Archive for category Sports
A new craft brew and let’s play ball!
Every now and then you just happen to in the right place at the right time to learn something new. Something that enriches your life, grabs you by the hair, calls you a worthless scumbug, smacks you a few times and then leaves you in the gutter overnight to contemplate just how awesome your life really is. A few weeks ago, that exact kind of thing happened to me, when I stumbled across and new and excitement kind of craft beer: malt liquor.
I go into more detail in today’s post on Hoperatives.com, the first in a new series I’m calling Malt Liquor Monday. In this particular entry, I wax poetic about 40 oz bottles and the aftertaste of Strydex pads in a glowing review for Colt 45. Check it out!
Along more serious matters, today is, as every good Cincinnatian knows, Opening Day. Sadly, I had a day trip to Connecticut for work which kept me from participating in the fun, but nonetheless, my heart is happy as a toddler with a new kitchen spoon and a set of pots to bang it on. So let’s hear it for our Reds, to the return of the boys of summer, and for a long (and hopefully successful) campaign of 162.
Pud’n
Weekend Debate: Fake Girlfriends
Posted by Jason in Humor, Sports, Weekend Debate on January 19, 2013
Odds are pretty good that unless you live in some kind of drafty, dark unheated cavern—which is unlikely given that you’re reading an online blog at the moment—you’ve likely heard something about Manti Te’o. If you haven’t, let me sum up: the guy played linebacker for Notre Dame, was the runner up for the Heisman Trophy this year, and, apparently, played like a man possessed even following the car-accident death of his girlfriend in September (did I mention the poor girl had leukemia, too?).
Except…
As was reported by Deadspin earlier this week,
Hydrocortisone looks like toothpaste (and 4 other things I learned this weekend)
It’s widely said that you learn something new every day. When I was younger, I had hopes that as I became an Actual Grown-Up ™, I might edge myself every closer to Knowing All The Things, thus making it less and less likely that acquire a new bit of information on a daily basis. Unfortunately, as a man nearing 40 years old, I can safely confirm that this is definitely not the case. In fact, not only am I still learning new things Every. Single. Day, most days it’s more than one thing.
Of course, because you’re good internet people, you’ll require evidence of said assertion. Well, I am not afraid to give! Here then are five (5) things I learned over the course of the past three (3) days:
Being a parent means feasting on crow
If you have any plans to one day produce progeny of you very own and possibly even raise them, there are a lot of things no one is going to tell you. Sure, just about everyone – especially your parents and the parents of your significant other – will be delighted for you and will go on and on about how great it’s going to be and how everything’s going to be all shiny happy funtimes. That’s irritating enough when you’re to attempting to assemble a infant’s exer-saucer that has more components than your new family minivan, and came with wordless, illustration-based instructions that mostly look like aliens doing some sort of extra-terrestrial Kama Sutra.
(I daily thank the Powers on High that I’m past that point in life.)
Ahem, yes. the point here is that no matter how thrilled everyone is going to be, as I’ve said in posts before, there’s a whole metric boatload of stuff about parenting no one is ever going to warn you about.
Like, for instance, you’re going to swallow just about every word you ever say.
Case in point, something like a decade ago, I swore to just about anyone or anything that would listen – your Heavenly Host, your Elder Gods, your Fae creatures, your household pets, whomever – that I would never again willingly give my hard earned cash to Mike Brown, owner of the Cincinnati Bengals. That I would happily root for the team and players, but I would flat-out would not fork over good money for tickets. My days of paying to see the Bengals play, in person, at the stadium, were over. At least until the team saw fit to hire a proper, bona-fide General Manager. Preferably, one not having ties to the family.
And yet, with all my promises and posturing, I found myself in the position yesterday of having purchased this:
So, why would I give up on my long-maintained boycott of paying to see game as Paul Brown Stadium? What could possibly termake me swallow my pride and break my oath?
Parenting, of course.
See, it all has to do with birthdays, and birthday parties. I come from a family of four kids, and the Puddinette, herself, is from a family with five kids. That means that between us, we smack those piddling Bradys right out of their ugly-ass, paisley, butterfly collars. With such big families, though, it means that whenever one of our kids has a birthday, we’re hosting the equivalent Patton’s 3rd Army. Unfortunately, that means inviting a class full of friends over for the event is not really feasible.
