A Benign But Imposing Figure

I came across the phrase in a current article in the New Yorker, describing the father of an engineer: 'His father, a benign but imposing figure, was the first member of the family to earn a college degree.' I couldn't help but flash forward to a description of me as the father of MAXWELL DODGE (as toastgirl always writes), where I'm all summed up and brought down to life in a sentence.

His father, an impotent but daring soul, was the eighth Duke of Earl. His father, a harmless but rapacious lawyer, was a connoisseur of peaches. His father, a kindly but marauding runner, was the first in his family to eat squid.

This has nothing to do with running, and I've had little to do with running myself. I pulled the plug on the iPod yesterday, and I ran much better. It turns out, in my world, I'm ahead of where I thought I would be at this time. When I pull the plug on music, it means my running is getting a bit more serious, maybe benign and imposing, or at least in my head. I ran three miles in the heat , after a day in the sun at the pool and ten or so miles biking. At the end of this month, in about five days, I'll have whatever running base I've managed to eke out. Which isn't so bad, I'll just keep chugging along, benign figure and all.

Unrunning the Trails

This here is my current running route in the Twin Cities, and I'm going to have to change it around soon. I don't do well running along trails, which for the most part is the main portion of this route, around Lake Harriet. I prefer streets and lights and things to see and dodge, though along this route I pass the karate studio, a coffee shop, the house that collapsed, a fine new restaurant, another coffee shop, a church, and then ho-hum all along a trail around the lake.

106 Days and the End of August

I've got 106 days until the marathon and a bit less before a 25K warm-up race. I ain't sure about either, but I'm sticking with it. I ran a slow five miles yesterday but struggled. Can I run a marathon in about three months when I cannot even run a full five miles without walking? I dunno. I'm giving myself until the end of August to see where I am and how far my training has come. I'm far from the point where I feel I can run, and run, and run, seemingly endless running. Right now, I feel I can run, and walk, and run, and then dink around and complain about it.

Lego Running

I didn't run yesterday, or the day before that. Instead, Nancy, Max and I sat around shooting rubber bands at helpless Lego guys. Then, Max took some actions shots of the, well, action. You can see Lego guy, whom I call Bob and Max calls Jim Finkelstein, leaning forward, ready to take the hit:










Then immediately after.










And finally the aftermath, complete with Bear cheering and Nancy's friend Lauren looking on. What this has to do with running, I'm not so sure.

Cornball Runner Redux

Ahh, the memories. The music, the crowds, waitaminute. Last year, I was training for a marathon at about this time and I revealed how goofily I think as I try to keep my feet moving. It worked just a year ago, but not so far this year. It's still early and I'm out of shape and struggling. Last year, not so. Here's what I wrote then:

OK, I'm a complete cornball runner. Not my gait or stride, but how I motivate myself to run, and this is something I hardly ever discuss because it reveals how profoundly American and dreamily dumb I can be. First, let's take the music, which I need in the early part of training. Songs motivating me right now range from Sonic Youth's Kool Thing to Enigma's Eyes of Truth. Also in the mix is Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes, Seal's Crazy, and Moby's Alone. It's the rhythm that primarily counts. And the songs get me imagining what I typically always imagine: winning some prestigious marathon, usually the Boston Marathon, sometimes the Twin Cities Marathon. Here's a typical script from my head, and seriously folks, this is what I think about at some point on each long run, usually while listening to Enigma, all timed to various dramatic points in the song:

It's late in the marathon, about mile 19 or 20. The camera is low to the ground and at the top of a hill. Heat waves are coming off the pavement. Bobbing heads start to come into focus: two Kenyan runners, obviously on a record pace, their bodies rising as they come over the crest of the hill. Suddenly, I appear just behind the Kenyans, then move to the side, and the announcers go crazy. Who is that guy? My God, he's keeping up with the Kenyans. He can't last, he can't last. Even other regular runners on the course stop to listen to radios or watch the race on big screen televisions. No one can believe this unknown American kid is competing with the Kenyans. I'm just behind them, actually talking to them, sort of trash talking in Swahili, saying they can't beat me. We come down Beacon Street and into Kenmore Square in Boston, the huge crowds ecstatic. We race down Comm Ave and turn first at Dartmouth and then left for the final stretch down Boylston Street. The announcers have finally identified me and people from my hometown twenty some years ago have now turned on their televisions because, somehow on a Monday or Sunday at 10 a.m., they heard I was about to win. People who never believed in me suddenly see me in a new light, every person who ever slighted me is, remarkably, watching me on television. And then I pass the Kenyans and blaze down the final 385 yards to win the race, usually setting a new world record. I then collapse and sob.

