Fear of Commitment

I have done it. I am committed. I ran 10 miles today and promptly registered for the 2010 Riverbank Run 25K. I will see you at the finish line!

Runner's Run

Men! May the road rise to meet you and the wind always be at your back. I have heard sad tales of setbacks and roadblocks, but few of inspirational runs! Lo, though I be in the hills of Virginia I am still your brother and such a silence on the airwaves troubles me. Run men, and you shall be free!

I am running, though not extremely far. Usually 3-5 miles 3-5 times a week, with a goal to increase distance this weekend. This is neither here nor there but just a status update to my fellow travelers on the road to happiness. My real story is what some like to call a “runner’s run”.

Yesterday I set out on my five mile route without much of the fanfare, hoopla and the like that my Olympic colleagues have been receiving. No, I was just one man on a lonesome road with the rumblings of a bigger deal to come. My legs felt a little tight, my inspiration low, yet after a mile or two the birds and the air lightened my mood and I was having a jolly good way with it. At mile three the aforementioned rumblings took a more serious turn and let me know that I was going to be lucky to get back in my currently sanitary state. Yes, a true runner’s run with the not too unrealistic fear of soiling both my shorts and my stellar record of making this sort of visit on time and on my own terms. Oh shit! My body tensed and pace quickened… how absolutely horrible this is, especially to be surrounded by houses and the nearly sacred earthworks built during the civil war to protect Richmond from the Union Army. No, my only choice was to run like hell and hope for the best.

Lest you worry your poor little hearts any longer I made it, but barely, and the streak (if you will) is still alive. Please my friends hear this warning; Run! But prepare yourself before you run into a potentially horrendous shituation.

Back in the saddle. Where the hell are the reins ?

Some apologizing on my end, I'm sure, is due. That's not uncommon.

Thank you Bag for your run defying cars. Without it I might be driving.

Thank you Peter for breathing life into something I thought might die. Me. I'll be your cadaver any day.

I've thought a lot about what this post should say. There are a lot of comical stories to tell since I last posted. I'll get to those.

I almost quit. It was close. People talk about those moments when their world takes a turn for the worst. Or when life is tumbling out of control. Maybe that's what happened. Here's what I know took place...

My place of employment shutdown. Consequently supplying me large quantities of things I don't need: oars, stress, lures, unemployed friends, thermoses, free time, bottles of alcohol (a large variety), questions from my peers, wife and parental guidance figures, life savers, guilt, and a general disposition of gloom and doom. It was unpleasant.

My wife was absent. She didn't leave me. She was just asleep. She had gotten really sick and was on a lot of prescription meds. They drained her of all her energy to the point where she would come home from work and sleep for four hours wake up for two and then go to bed. Needless to say she needed support and I gave her all I had. Probably not as much as she deserves.

I decided to look left and drive straight...into another car. I don't know why. I tried to just accept it and move on, but human nature will not let you do such a thing. At least mine will not. I have to think what if...I had a couple beers after work, at work where it was free at the time and left an hour and half later...or I had gone up to Meijer on the E. Beltline instead of planning to go to the one close to home....or I had left work early...or I had called my friend back who wanted to hang out...or I had taken the truck back to the rental store instead of letting my boss do it...it's painstakingly tedious. So much so you don't sleep.

The insurance people misunderstood me. More or less. I said I didn't have any information for the other driver I hit. They thought I meant we didn't exchange any information. So we filed a claim as a hit and run (I didn't really take time to clarify). Then the other driver filed a claim with her insurance gave my name and number. My insurance company was...displeased...

I started a job at a new store. Still Famous Dave's, just a different location. New building, new people, new problems, new stress. For example the floors, silly I know, but just wait. I'm accustomed to level, diamond pattern non-slip, plain gray tiles. Nothing too special. The new floor, is still gray but its un-even, thick rubber plastic material, with no non-slip texture in fact it's smooth, loose at the drains, and retains dirty water in places water shouldn't be. Every step I take I feel dirty especially when water shoots up from under the floor after I take a step.

I did set my own personal distance record during all this. I ran a street race, The Resolution Run. I haven't followed the schedule as ardently as I was before, but I think that has been good for me because my shins were "tore up."

I mean let's be serious with one another how much am I suppose to be able to handle. In truth I almost gave up on it all. I wasn't running regularly. I wasn't eating well. All I wanted to do was sleep and I couldn't. Then things started to get better. I've started to get more comfortable in the new store and I finally got my car back with the help of my insurance.

Now these stressors are beginning to subside or at least dull in the passing of time. Surely, new ones will crop up. I only hope they consist of things like maintaining my blog and running regimen.

This wasn't meant to be an explanatory apology. For those of you who actually missed the posts, I am sorry and rest assured there are some good ones ahead.

