Dusseldorf

At some point in my life, someone told me that the odd feeling you get when you arrive somewhere is that your soul has caught up to your body.  With traveling across time zones, I think it has more to do with getting on the plane in the middle of the day and getting off the plane in the early morning and spending the interim in a pressurized tube.  Transaltantic air travel still amazes me (which may explain why I feel better suited for the 1920s than the 2010s), but this was a really, really easy trip.  Airport van in Athens to Atlanta, ticketing in Atlanta, baggage drop off, the flight (though the audio for the headphones was awful and my reading light didn't work), and the bus ride to the hotel.  It really feel strange that it was all so easy.

Haven't seen anything of Dusseldorf yet, but it is so interesting to see the differences in infrastruture, construction:  They have such substantial roofing, for instance.  These crenellated tiles make the asphalt shingles we use in the states look so cheap.  Public transportation is incredible: hybrid bus led to town where there are streettrains everywhere. 

The Hotel Famosa is a typical small European hotel from my experience:  small, family run,  substantial in some inexplicable way but still so simple.  The narrow staircase leads to a second-story lift that is the size of a coat closet.  The room feels like a dorm room with a very compact bathroom.  It's all very charming. 

God, I love travel!  I'm going downstairs to have my 5 Euro breakfast and then plan on wandering the very deserted Sunday-morning street to explore the Altstadt and hit a few museums on my way to the Rhine.

Heading to Germany

One of the elemental things that I love to do is travel: anywhere new really.  I'm fortunate to have a job that allows for some occasional travel, and I'm getting ready for a trip to Germany for a conference and then for some siteseeing. My wife and boy are joining me in Koln after the conference and we will get to ride bikes and check out the vineyards along the Rhine and Mosel rivers.  I hope to do a good deal of running as well. Blogging? Perhaps, but I'm still trying to get my head around the difference between using a blog, posting to Facebook, and having a private (hand-written) journal.  All three?

Update on running since . . . February

Real quick update:  since my February post, I did run faster than 3:22 at the ING Georgia Marathon.  I ran a 3:18 and qualified for Boston.
I've also done four more triathalons--three sprints and one olympic.
And I ran a 1:32 in the inaugural Athens Half Marathon in October.
Next up is the Thunder Road Half in Charlotte on December 11.

Stay tuned.

The Great Plateau

Less than a month before the 2010 ING Georgia Marathon and my long runs have been good, or at least I've been able to do my long runs and more of them, but I don't feel any faster or stronger. I've plateaued. And while the Furman Running Institute says that I should be doing my repeat miles at 6:05, I have two yesterday in a ladder workout the fastest being 6:22. The times on my hill repeats on that monster that is Moss Side Drive have stagnated or even slowed. It could be that I'm overtraining, though I'm still only running three days a week with some cross-training thrown in for good measure--swimming, biking, some weights, stretching. It's frustrating because I've worked hard, been injury-free (besides a nagging Achilles) but I'm not all that confident that I'll be able to break the 3:22:18 I ran in Nashville back in 2006. Maybe I'll feel the results of my training when I get into the taper.

Still want to blog

I'm blogging for work now and have really enjoyed it; I'm guaranteed at least . . . four readers when I post there at the ctl.uga.edu blog. I don't think anybody has read any of these, but I've decided that's not going to stop me.

So, among the "elemental things" that I have added since my last post is swimming. I participated in my first sprint triathlon and was 17th in the run, 20 on the bike, and . . . 127th on the swim. So I have a way's to go. And even though I've seen little progress in getting faster since I started in June or so, I feel more comfortable and confident in the water.

So I'm running, biking, swimming, lifting weights, and playing with Zachary.

I feel good.

