time

Facing Up To It

August 30, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz 1 Comment

“Endurance? You’ve only got to get out there and do it. Face up to it: Man was meant to run.” –Percy Cerutty. I am swimming upstream. Come the end of Summer, cool air, touch of Fall, the beginning of the end of things in this cycle, time to take stock, stock up, buy school supplies, bring on the next chapter. With age, my age, comes nostalgia and excitement sometimes in equal doses. Once I was sailing on Lake Superior when the mast broke a long way from shore. We drifted for hours, panicked a little, got it back together, caught a break with a shift in the wind and finally got back to shore the help of neighbor who had seen us drifting away. It had been Summer, lazy, easy and sweet when we set out and Fall, chill, gray and foreboding, the few hours later when we returned to shore. Yeah, we were meant to run, we are also meant to ‘get out there and do it” by whatever means available, every single day, age and weight and troubles notwithstanding, on account of the river waits for no salmon and time waits for no man.

Hurrying Near

August 23, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz 1 Comment

Went to the track this morning. Did some quarter mile like repeat stuff. Felt old, tired, stiff, wore out and, finally, pretty good. Remembered that I was never a track star or even “real good”. I just showed up. A few weeks ago someone asked me how fast my quarters were that morning. I fudged an answer. It felt like a loaded question, full of challenge, too much like the old days of “let’s see who’s got what” bullshit. He is nearly 50 and puts in big miles and hard track workouts. I haven’t seen fifty in quite a while. And big miles/hard track workouts have become something that no longer mean what they used to mean. Simply put, time doesn’t stand still. Truth was, I hadn’t looked, I had been happy just to be there, to be able to do them at all. Me, the young fool, thought he was going to live forever, ride hard and die young. The old fool, me, knows better, is aware that “Time’s winged chariot” is “hurrying near” with each passing sunrise. I reckon a few very slow 400’s with Flash and Bigfoot and Merlin(they ran way faster) is a fine way to start the day and indeed, to keep on keepin’ on.

Tarmac Meditations-Evolving and Resolving Inside a Mystery

November 18, 2010 By longrun Leave a Comment

Another long night. Ran to my meeting . Left the house at 6 something. Didn’t look at the time when I arrived. Felt good although the onset of cold and wet weather makes my breathing complicated. It helps to take walk breaks to ease the back tension which eventually closes down my breathing. Age and injury are not for the faint of heart. Going to investigate a project possibility that entails training for and running a marathon, a fifty K (50K) trail run and a 50 mile trail run in aid of running a 100K (62.5 miles) on or around my 65th birthday next August. This is the beginning of a plan that seems doable if I remember that I have traveled great distances from where I was to where I am and that getting to the start line and eventually getting to the finish line are the important metrics. Time over distance is not. Distance over time and attention paid is what I am after. The medals, should there be any, will last longer than I will, but the deed, the doing of it, is all that matters to me. Take a step. Take another step. Breathe in and out. Look around. Repeat.