Rush Hour Run Rush - My glorious return to running

With Ruth as my witness I declared that “upon returning from Florida I will launch into Riverbank training.” Well, Bag’s back! I have fully embraced training; running with a little core workout and weightlifting thrown in so I can be the strongest man in the world!

Yesterday, January 19, 2010, found me mulling over how far I should run. With recent motivating testimonials regarding distances 8 miles and over, I was feeling a little pressure to get with it. Now, I realized I had been training for less than a week, but I was feeling incredibly motivated so I decided to set my sites on seven miles. Living roughly seven miles from the downtown YMCA a plan was formed; I would run to the Y and meet Ruth after she was done with her yoga class at 6:30pm.

Not wanting to risk getting there late (if I needed to walk the last few miles or something) and hoping to get in an extra workout after arrival, I decided to leave at 4:45pm. This departure time pitted Bag versus rush hour traffic, including most significantly east bound Fulton drivers. Glossing over the reality of reduced to non-existent shoulders and sidewalks due to snowplowed snow I set out with high hopes. Upon reaching Fulton I immediately realized the stupidity of the thing I was about to undertake. Still in high hopes and with a few mental tricks I convinced myself that it would be fine and I would get through the worst of it quickly.

Well, it takes a lot longer to run a distance than it does to drive it. There truly is no shoulder and the sidewalks are completely overtaken by piles of snow. When I saw a semi-truck in the right lane barreling towards me at 60 mph I decided the best thing to do was to get the heck off the road and into the snow. I did this numerous times to avoid oncoming traffic, including a couple cuss-holes who thought it was incredibly entertaining to swerve towards me and flick me off. I took to high stepping in the snow unless no cars were in site, at which point I would hop back on the road and run for dear life.

The Bridge over the expressway was the worst obstacle; two narrow lanes with a small pile of snow and a 20ft drop a few feet away onto 70 mph traffic. I waited for traffic to clear and started to sprint, hoping beyond hope that no one would come. Successful but winded, I returned to my snow bank on the other side of the bridge. It was an incredibly taxing beginning to my longest run yet, but I recovered and braved a few more incredibly ridiculous stretches of rush hour traffic before finding better cleared roads with wider shoulders and cleared sidewalks.

Eventually I settled into my pace and experienced the runners high that I have been looking for. I am now completely addicted to running. By the time I got to the Y I felt like I could keep going and going. Life is great. Running is fun. Rush hour traffic is crazy. Choose a safer route. I am Bag and I am back!

Rigor Mortis

There's nothing that can inspire you to run like a room full of dead bodies. I spent four hours today with my hands immersed in bowel and bile-- probing pancreas, massaging mesocolon, and oggling omentum. After standing in one spot over a semi-rotting body for so long, one feels the urge to move-- not only to flee the scene of decomposition, but also to exercise the right to exercise; a right that my donor no longer possesses. In a way, my run today was an homage to my benevolent instructor (the donor), who inspired me to "shake it while i got it."

However, for those of you who have not had the pleasure of jamming your appendages into the deepest darkest recesses of the human body...(I just realized that that introductory phrase could be misinterpreted as a euphemism for coitus. I am not referring to coitus, grow up)...as I was saying- for those of you who can not fathom the mystery of mesentery, you must understand that dead people, regardless of the preservation process, stink. The stench varies from body to body, and my donor emits (thankfully) a relatively tolerable odor. Relatively is the keyword. The scent is indescribable, but I imagine an elderly recluse-- you know that musty "old person" smell?-- now leave that recluse unbathed for a solid ten years, add some fetid bacteria-infested sewer water, and you may begin to understand the complexity of this odor. Now, you must also understand that the smell of cadaver is remarkably clingy. It grabs your clothes, your hair, your skin, and sometimes it seems like it doesn't leave unless you scrub til you bleed.

That being said, I decided not to shower between my dissection and heading to the gym. Hence, I stanked. I stanked bad. I also have not washed my running clothes this week (and I have already put in a solid fifteen miles). So as I hopped on the treadmill next to a cute Middle-Eastern girl I became self-conscious of my stank. Would she notice the smell of death oozing out my pores with every stride? She mistake this nasty DBO (dead body odor) for regular BO? Luckily, I didn't care what this girl thought. However, there was a cute girl a few treadmills down that I saw the night before at the gym. She runs like a gazelle, and (though I've yet to be close enough) I presume she smells like cinnamon and sunshine. So the question soon begged itself: how far did my stench of death reach? What was my range? Would the gazelle be forced to suffer the DBO instead of my usual enticing musk? Would my passion for human anatomy and my overzealous approach to the peritoneum undermine my passion for beautiful women and my underzealous approach to flirtation?? My question was soon answered as the gazelle leapt from her treadmill and fled to an elliptical a few rows down. She had smelled me.

But who needs her? I have my education.