I ran twice this week. That's a breakthrough, by the way. Up to this point in my new, life-changing practice of running, I've only run once a week, so when I got home from work before dark on Friday, it was a novel experience to change clothes and go for a slow jog to the pond off East Park St. in the warm early evening.
It took awhile to warm up the muscles and joints, regardless of the fair weather. My mantra is: Take it slow. And so I did, taking an eternity just to get to the pond, about a mile away, but then it got a little more fun on the soft footing of the trail, circling the half-frozen pond on a mixture of fine gravel, snow, ice, slush, mud, a nice boardwalk, you name it. So I took my time and got back in about 40 minutes, less mileage than usual but that's okay, since we're breaking new ground here.
I felt so good, I suggested going out for pizza instead of ordering in. We tried out a new restaurant, Carsonie's, down south on Westerville Road, and it was another new experience. According to my amateur ethnographic observations, it's an old Westerville hangout, full of DeSales graduates from the latter half of the 20th century, a too-loud sound system playing top-40 hits from that era, and an promising menu of pizza, beer, and calzones.
We ordered a medium veggie pizza and an appetizer, waited half an hour, nothing. Then they brought a pizza with the wrong toppings, promised another one with what we ordered, but forgot the appetizer. Long story short, we eventually got the pizza we asked for (in a box), a couple of Deviant Dave's IPAs, and an order of meatball sliders, all for free, plus a gift certificate to say they want us to come back.The Deviant Dave's was pretty good, the sliders not bad, and the apologies from multiple waitpersons were effusive.
Saturday morning, Gven Golly and I walked over to Church of the Master for a lecture by Otterbein professor Geoffrey Barstow on Buddhist meditation. Barstow has studied Tibetan Buddhist texts and practices for several years in Nepal and brings first-hand experience to the Western, Christian academic setting. His talk gave the local community, right there in the Fellowship Hall of the Methodist church, an even-handed and non-judgmental description of Tibetan Buddhist training that cut through its exoticism and mystery. Of course, you can only go so far in an hour and a half, but I was glad we went.
I spent the afternoon washing the truck, cleaning out the garage, and fixing the back gate. We had (free) leftover pizza and fresh guacamole for supper, built a nice fire in the stove, and talked to my Dad on the phone.
Sunday morning seminar with the regulars at Java Central was exceptionally lively, and it's a good thing because the annual Children's Sabbath at Church of the Master was an ordeal of saccharine sweetness. I escaped to go home and do laundry, sweep the den, and bake bread. It was nice enough outside to follow through on the nice, clean garage by cleaning out the carport and reorganizing some lumber in the woodshed. Not that any real work will get done, but it feels good to have stuff in order.
With the sun sinking near the horizon and bread loaves rising, it was now or never, so I put on my running clothes and retraced my muddy steps to the pond.
It didn't go smoothly. My knees balked at the effort. A big black dog charged down a driveway on East Park St. to warn me away from his territory, but he stopped at the curb, I only flinched for a second, and I lived to tell the tale. I repeated my mantra and focused extra attention on lifting the knees, which seems to increase the bounce from a short, toe-first stride, slow as it is. The thing is, speed does not matter. I'm just out there learning how to run again. Ask me in seven years if I'm really a runner.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Monday, February 17, 2014
Running Journal 8
Conditions were not ideal, and I almost didn't go, but now that I'm in the endorphin zone, I am here to testify, brothers and sisters, that even if the temperature is in the twenties, there's a bit of a wind, and that Bartleby the Scrivener inside is saying, "I would prefer not to," go outside and do it anyway. Run, walk the dog, ski, snowshoe, bicycle, build a snowman, whatever it is, (with apologies to Nike) just do it.
It had been an okay day so far, a medium red-eye and a bagel at Java Central, a little conversation with the regulars, mostly about books because they seem to think I 'm all about books, and it was Mike's birthday. Another atypical Sunday at Church of the Master was focused on Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, paramilitary displays of flags, marching, images of war, "Onward Christian Soldiers" and the whole nine yards of God and Country and Leadership. There was also a perfectly lovely piano solo by one of the Girl Scouts.
