Running takes more than physical energy. It’s also a mental pursuit.

October 22, 2010

Apparently, I am writing a running journal for a guy who doesn’t run — not running every day and not training for races either. WTH? On one side, at least I write something everyday. On the other, in addition to my typing skills improving, I don’t have to buy $80 gloves with waffle treads and neutral posting for my fingers, or faux Olympic training jackets for my hands, to which my speedy fingers are attached. I type in my fingers’ aerobic zone; sometimes I do anaerobic interval-like sprints with the necessary repeats involved. Correcting errors is just like doing running intervals too fast — it’s a typist’s version of pulling a hammy or tweaking that Achilles).

Is there a point to this? Not likely.

I’m hungry. I didn’t run early so I’m not likely to run later. I will run tomorrow— and now, I’ll have lunch highlighted by two ibuprofen, a Diet Pepsi and a handful of unshelled organic salted peanuts (how do you salt a peanut with the shell on and then take the shell off and still have a salty peanut to eat?). Don’t ask, don’t know.

October 23, 2010

Whenever I stop running everyday, for whatever reason, I find it difficult to start up again. My bent is to make it into some grand scheme in need of complex strategies and tactics. My friend Bob told me something that made sense: Get your ass out and run! In the end, that’s the deal.

Ran today for an hour. Come tomorrow, I will get up and do it again (Jackson Browne reference?). I have the idea to think about base building, i.e. just running for the next two months and letting my body readjust to all the surgeries, both medical and age related. Getting older and slower means re-adjusting what you can do and how fast you can get to a certain point.

Come the new year, if the running has happened, when the running happens, I will pick an event to aim for, maybe Napa, maybe Austin, maybe New Zealand. Then, in celebration, I will eat ice cream and put an end to the darkness and chaos in my life that ice cream’s absence brings (to paraphrase Don Kardong).

Photo Credit

“Untitled” desbyrnephotos @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

Deciding to go for a run is one thing, but when it comes to doing it, so many things conspire to get in the way.

October 20, 2010

I ran 2 x 800 metres and a 1/4 mile at “speed” plus a couple of straightaways. No hamstring issues, no back spasms, no medals. A perfect workout on a mist-rising-into-the-full-moon-sky kind of morning. Like the mornings from way back when football practice or track practice was coming and the cheerleaders were gathered on the steps, doing their stuff. Never went out with a cheerleader though. In high school I don’t remember going out with anybody.

Years later, I went out with a professional figure skater who had been a cheerleader in high school for her older brother’s baseball team. He went on to pitch for the Cleveland Indians. As I remember it now, our relationship, if that’s what it was, lasted as long as his pitching stint in the “bigs”. You might say that it — his career — lasted long enough to have a cup of coffee and a shower. You might not.

October 21, 2010

Gonna run later. “Famous last words” as my father used to quietly say accompanied by a small “not again” shake of his head, much to my constant irritation — up to and including this morning. Of course, he wasn’t here but the words, oh my, those words.

It was a morning after not much sleep, a kitchen calamity involving both the automatic coffee machine and the fuzzy-headed coffee maker along with the added benefit of a shower of muesli from the not-properly-closed cereal bin, and a small clean up of the spilled coffee. (It’s not really possible to spill coffee when it’s being made in a closed container that requires only that the water in the tank; the coffee is ground and in the filter which is in the filter holder, and the cover is closed…except that it is…it has…something to do with not putting the carafe under the drip spout, which doesn’t drip until the carafe top compresses it and then, voila, there’s coffee on the counter top.)

After a “good vacuuming” of the kitchen at 4:22 a.m., it was time to run, said he (me, that is). Gonna run in a few minutes, gonna check my email. Not much there so I thought to get on top of the photo editing that needed doing, and so I did. Well, I did get to the editing after I straightened up the bookshelf behind the desk. Then I got a phone message in my email from the cell phone I left upstairs when I came down to my office to edit. It reported to me (no shaking head here except mine) that I had blown a 7:00 a.m. — a meeting which I was supposed to lead. Not running yet, as you can see.

I went to the meeting, made apologies, came back and finished the editing. It’s now later and there is still no running. Gonna lift WEIGHTS instead and run twice as long tomorrow. Except for the tomorrow part, it is a good plan. You can’t make up “missed” miles”; you can only run the miles you run which means instead of a rest day this weekend there will be consecutive running days. And so it goes…

Photo Credit

“Clock” 19mm@Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

Michael debates the meaning of status updates and the many reasons for not going for a run.

October 16, 2010

A guy once told me that all the guys he ever ran with (including the Road2Ruin Runners Club) ever talk about is money and women (he used another word). I said sometimes we talk about politics. He said, “See what I mean.” I said, “I’ve got nothing to say.” He said, “That’s okay.” And now we have Facebook. See what I mean. And so it goes…

October 17, 2010

I’ve been trying to figure out how to post status updates on Facebook without posting status updates on Facebook directly. Twitter is not my way. This whole thing is becoming existential. I saw the name Shlomo Avineri today in an article in the New York Times; he’s an Israeli political scientist. Read him 40 years ago in Poli Sci, when that stuff mattered to me (read: when I thought it would help me get girls). He said the revolution would happen when everybody was middle class. See what I mean…status updates, middle class revolution, the whole thing is confusing the hell out out of me. It must be time for me to run. That or close the computer, lie on the couch and make like a writer.

