Monday, January 31, 2011

2B2B

Well, friends and neighbors, it's been a while, but I'm afraid my job, meaning my jobby-job, meaning my day-job (meaning my night, weekend, holiday-job) has kept me 2B2B - Too Busy To Blog.

Well?  Whaddaya think?  "2B2B" - think it'll catch on?

Here's a photo from a nice run I took this past fall... when I had time for nice runs...

Oops!  Just kidding, that's just a really, really cute picture of rhinoceroses my wife stole from some website.  Cute!!
Here's the real pic I took:

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

This I Believe... Um, That I Believe...

So my e-mail signature line keeps growing, and it's kinda pointless;  my real hope is that someday I'll just be able to sign my name, Tae, and people will just know who I am, like Seal, or Moses.

Anyway, in a recent interview with GQ Ryan Gosling (he was in The Notebook, although he's been in better movies like Half Nelson, Lars and the Real Girl, and Blue Valentine) notes that he and his mother have always been believers, that is, that they've always had a sense of the transcendent.  He then proceeds to take the reporter to not just one, but two magic shows in Los Angeles, and also mentions that one of his favorite places in Southern California is Disneyland.  I guess I, too, have always been a believer, only minus the weird 12-year-old's fondness for magic and the Mouse that I grew out of when I discovered alcohol.

Being a believer means that what-ifs are some of the most appealing kinds of musings;  recently, it's been what if I can run so far... because if I can run 3 miles, I can run 5... if I can run 5, I can run 8... if I can run 8, I can run 12... if I can run 12, I can run 20... and that may be the same kind of slippery logical slope that results in teen pregnancy, but at least with running I'll be losing weight.

I wonder if I can run 50 miles... without chafing... I believe in Bodyglide...

Craig Park Wasn't at the Reunion, But It's Still a Friend
5.69 mi.  44 min.:34 sec.  7:49 pace.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

The Last Time I Murdered?

Easy - yesterday, on the way to work.

It began when on the way to work I passed a slower car, which then promptly sped up, passed me and then pumped the brakes.  You can see where this story is going:  things devolved pretty quickly, with me yelling Oedipal epithets and flipping the double-bird (not to worry, I was steering with both elbows safely on the wheel).  The lowest point was when the other car shot past me on the shoulder of a freeway interchange ramp because I refused to speed up or slow down past a semi, and at that point I reached for the revolver I keep in the glovebox began shooting.

No - actually, I took the high-powered assault rifle I keep in the passage and riddled his car with bullets through my own closed passenger window, deafening myself in the process.

No - actually, I followed him off the road and into a Safeway parking lot where I angrily confronted him, struggled over a knife which I wrested from his grasp and then stabbed him repeatedly.

The point being that murder starts in the heart.  And the real story is that at the point that he decided to pass on the shoulder of a ramp while driving at highway speeds, I finally came to my senses, dropped back and followed him from a safe distance until he took an exit - letting go of hatred also starts in the heart.  The ability to let go of your anger, dissipate your anxieties, think clearly, all of that is a matter of grace, doing things with ease and positivity.  Not being dispassionate, but not allowing those passions master you.  And this being a blog about running means that I have to contrive some application, but I'm serious! running well is running gracefully.  One may protest that this way of being smacks of passivity, but that ignores the overarching fact that one is running after an objective - you can be in the process of hunting something down, but it's all about the style with which you reach that goal.

There is a piece of videotape out in the world that, if ever it was found, would scuttle any chance I had to run for the U.S. Senate;  it is footage of me running in high school.  Like Al Bundy, I played high school football (unlike Al Bundy, I consider selling ladies' shoes a passion rather than an occupation), and in one of the two seasons during which I played, the coaches took slow-motion films of us running so we could analyze our form.  It was quite a thing to see:  I'm wearing white cleats, maroon short-shorts, and a grey cotton mid-riff t-shirt (for such a purportedly masculine sport, they sure made us dress like nancy boys - ah, the 80s), all shot in dramatic slow-mo like Jaime Sommers-style, and I remember being quietly astonished at how graceful my usually oafish teenaged-self looked, how easy my running style was, how fluid one could look even if it was just a matter of falling forward and catching yourself first on one foot, then the other, lather, rinse, repeat, the very picture of surrendered ease.

