Writing is hard. Personally, I'd rather read.
So, I will be offering Throwback Thursdays as needed. It's Thursday in Europe.
2015, still trying to convince myself there was still a chance I could run.
And 'still' it was.
“Old age is very demanding somehow,” author Kay Boyle once wrote a much younger friend. “One knows what one wants to do, and then that unpleasant enemy who has made its way into one’s flesh and bones intervenes between one’s wish and one’s ability to make that wish come true.”
It was William Faulkner who said, “Between grief and nothing I will take grief.”
Between slow and nothing I will take slow.
Feel like a real runner. WEDNESDAY before The Big Race, decided to do ten times around the yard, striding, stretch the old muscles out just a skoosh. Can’t do it any later in the week as my entire body, every muscle but one, just stiffens up.
Usually then as a result, I can hardly walk on Friday which forces me to rest the day before competition. Pretty savvy, huh? I just look stupid. And I have a hot tub set on one-oh-two.
So, of course, I tweaked my right calf. Just like a real runner.
I am completely against injecting performance enhancing drugs. But, let’s be honest, every once in a while, a big ass pain pill might be good. A lozenge maybe. A patch.
THURSDAY. Seventy minutes of exercise. Took it easy, on a spinbike trying to keep pace with the peloton in the Vuelta.
Started wearing my race t-shirt. Oregon Project. Blackiest black with a shiny silver skull flanked by shiny silver angel’s wings. Excuse me, kids, but how fucking cool is that? Plus black is my color, my favorite color. Black is slimming. Remember, I’m what the stylists call ‘a winter.’
FRIDAY. The taper continues; sixty minutes on spinbike. Seems like we probably had pizza. Usually do. Thin crust. Our normal pre-race meal. There is no race day meal. Maybe vitamins. I’m too old to move and digest at the same time.
SATURDAY. Somebody jumps out of bed at 5:55 a.m., not entirely happy about it.
This is my home club’s race. I know the race directors. They still won’t tell me about the shortcut.
I actually couldn’t find the event last year. First time I’d gotten lost in forty-two years of racing.
Found the race this year. Got there in plenty of time. Got my number. Watched a couple of members of the Ashley Madison Track Club in pink lycra and leopard skins. Some glitter. What I found surprising was the pink belt with four water bottles. It’s a five kilometer distance. Puzzles me.
Still trying to break my 10K personal record. Over this distance, five kilometers. Half as far. No fair. Still can’t do it. But I think it was the great philosopher Frank Sinatra who said, “That’s life.”
Keeping In Shape – Everybody’s Doing it.
Came upon an article from U.S. News & Report (8/13/84) Keeping In Shape – Everybody’s Doing it. Starts off with a quote from a Dr. Bortz, Stanford Medical School.
Next column begins with.. “Every day of the year, Oregon executive Jack Welch is out running. Not to test his athletic prowess. Not to best anyone else in a race. Just to look good and feel good.
“Running is part of my life – just like brushing my teeth or combing my hair,” says Welch, 37, of Portland. “I just go out and pitter-patter 5 miles a day.”
Followed by a couple pages of magazine gibberish about the exercise boom, men even doing jazzercize and the many dangers of the body-toning trend and ends with this paragraph:
“But all this has not stopped exercise from becoming a habit for more and more Americans. The day may come when Jack Welch, the Oregon jogger, and his generation can no longer run. Then they will walk. Says Welch: ‘We’re going to be too old and too beat-up from rock climbing, marathon running and racquetball, we are still going to want to be outside and look skinny.”
Missed the start. Second time in forty-three years of racing. Again, directions were sparse. And I have started to have trouble finding places I have never been without a map. BUT WE WERE ALREADY THERE?!
So, we waited until everyone had left and then we set out. Mrs. Welch’s record remains pristine. She has never finished last.
I have finally reached the stage of my running career where the results remain the same whether I train or not. That’s how slow I have become. Just to look good and feel good.
Specialty Omelettes
The Bokeelia Shrimp……………… $10.99
Half dozen jumbo shrimp, fresh avocado,
onions, jack and cheddar cheese combined
with fresh eggs and crowned with fresh
diced tomatoes.
Salmon Omelette………………….$10.99
Fresh sauteed Atlantic salmon, caramelized
onions, seasoned spinach, folded into fresh
egg omelette garnished with diced tomatoes.
Oyster Frittata……………………. $12.99
Shrimp Frittata…………………… $11.99
Fresh Oysters, or Shrimp sauteed with
onions, spinach and eggs, sprinkled with
bacon crumbles, feta and parmesan cheese.
Garnished with fresh diced tomatoes.
It’s become a tradition. Take my wife out to a nice breakfast afterwards. After all, she got up before six on a weekend. Florida Cracker Kitchen (cash only) serves an impudent salmon omelet with egregious home fries and spicy raisin toast. Bought her a jar of local honey. Supposed to help with allergies.
But that’s not the best part. I donated two (2) autographed copies of the award-winning, critically-acclaimed When Running Was Young And So Were We for the post-race prize raffle. Shook the hand of one winner who asked, “Wow! You know Don Kardong?”
Know him? Ask me about the time I got an invite to Dingy’s condo on Mt. Spokane and ate Ric Rojas’ steak.
Sponsors are listed on the back of the race t-shirt. Right there between Imperial Cleaners and Luigi’s Pizza Of Brooksville is… Dr. Jack Welch.
That’s not even the best part.
Sunday morning. I am watching the IAAF Track & Field World Championships. Women’s Marathon. And it was a great, unpaced duel to the finish. A couple of British guys do the announcing and I suggest a good drinking game might be, take a gulp every time you hear the word “useful.” Suggest this to my wife who says it is much too early.
And sits there by my side and watches the entire damn race with me. Three consecutive hours in a row, contiguous even. First time that’s ever happened.
That was the best part.
Am still moving. Slowly.
PdSF