Running Born Again

Riffing off John 3:6-7, which says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit . . . You must be born again," I've come to appreciate just how different my running has evolved over my lifetime. Certainly there was a before and an after. Before is before college; these were the Bruce Springsteen Glory Days of competition--St. Mary's and CYO championship, Cranbrook and All-State wins, and one brief stint at Duke that ended before my first semester was over. The only two codas during this period was when I ran the Cooper Bridge Run under 36:00 and when I was assistant coach at East Mecklenburg and ran the 8K in something really, really fast. Since high school, which ended in 1986, running (and fitness in general) has been a sporadic, short-lived activity punctuated by injuries and problems, most notably the "hot feet" syndrome that turned out to be ridiculously small shoes--who knew adult feet grew? The injuries of the 1990s were caused by wanting to ramp up my running to 1980s level. My weight fluctuated but steadily rose as I went through graduate school.

Then came Zachary. Becoming a parent was the reason for this sustained, four-year period of fitness. When we adopted Zachary, the time crunch hit, and I no longer had the experience of planning a run but always have an option out if I didn't run the plan: "Oh, I'll run after class," but then I'd be hungry and I'd say, "We'll I'll run after dinner," but then something on t.v. would distract me. Lord, the amount of t.v. I watched before parenthood! Soon after we adopted him, the Spring of 2003, Erica and I just made a plan--that I'd run Tuesdays and Thursdays morning for four miles and on the weekends. I did this for months before I decided I wanted to add miles, which I did much more progressively. Fast forward: I got into biking and now I've settled on a routine which I have followed for two years: April-October, I bike;October to April, I run. The Bike Ride Across Georgia is in June, and that what I tune up starting in April. Cycling season ends with 6-Gap, a century ride in October in the mountains of northeast Georgia. Running has commenced soon after that and leads up to a marathon in the early Spring. Last year, it was the Country Music Marathon in Nashville. This year I'm planning on running the first Ing Atlanta Marathon. Throughout, I lift weights.

My goal is to integrate more running in the summer and more biking in the winter, but time is really the issue. This running in the winter and biking in the summer came about because of the adage "It's never too hot to bike and never too cold to run." Besides the temperature, the reality of light, especially with daylight savings, make biking in the winter fairly restricted to weekends.

People have warned me not to stop running because "at my age" I may loose some ability to absorb the shock of running after a hiatus. Others have told me that sooner or later, my knees will keep me from running, but as with some many things that older people say, such a pronouncement strikes me as an individual generalizing from particular difficulty or failure. I just see to many old people riding their bike across Georgia in summer heat and too many old runners kicking my ass in races that I just don't buy the inevitability of decrepitude.

The Haircut

One of the elemental things that is important to me is community, and this rainy Wednesday morning, the sense of being part of a community was strong as I went for a haircut at the same place I've been having my haircut for over ten years. It's a simple thing that reveals the knowledge and sense of interconnectedness that one feels in a small community. I knew which streets to head down in order to have the best chance of finding an onstreet parking space near the barbershop--the place is decidely a barbershop, not a salon. Even as I approached the storefront, my cutter, Pam, acknowledged me with wave of a hand holding scissors. I felt as home sitting on the shop-long black bench as I do in my own kitchen. Two crisp copies of the big-city newspaper awaited me, and the gentle banter of Pam and her client were as common and comforting as listening to NPR at home.

When it was my turn in the chair, we spoke our pleasantries and she asked me questions about the new house we are building and about Z. is doing, though it had been weeks (and, for her, hundreds of clients) since we last talked. We were quiet comfortably as well. When a usual suspect stepped out of the coffeeshop next door that I recognized but didn't know, I'd ask Pam who he was. Of course, she knew. The same people have the same routines, but instead of this being monotonously or dreadful, it was comforting. The long-haired Native American-looking man whom I have seen downtown for years, Pam informed me, is an architect. For a while, the signboard for the barbershop enticed sidewalk passersby by that "four out five women prefer men with short hair." The architect, who sports a black ponytail down the length of his back, would jokingly knock on the window, point to the sign, and feign a look of exasperation.

This is another reason why my town fits me so well. The biking, running, and teaching opprtunities create a synergy for me that affects my reading and writing, but there are other elemental things that nurture my sense of self in this place that has so much there there.