The promise then, was that same as it was for me when I was a kid: on my 10th birthday, I was allowed to have a “friend party”, at the location of my choice. This, was, of course, long before I realized Chuck E. Cheese’s was actually a portal straight to Hell.
But I digress.
As you may recall, the Puddinpop turned 10 in November. There were muffins, remember? Well, the Puddinpop is not your average kid. He views Chuck E. Cheese’s with much the same derision I do, and instead would rather see an NFL football game in person than just about anything. So when he asked if we could do exactly that – go see a Bengals game – rather than waste some perfectly good Sunday afternoon football-watching time trapped in a windowless building with overpriced pizza and oversized rodents, I wasn’t sure how I could possibly deny him.
Obviously, I didn’t. When faced with the choice of breaking a promise to him about his birthday, or breaking an oath to myself about the Bengals, there really wasn’t any question at all what would win.
The Bengals won yesterday, as the Puddinpop and I watched, while freezing our respective backsides off.
And if anyone is interested, yes the crow was delicious. But don’t take my word for it, you’ll find out about it on your own sooner or later. As a parent, it is your…destiny.
Pud’n
10 Things I Learned from Couch-to-5k
In case you’ve been wondering, yes, I more or less dropped the ball. Remember the way back time, when the planet was still young, dinosaurs roamed the Earth, the calendar page said, “August”, and I had yet to begin the November sprint of chaotic word-spewing that was NaNoWriMo 2012? Back in those sunny, happy, rose-colored days when I announced I’d be getting my lazy cushion-press off the couch and taking a few tentative first steps towards eventually running a half marathon?
The first of of said tentative steps was following the Couch to 5k program, getting myself into shape to run 5 kilometers at a stretch without falling over in a wheezing pile of grease sweats and huffing not seen since the Big Bad Wolf a quarter mile into it. And you know what? That program freaking works. Because on November 2nd, I logged my first run of five kilometers.
Of course, ever since I first started the transition from “blubbering heap of carbon in a semi-constant state of lethargy in my recliner” to “actual human being making actual regular use of his, you know, actual bones and muscles and stuff”, I’d intended to write up one of the my patented* “10 Things I Learned From…” post. Yes, as we all know by now, NaNo pretty much precluded me from any substantial bloggery in the month of November.
Honestly, I’m surprised I put up anything other than re-linked cat jpegs.
Nonetheless, November is past, and the time has (finally) come for 10 Things I learned from Couch-to-5k.
- Your lungs will hate you first, but they’re team players; they’ll get over it. Your legs, however, will hate you much much more, and they hold a grudge like a spurned sorority girl
I’ve probably used the word “wheezing” more times since August in the “Running”-categorized posts here than the entirety of the three years I’ve been regularly writing Puddintopia. I honestly, truly believed that it would be months before I could run even a mile without clutching my throat and gasping like an unfortunate Imperial officer on Darth Vader’s ship. Instead, even once I actually got into the more regular jogging portion of the program, I found that the whole thing was possible to survive, as long as I didn’t run at full sprint like I was trying to steal home or something.
Unfortunately, with all good news must come some bad (seriously, that’s like, written somewhere in a Properties of the Universe** guidebook or something). The bad in this case was that although I found it possible to jog quite a ways without my lungs exploding like a kid’s balloon, my legs weren’t so forgiving. See, as it turns out, that number your scale gives you each morning isn’t just an Arbitrary Mocking Index. The higher that number, the more pissed off your shins, thighs, hamstrings, and (in my case, especially) knees are going to be when you pound concrete for 45 minutes straight.
- Week 7 is a bitch
If you haven’t looked at the Couch-to-5K program, why not take a moment to do it right now? Done? Great. Now, as you can see, Weeks 1-6 are fairly well broken down into manageable pieces of walk-jog-walk, lather, rinse, repeat. And then you get to Week 7, and suddenly it’s RUN ALL TEH MILEZ, NO WALKY-WALK FOR YOU, LAZY MCLAZERSON. AND TRY NOT TO DIE! On paper, this looks scary. At the end of week 6, it’s positively terrifying. So, feel free to do what I did and repeat Week 6 before you move on to Week 7. Don’t worry, your 5K goal will still be there, waiting for you, a week later. But doing Week 6 2x saved me from the potential of failing Week 7 miserably – and giving me bad feelers about the whole idea – when I wasn’t quite yet ready for it.
