Sure feels nice.

Man, I was ravenous yesterday. Late breakfast, early lunch. Still, maintenance. It has been a challenging week, and it will only get more so. Personal disappointments, professional opportunities.

I'm going to take a basic run, just to keep moving. The weather is good, and the weekend might not afford its usual time. 

Distance: 2.5 miles

Duration: 24:47
Pace: 9:55

Route: Forest Hill Loop

Temperature: 61°
Climate: sunny & warm

Mood: very nice

I may need physical therapy on my right shoulder. While recuperating from my eye surgery, I had to sleep on my right side entirely for, I don't know. A couple weeks? As a result, my shoulder is always sore and it isn't getting better. Reaching up has become an issue, and that is not good. I have been doing upper body exercises in the hope of strengthening my arms, but that is always a challenge for me. 

1975 Playlist

I Got The ... - Labi Siffre

Low Rider - War

Rock Creek Park  - The Blackbyrds

Over My Head - Fleetwood Mac

Love Will Keep Us Togerther - Captain & Tenille

Jive Talkin' - Bee Bees

Love To Love You Baby - Donna Summer

 

First three songs were sampled by (in order) Eminem, Beastie Boys & De La Soul.

 
Stretches: yes
Abdominals: 90 sec.

Upper body: 5 rep.
Water: yes

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, Raisin Bran w/fresh banana, strawberry & oatmilk

Lunch: yesterdays burrito, banana

Coffee Break: latte w/oatmilk, 2 Tagalongs

Dinner: Ramen w/carrot

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 182 lbs. (-0-)

Goal: 180 lbs.

Seasons don't fear the reaper.

Look, if I can't run on a basic Saturday afternoon, I may as well hang it up. Let's run!

Distance: 3.1 miles
Duration: 30:05
Pace: 9:41
Route: Forest Hillovercast & damp Loop
Temperature: 54°
Climate: overcast & damp
Mood: okay
Weight: 175.5 lbs. (-1.5)

Weary run, underfed and overdressed. Here's how this needs to go: run either before or right after taking the boy to Saturday jazz. Don't wait, you'll just be hungry.

Intake

Breakfast: coffee (2x), Count Chocula w/milk

Lunch: ravioli, candy bar (wtf?)

Dinner: TBA

Monster Bash Playlist!

Bad Moon Rising - Creedence Clearwater Revival

The Killing Moon - Echo & the Bunnymen

Halloween - Siouxsie & the Banshees

Dead Souls - Nine Inch Nails

Don't Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult

Unmarked Helicopters - Soul Coughing

A Girl Like You - Edwyn Collins

Red Right Hand - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

I have heard Siouxie's Halloween more times in more places this season ... and I'd never heard it before this month!

Half Marathon Training Week Five

(Photo: Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer)

A week ago, Saturday, my daughter participated in the March For Our Lives in downtown Cleveland. The guy from cleveland.com caught this photo to the left, it's featured in an online slideshow.

Full-voiced, unafraid. I could not be more proud.

Distance: 6 miles
Duration: 59:29
Route: Lakeview Cemetery Loop
Temperature: 50°
Climate: cool, breezy & overcats
Pavement: dry
Mood: all right

My wife returned Thursday night. Parenting alone, getting out this past week has been impossible. But also, the hunger. Trying to eat at regular intervals, and in appropriate amounts. I've hit a consumption wall. Hungry and tired, and therefore unhappy and listless.

Of course, I am also going through post-show depression, so that's a thing. And the weather. And the wife out of town, and uuuhhhh ...

Stretches: yes

We were going to run four, but we ran six. Chris led me through the route he likes to take through the cemetery, which was pretty cool. The military plot (I did not know there is a military plot) is far down at the end of a cul-de-sac. We walked through the stones.

Also, got to show him the final resting place of Plain Dealer theater critic William F. McDermott.

Tomorrow we may run another six. I have catching up to do.

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 167 lbs. (-0.5)
Goal: 165 lbs.

Still. Fifteen runs in March. How did that happen?

Don't stop. Get it, get it.

Ducks on ice.

I'm not Irish.

2005 Playlist
Every Day Is Exactly The Same - Nine Inch Nails
Do You Want To - Franz Ferdinand
Like Eating Glass - Bloc Party
I Predict a Riot - Kaiser Chiefs
Keep Hope Alive (JDS Mix) - The Crystal Method
Sixteen Military Wives
Feel Good Inc. - Gorillaz ft. De La Soul

Not my favorite playlist. For some reason, it's not a particularly long one. Lot of repeats, year to year. Probably all the children's music I was listening to that year.

Distance: 3.55 miles
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 37°
Climate: bright & cool
Pavement: damp with islands of snow
Mood: better

Such a bright, shiny day, you wouldn't think it's in the mid-30s. Went out in my shorts, thought I'd do two -- Chris and I are running four tomorrow. But that sun ... headed into the park, instead. A bit winded, but I'm also hungry.

