New Direction

This is another picture of me my jr. in HS, circa 1977. 29-years ago. I wish I had that hair again. I wish I had that body fat. I weighed 147-lbs then. I weighed 147-lbs when I got out of college in 1983. I'm down to 170-lbs right now. Most people consider me fairly lean. Not hardly.

Before I go any further, I'd like to point out the comment left by anonymous on my last posting. It's the most heart-felt, well-written piece of writing you'll find anywhere. She (possibly a he) should be syndicated. I'm glad I can elicit such responses. That's all I ask, all I promise I'll write from the heart, and I want you to respond in kind.

Well, the Corporate Challenge debacle is behind me. I showed up for the duathalon Sunday, new that I didn't "have it", so I just kind of jogged through it for the participation point. I did ride the bike fairly hard, for the workout.

I've been facing something for the last several months that I don't want to reliquish to. I may becoming arthritic. God, I hope not. I don't recover nearly as quickly as I used to. This week, the pain is in my knee. Before that, It was in my hips.

I didn't met my goal this year of winning a medal in the corporate Challenge. The funny thing is, if I would have competed in this week's races, three weeks ago, I think I would have won a medal. I came in 2nd in my age division in the Heritage Du and felt great. But, I didn't bounce back from that race. I took it easy for a week, but, in the next week's workouts, I just nevewr recovered that spring in my step. The funny thing is, a week from now, I'll probably be ready to kick some ass again. Such is Life.

My next, primary, long-term goal, is to post an impressive time in the KC Marthon next fall. I know that my body is not going to take the pounding of a lot of running miles. So, plan to hit the bike, hard, both road and mountain. In fact, my next key race is going to be the Xterra triathalon, July 16.

I've been running at least 5-days a week since August, 2000. Maybe I just need a little break from running. Let's go back to the hard-easy approach. You normally think of that on a day-to-day approach. Then, I brought up the fact that you need to put in one easy week for every month. Well, you can aplly that to an even bigger, macro period. It is probably a good idea to take a little Sabatical every few years. Maybe I've entered a period where I need that. One thing I've noticed about coming out of an easy period, you can usually punish your body in ways that you could never before imagine.

So, this is the plan for this summer, I plan to switch the focus to bike riding. At first, I'm going to do a high volume, low-intensity style of workouts. I'll probably do just two runs each week, the Monday 31st route of 5.6 miles, and the Wednesday morning runs to the Plaza, 9.5-miles. We are supposed to start those tomorrow. We'll see. My ultimate goal is to ride close to 200-miles a week. I'll count mountain bike miles as double, which is probably about right.

On Monday I ran the traditional Monday 31st route, a very hilly 5.6-miles during lunch. I ran it a pretty good pace, maybe 8:15 miles. Today, my knee was sore and I didn't do anything.

Below is a poem that is from a movie I watched last night. It was the last poem a man wrote before he died. there is a prise for whomever can tell me what movie it was from. It's one of my favorite movies. Hint: the movie was in black and white.

How calmly does the orange branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair.

Sometime while night obscures the tree
The zenith of its life will be
Gone past forever, and from thence
A second history will commence.

A chronicle no longer gold,
A bargaining with mist and mould,
And finally the broken stem
The plummeting to earth; and then

An intercourse not well designed
For beings of a golden kind
Whose native green must arch above
The earth’s obscene, corrupting love.

And still the ripe fruit and the branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair.

O Courage, could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell,
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me?