These days it seems I cannot wear either pair without killing my ankles, or worse, causing shooting pain to flare through different bones in my feet. Thursday evening, leaving work, while carrying a large box, sporting the Dockers Gordon Cap Toe Oxfords, I found it precarious if not downright dangerous to walk down stairs because of the sudden, strange pain the erupted in surprising and varied areas of my feet, ankles and shins.

Yesterday the boy was bemoaning frugality. "Why do people always get the cheap thing, when they should be getting the best thing?"

In anticipation of my honeymoon (1999 version) I got a pair of leather walking shoes at Nordstrom. Big clunky soles, boxy, rounded toe. I wore those shoes out. After a repair or two (because yes, you can repair good shoes) I finally got rid of them in around 2007 and only then because my feet had gotten wider due to marathon training.

Yesterday I wore sneakers to work. My tendons were sore. But they were not shrieking.

Temperature: 55°
Climate: Wet pavement.
Distance: 3.25 miles

Yes, I believe the scientific community and their theories about global climate change. But that does not concern me when it comes to a freakishly warm weekend in January, there is always one of those. Often warmer than this. However, that doesn't change the fact that I do not hold out hope that there will be a lot of snow this month.

2002 Playlist
Rock Your Body - Justin Timberlake
Starry Eyed Surprise - Paul Oakenfold ft. Shifty ShellShock
Time After Time - Willie Nelson
8 Mile - Eminem
Spectral Mornings - Cornershop

This morning, before the boy had his first basketball game, we went to Shoe Carnival where I picked up a pair of sneaks from the clearance rack. He says they are awesome.

Pull my shirt on, walk out the door.

Left ankle felt twisted yesterday, and my right foot is sore. Not the clown shoes, I do not believe. I think it's the crappy "pay-less" shoes I wear, the ones with soft insoles that I bought when I was looking for comfortable dress shoes for those not-so-dressy occasions. I'd rather go barefoot.

Vampire Weekend (2008)
Mansard Roof (165 bpm)
A-Punk (175 bpm)
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
M79
Campus (163 bpm)
Bryn
One (Blake's Got a New Face)
I Stand Corrected (160 bpm)
Walcott (160 bpm)
The Kids Don't Stand a Chance

I told myself to hate this band. Can't do it. Awesome beats per minute. And it ends just as I am reaching my driveway. Well, if I leave out Oxford Comma. I mean ... who cares about Oxford Comma?

Temperature: 65°
Distance: 3.25 miles
Duration: 32 minutes

Run like the chickenshit you are.

This is my VELOCITY face.

So it continues, my foot troubles me very little now -- except when sleeping.

Thursday I did not run, choosing rather to drink beer, eat pizza and bowl. These are also good things for marathon training, so shut up. This weekend includes the final three performances of THE VELOCITY OF AUTUMN at the Beck Center. I will be sad to see it go, though I expect the script will have a future. My mother-in-law is coming into town to see it tomorrow night!

Distance: 4 miles

Route: Neighborhood loop

Day by day, my left foot appears to be healing ... from whatever was wrong with it. However, this morning, there is tenderness in the pad of my right foot. So it goes.

Temperature: 41º

Climate: cool & bright

Weight: 166.5 lbs.

Breakfast: apple pancakes w/yogurt, applesauce & syrup 

Hydration? yes

Stretches? yes, a little.

160-164 BPM Playlist

Soul Bossanova - Skeewiff

Play For Today - The Cure

Dreaming - Blondie

Theme from Doctor Detroit [Dance Mix] - Devo

Campus - Vampire Weekend

Gone Daddy Gone - Violent Femmes

La Femme d'Argent - AIR

The new BLOGGER interface is fucking ridiculous. I have to go into HTML mode and just delete shit in the desperate attempt to make my blog entries not look like they were created by a moron. The spacing is irregular, the published version is never the font I chose. This is so stupid and a waste of my time.

WordPress is looking very attractive to me right now.

Superman or Green Lantern ain't got nothing on me.

Week 13 Total: 32
Training to Date: 353 miles

My left foot continues to pain. Scott M. is of the opinion that it's the shoes. I would be inclined to agree with him. However, I decided to take Thursday off -- very tired, many other items on the agenda. Friday morning the foot felt good ... until I put on the chukka boots for the first time in several days. Walking to work, this band of pain began again earnest.

See the record player? What the heck is a record player?
Distance: 21 miles
Duration: 3 hours, 5 minutes
Route: To Rock Hall and Back

2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony ... TONIGHT! Wanted to check it out.