Hunger makes me depressed. I am sure that it does for everyone.

Stretches: yes

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 168 lbs. (-1.0)
Goal: 165 lbs.

Flood's Cove-Waldoboro 16 Mile Loop

Smiley face on abandoned schoolhouse.

Created a sixteen mile course, out Route 220 into Waldoboro, cut across Finntown Road, then back into Friendship on Route 97. Ideally the traffic will be light early on a Sunday morning and I will keep sharp.

It has been some time since I have felt this apprehensive, this afraid of a run. When I turn off Rt. 220 I will be stepping into the unknown, trusting I will find my way to the road back. I will have my phone, the route is mapped. And yet.

Distance: 16 miles
Duration: 2:17:07
Avg Pace: 8:34
Route: Flood's Cove-Waldoboro 16 Mile Loop

Rose at five, took my time in departing, in general silence. Ate, drank coffee and water, read, did some healthy stretches. Heading out felt a little desperate, in spite of stretching exercises I felt stiffer than I have so far this week, but then I have been running every day with only a driving day as a day off, and besides I only got six hours of fitful sleep.

Had an unhappy dream. An old friend, one whom I have not seen in a while, he was lamenting his failures. I walked them from my office to the bottom level of the parking garage to their car and he was regretful that he had not accomplished anything since that one hit single he'd had almost twenty years ago.

The run became easier as I went, and my mapping program was extremely helpful. The first five miles things were going extremely well -- only eight cars passed that entire length -- until I turned off 220 onto Finntown Road where I was set upon by horseflies for four entire miles.

Exactly like this.

It was maddening, I was being buzzed and bitten constantly, swatting and cursing. It was like Adrien Brody in that scene from King Kong. If there is anything positive to be gleaned from the experience it is that my pace increased considerably.

The map kept me from making at least one wrong turn, and reassured me the entire journey that I was headed in the right direction.

Turning onto Rt. 97 was a considerable relief, as it appeared I was leaving the swarm behind. Later, my father (who had suggested the route) remembered to me that Finntown Road was formerly site of the county garbage dump, which may have been helpful information.

I began counting down from eleven miles (five miles? that's easy!) but the road back into Friendship included many more inclines and valleys. I first felt hungry and exhausted at mile twelve (three miles! come on, you run that every day!) but just kept chugging along, keeping a steady eight-and-a-half minute pace the entire time.

Amazingly, the tracking program said I completed sixteen perfect miles right at the point at which I had started. I have since shaved and showered, and written this blog post. The rest of the day is a glorious bonus.

Week Seven Total: 40 miles
Training To Date: 210 miles

One other thing. The sound of a rooster crowing is not much different than the sound of a rooster being murdered.

Temperature: 63° - 68°
Climate: coolish
Intake: granola, banana, yogurt & dried cranberries
Hydration: yes
Water Stop: water bottle
Stretches: yes, actually.

I'm staring at the asphalt.

Don't know what happened. I was driving home with the windows down and I felt fine. The drive home, that relatively speaking brief drive home can make me bleary-eyed, it's just boring. But I felt fine, for the most part ... but by the time I got to the grocery store, I was tired.

The grocery store can be a major soul-sucking experience, I don't care which store it is. Sometime it hits me in produce, Good God, it's the first section of the store and I have been here for half my life already. But that wasn't the case today, I was in and out of there real fast with a lot of great fruits and vegetables.

But then I went into the aisles ... I didn't think we needed much but whatever I wanted, I couldn't find it. That's when I aged a year. But the time I emerged into the hideously bright parking lot, I was spent. I came home, dinner was almost ready, everyone was active and on top of things, I am was like Zombie Dad. It was pathetic.

The boy needed to get to baseball, and the wife generously offered to take the girl to practice soccer in an adjacent field, so that I could do whatever I liked -- with an emphasis on taking a run. Maybe a short one. Could do me good.

Actually, just writing this has already done me good.

I think I was hungry.

Temperature: 82°
Climate: warm
Distance: 3.25 miles

Freshly-mow lawns, bright, early-evening sunshine, and what do you know -- other runners. The kind of people who regularly use the gym. That's nice. Get off my sidewalk, I was out here when it was nineteen degrees, who do you think you are?

Stopped by the schoolyard where the boy was practicing and the ladies were kicking the ball around with boys who were absolutely incapable of not touching the ball with their hands.

Running feels so good. The running feels good. I feel good. This day is nearing its end. There is so much to accomplish in each and every one. And these are good things to notice.

You Make Me Feel Genius Playlist
The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service
You May Be Right - Billy Joel
Die Another Day - Madonna
Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) - Mika
Next Girl (168 bpm) - The Black Keys
Free - Graffiti6
Taken - One Direction