- Hills are evil. Like, more evil that that creepy thing in that creepy movie. Also, deceptive.
If you’re anything like me, you used to think you lived a pretty flat neighborhood, topographically. You know, because when you’re rolling through it in your gas-powered Middle-Aged Man Sedan, you don’t really realized that gentle slopes make your house the highest-standing point in the surrounding two miles. Guess what? The minute you start trying to push yourself through that same ‘hood using your own feet for propulsion, you’ll suddenly find yourself subconsciously evaluating every street your pass for it’s levelness. Because hills? They suck when you’re running. Even little ones.
- You need a running buddy. Seriously.
Maybe you need a little extra motivation to keep you on the straight and narrow when it’s Tuesday evening and you need to get your second workout of the week in. Or maybe (like me) you tend to think every effort at jogging is actually an Olympic trial being filmed by hidden camera, meaning no matter what kind of pace you should be following, left to your own devices you’ll be sprinting as if being pursued by a hive of pissed of yellow-jackets before you hit your 1-mile mark. Running buddies can help with these inconsistencies, and many more things. So get one. My buddy was the Puddinpop, who did a great job of keeping me jogging at the right pace, even without knowing it.
- Everyone you’ve ever known will support you
This is a big one. Everyone…and I do mean everyone…you know wants you to succeed. Partially because it’s great to see people we know set goals and strive to reach them. But it’s also partially because every person we know who spurns the carbon-heap lifestyle is one more sign that there’s yet some hope that humanity isn’t doomed to lose the foot race when the Zombie Apocalypse finally comes. So, as you make progress along your C25K path, you’ll receive no shortage of supportive comments and pats-on-the-back. And it’s awesome. You might have to make your body go the distance, but a lot of people end up carrying your spirit for you.
- There’s a whole different kind of guilt for runners
Sometimes, it doesn’t work out. I mean sure, you probably could have gotten your run in, but it was dark and raining and there were wolves outside, so you just…didn’t. That’s when the guilt comes. It’s like no other guilt I’ve ever felt. I mean, I certainly know the “My Mom is Disappointed with Me” guilt, the “Why Did I Scream At That Poor McDonald’s Worker Like a Crazy Person” guilt, and even the “OMG, I’m Going to Die or Upchuck Eggrolls For The Rest of My Days, ” post-Chinese buffet guilt. That last one might be more shame than guilt, but whatever. The point is, the guilt you carry around when you know you could’ve run, but instead decided to be a pansy and hit the snooze button burns worse that those Atomic Wings you had last year during the Super Bowl. Eventually, you realize it’s better just not to miss your workout.
- Endorphins are, like, real, Man!
Sure, I’d heard all about these mythical “endorphins”. But after an entire childhood of holding myself stock-still after losing another round of “Freeze Tag” and an adulthood beset with attempts to run that ended in tragic failure, I was convinced these endorphin things were as made up as Sugar Bear, the hooker with a heart of gold, and John Madden. Wait…what? He’s a real person and not an animated caricature? No way. That’s crazy talk.
Anyway, no, I didn’t believe in endorphins. But then, three weeks into working the program, I got back to the house one evening after a workout and the Puddinette was forced to suggest I calm down and take my endorphin high-induced nonsense someplace else and do something productive with the extra energy, lest I get on her One. Last. Nerve. As I tend to live tap-dancing on that one nerve, she had every right to make said suggestion.
That’s the moment I realized, that, Yes, Virginia, there is a Endorphin Claus.
- You will believe you’re embarrassing yourself
If you are coming off of your couch and just getting started, it’s hard not to think that seeing you lumber down the street is likely to be an image that strikes fear – or amusement – into the hearts of young and old alike. You don’t look like a runner, you won’t move like a runner, and odds are good, at some point or another you’re going to need to “tie your shoe” for extended periods, at times which will likely be oddly coincident with jogging uphill. The first time your running app (and yes, you should get a running app) posts your workout time to your facebook page, you’ll imagine it includes captions such as, “Massive aquatic mammal seen flopping through neighborhood” or “0.25 miles, 10 minutes, 0 point.” But all that’s nonsense that lives no where but the dark, evil, doubting recesses in your head. Indeed, no matter how you think you’re doing, you’re out doing it. You’re running, at that, by definition, makes you a runner. So hold your head up high, keep your arms and legs moving, and leave all that other nonsense in the street.