It is time to put away Facebook things. I’m editing the pictures from yesterday’s wonderful photo experience at Bridgeway House in Eugene, Oregon, a place that specializes in programs for children diagnosed with autism in its many forms. Thank you to the staff; to Patricia Wigney, the founder and director; and to the students who made it possible in every way.

October 18, 2010

Made the decision not to run today. Made the same one yesterday. It’s the same decision as deciding to run because a runner decides whether or not to run everyday. Same decision process. Different results. If you are confused here, I can’t help you. You go through the same check list and come to a different answer. A skater or a bike rider would have a different check list, if you see what I mean.

Today? My reason is a migraine and grumpiness. Not really a good enough reason, but reason enough. I need to change the context, I think. What about this: run everyday, except some days when you don’t. Is this a change? The whole thing is tiring me out.

October 20, 2010

Ran on the track behind South Eugene High this morning at 5:30am. My “guys”, the running buddies, a later edition of the Road2Ruin Runners Club, wanted to go steady state for a mile or more — injuries and fitness are determining a slow, slow build-up in volume of mileage and tempo (that is, my injuries/fitness and old age). Whining and a bad attitude are making for a decision for me to go slow, take it easy, not get hurt, and live to run another day.

Photo Credit

“Facebook” msn.com

Michael thinks about heading home after a marathon in Victoria, BC. And then he thinks some more. 

October 12, 2010

It’s 4:40am PST. I’m already tired. Not sleeping. Is it the chocolate I ate from a 5 lb. brick or is it the Diet Coke (don’t ask!) or the relentless conversation in my head with people who are not there? Whatever. It is unlikely I will miss my 7:00am ferry and equally unlikely that I will stay awake during the crossing. The orcas will miss me watching them from the rail of the boat as we go east and they head south. I wonder if they slept last night.

October 13, 2010

Planned on leaving Victoria yesterday. Might not leave today. “Why come here?” “For the waters.” “Ah, but we are in the desert…” “I was misinformed.” “Ah, mais oui.” In other words, shit happens.

October 14, 2010

“Got the urge for goin'” Joni Mitchell said that. But I didn’t leave today. The geese are forming up in “chevron flight, laughing and racing on before the snow. Joni M also said that. I heard it a long time ago. Still with me. Coming daybreak, I’m leaving. Goin’ home.

October 15, 2010

Left quietly. Before dawn. No geese that I could see/hear. Gonna keep moving south. Things to do at home. Wood to hew, water to haul. Friends to see. Winter coming on.

Photo Credit

“Victoria, British Columbia © Michael Lebowitz . The LongRun Picture Company. All Rights Reserved.

Michael heads from Oregon up to Canada for a marathon in Victoria — and still manages to get some writing before daylight done.

October 8, 2010

Going on a road trip now. Heading up country to photograph the Good Life Victoria Marathon in Victoria. Victoria, British Columbia that is. Sliding out town. Gonna see the sunrise in some other place, wander round under a different night sky.

October 9, 2010

Up country. In Victoria. My friend here have a sprawling kind of house with three floors. They have put me up on the top floor in a two room “suite” with a queen-sized futon and a chair in one room, and a desk a chair and a skylight in the other. They told me it was the “atelier” suite. Sweet! Spent a gray early morning spent listening to Bill Evans, Freddie Hubbard and Scott Lafaro while writing before daylight. Talked to a friend far away.

And so it begins, another day in words and pictures. And maybe a run/walk on the beach.

October 9, 2010 (Later)

Shot photos all morning. Finished up in the afternoon and fell asleep. Yankees were up 6 to 1 when I woke up on the couch. Mets? Wait’ll next year. Marathon in the morning for the Joe Henderson Marathon Team (JHMT) and 14,000 of their closest friends. Me? I’m there…best of luck to all of you.

Canadian running legend Jacqueline Gareau, winner of the 1980 Boston Marathon, with Joe Henderson.

October 10, 2010 (Early Morning)

Marathon Day. Hard rain and lightning to the south. All you Good Life Victoria Marathon 2011 runners out there, cast an eye toward whatever powers you believe in and ask that there be an easy Oregon-inspired rain and no wind come 6:30am otherwise it will be one very long and miserable day. Meanwhile, layer up, lace up and light out. The day is waiting on your effort, waiting on your dreams. Good luck. Time for my coffee and toast and, sh*t, where the hell is that plastic thing I use to cover the camera and lens on a rainy day. Damn.

October 10, 2010 (Later)

It didn’t rain much. The wind blew but not to distraction. The JHMT ran all the way, finished inside the time restrictions, set personal records (PR’s), found some inner fortitude and grace under pressure, as did many of the other faithful who gathered here to see what there was to see on the day. Congratulations.

October 11, 2010

“They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” [Isaiah 40.31] And so they did. A gazillion miles of inspiration and example — teachers and students, runners beyond numbering, all quietly legends in their own time — all seen on a sunny day at the finish line in Victoria BC.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is a difference. Well, okay then.

Photo Credit

“Canadian running legend Jaqueline Gareau, winner of the 1980 Boston Marathon, with Joe Henderson” © 2010 Michael Lebowitz