Be it resolved... Or, A Red Letter Day on New Year’s Eve

Mom knows.

It’s New Year’s Eve 2011, not even 9 p.m., and already I am beat. May lackadaisical ways of late came to collect today at the Run Your Ice Off Hardcore 5K in Kewanee. I did that distance once last week and once the week before. I did not run at all this week before the race. Compounding my struggle is the fact that I’ve not run longer than 3.1 miles or so in a while and my usual run is rarely a non-stop chase (pause for a photo here, backtrack to pick up a can or glove there).

So it is with no small measure of shame and self-disappointment that I confess to slowing to a walk for short distances (20-30 yards maybe) on three occasions today. Worse yet, my inexperience with races caused a wee bit of humiliation when I stopped running as I passed the 3-mile marker and the timer called out 29:30. “Keep going! You still have a tenth of a mile to go,” he shouted encouragingly.

Note the shirtless dude in the Santa hat.

D’Oh! I mean it should have been apparent I wasn’t at the finish because there were no mats at that point to collect the chip data. Double D’Oh! And Crap!

So I plugged on to the end and tried not to die as soon as I crossed the line. Hey, as I’m writing now I guess I succeeded in that anyway. You can tell by the self-portrait that I was exhausted afterward. In addition to the lack of training, I am carrying about 20 pounds more than I have for any other race I’ve run – a result of the reduced running and poor diet of late.

Therefore I have decided to break with tradition and make a resolution for 2012. And by doing so publicly, I reckon I’ll do a better job of sticking to it. Well, maybe not. Peer pressure doesn’t hold a lot of sway over me these days, though encouragement and threats from friends carry some weight.

Anywho, while I didn’t pick up any hardware today, I did grab a couple of street trophies. Yeah, despite my laziness and being out of shape, I thought I might place in my age division. Hey, it was in Kewanee. Alas, my running pal Carmen, who has run the Hardcore a couple of other times, said there were easily twice as many runners there as last year. The announcer said more than 400 hit the course.

A pretty, perky ponytail usually serves as good motivation.

Shortly out of the chute I spied with my little eye a tube of lip balm in the road. I did not retrieve it. Near the 1.5-mile turnaround I saw another, this one the squeeze kind, like Vaseline Lip Therapy. It, too, stayed where it lay. But in the final mile I noticed first a red letter W, the embroidered kind one might iron or stitch to a sweatshirt or jacket. I wasn’t quick enough or inclined, really, to stop for it. But, lo, a few dozen yards farther along lay two more red letters: U and N. Those I nabbed. I wish I had returned for the W.

The sticky backing was still tacky so I plastered NU on the front of my grey hoodie. Huh? Meaningless? Not so. My wise mother informed me later that nu is a Yiddish word meaning “so what?”

But wait, there’s more. According to DailyWriting.com under “The Yiddish Handbook: 40 Yiddish Words You Should Know”:

nu
A general word that calls for a reply. It can mean, “So?” “Huh?” “Well?” “What’s up?” or “Hello?”

And from JewFAQ.org under Judaism 101:

Nu (rhymes with "Jew")

An all-purpose word that doesn't really mean anything, like "well," "so" or "wassup?" I usually hear it as a prompt for a response or explanation. A friend of mine who worked for a Jewish history museum joked that they answered the phone "Jew mu, nu?" When someone takes too long to respond in an online chat or trails off in the middle of a thought, I might type "nu?" (are you still there? are you answering?) If someone says something that doesn't seem to make any sense, you might say, "nu?" (what's that supposed to mean?)

Well, there you have it. It’s always fun to learn something nu. Here endeth the lesson.

 

Thank God! I was beat, if you can't tell.

Today's Stats

Temp: 38 degrees F

Distance: 3.1 miles

Time: 30:18 (174^th out of 220 in male division, I think) Eventually results will be posted here.

Treasure: 2 stick-on/iron-on embroidered letters, red: N and U.

iPod Playlist (Running Mix)

Broken – Lifehouse

Catch My Disease – Ben Lee

Distance – Ryan Patrick

Heartbreak Warfare – John Mayer

I Will Follow You Into the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie

I Will Possess Your Heart – Death Cab for Cutie

Just Like a Pill - Pink

From 30 to 36

As in, by the time I post this entry it will have been 36 hours since my run Wednesday. I wish I could attribute the delay to holiday busyness. Alas, it was laziness and holiday revelry that occupied my time. Well, and work. But the job is necessary and the other distractions are not.