- You will get lapped by old people
It took my 45+ minutes to run that first 5K. This is not Olympic Record Pace. In fact, it’s pretty much standard human walking speed, which I believe is roughly 4 miles/hour. I have little doubt that while stumbling through my neighborhood in a hoodie, I look more Norm from Cheers than Rocky from, um, Rocky. In fact, there was one Saturday morning run when a guy who had to be 60 if he was a day – and carrying his own paunch, however less, um, grand, than my own – caught up to me from behind, politely said “Hi” as he passed me, and was gone from my sight five minutes later. But you know what? If I hadn’t been out, he’d have gone jogging past my house that Saturday morning and would’ve been out of my sight in less than a minute. I call that progress.
- You will end up loving it
The very first running post I wrote started off with a very honest admission. “I loathe running,” I wrote. But as it turns out, what I really loathed was doing it wrong, trying to do too much too soon. Admittedly, I still don’t like inside running (and am struggling at the moment to decided how to survive a winter in Cincinnati – especially one that’s apparently going to be full of cold rain – without treadmill or gym membership). But running itself has become something I enjoy much more than I ever thought possible. Let me be an example of that, if nothing else; proof that even though you hate running too, there may yet hope. And then maybe give your own stab at this or some other program a try. What’s the worse that could happen? Sure, the effort might do little more than reinforce your hatred, but then again, it might, as I found, reverse it.
Pud’n
*I don’t actually have a patent on this.
**Mental note: write a Properties of the Universe guidebook
A Few Tidbits: Money, Cookies, Football and Beer (x2)
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Image via Wikimedia Commons
It was picture day for the kids today at school. Can you say, “Cha-ching?” Somehow I manage to forget this every year, but the long and short of life with several children of elementary school – and quite possibly any K-12 – age is you’re basically just going to be penniless from the day school starts in August until October 31st. Between that time, as a parent, you’re going pay for fees, school supplies, school fund raisers, official school pictures, activity fees, scouting fees, scouting fund raisers, activity fund raisers, and, hell, I don’t know, probably some books and who knows what else. I feel like maybe it’d be easier if Moose and Rocko just made a stop by the house once month and hit me up for “protection” to keep the place from getting toilet papered. At least then I’d know exactlywhy it cost me so much.
- Regarding the aforementioned scouting fund raisers, I have a piece of advice for the Girl Scouts of America. Dear GSA, nothing, and I’m mean absolutely nothing in this world has so quickly turned my coworkers from their normally pleasant, congenial selves into raging balls of white-hot disappointment, frothing at the mouth like a rabid Doberman and looking at me as if I just cancelled Christmas as the day I put your fall fund-raising order form by the coffee station at work. Because, after decades of conditioning people to slobber all over themselves at the mere sight of that greenish, clover-y logo for those cookies you’re apparently baking the cracking into, a temporary but nonetheless violent psychosis was the only realistic response the instant they picked up an order form and realized I was attempting to foist magazines upon them instead of guilt-inducing yet somehow life-affirming baked goods.
- In case I didn’t mention it, I’ve been occasionally contributing a beer-related tidbit every week or so to the
blog of Cincinnati.com and SI.com’s sports columnist Paul Daugherty, The Morning Line. Basically, the theme is that since I like sports and I like beer, I suggest a beer or two that would be appropriate for whichever NFL team the Bengals are playing the upcoming Sunday. It’s kind of silly, but I’m having fun with it. He including my latest offering to his blog today, which discussion beers you might drink to accompany a game against the Cleveland Browns. 
Of course, not every week is as easy as this week. Cleveland has plenty of solid beer-drinking options, both up north in town and distributed to us down here. Unfortunately, some NFL cities are apparently quite bereft when it comes to getting a decent craft brew. Last week, the Dolphins came to town, and try as I might, I really couldn’t find anything terribly interesting in the way of better beer in Miami. This, of course, got me to thinking about visiting towns that are a craft beer Sahara, which, obviously, led me to this week’s Hoperatives post.
And I think that’s quite enough rambling about nonsense for one day.
Pud’n
Exhausted with a capital "Tired"
Friends, let me give you a piece of advice: if you ever participate in a recreational sport with any regularly, DO NOT, under any circumstances, take three months off of said activity, for any reason. No, I don’t even care that you’re going to be out of town on a whirlwind tour of Eastern Europe, you’re committed to teaching a semester of High School at Sea, or your little house is picked up by a tornado and magically transported to the Wondrous Land of Oz. Whatever it is you think is more important than doing your sport thing, don’t take a break from the sport thing!
