Archives for August 2011

Michael Lebowitz shares his thoughts about running, endurance and life.

December 13, 2010
Ran today. Slow track work-out. Thought about endurance as a quality: hard work, ongoing effort, success in the face of failure. The fact of it is that endurance is both a lesson and an imperative. It teaches a person to overcome obstacles, physical tiredness, mental exhaustion, the foolishness of the impulse to participate, the repetition of pain. It’s imperative because the only failure (if it’s failure at all) is quitting before the tank is empty.

December 13, 2010 (Later)
Field of dreams in winter implies the boys of summer…book titles and movie titles as sentences. Post-modern? Lazy? Or what? Get to work, Writer Boy. These musings are, well, “useless and pointless knowledge” as Bob Dylan would say. Hell, he did say it.

December 14, 2010
Me? Got my own section Tarmac Meditations section here on Life As A Human. Go figure. Pretty neat and totally unexpected. If the snow is deep and there is no reason to do anything else, waste some time and check this out. Or not. 🙂

December 14, 2010 (Later)
Walked up the 19th Street hill, which is part of the marathon course. In the not so distant past, I used to flatten this sucker. Ahhh. Young is good. Age is not for the humorless. Circled the south border of the University. Had coffee and conversation. Some days it’s just like that. And that is okay with this old wayfaring stranger on the road 2 ruin.

Photo Credit

“Trees in Fog” andyconniecox @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

When the world is rainy and dark, a runner still needs to run. And he does.

December 9, 2010
Ran. 4×400. Cool Down. Coffee. Meeting. Doc. Writing. Facebook is my to-do list and summary. Techno poetry of a kind? Or perhaps the modern Tower of Babel. Babble is where you find it, I suppose.

John Lennon died 30 years ago yesterday.

There’s fog in the valley.

December 12, 2010
Ran Saturday in the dark and rain. Go figure. Ran Sunday in the dark. No rain. Rain. No rain. Oregon in December. Running slowly is good preparation for running faster when other things line up, like weight loss, increased fitness, reversal of the aging process. You know, like that.

Photo Credit

“Fog in the Valley” ©Michael Lebowit. All Rights Reserved.

A runner’s journal details the daily ups and downs of keeping the faith with your feet.

December 7, 2010.
Ran.

December 8, 2010.

Ran the track yesterday. Will run something else today. Perhaps I have become a running fool. Maybe just a fool for running and other stuff. Maybe I am just fooling myself. Maybe fools rush in, and maybe a fool and his money are soon parted…that is certainly true. Enough already. Lace ’em up, mofo, and git after it. No fool like an old fool is what I say.

December 8, 2010 (Later)
I ran something else today. A little further (over the little Amazon Bridge footbridge) followed by lamp post/telephone pole intervals, cool down and a cuppajoe. Got some work done. Had a good meeting. Took a nap. Gonna give diet soda pop a good leaving-alone. Water, do your thing.

December 9, 2010
Michael is running again today. Now. Run Michael, run. Slowly. Daily. Do. Not. Eat. Like. A. Pig. Ernst van Aaken, a German sports doctor and athletic trainer, said that. He knew something about running and eating and the passage of time. If he had known about diet soda pop, he would have added an additional prohibitive clause. He did not, however, often speak in the third person when speaking of himself.

Photo Credit

“Eugene, Oregon track” Photographer Unknown

In his journal, Michael Lebowitz shares some of the thoughts and emotions that track through a runner’s life.

December 4, 2010
Ran steady state. Felt good. Stopped in time. Read the following, “She took refuge in her composure.” It’s a character description of royalty, but I can’t remember where it’s from. The idea works for me sometimes. Sometimes rage wins. Must be a personal flaw of the common folk, and I am certainly that. Common.

December 5, 2010
I think that Sunday is a day of rest… except for the picture taking, processing, fantasy football, wood chopping and watching New York Giants football.

December 6, 2010
I am going running now. Later than I wanted to. It is still raining. Will be until June. I am wondering if it counts as a run or is it penance of some obscure religious sort. Or what? This is what I’m saying: run five days in a row, Monday to Friday, then run on Saturday which could be six days in a row or only five, with a long-run on Saturday. See what I’m saying? Ummm, no not really….

Photo Credit

“White Berry” © Chris Holt Photos. All rights Reserved.

An early morning run with Van Morrison.

December 2, 2010
Ran in the rain. Again. It’s Oregon. Ran quarters with R. R. and had a good day. Finished 4 x 4 with gas in the tank. I love track work for the effort, the control, the darkness before daylight and the sense of time standing still…the old, slow guy going roundy-round feels the same inside, when he’s doing it, as he did when he was young and fast and had no idea of what was waiting down the road.

December 4, 2010
Van Morrison’s “Brand New Day” was playing on my ‘Pod this morning when I escaped from a bad dream and got up. C’mon day, do your stuff. “Brand New Day” was followed “Tupelo Honey”.

Van can bring a bad dream to its knees. Makes a guy fall in love with love. Gonna be a brand new day. Indeed.

So I ran hills. Ran too hard to start. Lungs bursting fire. Back locked up. Ran one, walked one. Recovered.

B. and R. ran, looking light on their feet. We finished together. Good run before daylight. Can’t ask for more that that.

Photo Credit

“Morning Sunlight” johnnyfixedgear @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.