Huh, no point to this photo of John Elway, Rod
Smith and Tory James from 1996. I just didn't have
an appropriate pic to post.

And, as noted previously, thoughts seem to elude me after a time. Here’s what I have to say: Sometimes you run with a purpose. Sometimes there is a goal or a hope or desire. “Run to something, not away from…, ” sing the Avett Brothers. And that philosophy of a goal or hope or desire runs two ways. There’s the broader intent of physical fitness and its encompassed specifics – lose X pounds, achieve a certain pace or distance – and there’s the type of goal I set for myself when I started this blog: to find things and tell people about them. To share the oddities of life’s detritus left on the streets.

Wednesday’s run was by necessity (due to my laziness) one of expedience, focusing solely on the broader goal of exercise. Pressed for time, I opted to run on the track in my building again. I chose a specific playlist to which I have run many times before, so I could better gauge my distance (still need to recalibrate my pedometer) based on pace and time. Thus the mileage listed is a guess. The pedometer put the numbers at 2.43 miles, 292.9 calories and 5,150 steps.

And with that I am spent. I’ve nothing left to say. I mean, I could quote some of the great lines I’ve heard tonight while watching “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” with one eye and both ears tonight while writing, but I don’t think that’s what anyone’s looking for. So, until later…

Today's Stats

Temp: ? degrees F

Distance: 3 miles

Weekly Total: 7.25 miles

Treasure: Nada.

iPod Playlist (Running Mix)

Broken – Lifehouse (Video is a different version than what's on my Pod)

Catch My Disease – Ben Lee

Distance – Ryan Patrick

Heartbreak Warfare – John Mayer

I Will Follow YouInto the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie (Rather a cool video)

I Will Possess YourHeart – Death Cab for Cutie (Different video from the one I posted before; if you like to watch musicians at work, you'll dig this)

Just Like a Pill - Pink (Video is live at Wembley)

In the End

It was too early in the course to be the end, so there was really nothing fitting or appropriate about finding two of those yellow tags from some nearby construction site bearing the numbers 3 and 0. Well, except for the fact that I’m a newspaperman and the number 30, usually written as –30– or Thirty, is the old mark to signify the end of a story. The mark would appear after the final paragraph of copy submitted by a reporter or correspondent in the days of typewriters.

The curious among us, those who never outgrew asking “Why?” to just about everything, aren’t satisfied with knowing the use of the mark or its basic history. We want to know why –30–. In a 2007 article, the American Journalism Review attempts to answer the question. The title of the piece: “So why not 29?”

Is it a holdover from earlier handwriting, predating even the typewritten word? Is it a misinterpretation of a Bengali symbol? Well, it seems the matter is still open to debate. Thus it strikes me as a small torment that, according to the AJR story, a high school journalism teacher offers her students extra credit if anyone can solve the mystery of Thirty. In Louise Reynolds’s defense, perhaps she gives credit for any plausible or creative explanation. That would be cool.

This VCR front panel will make cool wall art (I imagine).

 I’ll see if I can conjure a clever myth to explain the journalist’s end note. In the meantime, you can read other ideas here.

Today's Stats

Temp: 46 degrees F

Distance: 4.25 miles

Treasure: 2 plastic number tags: 3, 0; 2 cigarette packs; 1 VCR front plate (RCA); 27 cans.

iPod Playlist (shuffle)

She Came in Through the Bathroom Window - The Beatles (Anthology version)

Mr. Pitiful - The Commitments

What's On Your Mind(Pure Energy) - Information Society

Best of Times - Styx

For a Dancer (live) - Jackson Browne (Such a beautiful, sad song. Here's a newer version.)

Pay Me My Money Down - Bruce Springsteen

Helpless - Joni Mitchell (Neil Young lead vocals)

Woodstock (unplugged) - Joni Mitchell

Absolute - The Fray

Caught Up In You - .38 Special

One of My Turns - Roger Waters (The Wall Live in Berlin)

I Never Told You - Colby Caillat

Faster Than a Couch Potato!

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. Sometimes it takes a friend or family member to remind us of the obvious. This time the word came from my friend and cheerleader Carmen. (Read her awesome blog here.) She periodically harasses me about running – more precisely my lack thereof. Carm’s been busy and hasn’t been after me to move my legs lately. Actually she usually only brings it up after I do, noting the restraint she’s shown by not making snarky comments on Facebook or sending threatening emails.