Why? Obviously because of the dying when you go back to the sports thing, duh.
Which is exactly what I did last night, when I resumed playing for my recreational hockey team. The team plays year ’round, one session for every season. For some silly reason, though, I figured that between little league baseball and summer vacations and you know, pool time or whatever, it was as obvious-as-the-nose-on-Cyrano’s face that taking the summer off made all of the sense.
So that’s exactly what I did.
Oh, the folly!
Oh, how I learned the error of my ways last night, when I took the ice for the first time since late spring. My return was not so much triumphant as it was full of panting, you know, with the gasping for air and the huffing-and-puffing of the Big Bad Wolf, except in a not-at-all threatening I’m-not-gonna-blow-your-anything-anywhere-because-I’ll-be-collapsing-momentarily kind of way.
Of course, if that wasn’t bad enough, there were only seven of us skating last night. For those of you not familiar with hockey, there are five skaters on the ice at any one time. And for reasons probably explainable only by smart-looking people with white lab coats and clipboards, ice skating wears you out faster than the DMV can sap one’s patience. So, for a team full of middle aged guys at various degrees of chunkiness, eight is really the minimum number you need to, you know, survive.
When I realized we’d be facing a short bench, I figured that’d be a good time for a little honest correspondence with myself.
Dear Self,
You haven’t played hockey in three months, and you’re looking at having to skate like a crazy young person tonight, being short-handed and all. But you’ve been working out, right? For 3+ weeks you’ve been jogging and walking all over the neighborhood, so you should have some mad, fat stamina working for you at this point. Heck, you should be like halfway to fit here, so this 7-man bench is no sweat. Like not even as much sweat as one of those crazy ice bear guys who go swimming in the frozen lakes in the middle of winter.
Yeah, so get out there and rock it, Self!
Unfortunately, as it turns out, four weeks of Couch-to-5K is not quite what it takes to skate a full game a little short-handed. Which is a polite way to say that I might as well have been a traffic cone out on the ice last night. Or maybe a roadwork barrel. Well, let’s be honest, more like a concrete k-rail. That had been bolted into place.
I did mention how I, at one point, was attempting to breath all the air at once, right?
It’s what I get, of course, for being Mr. Smuggy McSmuggerson after getting my first workout of the week in early on Saturday in expectation of the Sunday night game. Obviously, then, I figured I’d have my pick of either Monday or Tuesday night to get run number 2 of the week done.
You know, because I’d totally be ready to rock two and half miles of jogging a day after skating like a 30 year-old, right?
There are three terms that come to mind now that I consider this plan in retrospect:
- Blahahahaha!
- Ridonkulous
- Dillusionamental
As my body aches and my legs have been rewarding me for my efforts with sting-y jolts of soreness every time I had to audacity to attempt to walk to the restroom today, it’s safe to assume that jog number 2 will be Tuesday night.
Which is why, as soon as I finish writing this, I’m going to settle into my recliner, and finish the evening watching the Bengals play not-so-awesomely against the Ravens. Well at least until I drift off into exhausted sleepytimes.
Which I fully expect in 3…2…1…zzzzzzzzzz
Pud’n
PS: I don’t regret a second of any of it, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s run.
The top 5 OTHER benefits of working out
I saw a link this morning to a NY Times Wellness blog post that talks about a study on the long-term benefits on aging of starting the kind of middle-aged running program I’ve foolishly enthusiastically committed myself to. Well, I guess it’s not specific to running, but rather any kind of aerobic fitness in general which I suppose could include skipping down the street while muppet-flailing and chirping like a cuckoo for 30 minutes, 3 times a week.
Whatever works for you, I’m not here to judge.
Anyway, the gist is that the study shows that getting fit in middle age, even if you’ve spent the better of your adult life rounder than pre-Subway Jared and solely dedicated to leaving a wide, deep imprint of your, um, dark side on your couch, can have significant longevity and quality-of-life benefits down the road. In other words, if you pry yourself off the couch now, you’re more likely to have more enjoyable time with said couch when the Golden Years show up and convince you the 4:30 PM dinner buffet is a good thing.