So I stopped at Java Central on my way home and handed Andy, the barista par excellence, the insert from the church bulletin about an upcoming series of lectures about "Buddhism in a Multi-Faith World" by Dr. Geoff Barstow, Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Otterbein University, because I knew from a previous conversation that Andy was interested in Buddhism. Then I went home, ate lunch, read the paper, checked Facebook, and watched the Michigan State game. Ouch, the Spartans lost one at home to Nebraska.
It was not a busy day. Gven and I discussed which week in August would interfere least with our rec center teaching schedules, and I emailed the caretakers at Thayer Lake to book a cabin. I did manage to get outside for a while, did some Basic Movement in the shelter of the woodshed, which brought me to life a little, and carried some firewood inside. That little bit of warmup probably got me going.
Running was improvisational. I didn't want to go east on Park St. to the nature preserve, because then I would come back against the wind. Then I departed from my usual route up the bike path, because the asphalt was icy, and headed west on Home St. past the Otterbein track, which was locked tightly, and meandered north and west past the baseball and softball fields to the cross-country course down the hill toward the Community Center, made the turn at County Line Rd., and came back a different way than I went out.
I had forgotten to put the knee brace on and didn't miss it. I was surprised how good it felt in my legs to take short, high strides and softly strike the ground with the toes, but I had to resist the urge to go faster. It's a little like a Fartlek workout, but without the sprint between the slowdowns, just nice and steady, with the focus on form, not speed.
I got home in about an hour, so I'm guessing it was five miles at a 12-minute mile pace. That's a mile more than last week and no pain in the knees, so I'll take it. The cool-down was great, lying on my back on the bamboo mat upstairs, stretching and generating lots of ideas about things to do on our vacation in Michigan.
It had been an okay day so far, a medium red-eye and a bagel at Java Central, a little conversation with the regulars, mostly about books because they seem to think I 'm all about books, and it was Mike's birthday. Another atypical Sunday at Church of the Master was focused on Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, paramilitary displays of flags, marching, images of war, "Onward Christian Soldiers" and the whole nine yards of God and Country and Leadership. There was also a perfectly lovely piano solo by one of the Girl Scouts.
So I stopped at Java Central on my way home and handed Andy, the barista par excellence, the insert from the church bulletin about an upcoming series of lectures about "Buddhism in a Multi-Faith World" by Dr. Geoff Barstow, Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Otterbein University, because I knew from a previous conversation that Andy was interested in Buddhism. Then I went home, ate lunch, read the paper, checked Facebook, and watched the Michigan State game. Ouch, the Spartans lost one at home to Nebraska.
It was not a busy day. Gven and I discussed which week in August would interfere least with our rec center teaching schedules, and I emailed the caretakers at Thayer Lake to book a cabin. I did manage to get outside for a while, did some Basic Movement in the shelter of the woodshed, which brought me to life a little, and carried some firewood inside. That little bit of warmup probably got me going.
Running was improvisational. I didn't want to go east on Park St. to the nature preserve, because then I would come back against the wind. Then I departed from my usual route up the bike path, because the asphalt was icy, and headed west on Home St. past the Otterbein track, which was locked tightly, and meandered north and west past the baseball and softball fields to the cross-country course down the hill toward the Community Center, made the turn at County Line Rd., and came back a different way than I went out.
I had forgotten to put the knee brace on and didn't miss it. I was surprised how good it felt in my legs to take short, high strides and softly strike the ground with the toes, but I had to resist the urge to go faster. It's a little like a Fartlek workout, but without the sprint between the slowdowns, just nice and steady, with the focus on form, not speed.
I got home in about an hour, so I'm guessing it was five miles at a 12-minute mile pace. That's a mile more than last week and no pain in the knees, so I'll take it. The cool-down was great, lying on my back on the bamboo mat upstairs, stretching and generating lots of ideas about things to do on our vacation in Michigan.