That's the general vision, though there are lots of variations. Like, it's the Olympic Marathon and I make my move in the tunnel into the stadium, with the crowd going crazy as me and a Tanzanian runner come out of the dark and onto the track. Or, in the late 1980's, I would beat Rob de Castella, the Australian marathoner. Yes, I always win. And sometimes I get a call from the U.S. President, which I refuse. I then fade into history, never winning another race, never to be heard from again.

Putt-Putt Papa

Here in the Northern Hemisphere it's Father's Day, which I assume in the Southern Hemisphere it is Mother's Day, so long as Hallmark has penetrated that market. The plan today is mini-golf, Suessical, and dinner at home with Nancy and with Max's mom and step-dad. I will also fit in a run, again in 90 degree humid weather. I've got two days left to build my base. Given my progress so far, I'm thinking I should run as something. Y'know, a tree, or a gnome, or a gorilla. I'm not sure I can run as a runner.

Mini-golf is the new father's day tradition, started two years ago when the initial tradition of a boat ride down the river was not possible because Max put his hand through a glass door and we missed the boat (but he got derma-bonded by the doctor and later thought the white gauze on his hand was pretty macho). So, instead of a boat ride we took up mini-golf, a sport in which, in all seriousness, I had won tournaments and trophies as a kid at Putt-Putt, as a member of the Amateur Putters Association. Oklahoma's Putt-Putt professional tour is apparently still going strong.

My dad, who Max calls Papa, just completed his second dose of chemotherapy for small lymphocytic leukemia. He's bald now, which at age 73 should not be a big deal, but he has been very proud of his head of hair--and his health. Chemo is working so far, and because of his health--he plays tennis, punches a speed bag, and lifts weights--it looks pretty promising. I will need to get down to Okie country here soon, and maybe retrace some running routes while keeping Papa company on chemo day. Happy Papa Day.

Needlebutt and Running Points

I managed to complete another five mile run tonight, in 90 degree weather. Every time I run it's depressingly hot, at least for Minnesota. I used to run in mid-day in Oklahoma in the summer with no trouble, kind of a masochistic I'm so tough 19 year old thing to do. Now, I just can't. I'd say I'm doing just fair. I just don't have the time to fit runs in right now. Oh, sure, I could get up at four and run, or I could have run off the calamari and two beers after work at the after-work happy hour, but I ain't so good at running with beer. I've had a cup of beer during a marathon, which didn't gel well with the GU and seemed to leave me in a state of collapse at mile 21. I'm not going to GU this year. Nope. Every time I try it the energy expended in digesting it leaves no energy for running. I'll try a heart rate monitor instead.

The butt pain is back again, but not like the butt pain I had with ITB syndrome. Just general butt pain, and I run through it. Who knows, I could be running on a fractured hip like the toasthater. Gotta go--Nancy and Max are needlepointing on the couch. I never thought my son would say "needlepoint is cool." Cool.

Dude, Like, It's So Titular

This Huge Machinery is stolen from my favorite poem, "Summer Solstice, New York City," and a single line that I'll never forget, for whatever complicated reasons we don't forget little things. Sharon Olds wrote the poem and it starts:

By the end of the longest day of the year he could not stand it,
he went up the iron stairs through the roof of the building
and over the soft, tarry surface
to the edge, put one leg over the complex green tin cornice
and said if they came a step closer that was it.
Then the huge machinery of the earth began to work for his life,

I only found the text of the poem online on a blog, under the entry for Poem of the Month, July1999. Don't read too much into the title of this blog and my state of mind. I'm pretty dang happy. I just figured I could use this here huge machinery, the friends I have around the earth, and a bit of creativity to help motivate toward a little bit of running. Ta tah.

Cue the Music

I wake up this morning fifteen pounds over my running weight, heaving my lead-weighted legs forward when I run, and thinking about hauling the whole idea of running out to the trash. I'm roughly up to five miles these days, and that's pushing it. I have no charted plan, no training schedule, a busy work life, baseball coaching duties, and no clue how, in 118 days, I'll run again in the Twin Cities Marathon. And, I'm not one to forget that I walked the last six miles of my last attempt. Ugh.

But then I've got my wife Nancy and her wacky couple of friends and world entourage in Australia who are aiming to (1) run a 3:15 marathon in three weeks, and (2) managing to run only a few months after hip surgery.

I think maybe I can probably kind of do it, sort of. I think.