Indeed, that’s kind of the same thing I wrote I was hoping for in my running post. I have to admit, though, it’s nice when something you sort of just believed turns out to be supported by actual, you know, science, eh*?
Anyway, it got me to thinking (no, you don’t smell anything burning…just, shush you.) about the myriad other benefits of a middle-aged running/aerobic fitness program. So, here’s five:
- Me Time – Seriously, you love your spouse, significant other, kids, mom, boss, extended family, friends, cats, and fish. We all understand, really. So it’s okay that sometimes you just need a half an hour to yourself when no one’s asking you if “these pants make me fat”, or telling you to unclog the toilet, or complaining that your personal couch-crease is embarrassing when their parents come over. When you’re out there getting a solid aerobic workout by yourself? It’s just you, fresh air, and your incredibly labored breathing.
- New Clothes – You can’t exactly get out there in a pair of decade-old denim jeans and your favorite 1994 Metallica “Ride the Lightning” concert tee, now can you? Absolutely not, if for no other reason than because unless you don’t want to end up as flat as that toad you found when you were riding your bike in the fifth grade. You need something drivers can actually see. Black t-shirts don’t work well, fancy lightning graphics or not. So you’re going to have to get some new stuff. Preferably something lightweight and reflective. For instance, I just bought a shirt this week that’s apparently the color of nuclear fusion. It may be the first article of clothing I’ve purchased for myself that I didn’t absolutely have to have since before we had kids.
- Shoes like a Peacock’s Plummage – Admit it, you’ve always wanted to strut your stuff in a set of footwear that would make both Huggy Bear and Bootsy Collins quiver with technicolor envy. Problem is, you’re kind of, well, you know, the lamely-dressed middle-aged dude who’s idea of flashy is intentionally mismatching your tie and your belt. In other words, you and electric green shoes go together about as well as fish sauce and cottage cheese. But workout shoes, man? All the rules are off! So get that pair of neon purple kicks and show them that you’re not always the same boring color grey.
- MOAR BEER! – You’ve always enjoyed kicking back with a couple, er, um, perhaps more, Thursday evening beers, right? Unfortunately, no matter how much you might wish you could drink the beers and leave those several hundred extra calories in the glass, you can’t really have one without the other. But wait! Beer is apparently a sports drink these days. So, if you want to keep your Thursdays sudsy, just get a workout in first. Can you say, “guilt free?”
- Zombie Apocalypse prep - So, you’ve seen Zombieland? What? No?! Ok, first things first: you gotta fix that. Go watch Zombieland. Yes, now. You can get it from Netflix or from some on-demand service or probably stream it from Amazon. Whatever. Go watch it, we’ll wait. *whistles* *looks around* Done? Awesome. Good flick, eh? Too bad about [redacted for spoilers], though, ya know? Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, the Zombie Apocalypse. Obviously, Rule #1: Cardio. So, when the zombies come shambling after you, all a-groanin’ and a-moanin’ for your sweet, tasty grey matter, it’ll be good to know you can lead them on a merry chase and possibly even outrun them, and not end up zombie meat because you stopped to the puke in the bushes and found a hider.
Pud’n
*I feel bad the Creation Museum people will never have this feeling. But then, I suppose they have their self-righteousness and—inexplicably—several large piles of Kentucky tax dollars to console themselves.
Weekend Debate: Physical Fitness
For this weekend’s debate, I figured I might as well continue the “running” theme that’s been so prevalent around here since Friday. After all, I’ve never been known to stop beating a horse until it’s stiff as Jacob Marley*.
I went out for my first workout tonight, which I would call a run, but that would be like equating a 6-year old in a wading pool to what Michael Phelps does. Err…swimming, that is, not the, um, recreational smoking.
Anyway, I’m following a 5k program that promises to ease me into this whole running business, so tonight’s effort was more walk than jog. But that’s okay, because I didn’t end up flapping around on the sidewalk, gasping like a fish out of water. This alone is enough for me to call the whole endeavor a success, but as an added bonus, it’s about an hour later at this point and I genuinely feel good. Holy slow-release endorphins, Batman.
Truth be told, I’m kinda scared, but then, I used to be scared of girls, too, and now I’ve got four kids. So, you know, I’m betting I won’t let that stop me.
Still, I was expecting the type of misery Shakespeare once wrote about, and I’ve been treated with the polar opposite. So I got that going for me, which is nice. That said, after unveiling my ridiculous running plan, quite a few people said to me, “God bless you, good luck, but…running…ugh. I’d rather paint a house with a toothbrush!”