Sunday, February 09, 2014
Running Journal 7
So I missed a week, and I wasn't sure whether I could sustain the bit of momentum gained from the first six weeks of running once a week, for what that's worth. And apparently it wasn't that big a deal, because to my relief all the moving parts seem to still be working.
Or maybe it was just a superb job of preparation, warm-up, and execution. For future reference, I suggest the following:
1. The day before, ride your bike from the car repair shop to the bank, to the barber shop, and home. Act nonchalant, like you do this all the time in February, even though you're taking your life in your hands with Saturday morning drivers crowding the right lane up and down route 3 in Methodistville. Which means you are a badass on wheels, yo!
2. Do it again, but in reverse, this time against the wind with the temperature dropping at the end of the day, to go pick up the car at the shop. Above all, act like it's nothing. Your old-dude super-coolness will take away some of the sting of the 900 shekels you just paid to have your brakes fixed.
3. Observe your highly disciplined training table regimen: have a drink, build a fire in the woodstove, eat a nice chicken dinner, and watch a movie with the wife (Jim Broadbent is masterful in Mike Leigh's "Another Year").
4. Next morning, drink three cups of strong coffee, making sure you are never far from a restroom as you make your way to Java Central to church and home through the snow.
5. Find time, preferably in the middle of the afternoon while the sun makes an appearance, to shovel the fresh, weightless snow, demonstrating once again how to be both macho and righteously Midwestern.
6. Pausing only long enough to put the bread in the oven, stride out the gate and across the park to the snow-covered bike trail. Please note: by "stride" I mean take a lot of little tiny steps with no regard whatsoever for speed. Going faster is NOT the goal. On the contrary, move slowly up the trail, across College Ave., Broadway, and County Line Road to Maxtown concentrating on knee-lift and toe-strike, resisting the urge to get there and back sooner rather than later.
7. Ice the knee in question while lying on your back, stretching neck, shoulders, back, hips, ankles, and everything in between. Hydrate with Columbus IPA (blue corn chips with sour cream-horseradish dip optional).
Or maybe it was just a superb job of preparation, warm-up, and execution. For future reference, I suggest the following:
1. The day before, ride your bike from the car repair shop to the bank, to the barber shop, and home. Act nonchalant, like you do this all the time in February, even though you're taking your life in your hands with Saturday morning drivers crowding the right lane up and down route 3 in Methodistville. Which means you are a badass on wheels, yo!
2. Do it again, but in reverse, this time against the wind with the temperature dropping at the end of the day, to go pick up the car at the shop. Above all, act like it's nothing. Your old-dude super-coolness will take away some of the sting of the 900 shekels you just paid to have your brakes fixed.
3. Observe your highly disciplined training table regimen: have a drink, build a fire in the woodstove, eat a nice chicken dinner, and watch a movie with the wife (Jim Broadbent is masterful in Mike Leigh's "Another Year").
4. Next morning, drink three cups of strong coffee, making sure you are never far from a restroom as you make your way to Java Central to church and home through the snow.
5. Find time, preferably in the middle of the afternoon while the sun makes an appearance, to shovel the fresh, weightless snow, demonstrating once again how to be both macho and righteously Midwestern.
6. Pausing only long enough to put the bread in the oven, stride out the gate and across the park to the snow-covered bike trail. Please note: by "stride" I mean take a lot of little tiny steps with no regard whatsoever for speed. Going faster is NOT the goal. On the contrary, move slowly up the trail, across College Ave., Broadway, and County Line Road to Maxtown concentrating on knee-lift and toe-strike, resisting the urge to get there and back sooner rather than later.
7. Ice the knee in question while lying on your back, stretching neck, shoulders, back, hips, ankles, and everything in between. Hydrate with Columbus IPA (blue corn chips with sour cream-horseradish dip optional).
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