Band-aids: check - Do not use Walgreen's Waterproof Bandages again!
Lip balm: check
Bottle: check
Body glide: check

Something's happenin' here ...
Questioned whether or not to take a jacket. 50º? No. 49º? Damn. I regretted it heading through MLK, because I was warm and thought it would get warmer. On the Shoreway, however, I was grateful for it. Especially after making a pit-stop at East 72nd Street (last cleaned Tuesday, keep up the good work!) allowing my sweat to cool.

Temperature: 49º - 55º
Climate: cool & overcast. nice.
Weight: 163 lbs.
Pre-Snack: banana
Road-Snack: GU 2x (Mandarin Orange & Vanilla Bean)
Hydration? yes
Stretches? yes

A few weeks back I mentioned how nice it was to get off the high-bpm playlists and just have a relaxing run. Well, I've had too many of those. The fact is, and I don't believe I have reported this yet, but I want to BREAK FOUR HOURS.

Not sure I can do that. Last time was 4:15 and change. And I was hurting. But I had not trained with more than one twenty under my belt, I've just done two, and will complete a third. I think. But the last five miles were difficult. However ... I'd only have to do five more! Could I, in my present state, run 5.2 miles in fifty-five minutes?

Mmmmmmmaybe. Of course, my time today was thrown by the conversation I had with the guy in the FOX 8 truck by the Rock Hall.

Podrunner ft. Rock Hall Inductees:
Jimmy James - Beastie Boys
Pound for Pound (168 bpm)
Breaking The Girl - Red Hot Chili Peppers (179 bpm)
Cartographer (160 bpm)
Sabotage - Beastie Boys (168 bpm)
Electric Beach (164 bpm)

Cooldown:
Give It Away - Red Hot Chili Peppers

I should mention that my feet are falling apart. I mean, they just hurt. And - surprise! A blood blister. Dammit! I had no idea that was going on, my socks felt fine. So here we are, we have entered the attrition phase of training. Building stamina, strength and timing before the wheels come off this 43 year-old body.

FOX 8 guy said this is Springsteen's stogie.
I think he was messing with me.

When everything that dies shall rise.

Staying at the in-laws, I woke in the middle of the night, my left instep in pain. Perhaps it was the way the covers were too tight, I had given myself some kind of strain ... but that part of my foot has been aching the past several days. Now I can barely walk.

So. Why? The shoes are relatively new, but not that new. I have been running in them for over a month. I was wearing a new pair of flip-flops last night ... for less than an hour. Then there are the chukka boots I wear for Velocity. I was encouraged to wear them around, to make them appear less new. So I wear them all the time. But they provide little support.

I stretch, I wonder, I worry. Karl proposed that running a 20 so early in training I am going to blow out my knees. But this is really a game of "surprise," isn't it? This morning I convinced myself it would be all right to stick to my plan to run three or four today, and thirteen tomorrow.

Distance: 13 miles 14.25 miles
Route: Hocking River Half Marathon

... then again, when presented with a day like this, with no responsibilities, someone else to look after your children (teaching them each how to ride a dirtbike, no less) your wife has sequestered herself to write, the sun is up, the clouds are gone, the weather is pleasant, and you have already put in a solid morning doing nothing but writing, how on earth can one possibly justify not running for two hours?

By the way, I got the map wrong, and ran an additional mile and a quarter by accident. What a shame.

Temperature: 61º
Climate: effucking gloriourifous
Snack: two bananas
Hydration? all along the route!
Stretches? oops. kinda.

Do You Believe In Shame Genius Playlist
Praying For Time - George Michael
Promises, Promises - Naked Eyes
If You Were Here - The Thompson Twins
When Love Breaks Down - Prefab Sprout
Face To Face - Siouxsie & the Banshees
Lay Your Hands On Me - The Thompson Twins
Shoot The Dog - George Michael
Over You - Roxy Music
Three Imaginary Boys (170 bpm) - The Cure
Edge of America - Duran Duran
The Strangest Thing - George Michael
Loving The Alien - David Bowie
Dazzle - Siouxsie & the Banshees
Come Undone (Come Undub) (177 bpm) - Duran Duran
The Swing - INXS
The Perfect Girl - The Cure
Now We're Getting Somewhere (157 bpm) - Crowded House
Dominion/Mother Russia - The Sisters of Mercy
Kiss Them For Me - Siouxsie & the Banshee
Slow Emotion Replay - The The
Bad Boys - Wham!
Fortress Around Your Heart - Sting
Hard Day - George Michael
It Doesn't Really Matter - George Michael
Something To Save - George Michael
Head Over Heels - Tears For Fears
Love Is Stronger Than Death - The The
Message To My Girl - Split Enz
Too Late Marlene - Duran Duran
Late Bar - Duran Duran

I really like George Michael.