Which brings us to the debate:
Running: Reasonable physical activity or curse of the Dark Master of the Underworld?
I’m not convinced about either yet. Time will tell.
And now…more water.
Pud’n
*No horses were injured in the accumulation of this weekend’s posts
Running on Empty
Let me be absolutely, positively, crystal clear before I go any further: I loathe running. I hate it with a fiery revulsion typically witnessed only by four year-olds staring down a bowl full of peas, or Republicans confronted with a full case of “Yes We Can” bumper stickers.
To be fair, running doesn’t much like me either. It usually results in a quivering, gasping Puddin, crimson-faced and dripping with sweat. At which point I turn around at the mailbox and go back inside the house to nurse the inevitable shin splints.
I don’t look like this when I run (image via Wikimedia Commons).
It’s pretty much always been this way too. In high school, during my brief 4-month football career, we had to be timed at both at runs of 40-yard and later 1-mile distances. If I recall correctly, at the theoretically peak of my physical fitness, I ran 5.9 second 40-yard dash and something ridiculous like a 12-minute mile.
Which is to say, odds are pretty darned good that those green, gloppy aliens from The Simpsons can run a faster mile than yours truly.
See? Running has never been my thing. Well, with the exception of a few instances during the kind of truly regrettable night a twenty-something might be familiar with, that is. I’d accidentally be a good half-dozen sheets to the wind at 10:30 on a Saturday night, and finding myself meaning to say, “puppy,” which for some reason kept coming out “poughkipthee.” On such occasions (lo, those many years ago), I was known to have a tendency to start running up and down streets in hopes a little physical activity would correct my diction. You know, because I really wanted to say “puppy.” And not have the spins.
Barring those occasions, though, I’ve never liked running.
And yet, I’ve decided that come Hell or high water, I’m going to run a half marathon some time in the next 18 months.
I know what you’re thinking: “Puddin, Why?” Or, more likely, “Sweet, temporary insanity, Man, that’s crazy talk! What the H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS has gotten into you?
Well, the thing is that I’m coming up on 40. And if I know anything, I know that It won’t be but the blink of an eye before I’m 50 and sending the kids off to college. After that…you know, like 3 days later…I’ll be 60 and expecting grandkids or something. I’ll probably want to be able to play with them, I reckon, without the inconvenience of getting winded by rolling myself out of my automatic lift chair.
Being young and irresponsible with one’s physical fitness is one thing. A twenty year-old body can take a good bit of pounding and still recover. But at twice that age, that recovery part gets to be a little more illusive, especially when one’s been treating his corporeal form more like an amusement park than an cherished temple for four decades.
Look, already, my knees whine at me daily, I’ve got a touch of plantar fasciitis that makes getting out of bed every morning a real treat, and I don’t remember what it’s like for my lower back not to be perpetually at least a little sore. Which all goes along pretty well with being a middle-aged guy with a largely sedentary career and a tendency to enjoy life with, um, consumables of questionable nutritive benefits.
You might recall that I wrote no less than three posts last week about M & M’s, and I contribute weekly to a beer blog. See what I’m saying?
The long and short of it is that I really, really want to go into the older portion of my years like my father, who’s in his 60s and is probably in better physical condition than I am at the moment. He’d argue that he’s falling apart, of course, but the fool was running on a treadmill backwards last week, you know, to stave off boredom. Anybody else think they could pull that off today?
If I want to be something even resembling healthy later in life, or rather, if I want to look more like Jack Lalanne and less like Jabba the Hutt when I hit 60, the time to start making changes is the present. That’s not, of course, to say that I’m swearing off either chocolate stouts or dark chocolate M & M’s, which is why it’s time to start getting a good deal more exercise.
And I can’t think of a better way to get there than by getting my pudding out of the recliner and into a 5000-meter run. Which, you know sounds a lot more impressive when one’s typical “run” starts with the word “beer”.
Once I’ve accomplished that, then I’ll figure out how to stretch that 3.1 miles to 13.1.
So, mark it down on your calendars, kids. Puddin’s gonna run a half marathon by February 2014.
Your tips and suggestions are obviously welcome.
I could probably use some prayers too.
And maybe some new shoes. Can you run in steel tips?
Pud’n
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