Question is, will D3 wear the found shorts or will I have to
give them away? They're Nike and I bet they'll clean up well.

Carm expressed surprise (and I inferred disappointment) to learn late in the week that I had been on vacation of late. The question arose the night before my return to work. After my confession that I had been quite lazy on said vacation, not running more than once during the week and a half off, Carm said we should have run “so I could kick your butt.”

I’m not sure intimidation and humiliation are successful motivators, though they might be for some. I’ve already acknowledged Carm’s superiority in the running field. In a couple years, or sooner if I feel so inclined, I may put her in her place with a demonstration of my gift-wrapping prowess at the GHS Band Gift Wrap station at Sandburg Mall. (I have years of experience and am quite the pro.)

But I have not forgotten the first run I made with Carm in the mix at Lake Storey with the Go Outside and Play bunch last summer. She trailed the pack for the first 2 miles. I was second from the back. At the 2.25 mile mark (according to the painted numbers on the path) she sauntered past me. Then, as I crossed the berm at the west edge of the lake, Carm was the first to meet me on the return leg (I had yet to reach the turnaround). At least three other runners had been ahead of us; they must have taken a good rest at the turnaround.

I mentioned that to Carm this morning. She said it’s all about pacing. “I have a steady pace, just slow,” I replied.

Carm: “Nothing wrong with ‘slow.’ Besides, you're faster than the person sitting on the couch!”

Well, yes. And therein lay my inspiration. Something else I’ve said before: It’s not the speed. It’s not the distance. It’s in the doing. Just run.

Today's Stats

Temp: 40 degrees F

Distance: 3.1 miles

Treasure: 1 pair shorts (Nike, girls' size M, 10-13, white); 2 cigarette hard packs; 21 cans

iPod Playlist (shuffle)

Hold On - Yes (Love the syncopation in this song!)

Cheap Day Return - Jethro Tull

Rock of Ages - Def Leppard

Other Possibilities - Rachel Portman (Chocolat soundtrack)

Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley

Terminal Frost - Pink Floyd

Happenings Ten Years Time Ago - The Yardbirds

Toxic - Glee Cast (God, found myself likin' Britney.)

Concerning Hobbits - Howard Shore (The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack) (Just check it out - embrace your inner nerd)

A Bird That Whistles - Joni Mitchell

Friends - Page and Plant

I Don't Wanna - The Call (Among my Top 5 all time; wish there were video of the band.)

Making Tracks

When I saw the snow cover out the window this morning I actually got a little excited to run in it. I mean, I made note of the snow two days ago, but that really left nothing on the street, just a vestige of pre-winter décor. And while last night’s blanket is not even a real inch (at least it doesn’t look like it amounts to that), it is a covering and the streets are sloppy and slick in spots, for a runner anyway.

Now, let me explain. I do not really relish the snow. But I enjoy a little variety in life and in my run. That’s why I won’t give in to wussdom and spend my winter running on the convenient indoor track in my building. Hell, I know people who would love to have an indoor track right in their abode. But how dull would it be to run little ovals day in and day out? God, it’d be like NASCAR without a car. Round and round and round. Ho-hum. Yawn. 

The snow looked less appealing out the front door than
it did out my bedroom window. Oh well.

No, put me on the street, slop and all. Slick bricks. Cans. Paper clips. Lost mittens, kittens. Cold wind, blistering sun, flurries, downpours. That’s what makes running fun. That and the natural high, as discussed before.

Don’t believe me? Go do it. See for yourself just how awesome it is. I’ll leave you to it, and get to work on my pumpkin pie-baking video.

Today's Stats

Temp: 26 degrees F

Distance: 3.1 miles

Weekly Total: 6.2 miles

Treasure: 1 pink paper clip; 3 cans.

I just laughed when I saw this poster in the
Simmetry Cellular window on Main Street.
A well-placed bird poo looks like he's got
a runny nose. He's literally shit-faced.

 iPod Playlist (shuffle)

Hit Somebody! (Hockey Song) – Warren Zevon

Lucky Star – Madonna

Running to Stand Still – U2

Goodbye Stranger – Supertramp

Spell No. 23 (For Causing That the Deceased Be Remembered in the Realm of the Dead) – Alberto Acosta

Heartbreak Warfare – John Mayer

Baby Come on Home – Led Zeppelin