I need to learn to drive like I run.

Suburban Housing Track (and Trail)
5.27 mi.  41 min.:38 sec.  7:54 pace.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

It's Been a Funky Week, and Not in a Good Way

So, here're just the running stats for today:

A Quick Jog with Church Friends Around the Newport Back Bay.  And UCI.
16.44 mi.  2 hr:43 min:48 sec.  9:57 pace.
Just 10 more miles to go!

Monday, January 3, 2011

I Do Not Run Like the Taliban

Since it was raining I ran at the gym and discovered that a great many people in our city appear to have made fitness-related New Year's resolutions, as every single stinkin' treadmill machine was occupied with people talking loudly (indoor voice, people!) about how much they'd overeaten during the holidays, God bless 'em.

So a couple of folks in the small group of runners with whom I'm running the LA Marathon started laughingly calling me "coach";  I tend to think of myself more as their cheerleader, only without the pleated skirt and ponytail (wait, does that make me like W?  Gadzooks!), but since we may be running a modestly difficult trail near my house soon and therefore any aches and pains would be indirectly my fault, I've been trying to come up with a pre-run pep-talk, and it goes a little something like this:

If you were a skateboarder during the 80's you may remember using the term "poseur" as one of derision.  Nowadays the kids are calling 'em "tryhards", as in "they're trying too hard", but the idea's basically the same.  Usually, poseurs were kids who came from moneyed families so they had all of the skateboarder's gear, the Vision Streetwear hooded sweatshirt, the Bones Brigade t-shirt, the Air Jordan Nike high-tops, the carefully folded issue of "Transworld Skateboarding" magazine tucked into the back pocket of their Quicksilver shorts.

The problem was that even though they dressed the part, they couldn't play it - they'd dress like skaters but couldn't really skate.  Their expensive equipment didn't bear the marks of hard use, and what rankled was their implicit attitude that looking like skaters made them skaters, when in fact it's vice-versa, isn't it?

I mean, that's part of the problem with the Taliban - well, besides all of the not-allowing-girls-to-be-educated, public executions, etc.  It's not solely that the Taliban's interpretation of Islam is incorrect, nor is it that they're in Waziristan sporting Powell Peralta t-shirts under their robes.  Rather, the problem I'd like to draw your attention to is that the Taliban are religious poseurs:  they seem to think that acting holy is what makes you holy, just like skating poseurs thought that acting like skaters - the attire, the swagger, etc. - made them skaters.  The Taliban, like poseurs, have it all backwards by thinking that by forcing people to abide by their laws and therefore making people act holy will make them holy, but instead, if you are in the presence of God then you will behave as though you are in the presence of God, if you have been made holy then you will act holy, not holier-than-thou.

You may have guessed where I'm going with all of this stuff (or maybe not):  we're not running to become runners, but rather, we run because we are runners.

Did I just blow your mind?  Thought so.  But think of it!  If all human beings, no matter one's shape, tall and gangly or short and squat, round or thin, etc. etc, were meant to be runners, doesn't that change the equation, or flip the script, as the kids are saying nowadays?  If people were made to be runners, then maybe it isn't crazy that we could run for miles and miles.  If people are born runners, then not only can we run 26.2, 50, even 100 miles, but we were meant to run that much.

What strikes me is the incredulity that people respond with when I present that idea to them, that they couldn't possibly run like that, which I think is such a shame because that means that these folks presuppose their limitations.  It seems to me that they've already decided on what's impossible, rather than having the curiosity to explore what is possible.

And that's something I find terribly exciting:  like the potential that exists in the thought that if I have been made holy I can do holy things, if I am a runner, what kind of unholy distances am I capable of?

I run like a Presbyterian!

New Year's Run with Resolutioners
15 min. on the Elliptical
4.03 mi.  35 min.  8:41 pace.