The Day After...

Growing up in the 80's our U.S. History teacher made us watch this horrible film about Nuclear War called the Day After. Freaking gave me nightmares for months. Seriously, who wanted to be left in a world of Nuclear Winter, people with hideous sores from radiation, with all of us just waiting for Mad Maxx to show up! Man, there were so many post-apocalyptic movies that we were all sure Gorbachev was going to drop the big one any moment. But now that I am older, I no longer squeamish from having nightmares of body parts falling off due to radiation poison, but the day after still lingers.

Now the day after refers to that dreaded day after I have done something I was not quite ready to do, like run a fartlek with crazy, hormonal teenage boys who have to run around in the shower just to get wet. Man, the old fat man was keeping up just fine during the work-out, but holy stinking cow! I must have awakened at least half dozen time last night with my calves, feet and for crying out loud, my toes! My toes were cramping up! How in the world does one get a cramp in the big toe? Then when I got out of bed I practically needed a walker to get to the bathroom. This is not good.

All day I hobbled around with a sore groin. Men should not strain their groin. It takes the swagger out of your step. Even when I tried to pull it off as doing my best John Wayne imitation, I looked more like a whooped dog with his tail tucked so far up, he stumbles just to stay upright. At least my voice didn't go up three octaves or else I would have had a lot of explaining to do. But thank goodness the afternoon came and I was able to gingerly stretch out the old white limbs and loosen up with a few miles. So here is hoping the day after, will be a better day than today. Frankly, I think I would have preferred the post-apocalyptic sores and mutants.

As always, stay healthy, keep running...but run with people your own age!

Day 1 of 146

Tonight's blog is going to be short and sweet, but today was officially day 1 of my training of 146 more days to follow until the Napa Marathon on March 4, 2012. Yup, the old boy is going to do it! It is time to saddle up, lace up and put in some serious mileage to conquer the rolling hills of Calistoga and Napa to qualify for the Boston Marathon in 2013.

Today's work-out was a basic fartlek I like to call the Big Mac. Although, I tweaked it a little by taking off some of the secret sauce, pickle and onions, and ran three minutes hard at 90% with a two minutes rest, then three times one minute with a one minute rest, another three minutes hard, two minute rest, another three times a minute, with, that's right, you guessed it, one minute rest followed with a final three minutes hard. With warm up and cool down it came to seven miles. A good solid effort with my high school boys team. Tomorrow will hopefully be a set of double fives and then an easy seven on Wednesday.

Well the old bones are tired and five o'clock comes pretty darn early, so it is off to dream of fast times. As always, stay healthy and keep running.

Here I Go Again!

No, I am not conjuring up my best David Coverdale, although, if my wife did want to do a sexy little dance on the hood of our car I could go with that! But Whitesnake aside, it is hard to believe that the last time I posted was back in May. It has been a wild roller-coaster of a ride over the past few months. A strained neck, a huge skin cancer removed from my forehead, new orthotics to deal with my nagging plantar fasciitis, and a very slow, slow, slow 5k in which I finally wore the ol' red, white and blue in a last place finish at the World Masters Championships. But the good news, I'm healthy again and running.

Which leads to why I am blogging again, it is time to start getting after some of those running bucket list goals I set last year. Even though it was ugly, I still crossed one off this past summer with wearing that uber cool Nike USA uni going round and round with twenty-something other guys from all over the world on a hot July night at Sacramento City College. With that one scratched off the list, the next item will be getting a Boston Marathon qualifying time. Which means, I am now training to run the Napa Marathon in March. So stay tuned for I am about to venture back into that blister on the big toe, chub rub, and nipple chaffing world of marathon running...why? Because, as sick as it sounds, this is fun!
(To Be Continued...)